Chapter 79 - Vincent VS Solarian Knights

Chapter 79: Chapter 79 - Vincent VS Solarian Knights

Together, the four knights and their Familiars moved as a single, perfectly oiled war machine.

The Frost Deer reared back and stomped its hooves against the ground. A crystalline wave of frost particles erupted from its antlers which then washed over the four knights and their remaining three combat beasts.

Glowing runic veins pulsed along the armor of the Solarian Knights. Their muscles swelled, their reaction times heightened, and a translucent barrier of frost coated their body and weapons. The Deer retreated into the rear guard, positioning itself behind its master to continuously channel its support enhancements.

"Air unit, flush him out! Ground unit, pin him down!" Voorhis commanded as he vaulted onto his Familiar, the War-Gryphon.

The Gryphon’s claws dug into the stone before launching into the air with a powerful flap of its wings! Voorhis locked his boots into the stirrups and leveled his large broadsword infused with frost directly down at Vincent.

Simultaneously, the Night-Panther leapt into the sky. Beneath its paws, shimmering purple platforms materialised out of thin air, giving the sleek beast a solid foothook to bound across the empty air at blinding speeds. It circled Vincent from above and dropped down like a phantom apex predator toward his blind spot.

"Not bad," Vincent muttered as he tracked both aerial threats at once. ’But not good enough!"

He raised his right palm toward the sky. A ball of divine power ignited in his hand, which then expanded into a wall of golden fire to block the panther’s ambush.

BOOM!

The panther collided with the flaming barrier and howled in frustration as its fur singed, forcing it to leap off another purple platform to disengage.

Before Vincent could recover his arm, Captain Voorhis and his Familiar swooped down like a falling star. The Gryphon slashed its massive talons downward while Voorhis thrust his frost-infused blade at Vincent’s neck in perfect unison.

With his arm still out, Vincent leaned his torso back at an impossible angle. The Gryphon’s talons barely managed to scrape the surface of his jacket, while Voorhis’ blade tip just grazed his arm.

Without missing a beat, Vincent reached out and grabbed the Familiar by its leg with his left hand and used his godlike physical strength to yank the entire Gryphon down toward the ground.

"Iron Wall!" the heavy-armored knight roared from the side.

The massive four-armed Iron Golem slammed its giant fist into the stone floor. A towering slab of solid stone ruptured out of the ground and interrupted Vincent’s counterattack before he could execute it.

He let go of the Gryphon’s leg and drove a heavy punch straight into the wall. The stone exploded into tiny pebbles, but the brief delay allowed the Gryphon to recover its balance, pulling itself and Voorhis safely back into the sky.

"Gahahaha! Look at the little blue-haired birdy struggling!"

"Shut up, Eugene! I’m pacing myself!" Vincent called back as he swatted away a volley of shadow-blades launched by the sky-running panther.

Eugene hopped from Maelle to Vincent’s shoulder and waved his tiny claws upwards. "Take down the buzzing fly first, Vincent! I saw it! It looked at me funny!"

"You want to trade places with me?! No?! Then let me do my thing!"

"I am the commander of this battle! I direct orders from the shoulder of whoever I stand upon!"

"Vincent, focus!" Maelle called out.

"I’m trying! Eugene, go back to Maelle! Now!"

The battle escalated into a high-speed dance of divine power against tactical perfection. The four knights fought with a seamless synergy refined through years of elite military training.

No matter where it was, the Night-Panther was relentless. With its paws blurring, it kicked off a cascade of glowing purple air-platforms, weaving through the sky in a dizzying zigzag before plunging downward like a streak of violet lightning.

Its shadow-clad claws lashed out, tearing through the air and leaving dark, void-like slashes that detonated in bursts of dark magic wherever they grazed the stone floor.

Vincent parried the claws, but the panther never stayed in one place – the moment its paws tapped another platform, it recoiled into the air.

"Now! Pin him!" the heavy shield knight barked an order.

The four-armed Iron Golem’s core pulsing like a furnace. With a guttural rumble, it slammed all four of its heavy stone fists into the ground.

A series of jagged stone pillars erupted around Vincent, curving inward like a cage to trap him. As Vincent raised an enhanced fist to shatter the cage, the Golem shot out rocky chains embedded within its rocky shoulders, intending to hold him in place.

"Not today!"

Vincent forcefully jumped straight up and through the trap, but Captain Voorhis and his Familiar were already waiting in the clouds above.

The Gryphon let out a piercing war cry and flapped its feathered wings to whip up a ferocious pair of wind tornadoes that spun toward Vincent, trapping him in a vortex of wind blades. From atop the beast, Voorhis channeled his deer-buffed mana and charged into the eye of the storm to rain down a flurry of frost coated strikes.

CLANG! CLANG! FLASH!

While navigating the storm, Vincent spun through the air and created a circular divine shield to deflect Voorhis’ strikes while bracing against the tearing wind-cutters of the Gryphon.

Every time he attempted to fire a retaliatory blast at the captain, the Frost Deer would cast a protective, translucent frost wall around the Gryphon and its rider, absorbing the shock of the blasts.

"That deer is annoying!" Eugene squeaked from Maelle’s shoulder.

"Their support loop is flawless," Maelle observed. "The deer continuously enhances its teammates with shields and buffs, while the Golem acts as an interrupter and defensive wall for the deer from direct projectile attacks."

"Keep the pressure up, men! His stamina will be depleted soon enough!"

Vincent landed softly on the ground after dodging another combined strike from Voorhis’ blade and the panther’s shadow-claws. He let out a long breath, then a subtle smirk as his eyes flashed with divine light.

