The dragon's harem

Chapter 1827: An Arrow of Ice?

The fighter punched the ground, causing a shockwave powerful enough to separate his face from Aella’s palm, but at that moment, he was impaled by several arrows and sent screaming back into the trees.

As Aella calmly walked out of the falling dust, the noble was about a hundred meters away, pointing two fingers at her with a smile. “Can you survive this?”

[Negative Burst]

A dark-red beam of necrotic magic flashed out of his fingers and flew at Aella, burning and tearing everything in its path. A flash engulfed that section of the forest, and flames rose as high as fifteen meters in the air.

The flames weren’t normal; they were crimson necrotic flames. In addition to burning, they caused the flesh to rot, and anything that died by them would turn into a flaming skeleton under the lich’s control.

The trees burned and soon turned into zombified treants, half-burnt and half-rotten trees with tentacle-like branches and enough power to crush an elephant. But the trees weren’t the only thing turned, the grass, the bugs, the small animals who were hiding in their nests, all of them had turned into undead monsters serving the noble lich.

“Not worth the hype.” He smiled, but his smile died immediately as Aella flew out of the flames unscathed and socked him in the face hard enough to send him flying like a ball. He tried to regain his balance, but his body was quickly washed away by a torrent of violent wind.

Wind slashes, wind arrows, and shockwaves washed over the lich’s body and tore it apart as a massive chunk of the forest went into flames.

Only a few seconds had passed, but the werewolf fight was already up on his feet and running at subsonic speed, blitzing through the burning trees and zombified fauna to swing his sword at Aella’s head. “You monster!”

Aella saw his blade coming, and she calmly turned around, shattering it with the arm of her bow. That blade was quite the powerful weapon, durable and almost unbreakable, yet she shattered it with ease.

The fighter wasn’t going to give up; he was used to fighting without his sword after all. He clenched a fist and swung it at Aella’s face, putting so much power and speed into it that it broke the sound barrier before his arm could fully extend.

He has to finish this fight quickly and run away before that horrifying and creepy dragon shows up. He doesn’t need to win, just distract her enough so that he and the noble can get away.

His fist was fast, but Aella was faster and faced almost no air resistance at all. Her arms didn’t break the sound barrier, not because they weren’t fast enough, but because the wind didn’t dare slow down the herald of Zephyr. Her slender yet strong arms smacked the werewolf’s fist away, followed by a slap to the face, a backhand to the chin, a punch to the throat, a kick to the guts, and then a dual-palm hit to the solar plexus.

The fighter could feel his bones crack, his skin tear apart, and what remained of his armor tear open. Those moves; they were mixed. Some of them reminded him of the slapper Dalla, some were taken from the Dragon Slayer Alcott, and some were far too alien for him to understand.

As expected of an archer, her arm and shoulder muscles were far more developed and powerful, resulting in punches and slaps that felt like getting smacked with a warhammer. Anyone else would’ve already died, but he wasn’t a mere human; he was a werewolf with blessed physical prowess and durability.

His best bet is to overpower her with his weight and overall superior raw strength. Even if she can out-punch him, she shouldn’t be able to wrestle him on the ground. Mauling prey is a werewolf’s specialty. The moment he gets his claws sunk into her flesh, she won’t be able to run away or dodge, and would have her face bitten off.

He let his regeneration do its job and tanked Aella’s hits. Feeling that she can’t knock him out, he pushed forward, spread his arms, and tried to tackle her to the ground, where he’ll have the advantage.

But it was then that Aella moved; she threw her left arm upward toward his face, twisted her wrist, and used her sharp nails to pierce and jam her fingers into the lower part of his chin and hook into his jaw. Her other hand also moved, pushing her fingers into his chest and grabbing onto his ribs like they were a fence.

Many bows only go up to 240 elvish pounds, but the stronger Aella got, the heavier bows she used. It was to the point that no one could draw her bows, except Arad and a few of his other wives. When it came to pulling power and grip strength, those fingers that could hold an arrow steady for an hour using a bow in the thousands of pounds weren’t going to let go of the fighter’s ribs.

