Easily the coolest thing I have been a part of in my short life was at this point was our flight to the south. Seeing several hundred gryhons take off and fly together in the sky was something to behold. We had all been given instructions on flying long before this day but it seemed that some still hadn't mastered the concept. Luckily we all had the harnesses that would hold us on to our beast in flight otherwise a few might not have made it out of the city.
The town of Strumberg was known as the southern stronghold of the kingdom. It had a unique build in the southern side of a mountain which a tunnel was built long ago to go through the mountain to the north to retreat to the kingdom if needed. As well as an easy beast free travel path for safer passage. The flight required us to see the opening on the northern side of the mountain as we flew around and landed in the city on the southern side.
I am guessing that the massive amount of gryphons landing then taking off and flying away is what caused the stir but then again I don't know what makes frost giants, golems, and yetis tick. But shortly after arriving while we were all still getting our bearings on the area and discussing our plans going forward the town's bells started tolling that there was an incoming attack.
We weren't going to go out just yet, we had to defend the city. The professors were all shocked that the bells were sounding and quickly started running to the top of the castle's ramparts to help defend. They would shout at the kids to hurry up and help but most were just running to quickly help in hopes that it would be a quick issue versus a sustained attack. I know the six of us were in a full sprint as we hand landed a distance from the location that the attack was taking place.
I wish I had told Xelo to stay for a while but it was almost as if the moment he left was when the attack started. Abby's speed was incredible and she was on top of the ramparts long before any of us. Adam blinked to the top when he was in range but still Abby was there before her. When we were close Maddy called out so we knew what was going on "Light as a Faery" and lifted up onto the rampart joining the two.
Looking out was a wild scene I had never expected in my entire life to see. Hundreds of giants, golems and yetis were all charging forward and attacking the exterior beast masters that were guarding on the outside. The attack was so sudden and unexpected that there were a number of beast masters stuck outside of the city walls and everyone was covering them as they retreated back to the castle. "Firmamentum Totalirous" which I was glad the rampart was more than five yards as I was now in the front row looking out over the wall.
"Don't you dare cast panda tribe Joey!" Abby shouted over to him.
"I wouldn't dare." Joey said with a tone of shock that he would be accused of doing something that was as bad of an idea as that was.
Ghaston suddenly flew from his position down to the beast masters that were retreating as they were starting to become overwhelmed. The eagle he was melded with gave him wings I had never seen before till now but as he landed his lion leapt out of him and took out a frost giant that was about to land a killing blow on a beast master. The lion was so powerful its jaw snapped the giant's arm off in one bite then his claw split open the gut of the giant as it keeled over in pain and died.
Ghaston yelled at the beast masters "Do not look back, keep your eyes on the castle and return I have them." Then we saw it, flash, the disco ball of a blind attack that caused several hundred giants, golems, and yetis all grab at their eyes, stop in their tracks, and basically were now blind for five seconds. Every five seconds a new flash would pop as Ghaston moved forward and through those closest to him. There were so many that he could only kill about five to seven per flash and there were at least a few thousand.
He realized there were too many for him to take on himself as he could feel the strain in his body becoming an issue and there were just waves and waves of these beasts incoming. Ghaston finally resigned himself to retreat back to the castle as he did one last flash before retreating. We opened and closed the gate for Ghaston and when the beasts all gained their sight back and couldn't see him any longer they all cautiously moved forward.
Once in range everyone on top of the ramparts unloaded a volley of spells at the beasts. The front lines of the beasts all fell as the plethora of spells did all sorts of destructive measures to those that were in the front. The cautious approach stopped the moment the first wave of attacks hit and their fellow beasts started falling. The charge that ensued pushed the beasts to the walls of the village.
At first it was a lot of fun as I was firing my bow and sending arcane missiles at the easy targets below. I told Wispy to unload but don't use up our energy and he responded as if I hurt his feelings. 'I only draw from you when needed to protect you' Wispy retorted.
The golems were starting to climb each other's shoulders to get up our walls when Adam noticed and sent an arcane flame down the wall to knock the upper golem off the shoulders of the lower. The arcane flame melted the golem onto the golem below and the look on the golem's face was quite comical seeing its fellow frost golem melt into a pool that dripped onto its head.
Adam saw another set up down the wall so he hurried down to them and did the same to the one of the shoulders as there was a third starting to climb up and make it to the top. His flame melted both of them and Adam saw there was another group on the other end of the wall. He once again ran through everyone across the ramparts to get to the next group as he made it the golem's hand was on the top of the wall.
Dante bursted out of Adam and flew at the golem and unloaded with both of its maws arcane flame. The golem melted instantly and Dante continued down to the ground. At first Adam was concerned that Dante was going to get killed but then realized Dante was the perfect beast to have fighting these beasts on the ground. His arcane flame melted everything it touched. Dante started making his way down the wall unloading a constant flame interchanging between maws as he realized he only needed the one flame to get the job done.
I noticed that the firewall was doing massive amounts of damage just by being near the beasts as Wispy had been laying them down to help defend Dante as he moved. The combination of the two working together was incredible and that is when I noticed that Wispy had created his split personality spell on Dante so the two beasts were single handedly repelling their forces off our walls.
Pulling back for full power on my bow I had been firing arcane barrage attacks and taking one out at a time but this time I changed it to fireball. The changes in my spells hadn't been that noticeable till I pulled this attack off. The fireball released from my bow and expanded to the size of a small human easily three feet in diameter. The fireball hit and exploded outward knocking multiple beasts down as the explosion melted off the arms and legs of multiple beasts.
Someone next to me saw the fireball and commented "Keep that attack going if you can! That was huge!" I pulled back to full power again and fired another at a cluster of frost giants that soon were all pools of water leaving behind their beast cores. The battlefield was quickly becoming less and less of these elemental beasts as the overwhelming attacks coming from several hundred beast masters had done their job.
I sent a few more massive fireballs at the last few groups that were together as the numbers dwindled and the few that were left realized that the rest had been defeated with none making it into the village. There were multiple beast masters around me that lived in this village that started shouting in victory.
The closest to me all started hugging me and any other students that showed up to help defend against the attack. No one said it to me directly but the comments being made was that it was the largest scale attack that had been sent at the village. The general gist I gathered was that groups of 20 would show up randomly but never in the hundreds if not thousands that just showed.
The gates had opened and multiple students, realizing there were beast cores lying just outside of the gate, quickly were running in all directions to gather them. Multiple students who weren't that worried about the cores hung back and made sure that everyone was ok. The village seemed to be on edge like they had been dealing with this threat for too long. I hung around to listen to what was being talked about while Joey and Maddy had joined those to gather beast cores.