Chapter 2097 - 2097: The Skyborn Duel 1

They stayed like that for a long time. Not talking. Not moving. Just breathing together, watching the stars wheel slowly across the sky.

Sleep came gently. Saeko's breathing slowed first. Her grip on his hand relaxed. Alex waited a few more minutes, listening to her steady breath and the sounds of the peaceful night.

Then he closed his eyes and let sleep take him too.

The fire died to ash. The stream kept talking. The stars kept turning.

And in the quiet wilderness, two people who had faced monsters and gods and everything in between simply rested, together, in the silence that held all their words for them.

The morning sun cast long shadows across the ruined villages. Alex and Saeko stood in what had once been the central square of the first settlement. Now it was nothing but ash, broken timber, and the silent, terrible absence of life. The air still carried the faint, coppery scent of old blood and the acrid stench of wyvern breath—a smell like lightning strikes and rotting meat.

Saeko knelt beside a massive claw print pressed deep into the packed earth. It was enormous, easily the length of her forearm. The edges of the print were charred, the soil fused into glass by intense heat. She ran her fingers over the smooth, blackened surface and looked up at Alex.

He was already scanning the horizon, his heterochromatic eyes—one blue, one silver—narrowed against the morning glare. His divine sense stretched outward, a silent wave of awareness that washed over the surrounding forest, the rocky slopes, the distant peaks.

"There," he said quietly, pointing toward the tallest mountain in the range. A jagged spire of black rock that pierced the clouds like a spear. "The lair is there. I can feel the residue of its power."

They did not wait. They did not call for reinforcements or send messages back to the guild. The villages were already lost. But whatever had done this would not be allowed to hunt again.

They moved.

The climb took hours. The mountain was steep and unforgiving, its slopes covered in loose scree and ancient, gnarled pines that clung to the rock with desperate roots. Alex and Saeko ascended in silence, their movements efficient and tireless. They did not speak. There was nothing to say. The mission was clear. The target was ahead.

As they climbed higher, the air grew thin and cold. Snow appeared in the shadows, then spread across the entire slope. The trees vanished, replaced by bare rock and ice. The wind howled, whipping snow into their faces, but they pressed on, their focus absolute.

Near the summit, the terrain changed. The rock was scarred—massive gouges torn from the mountainside, deep parallel grooves where claws had raked the stone. Bones littered the ground. Not human bones, thankfully, but those of mountain goats, bears, and other creatures that had wandered too close. The lair was close.

They crested a ridge and found themselves on a wide, flat plateau. At its far end, a massive cave mouth gaped in the rock, its darkness absolute. The snow around it was trampled and stained with old blood. The wind carried a new smell now—the heavy, musky odor of wyvern, thick and suffocating.

And then they heard it. A deep, rumbling sound from within the cave. Not a roar. Something worse. A purr of contentment, of a predator well-fed and sleeping off its kill.

Alex drew his sword. The dark steel drank the light, its edge seeming to cut the very air around it. He pointed once at the cave mouth, then raised two fingers.

Two.

Saeko's eyes widened slightly. Then she nodded. Her hand moved to her katana, her thumb pressing lightly against the guard, ready to draw in an instant.

They moved toward the cave, silent as shadows on snow.

But they never reached the entrance.

The purring stopped.

A heartbeat of terrible silence.

Then the mountainside exploded.

Two massive forms burst from the cave, not through the entrance but through the rock beside it. Stone shattered and flew in all directions. The shockwave threw snow and debris across the plateau. Alex and Saeko separated instantly, leaping in opposite directions as the beasts took to the sky.

Two wyverns.

They were larger than the frost wyvern from before. These were mountain wyverns, their scales the color of storm clouds, dark gray streaked with veins of deep purple. Their wings were immense, each beat stirring gale-force winds that scoured the plateau. Their eyes burned with ancient, predatory intelligence. And their backs were lined with jagged spines that crackled with pale blue electricity.

The first wyvern, slightly larger, circled above Alex. The second, leaner and faster, tracked Saeko's movements with hungry yellow eyes.

They had expected one monster. They had found two.

And in the sky, they had the advantage.

But Alex and Saeko were not ordinary hunters.

Without a word, without a glance, they acted.

Alex was the first to ascend.

Fire erupted from his boots, a controlled explosion that launched him skyward like a missile. He met the larger wyvern at eye level, his sword already swinging. The wyvern twisted, avoiding the blade, and snapped its jaws at him. He ducked under the bite, planted a foot on the creature's snout, and kicked off, gaining more height.

The wyvern roared. Lightning gathered in its spines, arcing between them with growing intensity. It opened its mouth and a bolt of pure electrical energy shot toward Alex.

He didn't dodge. He didn't block.

He caught it.

His black hand closed around the lightning. The electricity screamed, writhing like a living thing, but it could not escape his grip. He crushed it, and the energy dissipated into harmless sparks. The wyvern's eyes widened—the first sign of confusion, of fear.

Alex dove at it, sword blazing with crimson fire.

Saeko did not use fire to launch herself. She used wind.

A single, focused gale erupted beneath her feet, throwing her into the sky with even greater speed than Alex. She spun as she rose, her katana already free, and met the second wyvern mid-climb.