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Leon’s retinue left their camp early the next morning.  Only Elise and Talal stayed back in the safety of Leon’s magically fortified villa, everyone else accompanied him out into the mountains.

The pass was fairly narrow on the whole.  It widened and narrowed in certain places, but in general, the mountain slopes and cliffs to the right and left of Leon’s retinue only afforded them enough room for one or two people to fight comfortably side-by-side, if the need for fighting arose.

They moved slowly and quietly.  With Leon’s revelation that eighth-tier and multiple seventh-tier wyverns were lairing in the area, everyone was extremely circumspect and cautious—at that level of power, not even Leon or Maia could stop a wyvern from killing any one of them if the monsters moved quickly enough.  That meant that stealth would be paramount to their success, and with stealth came a much slower rate of movement.

It grated on Leon, but not so much that he ever considered speeding them up.  Talal checked back in with Heaven’s Eye the prior evening, as was protocol, and learned that Penelope had slain three more wyverns that day, and Cassandra had bagged another two.  The Princess was now in the lead with six kills after only two days, Penelope was in second with five, and Leon was last with a meager two—incredible numbers that showed him just how seriously the other two were taking this wager.

His competitiveness was certainly stimulated, but he wasn’t allowing that to overrule his judgment.  They were walking into the literal lair of the beast, and so caution was for the best.  If he lost the bet, after all, it would only cost him some pride and an enchanted stone he wasn’t even using.  Compared to the lives of his retainers, those were small prices to pay.

They advanced in a long line with plenty of space in between themselves, so a surprise attack by a powerful wyvern would have less of a chance of hitting them all at once.  Leon took the lead, advancing in his human form to stick with his retinue.  He was stronger in his avian form, but that would force him to be more distant, and he didn’t want the protection of his own people to fall on Maia alone.  The river nymph herself had taken the rear of their formation, so that both of them protected the front and back.

Leon kept his magic senses projected, constantly on the lookout for any wyverns that might be trying to hunt them, in turn.  He’d already seen several female wyverns flying to and from some of the wider parts of the pass far ahead, but fortunately, none of them seemed to either notice or care that his party was traveling through the pass.

Most of all, though, Leon kept his eyes open for any of the powerful wyverns he’d seen the day before.  Running into that huge black one would be a nightmare to deal with, though a part of him couldn’t help but wish that that monster revealed himself and tried something so that Leon would have an excuse to bring it down.

They pressed on silently, using nothing more than old Bull Kingdom Legion hand signals and Leon and Maia’s mental communication to remain stealthy.  For miles and hours they continued, only once having to stop when a wyvern started flying in their direction.  A stray lightning bolt from Leon was all that was needed to chase the creature off, which was only a little disappointing—Leon had initially hoped that he’d be able to add another head to his score, but the beast was too smart to get close after his display of power.

Eventually, the pass began to widen, the cliffs and mountain slopes peeling back from the pass to form a deep vale in the center of a maze of mountain paths and gorges, including the one that within dwelled the huge black wyvern.

[All right,] Leon said, calling his people to a halt.  [We’re here.  These are the aeries that we were directed to…]

His retinue cast their gazes all around, taking in the rocky landscape.  As with the rest of the mountain range, nearly all vegetation had long been burned away, but dotting the cliff walls all around them were caves of all different sizes.  Hundreds of caves, far too many for them to search.  Unfortunately, wyverns were solitary beasts, and so only a few of these caves would have the potential for eggs and young.

Luckily, they had Leon and Maia, both of whom had kept their magic senses covering this region for a while, watching the comings and goings of various wyverns as they brought food back to their lairs.  Leon had a dozen different caves for them to check out, and that was after less than a day of observation.

But they couldn’t begin quite yet, they had to make some preparations first; there were still wyverns in the vale, and more could come back at any moment.  If their rearing grounds were disturbed, Leon imagined it was likely that they’d be swarmed with the giant flying lizards in a moment, and his party would take casualties.  He couldn’t allow that.

[Marcus, Alix, Helen,] he addressed his three best marksman and pointed up the steep slope to their left.  [I’m going to set my Lightning Lance up there.  You three will watch the skies, shoot anything that tries to come in.]

The three nodded their assent, but didn’t yet move, waiting as they were for Leon to finish his quick briefing.

[Gaius, Anna, Anshu, Alcander, Val,] he said to the other five in his retinue.  [You’ll be looking for eggs and wyvernlings.  Use Helen’s stealth salves.  Don’t take risks, always look to yourselves first.]

Those five nodded, and then the former four turned to Valeria.  She was, in effect, Leon’s second-in-command for his retinue, so their group would answer to her while they were apart from Leon.

Finally, Leon addressed everyone.  [Naiad and I will be making distractions and providing cover from the sky.  We should be enough to keep any wyverns off your backs, but don’t let that dull your caution.]

His entire retinue nodded to him.  They knew the risks, they’d all accompanied him on the last wyvern hunt.  But none of them begged to leave.  Alcander and Alix, in particular, were grinning like mad, clearly looking forward to this.  The retrieval of wyvern eggs was a terribly dangerous accomplishment, and one rarely done.  If they pulled this off, it would be quite the feather in their caps.

