Floating high into the air, Marcus soon passed over the tops of the mountains that surrounded Glenna Reota and could see the entire Verkoudhied range.
‘That must be my destination.’ Marcus thought as he looked towards the tallest mountain in his view.
With his target now in sight he began flying towards it at an incredible speed, quickly closing the distance of over a hundred mile in just a few minutes
Normally this journey would have taken an ice elf many days on foot through perilous terrain, but Marcus simply flew over it all.
Of course, for anyone that could not become ethereal doing this would have garnered the attention of the powerful beasts and monsters that lived in the mountain. Spelling their doom.
Luckily Marcus slipped by with ease, and soon he was just a few miles away from his target.
Yet as he got closer, he noticed a shimmering light blue barrier that had sectioned off a large portion of the range on the opposite side of the mountain Marcus was approaching.
Looking at this barrier he wondered what it was, especially since he could not see through it.
‘Hm, no one told me anything about a barrier like this. Is it new or is something happening that Retharin does not want anyone interfering with?’.
Still speculating was not going to get him anywhere, so Marcus simply approached the barrier and tried to touch it.
However, it seemed that it was not a barrier that was meant to keep him out as his hand passed through with ease.
‘I wonder.’
Becoming tangible again, Marcus once again tried to pass through the barrier but found that this time it stopped him dead in his tracks.
‘So, it is only meant to keep out anything with a physical form. But do I intrude or wait?’ Marcus thought seriously.
After weighing his options, he eventually decided to go ahead and proceed. He may have been immortal, but he did not have forever to wait around to see if this barrier disappeared, and it was not like it was really stopping him anyway.
Floating past the barrier he came out into what looked like another world, with a devastated landscape around him, and what appeared to be blizzards blowing through the entire area.
BOOM!
With a deafening sound, Marcus heard a loud crash, and looking towards its source he watched an entire mounting begin to crumble as a large form crashed into it.
Floating closer while enhancing his vision, he watched as the creature that had just struck the mountain shake off the tons of rubble that had covered it.
Seeing this creature for the first time he knew from the descriptions that he had heard that this was Retharin.
Just as he had been told, the guardian of Glenna Reota and ruler of the Verkoudhied Mountains was a massive gryphon.
Of course, he was not anywhere close to the average gryphon that was considered a rare grade magical beast but had evolved and entered the realm of mythic.
Except while Marcus had now found who he was looking for, he wondered why Retharin had just crashed into a mountain.
He highly doubted that the mythic grade beast was doing that for fun and began scanning the area for whatever had done this.
And within just an instant he watched as a small form was moving impossibly fast blasted through the sky towards Retharin.
In fact, they were moving so fast that Marcus honestly could not grasp what they looked like.
But before this figure could reach Retharin, he flapped his wings and whipped up a powerful storm that blew forward.
It was a blast of wind that easily had the power of a hurricane and along with it the snow in the area was picked up making the attack even stronger.
The figure then plunged right through the storm and appeared right in front of Retharin who was crackling with blue lightning.
Releasing a barrage of lightning bolts that melted the ground around him and destabilized the bonds that held the air together, Retharin aimed right for his opponent.
Yet the person fighting Retharin stopped immediately and surrounded themselves with a dome of stone.
Surprisingly while even the mountains melted under the immense power of Retharin’s lighting, this thin stone barrier seemed to protect whoever was inside it.
Once the lightning had exhausted its power, Retharin’s opponent broke apart their stone dome, and the remains of it began to enlarge until they were three dozen massive pillar of stone that were bigger than even Marcus’ cataclysmic iron sword spell.
Watching all of this intently for the first time Marcus was able to get a good look at whoever was fighting Retharin.
Staring at them he took in all of their details and was surprised to see that they were some type of humanoid.
However, they were not any race he had ever seen as they had having grayish skin, very dark silver hair, and ever so slightly pointed ears.
Though soon Marcus moved away from her physical characteristics and saw that she were wearing a set of dark purple and black gauntlets that were obviously made of amethros.
Along with those she also had a pair of greaves, and sollerets that were clawed and also part of the set matching her gauntlets.
(A/N: Sollerets are armored shoes.)
As his opponent fired the massive pillars of stone at him, Retharin took to the sky to avoid them.
But as he flew up the pillars of stone arced upwards and followed.
Abruptly stopping Retharin turned around and went into a nosedive towards the pillars and opened his mouth.
A massive blast of lighting then released from Retharin’s mouth that vaporized the stone pillars and engulfed the woman that was he was fighting with.
The blast then hit the ground and cut through it like a hot knife through butter, and the earth and mountains began shaking as the lightning exploded like a hydrogen bomb had just been set off.
Seeing this Marcus could only watch in disbelief as he watched miles upon miles of mountains be reduced to dust as Retharin unleashed an attack far stronger than anything he had ever seen.
‘So, this is what a upper level eighty mythic grade magic beast is capable of.’ Marcus thought while staring with wide eyes.
He had known that mythic grade magic beasts were strong since he had strength comparable to them, but the difference between him and Retharin was staggering.
Of course, Retharin was thirty-seven levels higher than him, but the power he had truly could be considered enough to destroy and entire nation on its own.
Yet as he continued to watch, what was even more astonishing was that Retharin’s opponent appeared from the explosion that was as strong as Earth’s strongest weapons unscathed and delivered an uppercut.
With an ear-splitting crack, Retharin went flying upwards in what looked hilariously impossible, as a normal human sized person sent an over three-hundred-foot magical beast flying with a punch.
Retharin then crashed into the barrier and his body was flatten against it as the force of his opponent’s punch showed no sign of dissipating.
Still, he was a mythic grade magical beast, and flexing his muscles he pushed off against the barrier and charged forward to continue the battle.