Chapter 2349 Saefel's Shield (Part 1)

The traitorous Ranger had been deeply wounded more than once and would have died if not for Dawn's Davross equipment yet he kept fighting. Not for glory or to be forgiven, but for himself.

To see if there was still something of Zepho Acala under the rubble of Dawn's host. To see if there was still a fire burning under the self-pity he had used to justify his shortcomings his whole life.

"Even those who don't amount to one of your fingers are giving their all to protect the people they love. Everyone but you." Lastly, Tyris pointed at Sentar the Thunderbird who empowered by the Awakened Forest fought by Marth's side.

"Get your filthy hands off my husband, you stupid piece of rock!" From below, Ryssa had rallied the plant folk of the forest and they were using their bloodline abilities to pull the ground off the Golden Knight's feet.

Vines and trees tried to hinder its movements while hills and cracks formed non-stop, but none was fast enough to impede the titan in his fight against the White Knight. Hystar needed but a stomp to ruin their work and crush them into bits.

"Ryssa!" Waves of fear shook Marth's very being at the thought that he might have just lost his wife and their son his mother.

Luckily for him, plant folk were naturally hard to kill and Ryssa had the home advantage. The forest of the White Griffon found the bits of the plant folk and provided them with the nutrients and energy they needed to regenerate.

"What do you expect us to do, exactly?" Fyrwal asked. "We have already tried and failed to fight that monster when we had armies at our command and several powerful bloodline abilities.

"There's so much chaos that finding three more people for the When All Are One array is impossible. Your Queen is fighting alone in the sky and without our trump card we have no chance of victory." Thrud's Golden Griffon form was clad in Davross and she used one bloodline ability after the other.

To make matters worse, the lost academy was fueling her with a constant stream of power that made any wound she sustained last but one second and have no consequence.

Sylpha was doing her best, but with her size, she couldn't open a wound deeper than a scratch.

"I'm not asking you to win since even I don't know if that's possible. I'm asking you to fight for yourselves. For your legacy and Valeron's." Tyris replied.

"Why do you care? Sylpha is not of your blood. She's no one." Tessa said.

"And so was Valeron before meeting me. Before meeting you. Everyone knows him for who he became and yet they forget how he started. Now tell me, what would he do now?"

Tessa gritted her teeth, seeing herself in the pointless struggle of the young Dryad below. Many she had loved and all she had lost before turning into the monster known as the Bewitching Demon.

"Give up, you idiot." She mumbled under her breath, praying for Sylpha to admit defeat and run away from the unwinnable battle.

Yet the Queen endured.

A tiny little woman against a beast the like legends sang about.

"Damn you, Saefel. I'm in." Fyrwal said.

"Me too. We need two more people to help Valeron, but who do we pick?" Tessa's slip of the tongue made Tyris' happy but she said no more.

***

Griffon Kingdom, city of Valeron, at the same time.

From his surveillance mirror, Meron could follow the fight from many angles thanks to the magical cameras all over the White Griffon. The only thing he could do with his weakened body was to command the army from the safety of the capital.

He had the War Mages and the Wardens keep away from the elemental sealing arrays of the Golden Griffon and support the Awakened troops from a distance. The Royal Array provided plenty of world energy that the mages of the Kingdom used to buy their allies the time they needed to use Invigoration.

Despite that chaos, he never lost sight of Sylpha, praying in-between orders that she found a way to win. His hope lasted only until Thrud turned into a Golden Griffon. Then, the Queen's mastery of the Royal Blade style became useless.

Her Domination failed to override some of the spells now that Thrud imbued them with willpower. Her equipment was superior to the Mad Queen's but not enough to make up for the bloodline abilities and the gap in their raw strength.

Despite her considerable strength, Sylpha was a human whereas Thrud had become a Griffon, the mightiest of the Divine Beasts.

"Dammit! Why hasn't the Saefel Armor activated yet?" Meron felt a fit of cough raising but sheer willpower kept it at bay. "Damn you, Valeron! How could you be so stupid that you left us in a mess of your creation without giving us the means to face it?"

The King slammed his fist against the armrest of the Royal Throne as hard as he could, but the enchantments of the room kept it unscathed. Meron kept hitting the relic of the First King, wishing to break it in an act of defiance.

"I'm too weak to fight! I gave my life for that damn Forbidden Array. I sacrificed everything to protect your Kingdom! Then why isn't that piece of shit activating? What more do you want from me?" The final strike didn't break the throne, only Meron's hand.

His blood dripped from the skin of his knuckles, painting the armrest red.

"What the fuck?" Meron stared at the droplets disappearing into what was supposed to be just gold-painted wood without leaving a trace. "Good gods! How stupid could Valeron's descendants possibly be?

"This crown, the lights, even this cursed throne, they all belonged to him and he was an Awakened. Now I understand the true meaning of the ritual of Blood! The reason we have only six academies even though Valeron knew there are seven elements!"

Meron unsheathed the knife at his waist and cut his palm open like he had done just a few minutes ago for the ritual. This time, however, instead of spilling his blood on his own throne, he poured it on the Queen's.

An emerald pillar burst out of the Royal Palace, finally bringing the Royal Array to completion.

***

"What the heck?" The six Headmasters, Thrud, and Sylpha said in unison as the White Griffon burst again with a pillar of white light.

Each one of the remaining five great academies did the same and the six rays joined the one coming from the Royal Palace before plunging into the Saefel Armor. The blood coming from Sylpha's wounds mixed with the blood that Meron had smeared on the Saefel set, allowing the relic to recognize her as Valeron's heir.

The silvery black of the Davross turned emerald and in the blink of an eye, Sylpha's size matched Thrud. Just like the academies were linked to the Headmasters, the Saefel armor had reached its full size while allowing its master to control it like her own body.

On top of that, the Royal Array fueled Sylpha with a constant stream of mana and elemental power that brought the Queen back to her peak condition.