Leon smiled, appreciating their determination and, in some cases, great anticipation.  [All right,] he whispered to them.  [Let’s get to it.]

Leon quickly pointed out to Valeria the caves they needed to search, watched as they first tied some ropes around their wrists to connect themselves so they wouldn’t lose each other, then apply Helen’s stealth salves which caused their bodies to mostly fade from sight—Valeria using her invisibility necklace instead—then saw off her group as they started quietly moving through the rocky vale.

Then he turned back to his Lance crew and escorted them up to the top of the ledge he’d noticed earlier.  It was at the top of a long slope that rose about halfway to the top of the ridge that flanked that part of the vale, giving commanding views of the entire vale.  With Leon’s Lightning Lance, they should be able to provide some fire support if it was to be needed, but even if the Lance failed, they could still fall back on their magic and ranged weapons.

As soon as he reached the top of the ledge, Leon pulled the Lance out of his soul realm.  It was a complex weapon, but one that was fairly easy to use.  Once he set it up, it just had to be aimed, loaded, and fired.

Once it was in place, though, Leon made sure to give it one last quick check up.  He’d adjusted the enchantment scheme so that power wouldn’t be caught in the amplification loop anymore, so the weapon should be fully functional—and as far as he could tell, it was.  He was nervous as all the hells that it would fail, though.

After confirming that his retainers could fire the weapon, he then turned to Maia.

[Let’s take the skies,] he said to her with a deep smile, the statement alone bringing him no small amount of joy.

Maia smiled and nodded, then mounted Anzu.  She had a flight belt of her own, but it was better for her to conserve her magic power for any wyverns that might poke their heads out of their lairs.  Fortunately, Anzu was much faster than most wyverns.

‘All right…’ Leon thought to himself as he conjured his enchanted black opal into his left gauntlet.  ‘Let’s see if this works as well outside of a controlled environment…’

He channeled his magic power into the opal, and his body darkened like it had been swallowed by darkness.  He was disappointed to see the opal still failed to make him intangible, but as the shadows that covered his body had him fading from sight, he couldn’t fault it too much.

Once he was completely invisible, he activated his flight belt, rising into the air above the lance emplacement.  From a greater height, he was able to see a few promising places for ambushes, if he could find the right bait…

The reason wyverns were leaving their lairs was to find food for their young, and many hunters who preyed upon them used that against them, using food as bait to lure the beasts into traps.  Leon generally avoided such tactics when he was hunting as he was usually more interested in the hunt itself, not just waiting around for prey to come to him.  He didn’t deny the efficacy of the tactic, however, and he wished that he’d brought some kind of bloody meat with him to use in this instance.  As it was, he had little more than preserved food, mostly the kind of stuff that he doubted wyverns would look twice at.

However, he figured he might as well give it a try; in his experience, most wild beasts wouldn’t skip a free meal even if it wasn’t something they’d usually consume.

So, after a quick search, he found what seemed like a good place not too far away from one of the inhabited caves he’d noticed.  He hadn’t seen any wyverns coming out from there since he’d last seen a brown wyvern enter, so he was assuming there was still at least one mature adult in there.

[I’m setting a trap in the northwest,] Leon whispered into his retainers’ minds.  None save Maia could respond, of course, and most were invisible, but he did see the Lance crew slowly turning the weapon in his direction several miles away.  To his river nymph lover alone, he said, [Get out of the air, I don’t want you to give away that this is a trap…]

Maia sent back a feeling of acknowledgment, though without any words.  Leon saw her steer Anzu toward the ground where they could disappear among the rocks of the vale floor.

When he reached his identified spot, he dropped enough dried meat on the ground to last a mortal for weeks, though was little more than a mouthful to a wyvern, and placed a couple of explosive spells within the pile.  Around the pile he arranged several additional alchemical explosives of Helen’s design.

And then, he sent a wave of wind magic careening into the wyvern’s cave.  It was ludicrous to think such a thing would cause any damage, but it should be enough, Leon hoped, to get the attention of anything within and maybe draw it out far enough to notice his bait.

Sure enough, not even five minutes later, the large brown wyvern he’d seen entering the cave came slinking out, her orange reptilian eyes narrow with caution, though standing proud on wing and leg.  Her aura was that of a sixth-tier human mage, and Leon could feel it permeating the stone around her, just waiting to impale anything that jumped out at her.

But, of course, nothing did, and after a couple seconds of her looking around, searching for whatever had made that gust of wind, she seemed to relax slightly.

And that was when she noticed Leon’s bait.  It was hardly appetizing, but it was close to her cave and clearly edible.

She advanced toward it slowly, cautiously, her instincts telling her that there was no such thing as a free meal.  But she kept creeping closer, her eyes on her surroundings rather than on the meat itself.

She finally reached it, and after confirming for the thousandth time that she was alone, she bent down a bit to sniff at the bait… and was immediately enveloped in flame.  The shockwave of the explosion rocked the entire valley, proving to be a far greater explosion than Leon had been expecting.  The explosion was beyond deafening, probably alerting every wyvern for fifty miles that these lairs were under attack, and Leon noticed that Valeria’s invisibility dropped, though everyone else’s remained intact.