"Stamina? Guys... I haven’t even started using my magic yet."

Vincent crossed his arms over his chest.

The air temperature around the courtyard felt like it plummeted to sub-zero in an instant, then spiked into blistering, desert heat the very next second.

A pair of massive wings made entirely of crackling golden lightning coated around his own feathered white ones and expanded wide across the courtyard.

"What is that mana output?!" Valen panicked in terror.

"Let’s speed this up."

He vanished in a trail of lightning.

CRACK-THOOM!

Vincent reappeared directly above the sky-running Night-Panther. The panther quickly created a purple platform to leap away, but Vincent was faster. He reached out, grabbed the panther by its tail, and swung the shadow beast downward with crushing momentum.

BOOM!

The panther slammed straight into the Iron Golem. The sheer impact shattered the golem’s stone outer shell, sending both Familiars crashing far across into the courtyard.

Before the golem could rebuild its rocky armor, Vincent dropped from the sky and slammed his glowing foot directly onto the Golem’s core.

CRACK-SHATTER!

A blinding wave of blue divine light erupted from the point of impact. The four-armed Iron Golem let out a low rumble before dissolving into a shower of harmless mana particles.

"My Golem!"

"Protect the Night-Panther!" Voorhis shouted from above while diving with his Gryphon downwards.

"Too slow!"

Vincent didn’t give them room to breathe. He snapped his fingers, and six floating swords made of condensed blue divine power in the air around him. With a wave of his hand, the divine blades shot forward like guided missiles.

Three plasma swords locked onto and pierced the panther until the feline beast let out a final whimper, dissolving back into mana particles.

The remaining three plasma swords shot straight toward the Frost Deer in the backline.

"I’ll protect you!" The heavy shield knight threw himself in front of the support Familiar with his massive steel shield coated in frost.

CLANG–CLANG–BOOM!!!

The flying blades detonated against the shield knight, shattering the frost and steel plate into molten scrap and blowing the knight fifteen feet backward.

The explosion was so devastating, it impacted deer as well, sending it flying back too. Its glowing antlers cracked before its body faded into glittering mana.

Voorhis’ face was pale. Sweat dripped down his jaw, but his grip on his blade never wavered. He pulled his Gryphon up into a high-altitude dive and pointed his weapon to the high sun.

"FOR THE HONOR OF SOLARA!"

He and his Familiar dived straight down in a spiral of wind and steel.

Vincent stood calmly on the ground, watching the final, desperate strike descend upon him. Then, he raised a single pointed finger toward the sky.

BOOOM!!!!!!

A large beam of concentrated divine power shot from his fingertip, blasting straight through the last ditch effort attack.

They didn’t stand a chance. The beam enveloped the Gryphon and dissolved the beast back into mana without it having the chance to let out a whimper. Voorhis was sent flying through the air before landing heavily on the ground. The top half of his armor had been completely charred off.

The remaining two knights fell to their knees in shock. The courtyard fell into utter silence.

From inside Maelle’s jacket pocket, Eugene popped his head out and looked around at the four panting and defeated knights with no Familiar in sight.

The baby dragon immediately scrambled out and flew up to perch proudly on Vincent’s shoulder, pointing a tiny claw at Captain Voorhis.

"GAHAHAHA! KNEEL BEFORE OUR MIGHT, YOU PEASANTS! YOU WERE FOOLISH TO THINK YOUR OVERGROWN PIGEON COULD MATCH MY TACTICAL BRILLIANCE AND VINCENT’S DECENT DISTRACTION TECHNIQUES!"

Vincent reached up and pinched Eugene’s tiny snout shut with two fingers. "Decent distraction? I did ninety-nine percent of the work."

"Mmmph! Mmmph!"

Maelle stopped beside the captain and looked down at him with cool, calm eyes. "You fought valiantly, Captain. Your loyalty to your prince is commendable, even if it is misplaced."

Voorhis barely managed to look up and coughed out, "The victory is yours, Princess..."

Maelle nodded, turning toward the massive doors of the main manor house. "Vincent. Let’s go."

"Sure, let me just..." Vincent wiped off a trail of blood with his thumb he sustained from the gryphon’s tornado attack and smeared it across Voorhis’ lips.

"You gay, Vincent? Gimme the princess then." Eugene looked at him weirdly.

"Shut up... Alright. Lead the way, Maelle."

Together, they pushed open the doors and stepped over the threshold into the grand interior of the Elsa Manor.

The interior was eerie.

The marble hallways, usually filled with servants, noble guests, and patrolling guards, were completely deserted. Maelle and Vincent’s footsteps echoed loudly against the high ceilings as they navigated the winding corridors.

After passing through a long, ruined gallery, they stepped through a set of glass doors into a massive, open-air central courtyard surrounded by three stories of arched balconies.

The sight before them made both Vincent and Maelle stand at attention.

The beautiful inner garden had been completely obliterated. Scorch marks covered the stone walls, the central fountain was melted into a misshapen lump of glass, and deep, blackened crater marks pitted the ground as if a series of explosions had repeatedly detonated the area.

Standing topless in sweat right in the center of the smoking courtyard was the Crown Prince of Solara, Quinton Solara.

Vincent blinked, staring at the Prince’s physique before turning to Maelle. "Is it just me, or did this guy get hella buff since the last time we saw him at the Academy?"

"He has indeed added a considerable amount of muscle mass to his once scrawny figure, yes."

Quinton slowly turned around to face them. His usually slicked-back blonde hair was damp and messy, falling over his forehead, and his eyes were glowing with a brighter golden light.

A pitiful smile stretched across his face as he looked at Vincent and Maelle.

"So... it’s actually come to this..."