Chapter 50 - Crystal Phoenix Rakasha

Immediately upon rushing outside, Skyle was greeted by the imposing sight of the crystal phoenix Rakasha in all her shining splendor as she swiftly descended from her lofty perch above. Skyle found himself stepping back in panic as he watched the massive figure of the great bird plunging down at an alarming speed, but near the end of her dive Rakasha spread her wings and gracefully flipped in the air once. Incredibly, not a single gust of wind could be felt as her majestic wings were fully spread out to nearly encompass the whole width of the nest. The light reflected from each of her perfectly symmetrical jeweled scales was nearly blinding.

Skyle gathered that there must be some incredibly powerful magic at work, allowing such a colossal beast to fully support its weight in the air without disturbing a single gust of wind. As he swallowed the lump in his throat, Skyle couldn’t help but be dazzled by the spectacle. Glittering in all the colors of the rainbow, Rakasha was simply one of the most spectacularly beautiful creatures Skyle had ever beheld.

Although her recent wounds somewhat marred the beauty of the crystal phoenix, Skyle still felt embarrassed that he had ever thought Rakasha was a simple oversized eagle. However, such thoughts were neither here or now, as Skyle recalled the urgency of his mission.

“Great Rakasha, by the Goddess’ permission, I humbly request your aid to rescue my friends!” Skyle called out breathlessly.

The glimmer of intelligence deep within the crystal phoenix’s eyes did not surprise Skyle at all, so he was able to maintain his calm even as the great beast nodded faintly at him, then slowly lowered herself on the ground. Rakasha even extended one of her wings so as to form a natural slope that Skyle could use to climb. Otherwise, given the great girth of the crystal phoenix, Skyle would find it much more challenging to climb the small hill that was her chest.

Just as Skyle finally reached the top and began to look for a proper perch, he heard a squeaking cry from behind. The young boy threw a look over his shoulder and found Birdy frantically trying to climb up Rakasha’s tail. However, the jewel scales proved too smooth a surface for Birdy to gain a sufficient grip with its beak or claws, and no matter how frantically the baby bird beat its wings, it could simply not make it more than a handful of feet off the ground before unceremoniously sliding back down to sprawl in an awkward mess of flailing limbs and ruffled feathers.

Each unsuccessful attempt was accompanied by an indignant, mournful howl, yet glancing towards Rakasha’s face, Skyle found the same solemn indifference that had characterized the great bird, without any hint of the maternal love that he had briefly glimpsed at unguarded moments in the past.

At this, Birdy’s attempts became even more vigorous, even desperate. Still, after a few breaths Birdy had stumbled down its mother’s tail countless times without making any significant progress. Skyle even felt tempted to lend some aid to the poor bird, but in the end concluded that sometimes he should not interfere in how a parent nurtures its child.

After a minute, Birdy lay panting on the ground, squeaking loudly towards its mother. The ancient crystal phoenix did not produce a single sound, but Skyle could almost visualize his own father’s indifferent, almost taunting look in Rakasha’s expression. Even the slight arch of Kendric Farrow’s eyebrow found a mirror match in the great bird of prey’s left eye as she shook Birdy’s final attempt off with a minute flick of her tail feathers. The almost imperceptible movement sent Birdy flying a handful of feet into the air, before it crashed against the soft bed of branches that blanketed the nest.

With an involuntary shudder, Skyle was decidedly happy that he had decided to stay out of this business. Nevermind the fact that Birdy had dug itself out of the small crater where it had landed, and now stood glaring fiercely at Skyle as though all of this were the boy’s fault somehow.

Skyle simply grinned to himself, as he found yet another parallel from his family. This time, he could imagine his younger sister Kass pouting indignantly at him for daring to withhold the daily rations of candied corn that had become his younger siblings’ newest addiction. How dare he, her furious and indignant expression seemed to shout, refuse to submit a fitting tribute of candied corn to this little empress of the Farrow clan?

Shaking his head to himself, Skyle finally found a relatively secure perch within the groove formed in between two huge crystal scales near the back of Rakasha’s neck. He was about to speak, asking for due haste when Rakasha immediately sprang into movement without waiting for him to speak.

The sudden movement was jarring, and he was instantly petrified that he would be crushed by the sheer speed of the movement, or even worse, be blown off by the fierce winds that were sure to follow. However, he was immediately astonished. The ride this time was nothing like his previous trip when he had been caught in Rakasha’s claws. Although the first time when he had been brought to the Shrine of Tears Skyle hadn’t exactly been comfortable, being buffeted by the wind and swinging back and forth in the great beast’s claw, only now did Skyle understand that he had not been merely lucky at that time.

