Pixie moved quite fast through the air, they could make the distance to the area where the Blazing Devil was located, but that wouldn't be the best thing to do.
Since the journey was quite long they plan to make camp near the site, then send Lucy and Faith to scout out the devil. Then tomorrow they will launch a well put together surprise attack.
In the air they sat in silence since the wind was too loud for talking, they had been travelling for about 3 hours. The Sun was already right above their heads and heading towards the western horizon.
Below them the vast wild landscape stretched as far as their eye could see. Sometimes they saw monsters moving around on the ground, from this height they seemed more like ants than anything, but they knew those shapes were much larger up close.
After another half an hour or so the first of their problem rose to the sky. When they planned this excursion, they knew flying for long periods of time will be dangerous. There are a lot of other flying beasts how would want to make dinner out of them.
One of those was currently heading in their direction. It wasn't as large as the butterfly, but it had very sharp looking claws and a maw full of dreadful teeth. The problem was that the butterfly's wings were kind of brittle, which meant that after one good slash of claws they could be shred.
The monster was a large bird, but something was weird about it. As Sera observed its wings, they looked unnatural, as the sunlight hit it they reflected for some reason. Suddenly there was a shout from behind her, Lucy was screaming, "DIVE!"
Sera looked ahead in confusion and quickly realized why she sounded so distressed. The bird slowed down, then raised its mighty wings and with a strong beat a couple of feathers came off heading directly towards them.
Luckily Lucy noticed it in time and warned them, which made it possible for Pixie to evade the metallic feathers completely.
While still in dive Sera looked back and nodded towards Hellfire and Lucy. The three of them were the only ones able to fight in the air. They noticed her gaze and soon the three of them were flying through the air and beginning to attack the metal winged bird.
In its longest lance form and clad in full white armor Sera flew towards the bird. She even donned her helmet to keep the wind out of her face. Next to her was Hellfire, his halberd in a much larger form as well.
His Heritages other than the halberd was pretty useless here, since one only increased his affinity with fire and the other gave him more physical strength. They were both good, but not the best against this big bird.
Moving its wings again it shot out another barrage of feathers, this time towards the three of them. Lucy dodged the feathers in her eagle form and got close enough to land a hit on the monsters body. The beast screamed as she tore into its flesh, but quickly recovered and with one shake of its large body managed to get Lucy off of itself.
'Damn, she cut it really close. Another second and she would have to find another mother.'
Indeed the bird's soul was destroyed by Vicky. Sadly she can't just kill monsters with a thought. They had to attack it and make it weaker to lower its defenses. When it went into a frenzy it gave up all her shielding against soul attacks, so Vicky could infiltrate it and destroy it.
The large bird stayed in the air for a second, then gravity took hold of the corpse and it began its long descent towards the ground. When it finally reached it a large cloud of smoke rose as well.
There were screams of a bunch of different monsters and the sound of fighting.
The group didn't care about it though. Sera, Lucy and Hellfire climbed back onto Pixie. He actually had some broken ribs, which Bea quickly healed. The journey was only beginning and their first of many battles was over.
The Sun was on its way towards the horizon, they flew until the sky started to become purple. They made camp at a clearing and quickly scouted the area around them for any monsters. The ones they found were quite weak and they made quick work of them.
There was still some daylight left so they lit a fire and began cooking some monster's meat. Luckily unlike the journey towards Castleburg, this time they actually had spices and salt... Also as it turns out Will was an excellent cook.
He managed to make the meat so tasty, that Sarah only chocked on it a couple of times. Since she never really had to survive in the wild, she wasn't used to eat anything other than gourmet food. Monster meat was anything but gourmet.
They had a good laugh at her and even Will made a small smile, which also brought a small pout on Sarah's face and she even furrowed her eyebrows
Soon they had to put out the fire since the night has arrived. Faith and Lucy already left to find the devil and make their own conclusions about its appearance and abilities.
For first watch Bea volunteered, Sera wanted to stay up with her as well, but after the fight and flight she was dead tired.
They chatted a bit and soon they were all sleeping. Tomorrow its going to be a big day, after weeks of preparation, they will finally slowly start to evolve even further... Starting with Hellfire.
It was exciting and terrifying at the same time.