Opening his eyes wide for a moment, Graham quickly brought himself back to his senses. His experience on the field instantly caused him to form a plan.
"Jason, go ring the bell. Bring all fire-cored mages to the castle walls and bring a water specialist and a zoologist to me on the northern tower."
"On it!", Jason moved out as fast as he could, informing the necessary people and alerting the entire castle. The people quickly moved to and fro, as the mages outside the castle stepped in. Many were unaware of what was happening, but the moment they stared upwards, it all became clear.
Tiny dots in the distance, high up in the sky, they moved ever so slightly. All those tiny dots were slowly becoming larger the dots seemed to increase in size.
Graham stood on one of the main four towers of the castle, as the zoologist and the mage who specialized in water appeared before him.
"What kind of animal are we dealing with? Does this weather make any sense?", Graham quickly shot off his questions as he pointed to the respective person. The zoologist adjusted his glasses as he focussed on the large black blob in the sky. Squinting his eyes and sending out parts of his willpower, he tried to get the best observation possible.
Willpower could get you an overall perspective, but you wouldn't have any colors. Only experts in handling their willpower could have such an ability. As the man assessed the animals flying towards them, the other mage was done with his analysis.
"While I'm not an expert when it comes to meteorology, I can tell that these clouds have been magically created. A dry thunderstorm can occur, but this looks like an artificially created one. There's too much magic inside the water droplets."
Graham nodded slightly as Jason also listened in closely. "Why would they do it?"
"Why? Uh...", the man halted in his steps as he didn't exactly know who he was even talking about, let alone deciphering the why.
"I might be able to help out with that.", the zoologist said as he rubbed his eyes and cleaned his glasses.
"I believe we are dealing with a flock of Croctows," the man said with confidence, the pride gleaming of his face, yet all three present didn't understand it in the slightest.
Graham also wasn't in the mood to act like he knew it all. "And in human tongue?"
The man almost felt offended as he put his glasses back on. "Exactly what I said, at first I thought we were dealing with a flock of Cockatrices, but those don't exactly live in group. After checking their body types a bit further I knew it couldn't be Cockatrices. You see, these birds have eight limbs. Four wings, two arms, and two legs, combining in a stunning force of nature."
The man was about to continue as Graham held his hand out. "What are they, how do we deal with them, and how are they related to the storm?"
"Ah yes, of course. You know Monstrous Crows? The big mutated crows that formed due to a mage's failed experiment? These are the smaller forms that did succeed. They are about as big as a toddler, not counting their wingspan of course. They can use lightning to their advantage. Furthermore, they have a horn on the tip of their beak that's capable of harnessing the energy and shooting it off somewhere else. In practice, it's mostly used to stun or paralyze its prey."
Jason stared at the cloud in the distance as the water specialist couldn't help but worry. "We're its prey, aren't we?"
"That's indeed strange," the zoologist said as he turned around to inspect the flying flock.
"Why is it strange?", Graham asked as he kept his head cool. Staring at the group and tried to estimate its power. It didn't look like there were any Rank 4 monsters included, which soothed his worries a lot.
"Well, these magical beasts rarely go after humans, deeming us a threat too big to tackle. They normally just hunt other animals."
"There's an exception for everything. Are they weak to fire?", Graham asked as his initial plan was to just launch fire at them. When he saw the dark spot in the sky back in his office, he just assumed that whatever could fly would be weak against fire, but since they had someone who clearly knew what he was talking about, it was worth the effort to ask.
"Yes, they are even afraid of fire. It's still an animal at the end of the road. As long as we make it clear that we aren't prey worth catching, they'll move on," the man said confidently to which Graham smiled slightly.
"I'm afraid it won't be so simple."
Hearing that voice of warning, Graham turned to face Jason. "You've been acting up since the night, and now this? Tell me why Jason."
Jason averted his eyes as he simply stared at the flock in the distance. Heaving a sigh, he pulled back. "It's fine, we just can't rely on a single plan, that's all I'm saying. The weather was created artificially, I don't think those birds can do this, right?"
They all looked towards the man who polished his glasses again. "How am I supposed to know? I study beasts, sure, but I don't know every aspect of them, this beast isn't even naturally found in nature but artificially created. I don't believe it has the mental capacity for such a move, but I don't have any certainty."
"See? There are most likely mages running around the place as well. We should be careful."
Graham looked at Jason and saw the worry in his heart. While not directly displayed on his face, Graham knew him too well. "Fine, get Murph from the archive, will you feel safe if he's here as well?"
"Yes, I'll go request his presence right away. In the meantime I'll also ask the visiting secretary to join us as well."
"Go ahead," waving him off, Jason rushed to the archives but when he arrived and opened the door it was eerily quiet. The familiar noise of ruffling papers wasn't present. Fearing the worst, he rushed to the man's desk only to find nobody there. The last papers were neatly placed on their little piles. Signs of struggle not visible.
"Dammit."
Turning around, he spread his willpower, breaking any kind of boundary or social rule that was set up. Scanning the entire place, he found nothing out of place. Crossing the red line, he spread his willpower to the entire castle, analyzing every person that came in his view before finding both people he was searching for not far away.
Rushing out of the archive, he could see Graham angrily stare at him from above the tower, but he ignored the man as he went to the cellar. Reaching the door, it was locked tight, but Jason couldn't care for normal rules anymore as he simply broke the door down and ran downstairs.
The stairs were small and wet, making it easy to slip. The cold eerie atmosphere would make some hesitate, but Jason almost jumped in the dark to find what was there.