As he cried, she twisted her torso, lifted him up, and smacked him on the ground hard enough to shatter the ground and send a shockwave powerful enough to uproot trees.

^Damn it! She is a monster!^ The fighter cursed as flames rained from the sky and his stone spears burst from the ground, all tried to catch Aella and inflict any wound they could.

As the magic hit, it all exploded into a cacophony of bursts, fire, and molten stone. In that hellish landscape, the werewolf fighter stood, his wounds healing as the necrotic flame engulfed him. “Did we get her?” The noble lich landed by his side and looked around.

“I don’t smell her blood; we missed.” The fighter growled.

“What do you mean? I burned everything in a hundred-meter radios. She can’t have gotten out of range that fast!” The noble lich looked more annoyed than angry, frustrated that none of his attacks were landing.

“She is physically slower and weaker than I am. But with her wind magic, I bet she is reducing air resistance and using that wind to push herself forward, making her faster. I bet that wind also could be used as a barrier to protect her from your necrotic flames.” The werewolf fighter glared at the noble lich.

“So, she isn’t fast enough to escape my attack, but had that pesky barrier block my flames as she got away.” He smiled, “Next time, I’ll concentrate the damage and see how much that wind barrier can endure.”

Just a few meters outside the melting stone and raging necrotic flames, Aella casually walked with lazy steps as she pulled a stamina potion and took a sip. Today’s Hydra and this fight had exhausted her a bit too much; it had been a while since she felt like this.

Aella wasn’t like Arad, who seemed to have an infinite well of stamina and endurance. Getting back to her core, she was still just a regular elf, and no matter how hard she trained, she would never be able to break the limitation of her own biology.

As she finished the stamina potion, she threw it away and pulled a mana potion to drink. The empty stamina potion bottle hit the ground, and that sound was enough to alert the werewolf fighter and the lich to her location. The two of them instantly turned and blasted their strongest magic.

^Elves love their forest, they don’t litter. If she threw an empty potion, then her purpose is to distract us from her true location. The bottle is to our left, so we attack to the right, to where our blind spot would be.^

Aella was a bit surprised. Even in such a situation, those two seemed to still be using their brains and trying to come up with a good strategy and an understanding of her fighting style. Their guess was right; she threw the stamina potion in the opposite direction to distract them, so their attacks were now heading straight for her.

Now, she found herself standing still with a wave of molten stone and raging necrotic flames rushing at her. Considering that she wanted to get into bed quickly and rest, it’s probably best if she ends this fight quickly, even if it meant being a little bit rough with the forest.

She put her palms together, and when the wave of lava and fire hit, it could never get close to her. A powerful barrier of compressed wind kept everything at bay in a five-meter circle centered around her.

“I see it! The barrier!” The noble lich smiled, unable to believe the power Aella’s barrier held. It was made of pure spirit wind, so it was no wonder it could block his regular flames with ease. But now that he saw it, he could modify his magic to pierce it.

He compressed some of his flames into spears, made them spin counter to the wind’s torrent of Aella’s barrier, and even resonated his magic to suppress hers, but not her entire barrier, as that would be too ambitious; he set it to only suppress the part the spears touch.

The werewolf fighter did the same, but with his earth magic. It was just that piercing attacks were the best at concentrating a lot of power into a small spot and punching through defenses, so he too ended up with molted stone spears, thanks to the heat from the noble’s flames.

The fire and molten flame spears flew in and pierced Aella’s barrier with ease, but she didn’t bother moving and instead dodged in place by using her superior agility to bend her body and twist at impossible angles. Even though those spears moved faster than sound, she was still able to keep up, and even more, she still didn’t part her palms.

As all of the spears missed, Aella finally started pulling her palms apart, forming a massive bow of compressed wind, and took aim at the two facing her. A frozen ice arrow appeared loaded in her wind bow, and the two, for a second, thought she was about to throw an ice attack to counter their flames and heat, but they were wrong, horribly wrong.

That arrow was made of pure oxygen, so compressed that it turned into solid ice.

As the noble lich set a barrier against cold magic, and the werewolf hid behind him, Aella released her arrow at them.