Release That Witch

Roland noticed that the witches' appearance did not even change a little though they had been camping out in the wilderness, and Roland could not do the same. He knew that he looked terrible without even looking into the mirror. His hair was messy and his face was pale due to lack of sleep while the half-dried sweat on his skin felt slightly sticky. He was only relieved from the discomfort after he slightly cleaned himself up with the drinking water in the leather sack.     

Roland started to miss the water system in the castle and the spacious shower.     

An hour later, Cloud Gazer arrived at the scheduled place, the snow mountainside in accordance with Lightning's instruction. They could see the scenery behind the mountain while hovering in the broad sea.     

As Lightning said, the Red Mist was covering the entire snow mountain from the back with a very low pressure. The ground color was richer as it got closer. In order to see farther, Roland let the balloon continued to rise, and the vision at the end of the land was also increasingly opened.     

"Any discovery?" He looked at Sylvie.     

Sylvie shook her head. "No, it's too far away and it has already exceeded the observation scope of the Eye of Truth."     

"We'll get closer after Soraya draws the scenery down accordingly," Roland said.     

While Soraya was drawing the picture, he also used the telescope to observe the coastal line. There was no dock, shipyard or any man-made buildings by the shore other than the rocky beach. Even if there were any demon, they did not plan to build any ships to attack the Kingdom of Graycastle from the sea. The observation made him a little relieved.     

Sylvie finally began to report the situation she saw when the hot air balloon was slowly approaching the land. It was about more than 5 kilometers away from the shore where she found a triangular-shaped building formed by a pile of black stones, which resembled the spires.     

"It's just like the mirage in Barbarian Land," Wendy could not help but exclaim, "It's indeed the demon's territory!"     

"However, the height is clearly different." Soraya frowned. "The spires of the mirage are as high as almost 1,100 feet, it can't be covered by the Red Mist and they should be higher than the undulating mountain."     

"Maybe what you saw was the demon's city, and it's the demon's village here?" Anna guessed.     

So, it meant that the demon had a complete and unique urban system which belonged to the higher evolution groups, while it was keen to expand and kill? Roland thought, "Please, don't be true." "What're in those spires?"     

"Uh... Most of the spires are empty and some are filled with liquid... Hold on." Sylvie was in shock and she said in disbelief, "Leave quickly, the demons have found us!"     

"Found us?" Roland lifted up the telescope and took a glance, and he could not see anything clearly as it was covered in the dark-red colored fog.     

"They're in action," Sylvie yelled nervously, "They were buried under the ground just now, revealing only the tube on their back, there... the demon is flying!"     

"Wendy, full speed retreat!" Roland ordered.     

The wind blew rapidly. The sudden movement of the balloon caused the basket to tilt, and the taut rope was creaking.     

However, Sylvie's warning gave everyone a chill in their heart.     

"Two demons were coming towards us, and the mounts they're riding could fly!"     

"Damn, these guys actually have flying mounts?" Roland stared "This is simply unreasonable, how big the mount would be to carry such a strong beast?"     

After a while, he captured two black spots from the sight. Looking through the telescope, he saw them crouching on a mount with sharp fangs, hairless, and the mounts totally did not look like birds. If he was not mistaken... they were actually two demonic hybrids.     

"Reduce the height and land as soon as possible." Roland squeezed a few words out of her mouth.     

It was going to be bad. Roland did not think that the devil had the ability to carry out air chase, and there was only Lightning who was able to fight in the sky. However, looking at her pale face, Roland knew that there was no chance of winning this battle. Once they were caught up, it would kill the witches even if the demons only attacked the balloon with collision and even if the coating could resist the demons' collision and bites, they would probably be thrown out of the basket and hit the sea, like a stone under the violent shake.     

And, falling into the sea from this height had no difference from falling onto the ground.     

At this point, the demons were getting closer to the hot air balloon, and Roland could see the giant wings of the demonic hybrid and the huge burly enemy on its back without using the telescope.     

"Be careful," Sylvie screamed again, "They're getting ready to throw a spear!"     

When he heard the warning, he suddenly remembered the scene of war described by Leaf which the enemy snatched Scarlet's life in a blink of eyes using this method.     

He did not see the demon's quickly swollen arms or the attacking spear. Anna had already stretched out her arms to control the Blackfire into a thin protective layer in front to block the attack when Sylvie warned.     

And, he heard two loud banging noises.     

Anna hummed twice silently and took two steps back. The Blackfire was broken into pieces like the glass and half of a burning iron spear was tumbling to fall into the sea.     

She blocked the attack with a dense Blackfire curtain.     

The witches were in a sigh of relief, but only Roland was worried as it would consume Anna's magic power quickly to operate it this way. Roland had noticed that her body's vast magic power almost would not use up if it were only heating or cutting when she was smelting the steel. However, once it was expanded to the macro level, the magic power consumption would be dramatically increased if it were used as a dense overall impact on an object. For example, the use of Blackfire as a furnace. The outer wall that hindered the molten steel from overflowing would accelerate the magic power consumption, and even Anna could only hold on for a few minutes when it came to lifting the Blackfire Furnace.     

Obviously, the block had consumed a big amount of her magic power, and she would probably not able to maintain the heating if she had to do the same for twice.     

The demon seemed to have been deterred by this scene as well, and they did not immediately follow-up attack, but simply passed by from both sides of the hot air balloon as if they were waiting for the next charge. Roland also witnessed the enemy's ferocious appearance for the first time and it looked exactly the same as the pictures. They were wearing a demonic beast's helmet with their eyes covered by the red crystal, and there was a leather pipe linked from the chin and around the neck to the back of the shell.     

In the meantime, the witches had pulled out their pistols to fight back, but it was almost impossible to hit an enemy with a high-speed movement while the basket was shaking. They had reloaded twice but none shot their enemy.     

This was when the demon's arm swelled again, and they chose to fight from the back and forth this time.     

The Blackfire Anna summoned could only cover one side and she did not even have time to observe the enemy behind her. Roland could clearly see the demon was throwing its right arm towards her, but he could not see the path of the flying spear. And, he subconsciously pushed Anna who had her back facing him away. He could feel a heavy hit on his shoulder like a hammer smashing on it, and he flew backward and hit the wall of the basket.     

The unbearable pain almost tore him apart and followed by a strong sense of dizziness, his consciousness seemed to be leaving him.     

Roland clenched his teeth and turned around to look at his shoulder. He noticed that there was a huge opening on his shoulder and the ventilation gap behind the basket was enough to explain the striking force.     

And, half of his arm that was completely torn by the attack fell in a corner of the basket, and the gushing blood soon dyed his clothes red.     

"No!" The miserable cry of Nightingale was the final voice he heard before he lost his consciousness.