Skyle had thought that the bird had only coincidentally switched targets to him at the very last moment, and that only by a one-in-a-million chance the great beast’s wickedly sharp claw happened to hook on his pack instead of his flesh, giving him a reasonably comfortable ride to its nest.

Now, Skyle was again surprised as he felt neither wind nor much motion at all. He knew that they must be flying at terrifying speeds, much more swiftly than the first time he had been borne by Rakasha. Still, the crystal phoenix’s body barely seemed to shift at all, asides from an occasional wave of its wings as it gracefully beat against the wind. Safe within his perch upon Rakasha’s back, Skyle did not even feel the biting cold that he had experienced before. Skyle was no fool, and instantly he knew there must be powerful magic at work here. With all this, Skyle was forced to once again re-evaluate the intelligence and might of this great bird. Maybe the first ride had been a test of sorts, along with his own initial interaction with Birdy? If so, the only things Skyle regretted was that he had been unable to bring his friends along, and that Moonshadow had been lost.

“Ah, Moonshadow..” Skyle mumbled absently, keenly feeling its loss. Such a masterful weapon, he wished he could at least feel its comforting weight in his hand one more time before submitting it to the Goddess in willing exchange for his friend’s life.

“Still, how could I ever forget the sheer pleasure of sighting down that flawless curvature, then pulling back on that exquisitely balanced string?”

Skyle sighed heavily, and he was so lost in such thoughts that only a solid bonk on his head brought him back to the present.

“Oww!” Skyle cried out, clutching at his head in pain and reflexibly tilting his gaze upward. What he found made his jaw drop and his eyes began to tear up in earnest.

“Moonshadow!” the small boy cried out, genuine joy bursting across his chest. It felt like reuniting with one of his old friends, even though they’d been together for but a handful of days, and been separated for only one.

Still, to find the masterwork bow spinning idly over his head, Skyle was frozen stiff as his eyes feasted upon the sight of his beloved weapon. Only another solid thwak across his head jerked him into motion, and he reached up to snatch Moonshadow from the air.

The moment his hand came in contact with the bow, it stopped swaying and instead surrendered into his grasp. The cool, smooth feel of the ebony material almost sparked new tears in his eyes, and the incomparably satisfying weight and balance of it made him sigh time and time again.

“Ah, Moonshadow, to think we will be parted..” Skyle exhaled, his chest deflating.

Thump!

Another solid hit on his head, and this time Skyle looked up to see the same quiver of arrows he had been carrying before being captured, hanging right there in the air above him. The arrows were all there, even the ones he had specially prepared for different purposes. Blunt heads, hollow heads, even the poison heads he had crafted from harvested poison sacks! None were missing, and it was just touching at the great crystal phoenix had devoted this much care to their recovery. This time, Skyle couldn’t help but glance towards Rakasha. The ancient crystal phoenix completely ignored him, and continued to beat its wings at its own leisure, smoothly gliding through the air while the ground below them soared past at impossible speeds.

“Thank you, Rakasha.” Skyle wiped the tears from his cheeks, feeling no shame in the act but rather a genuine warmth and gratitude towards this graceful, lofty being. He was absolutely certain that, not only Rakasha’s power, but her age and wisdom would far exceed even Skyle’s fertile imagination. Still, she had deigned to retrieve this little boy’s beloved bow and arrow. It was likely that she even knew what this expedition would ultimately cost Skyle, and that only made these short final moments even more precious still.

“Truly, thank you.”

He did not expect any answer, but the great crystal phoenix abruptly parted its beak and let out a majestic cry. It visibly shook the trees below as it dove down past several clouds to approach closer to the ground. At this low altitude, still soaring at incredible speeds, Rakasha’s shoulder twitched ever so slightly.

Skyle looked around, completely bewildered. Only after moment, did Rakasha’s shoulder twitch once more, almost impatiently.

Finally, Skyle understood, and he joyfully took out an arrow and sighted down his bow, aiming towards a distant tree top.

Rakasha’s shoulder did not twitch again, but then again, the dull human boy had finally understood, so it was not needed.

***

Skyle only had time to fire a handful of arrows, most of them wildly off-target due to the sheer speed of their momentum as well as the chaotic winds formed by their passing, before the smell began to reach his nose.

It began as a subtle hint of smoke mixed with an unpleasant, acrid scent that rapidly grew in intensity until it began to sting his nose in earnest. Perhaps it was due to how distracted he was by the newly recovered Moonshadow, but it was still a while longer before Skyle finally sighted the source of the smell.

