Chapter 588 Regrouping

With the Sword Savant’s arrival, the tide of the battle shifted and Gwyneira was no longer being dragged off towards the Doomsday Worm’s mouth.

He had also dealt a devesting blow to the monster cutting its body in half up to a little more than tenth of the monster’s thirty-mile length.

Of course, while this was a pretty impressive attack, the damage he had caused was already nearly healed after only a few seconds.

“Allow me to thank you for your assistance, Sword Savant. I was in quite a bind, and you helped me out there. However, while you may have just arrived, and I can see you want to fight, it is time for us to retreat. That thing is too dangerous for us to take on right now, and we need to recover and assemble our forces before taking it on again.” Gwyneira said with exhaustion written all over her face.

Frowning, the Sword Savant really did want to test his blade against the Dread Devourer, but he knew that he could not win on his own even as strong as he was.

“Very well. I will cover our escape then.” He said as he swung his sword again.

Firing off another flying slash, he sliced through the renewed tendrils that had already begun making their way towards him and Gwyneira.

After that the two of them launched into the sky and flew towards Marcus who had already retreated quite aways with the badly injured and unconscious Retharin.

Luckily Gwyneira’s ice that had encased the Doomsday Worm kept it in place for around another minute, and it was only able to send a limited number of tendrils after them which the Sword Savant cut down.

Unfortunately, it did not take long for the calamity of a monster to break free from its icy imprisonment, and once gain begin its destruction of the Great Gome Woods unabated..

Flying quickly over the forest, their group eventually made it to the edge of the woods and to Norr Village which had undergone a drastic change since the last time they had been there.

Not a soul was left here, as all of the people had already evacuated and started making their way to River Landing.

When Gwyneira had sent out he emergency alert to the kingdom, they had gone right into action and began evacuating the northern reaches of the kingdom and preparing every defensive measure they could.

Still with it being winter they were slower than they would have liked, and movements were not proceeding quickly.

Not to mention that River Landing itself was likely to not be safe by any means, and all nonmilitary personnel were being evacuated from there as well.

If the Dread Worm continued on its straight path as it had been, River Landing would be the first major settlement in its way, and there was no way they could defend against it.

The town simply did not have anywhere near the level of magical defenses necessary to even slow down a monster of this power and size. With the only place in the kingdom that could probably hold out for more than a minute being the royal capital.

“So, what are we going to do now?” Marcus said to Gwyneira while applying his spirit healing to Retharin.

The mythic grade gryphon had still not woken up, and while his physical injuries had already healed. The amount of energy he had drained away by the Doomsday Worm’s tendrils had left him in a coma.

Transforming back into her human form Gwyneira slumped onto the ground and took a few heavy breaths before responding.

“What we do now is rest and wait for reinforcements to arrive. It should not be long until Aria and Darius get here along with the rest of the kingdom’s elite warriors and mages. Hopefully the adventurers guild will also send some support and then we may have enough power to make an actual attempt at beating that thing.”

Gwyneira then took out a potion that Marcus had seen before and knew was a true elixir.

Downing it in one gulp her body which had been pale began to regain some of its color, and the beaten down look in her eyes began to lessen.

Once she had recovered herself, she got up and took out another elixir which she dropped into Retharin’s mouth.

Moment’s latter he opened his eyes as the strongest medicine in the world went to work on fixing the damage he had taken.

“Uh, where are we?” hw said as he moved his head side to side and looked around.

His mind was still in a bit of a haze, as the last thing he remembered was being swallowed up by the viscous liquid that formed the tendrils that the Dread Burrower used.

“We have moved away for now. It was apparent that we had done all we could, and that staying any longer was only going to end up with one of us dead.” Gwyneira said to him.

Lowering his head, Retharin was quite upset about what had happened.

He could not remember the last time he had been so thoroughly defeated by an enemy that completely overpowered him.

It had taken the Doomsday Worm only one attack to bring him down, and the thing had shrugged off all of his strongest attacks like they were nothing.

“I understand your frustration.” Gwyneira said. “We have been at the top for so long it has been decades since either of us met a challenge we could not beat without giving it some effort.”

With downcast looks in their eyes it was obvious that both Retharin and Gwyneira had taken more than physical damage during their battle.

They were supposed to be strong, being mythic grade magical beasts with high levels.

Yet when it came down to it, their power was still far from enough to take on the threat they were currently facing.

Nevertheless, Retharin quickly got over his despair and finally noticed that someone new was with them.

“Wait, who is this, and when did they get here?”

Following Retharin’s gaze both Marcus and Gwyneira saw that he was looking at Asher, the Sword Savant, who was sitting on the ground and meditating not too far away.

“He is another ally that is going to help us in this battle. His name is Asher, and he is called the Sword Savant. It was thanks to his help that all of us managed to get away.” Marcus said

After hearing this Retharin looked towards Gwyneira, and she understood what he wanted from her by the look in his eyes.

“He is plenty strong enough to be of use in this battle. I already checked his status, and he is one of the strongest humans I have ever seen. At level eighty-four his stats are very impressive, nearly as high as mine were when I was that level.”

“Good, we are going to need every ally we can get.” Retharin said as she struggled to his feet.

Even with all of the healing and the elixir he had received, his body was far from its best right now.

His very life force had been drained while he was captured by the Doomsday Worm, and he had probably lost around eight hundred years’ worth of his life span. Which was no small amount even for him.

As a high-level mythic grade magical beast, he could easily live for a few millennia, but now he felt much older than he had, and her wondered if he would ever make it back up to his full strength.

Still, he had a job to do and would fight with his all to protect the ice elf city which was his master’s last wish.

“So, what is he doing. It looks kind of like he is asleep.” Retharin said as he looked at Asher who had not moved at all since he woke up.

“He said he was going to prepare his mind for the coming battle. Something about sharpening his entire being in order to wield his sword better. Though I really did not understand what he meant.” Marcus said as he shrugged his shoulders.

All three of them then glanced over at Asher who really did appear to just be taking a nap from what they could tell.

“Now we have other matters to discuss. How are we going to stop that thing? At this rate it will arrive at River Landing in about a day and a half once it is done destroying the Great Gome Woods. If we engage it even within even a hundred miles of here the entire town will be destroyed.”

Unfortunately, Marcus’ question was just met with lowered gazes, as neither Gwyneira nor Retharin thought that they could stop this thing before it destroyed River Landing.

In fact, Gwyneira already figured they would lose half at least half of the kingdom in this battle. If they won at all.

Seeing the grimaces on their faces, Marcus understood that things really were pretty hopeless right now.

“Well, we can at least find out how much longer until Aria and Darius arrive at least.” Marcus said as he looked towards Gwyneira.

Nodding her head, she pulled out her sending stone and contacted both of them.

Unfortunately, the news was not good. When they were trying to pull out of the battlefield in Tralenstein. one of the kingdoms to the south launched an attack that has held them up.

“They say that it will probably be at least four days until they can get here along with their elite troops. Until then, we have no guarantee on receiving any useful reinforcements.”