The wyvern herself vanished in fire, but when it cleared, she was lying upon the ground, trying to breathe, but the holes in her chest were bleeding profusely and squeaking as air slipped through with every ragged breath.

She struggled to rise, a few weak whimpers escaping her snout, but her strength failed her.  She was going to die, her wounds were too serious, but Leon wasn’t going to wait for that.  He felt terrible seeing such a magnificent beast rendered to such a state, but his years as a hunter had largely shattered any hesitation he might’ve felt in this situation.  Without missing a beat, he positioned himself above the wyvern, and dropped from the sky.

He hit her like a meteor; lightning burst from his body, flowing through his armor like it was his own skin, peeling back even more scales from the wyvern’s head and killing her instantly.

Leon sighed when it was over, the beast dead beneath his feet.  Such was life, but he couldn’t help feeling some type of way as he collected her body and did his best to pull her into his soul realm as quickly as he was able with something so large.  As he worked, Maia and Anzu took back to the skies, making sure he was covered from any other threats.

He wasn’t even halfway done when a roar was heard resounding throughout the valley.  Another wyvern came barreling out of her lair about two miles away, this one green, rage in her eyes as she searched for whatever had made that explosion.  Her eyes locked upon Maia flying upon Anzu, but she barely had time to roar a challenge before a water dragon materialized around her, wrapping its long, slender body around her neck and snapping it hard and fast.

Like that, another wyvern fell.

But then a third came flying out of her lair a mile to the north, red in color, and a moment later, another red showed herself only half a mile to the east from a lair high up in the mountains that Leon hadn’t noticed before this moment.  Of these two, the first one was sixth-tier, but the second appeared to be equivalent to a newly-ascended seventh-tier.

Leon, just finishing up wrapping the brown wyvern in sufficient magic to pull her into his soul realm, did so, and then turned to face the stronger of the two wyverns.  Both had noticed him and Maia, but his river nymph was closer to the weaker one, so he left that one to her.  The stronger one came diving down the mountain, bestial madness in her eyes.  She wasn’t as large as the red Leon had seen the evening before, but she was filled with the wrath of a mother whose home was being threatened.

Leon didn’t let her express that wrath and conjured a lighting bolt in his right hand.  The Thunderbird’s silver-blue lightning coursed through him, forming the bolt, and when he hurled it, the bolt streaked across the sky faster than the wyvern could react to.

For just a moment, right before it slammed into her body, the bolt seemed to curve slightly, as if it were forming the beak of a raptor, then exploded upon the red.

She fell, not quite dead, but heavily injured anyway.  Leon flew toward her, intending to finish her off, but on the way, he spared a moment to check up on the others and saw that Maia had the other red in hand, while Valeria was fading back into invisibility as she led the rest of the retinue to secure the first of the caves.

But then, the red that Leon downed rose again, fury blazing within her as she opened her toothy maw, pointed it at Leon, and summoned what power she had remaining.  Fire appeared ready to stream out of her, and Leon, not worried at all about her power, began to conjure another lightning bolt.

Before he could finish, something flew past the head of the wyvern so fast and with such force that her head was whipped around from the shockwave alone, and her magic power was dissipated.  Leon hurled his second lightning bolt, and that one killed the red on impact.

Then he glanced back toward his Lance crew, for the projectile that had so affected the wyvern had been fired by them.  They hadn’t landed a direct hit, but Leon couldn’t say they’d completely missed, either.  Mostly, he was glad their aim was accurate enough at a distance of almost three miles to have gotten that close, and that the weapon was functioning as it should be.

He sent the Lance crew his congratulations, and then turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

Over the next two hours, he and his retinue brought down five more wyverns who either emerged from their lairs or returned while they were working.  They found more than a dozen eggs, though only two wyvernlings that they had to wrangle and subdue.  Wyvernlings were almost adorable, being pale white in color and having round, innocent features.  They were only the size of large dogs and made little chirping sounds when they tried to roar.  They couldn’t use any elemental magic, yet, and wouldn’t be able to do so until they were bigger, and their scales’ color came in, but Leon’s retainers still treated them delicately and with abundant caution.

However, their work was only halfway done when the ninth wyvern was felled by a combination of Leon’s lightning and Maia’s water.  None of the wyverns had been any of those that had given the huge black wyvern his offering.

Still, as the ninth wyvern hit the ground, an earthshaking roar filled the vale, and Leon saw the huge black wyvern hauling himself out of his gorge, look around with wrathful eyes, and finally turn toward the vale.  They were separated by dozens of miles and Leon was still invisible thanks to his black opal, yet Leon and the black wyvern seemed to lock eyes, both eighth-tier beings sharing a moment where they recognized each other as profound threats.

The black wyvern didn’t roar, but Leon felt his killing intent even over all of that distance.  The wyvern then took flight and made a beeline toward them.

A smile broke out over Leon’s face.  He was worried about his retainers, to be sure, but there was still a large part of him that wanted this fight.  And it seemed he was going to get it.

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