The skies got darker, the flying monsters were growling with impatience. They had been promised a wondrous bounty if they were to work together as this never before seen horde. If not for the Nine Oceans Phoenix leading the way, most of the monsters would still be dwelling in their own territory and minding their personal business.
Yet, instead of attacking the humans as soon as possible and getting things over with, they had been ordered to fly slowly and wait for a period of time which kind of defeated the purpose of their monster horde.
‘Hm. This does not seem to bode well.’ The Nine Oceans Phoenix thought to herself. Although not old enough to be counted as an Elder Demon like Keyrin and the others, who had a will and mind of their own, the Nine Oceans Phoenix had similarly turned sentient after severe situational circumstances had forced her to mutate. The reason why she was holding the horde back was that she was giving the humans who had taken her eggs a chance to return them. However, she did not trust the humans, hence the gathering of the monster horde should they refuse or pretend like they had nothing to do with it.
There had been a few encounters with humans in the Phoenix’s lifetime and most of them had been with nasty hunters that had wanted to either outright murder her for the feathers she adorned or capture her to gain a constant supply of her dung which she knew had miraculous powers. Nevertheless, she had never forgotten that it was a human who had saved her at the brink of her death encumbered with severe injuries.
He had not cared how monstrous she was as a Phoenix nor bothered how she kept using her powers to frantically protect herself, injuring him in the rescue process. Nevertheless, he had not yielded and used his healing magic from afar to close her wounds. Healing magic had always been designed to be used in close proximity, yet that particular naïve human had continued to strain himself to heal her from afar to the best of his abilities. It was to the point that he had even sacrificed a portion of his life force to keep the dire firebird from stepping into the grave. Once the Phoenix had finally realised that he was not harming her and in fact hurting himself, she had finally decided to lower her guard a little to see what the human would do.
Seeing the opening, he had not even hesitated for a moment to rush towards her and had quickly applied his healing salves to soothe her pain and rescue her from the dire situation she was in. (Which she made it worst by straining herself to fend him off in the first place.)
The whole time he had been talking to her in a soothing voice in an attempt to keep her calm and eventually, it worked. To his surprise, she purposely thanked the human in his language. Excited about her intelligence, he had started to ask her a mountain of questions ranging from how the Phoenix had lived her life, her eating habits, what kind of lands and oceans she had travelled and many more.
Happy for the rare opportunity to have a conversation the Nine Oceans Phoenix had answered everything to the best of her abilities during her recovery period. She had not even realised that they had been talking non-stop and he even sacrificed his sleep and meal times just to listen to her until the 3rd day.
The mage had just shrugged it off, saying that there were so many things he wanted to know about her, that his own physical needs were nothing compared to the knowledge he could bring back from speaking to a sentient Phoenix. And a variant one to boot. “I’d rather learn every single thing about you and the experiences you have than satisfy my measly needs. Sleep is for the weak! You will have all the time for it when you’re dead as my dad used to say! Hahahah!” The human mage joked.
They had spent more than a week together and once the Phoenix’s health had improved enough, the mage told her to fly elsewhere, since she would not be able to return to where she lived. Mainly because the human mage could not hide the Phoenix’s scent after she got out from the sealed barrier he had placed around them and those pesky monster hunters would try to catch her again.
And although all the encounters had been proven to her that the majority of humans were greedy and downright vicious to the core, that particular puny human mage somehow convinced the Phoenix that not all humans were like that.
‘I am sorry, my dear friend. But now that these humans are holding on to my children, I have to think for myself. You did tell me to ‘Think for yourself in this harsh world first, but be kind to those who have shown you kindness if possible’.’ The Nine Ocean Phoenix thought as she finally gave the signal for the Flying Horde to attack when she saw that a large spider like structure suddenly descended from the skies. The Phoenix knew that those humans were plotting something too and it would be best to act first before they could do whatever they planned to. After all, she was still a monster that followed her instinct.
Thus, with a strong flap of her wings and a loud screech, magical energies burst out of her body coursing through the entire horde. It empowered them and even forcibly mutated a few weaker ones. While she honestly did not care about the monsters that were with her, she still needed a good push so that she could use the time to find her eggs. In addition, she felt that there was another force at work with them and if possible she wanted those monsters to push through that unusual force.
The winged monsters now energised with magical energy screeched and roared simultaneously, which caused the white empty desert in front of the capital to rumble. Some of the humans thought it was some earthquake, only to realise swarms of monstrous looking deformed dogs and cats with tentacle claws were crawling out of the sandpits. And their destination was singular in nature.
The Southern Capital.
“SOUND THE ALARM! Zurglings! Zurglings! Among the Winged Monsters lies a Zurgling Queen!” The Gate Guards shouted as he reported the endless waves of Zurglings running towards them. It was at that point the Winged Monsters also started their descent towards the Southern Capital while the Nine Ocean Phoenix continued to stay in one spot, supplying magical powers to those higher class monsters, especially the Zurgling Queen that had agreed to follow her. While unrelated in blood, the Zurgling Queen too understood and empathised the Nine Ocean Phoenix which was why she was not hesitant to send her children out for battle even though she knew they were going to be battle fodder and be eventually gone with the winds.
“My unborn children. Please wait for me. I am coming for you,” the Nine Oceans Phoenix mumbled to herself as she once more released another surge of energy to empower the monsters.
