The Wind Ray rocketed out of the ocean and pounced on Lance, pulling a stream of water for half its lunge. Its fangs thudded on Lance’s shield, the water rippled beneath them, yet he didn’t give a single inch. And his scythe traveled its arc and sliced the Ray’s wings, digging in its flesh beyond its viscous wind defense, the chain rattling on the impact. The Wind Ray seethed with short bursts of screams and beat its wings, trapping Lance in the eye of a greenish whirlwind, the blades of air clanking against his shield and his minted full-body armor—Redboon.

  [Astylind Name: Wind Ray]

  [Astylind Level: Level-12]

  [Astylind Grade: Grade-C]

  [Anima Affinity: Wind]

  [Gender: Male]

  [Description: Natives of Airadia. They inherit the good affinity with the wind element (Favored) across generations, yet they live in the ocean. Some of the special kind can also control water through the wind.]

  “Don’t waste too much blood, don’t use spells that will destroy its body,” Ewan said, preparing his staff, and the newly modified Spellbook—Spellcrown—hovered before him, its pages fluttering on his command with a feathered quill resting on in its spine. “Stefan, take charge of the debuff, weaken it. Kidd, aim for its eyes and ears when you get the chance. Nana, manage the field, restrict its movement, and keep an eye out for any interference.”

  Nana’s altered Astylinds fenced her, keeping a distance from the heat for their first battle after their awakening, defending their master even with their defects.

  Stigma: Positive!

  Frostweb!

  The Spellcrown throbbed when Ewan traced the circuit, and it flipped to the page of the spell, stabilizing, and boosting the cast. The almost doubled cobweb of icy filaments cascaded down on the Wind Ray, sticking, and freezing on touch, hindering its wings. The Ray howled and a burst of wind exploded away from it, shattering some of the frosted threads, but the spell played its worth, and Lance hacked and gouged a chunk of meat off its back with the tip of his gleaming sharp scythe, the splattered blood on his armor fading amidst its coral-red—soon the argent rune flashed on its matte surface and leveraged the blood for heightened defense.

  “Easy,” Ewan said. “That wasted at least a kilo of blood, go for hammering blows instead of cuts.”

  Nana hauled a crowd of water ropes from the ocean and strangled the Wind Ray as it shrieked and swirled up to the clouds, Lime—her Wood Squirrel who was now of the water element—added to her spell. And as Stefan cast his spell, his lantern humming with him, and scratched the Ray’s soul, as it tumbled down the sky casting windblades at random, Lime dozed off and splashed into the ocean. Nana yelped and pulled him up, dodging a windblade, and the Wind Ray burst her ropes and swooshed up again, wobbly in its flight.

  “Sae’sa, pull back a little,” Kidd said, awaiting his turn in the shallows of the ocean, clenching his dagger. Nana nodded and backed off a distance, hurling leaden bolts of water at the Ray; if Biscuit—her now Water Elemental—rampaged in a tricky situation, it might turn the tables.

  Blood Stasis!

  Ewan aimed with his staff, his Spellcrown fluttering its page to the spell, and the Wind Ray growled and decelerated on his cast, inching near the waters as the blood threads drained it, its wings cutting the waves. Lance raced in and pummeled it down with his shield, crushing its wind defense. When the ocean exploded and the Ray screeched, the air around Lance pulled away and hollowed a void; he gasped and suffocated, clawing his neck.

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  “It’s here,” Ewan said. “Bear it.” The attack was the desperation of the Wind Ray, the last measure that also reflected the enemy’s status on itself, and it choked in the shallow waters along with Lance. Kidd blinked in the shadows and bolted to it, wisps of dark trailing him, and he slid on its slimy back and shanked its eyes, again and again, while Willy split from him with his spectral dagger and knifed its ears. Morinfair diluted the blood and the mucus, and soon chunks of its mutilated eyes and ears floated among the frothy waves with its deathly bellow, its frenzied struggle stirring the ocean.

  Sindra: Wrath Inferno!

  And the embers of blue burned about Ewan, his staff lit up with runes.

  Firelance!

  The spikes of blue fire fashioned around him, bolstered from his Spellcrown, Rainwarden, and the , and he launched them at the weakened Wind Ray. They distorted the air in their wake, split the waves, and steamed the waters when they ran through the ocean, and as Kidd sprung off to make way for the spell, they impaled the Ray, ending its last howl, charring its brain and skull alike.

  Lance heaved for air, kneeling on the water, while Kidd and Walyn lugged the corpse out.

  “Boss, this was a rare find,” Kidd said with a grin, as Stefan and Nana approached, her Astylinds resting in her rune.

  “Yeah, good job,” Ewan said. “Are you alright? Can you breathe?” he asked Lance.

  “Yeah…getting better,” Lance said, exhaling after gulping a bottle of water.

  “How much can we get from it?” Nana asked.

  “Should be enough for a couple of baths, I think,” Kidd said.

  “New spell was good?” Stefan asked Ewan.

  “Yeah, surpasses fireball in terms of damage since its spread is restrained, but suffers from a lack of flexibility,” Ewan replied, and the quill of Spellcrown danced on his words and wrote his notes on the spell’s page.

  His spells of other elements dwarfed the number of fire spells in his arsenal, even after Nana added the sorting feature to Spellcrown, the fire section only wrote a few leaves. Thus, when they shopped in the citadel, he swiped a few that caught his eyes from a temporary stall—the lack of authentication carried a risk, but his knowledge on runes and spell circuits gave him enough confidence to splurge. “Next up is , let’s choose a prey on an island, will be better for testing this spell.”