In the midst of the sprawling carpet of greenery below, thick with luscious trees and bushes, there was a great scar that still belched with a thick columns of black smoke. This was no single conflagration, but rather a jagged wound tearing through a lengthy stretch of forest canopy. Eager fire licked at the outer edges of the scar, which was as thick as fifty feet across at some places. The overall length of this trail of blazing destruction must be over five hundred feet.

Skyle hissed in astonishment as he beheld this incredible display of destruction.

“Surely, this can’t have been Leon? He’s a powerful, even gifted fire summoner, but such a feat should be beyond even a master level summoner, no?” Skyle mumbled to himself.

As they swiftly drew closer, Skyle switched to his True Sight, sweeping it along a thin cone all around him, scanning a circle of roughly 300 feet across. What he found took his breath away.

Though to plain sight the ground was littered with blackened shapes vaguely resembling some sort of giant bug, when he switched to his True Sight an avalanche of chaotic red and purple auras immediately threatened to overwhelm his senses. Such massive scale destruction and death made Skyle’s skin crawl, his mouth suddenly dry and retching as the smell assaulted his nose with renewed force. Suddenly, he knew exactly what this smell was.

Endless mounds of giant spiders lay sprawled all across the blackened forest floor, their sundered corpses still easily distinguishable under the prowess of the True Sight. It was easy to see that their shells had violenty burst from within due to the immense pressure of liquids brought to boiling points far too abruptly to be resisted by their shells. Like rotten eggs, their thick shells had ruptured as easily as an eggshell, the remnant aura of their vital organs sprayed about in a disgusting cocktail that had long become ash. It would be completely undistinguishable, were it not for his True Sight and the auras it brought forward.

“Hundreds. There must be hundreds of the awful creatures. How could Leon bring such power to bear? And where is he? Did he survive?” Skyle mumbled, panic entering his voice. He knew for a certainty that this was the handiwork of Leon, for the pattern of the remnant fire was all too familiar to Skyle. After all the boys had gone through together, it would be an indelible mark in his mind.

“Rakasha, do you know-?” Suddenly, Skyle’s sight caught the faint glimmering of a familiar aura to the west. It was fading fast, but it was clearly a residual trace of Leon’s aura.

“Over there!” Skyle shouted, his hand tightly clutching Moonshadow as he desperately willed his sight to extend further.

This time, instead of a cone, his sight further narrowed until it became a strip, barely a finger’s width in length but twice as long as before. Like this, Skyle found it impossible to truly distinguish anything unfamiliar, but it was enough. He could still follow the faint trace of Leon’s aura, but there seemed to be something wrong with it.

What added to his desperation was the fact that his Infinite Eye could easily distinguish, even as quickly as they were flying, a vast swath of broken trees and crushed leaves, along with a greenish ichor that formed a trail of destruction at least a hundred feet wide. This was the fresh trail of an unstoppable army, and it was obvious to Skyle they were hellbent on pursuing its prey!

“Vicious creatures. We must stop them, Rakasha!” Skyle cried out as he glanced helplessly at his bow. What good could a few arrows do against such an onslaught? The sheer weight of the corpses would be enough to drown him under an ocean of green ichor.

Rakasha’s sharp cry brought him out of his reverie, as they finally caught the tail end of the enemy. While following their trail, Skyle had steeled his resolve, but nothing could have prepared him for the scene that met his eyes.

High upon the sky, perched upon the crystal phoenix, Skyle could see a great, snaking column that glittered with a dark, deep green hue under the light. An unceasing skittering noise reached his ears, even from his distance, and it took him a while to realize it was the marching feet of thousands of giant spiders. Bloodthirsty screeches of rage raised goosebumps on Skyle’s skin as he caught sight of a few wounded spiders, badly burned by the fire, occasionally stumble and fall from the march. Such unfortunate bugs were swiftly pounced upon by several surrounding bugs, which would immediately tear into the still-living spider, ravenously consuming its entrails.

Moonshadow, glorious as it was, lay forgotten for the moment in Skyle’s hand as he gazed at the massive army before his eyes. The only comfort Skyle could draw was that the spiders seemed to be moving swiftly and with a purpose, and therefore had yet to catch their prey.

“Rakasha,” Skyle called out helplessly, glancing bitterly down at his bow. Perhaps if his elemental powers were recovered, he could summon a miracle such as the one Leon had created. However, with just a plain quiver of arrows, no matter how exquisite a weapon of murder Moonshadow may be, Skyle didn’t know if he could even pierce the tough shells, let alone prevail against such massive numbers.

Perhaps such were the limits placed on those without talent.

Skyle shook off his pathetic self-pity, and opened his mouth to request Rakasha’s help once more. His pride be damned, time was vital right now! However, this made it so he almost bit his tongue off when Rakasha abruptly folder her great, shimmering wings and dove towards the ground at a speed which beggared Skyle’s wildest nightmares.

“Waaaah!” Skyle cried out involuntarily, hanging on to Rakasha’s scale for dear life, and almost losing grip on Moonshadow for good measure. Wind howled violently in his ears, and Skyle finally realized that perhaps for the first time, the great crystal phoenix would get serious.

The ground seemed to approach at a terrifying speed, but they now moved within a vacuum of sound, almost as though they had outrun the noise of their passing. At this moment, Rakasha opened her beak and let out a ferocious howl that made Skyle’s hands shake uncontrollably even though it was directed away from him.

The effect on the intended targets was much more dramatic. As though it were a magical spell, time seemed to stop for the spiders as the sound wave reached them, making them shudder slightly before stopping all movement altogether. A vast swath of the spiders immediately froze, making them perfect targets for Rakasha’s next attack.

Skyle honestly didn’t know what to expect. Would the phoenix belch out a stream of flames like a dragon, or a stream of ice that would shatter her foes? Surely, such an ancient and majestic creature would have a terrifying arsenal of magic at its disposal.

What happened next made Skyle’s jaw nearly fall off his face.

Rakasha, the ancient crystal phoenix and guardian spirit of Sanctuary, did not summon a torrent of flame or a cascade of ice. It seemingly used no magic whatsoever, perhaps deeming such efforts unworthy for the bugs laid out before her. Instead, she simply extended her claws forward and opened her wings with a great whoosh of wind.

The impact of the air alone from this action ripped towering trees off their roots and sent them tumbling into the air like a pile of sticks. Not a single branch was left with any leaves as they all flew into a flurry. These tore into the carapaces of the spiders as though they were sharp arrowheads, let alone all the branches, stones and other detritus, which acted as even deadlier ammunition. As mighty trees were tossed carelessly from the ground, one can only imagine what would happen to a comparatively tiny spider that only measured a paltry six to twelve feet in diameter. Piles of shimmering green carapaces were flipped up from the ground as though they were mere pebbles. Most of them crashed into trees or each other with violent, irresistible impact, instantly crushing them into unrecognizable lumps of flesh that sprayed ichor and vital fluids all over the air.

The brutal wave of wind was only the first layer of attack. What followed was an invisible explosion of pure force that literally tore the few remaining spiders apart. The whole scene seemed surreal to Skyle, and were it not for his incredible vision, he would have had no understanding of what had befallen the massive column of spiders. Conceptually, the first wave of wind was easy enough to understand, though it completely defied the limits of what Skyle had thought was even remotely possible. Rakasha’s actual attack, however, was this thick maelstrom of wind element that followed no pattern that Skyle could discern. It seemed shapeless yet still uniform; a product of raw power rather than any spell or summoning of elemental essence, but all the more terrifying for it.

After a moment, watching the wave of invisible force continue to rip forward and devastate the whole line of spiders, leaving nothing but a trail of broken shells and a sea of green ichor in its wake, Skyle finally understood. It was not a spell nor elemental summoning. It was sheer physical speed and power concentrated to such a point that it had manifested its own elemental essence patterns.

Such an idea simply shook Skyle to his very foundations. He had heard of element masters who strengthened their bodies using their elemental essence and achieving prodigious feats of strength and speed. However, Rakasha simply exceeded such rumors by several orders of magnitude, literally producing the effects of a cataclysmic spell by simply manipulating her physical body.

Skyle’s hand shook uncontrollably as his rapt gaze quickly moved from the scene of devastation before him, back to the still indifferent gaze of the crystal phoenix, and then back to the crushed spider remains again.

“Just what realm has this ancient beast reached,” Skyle couldn’t help but ask himself. Then he suddenly seemed to recall something and glanced towards the wound on Rakasha’s flank that was still fresh in his memory.

“And what sort of monster could inflict such scars on Rakasha?”

This solemn realization lasted for only an instant, before Skyle recalled his most important mission at this moment.

“Rakasha, over there!” Skyle pointed towards a deep ravine where a few surviving spiders frantically jumped from, plunging deep into its depths without a care of the consequences, obviously absolutely terrified of the massacre visited upon them by this ancient beast.

“Who could blame them? Hell, I’d do the same thing!” Skyle gulped in his throat.

“I just hope Leon is still alive. Leon, you big bastard, you better not die on me!”