Reaching the bottom, the cellar was a big room lit up by a single chandelier in the center. Wine barrels were placed against the walls, the smell of alcohol and wood reached his nose, but also something irony.
Standing in the middle of the room, the secretary stood in a puddle of blood. On the ground, a single body of an older man. Seeing his surprising visitor, the man almost looked annoyed.
"What an unexpected variable. It seems my calculations weren't strong enough," he spoke in a calm tone as he wiped the blood from a small dagger. "Now, what will you do? I can still spare you if you follow my orders, you know?", the man took a step forward, but Jason swiftly turned around and ran out of the cellar.
The man clicked his tongue. 'After all this trouble, I didn't expect him to be so brazen with his willpower.'
Staring at the body on the ground, the man had but a single thought. 'What's the fastest escape route?'
Jason rushed outside to find that the flock of birds had long reached their position. It was a scene of pure chaos as mages on the castle wall tried their absolute best to keep the monsters at bay.
A massive wall of flames was being conjured to keep the Croctows out, but to no avail as they rushed through it and used their sharp beaks to rip the flesh of the nearest mage.
The entire court was filled with the remaining mages fighting against the birds, 4 to 1, the fight was extremely in favor for the Croctows. Luckily, the mages were a lot more capable, conjuring up shields and projectiles to keep them at bay.
Their defenses could hold back an attack or two, but when ten used their claws and beaks to tear their shields apart, it didn't last long. Turning his head towards Graham, he found the man standing as he ripped the beasts apart with his bare hands. No matter how many attacked him, they did no damage as they suffered immensely.
But by being so busy, he couldn't save the other mages, each now struggling against the attacking monsters. It didn't help that the thunderstorm started to act up and blew mages up who were doing well.
In such a chaotic scene, Jason didn't lose hope as he started to fight the Croctows that were closest to him, helping other mages free. Still, it felt like a drop on a hot plate, as more and more Croctows rushed towards them.
Staring at the castle wall, only Graham seemed to be doing fine as he used a large spear created by fire to swipe a bunch of Croctows from the walls. The lance was twice his size, but that didn't diminish the power contained within as the man swung it around like it weighed nothing, trying to get as many birds in his swing as possible.
Still, a single man wasn't enough as the large remainder of the monsters flooded the main square within the castle.
Most of the Croctows were now in the castle grounds, fighting the mages. Their individual strength was nothing grand, but combined they sure exhausted most mages. The fight kept going as the lightning strikes above started to get more and more active, raining lightning down indiscriminately.
As the battle raged on, Jason took a moment to check the current situation. Graham was holding on fine, but the Rank 2 mages were suffering. Luckily their hard work brought the cloud of monsters down a ton.
The castle walls were covered in corpses of both monster and men. Rivers of blood formed as the bodies piled up. Up on the wall, Graham was standing alone at this point as he tried his absolute best to kill as many monsters as he could when he suddenly froze in place. For a mere second, fear was visible on his face as he hurriedly turned around before the entire north wall of the castle exploded in a blinding light.
Flesh of monster and human was blown into pieces as the entire wall collapsed, creating a massive dust cloud. Debris flew all around as Jason tried to get a bearing. Peering through the dust and confusion, Jason knew that whatever hope he had that the Rank 2's near the wall would still be alive was a fool's desire.
Staring up, Graham had disappeared, to Gods know where. When most mages and monsters were dead or exhausted, there they were.
"He sure knows how to make an entrance," a voice appeared from the dust as a blond mage wearing a simple white mask that hid all facial features appeared on top of the debris, quickly making an end to any Rank 2 mage that survived the initial explosion. The Croctows also suffered immense damage, but there were still plenty.
Some had the idea to assault the man, but he simply looked in their direction before they scurried away.
"Let's just get this over with. We still have 3 other places to visit," a calm and collected voice joined the former. Jason watched from afar as any mage that was still standing almost instantly died.
Both the mages were killing machines as they instantly detected the surviving mages and shot off spells that would either immobilize or kill. One was using a Blue Flame sword as he threw them around, causing explosions everywhere as the other used smaller Pure Mana swords that floated around him.
Jason knew he stood no chance against them. Quickly drawing upon his strength he drew a bunch of extremely unique runes and used his hands to conjure up a few signs as well. The mages in front of him stared at him for a second before the blond mage raised his hand. A large amount of energy gathered at the tip of his finger before a Dark Beam was shot out. Even though its speed was immense, right before it hit Jason the world went completely white.
From that white, it turned dark as if someone blew out the last remaining candle in a dark night.
---------------------
In castle Proktor, Graham, the commander, was trying to figure out why the movements of the newly emerged group of mages that ransacked outpost by outpost. Their movements didn't seem to make any logistical sense, so Graham thought there had to be something else.
Looking at their behavior patters, he could guess they might appear near castle Proktor next, but with their erratic movements it was impossible to have certainty. Not that he was worried about his safety, no, there were too many mages here for him to be worried about a small group. Not when his favorite squadron, number 13, was located here.
The reason he was so confident in squadron 13 was because of the man leading it, Jason Moore. A man who had not a single failed mission in his records and was capable of figuring out any question or problem if he had been given some time.
As he was revered by many of his colleagues, he was also granted a separate room to sleep in. Sadly, during this night, Jason had been having a nightmare, making the sweat beads come forth from his forehead.
Opening his eyes wide, Jason was shocked wide awake by a lightning strike. A searing headache forced his eyes shut. He barely had the time to acknowledge his surroundings before another flash appear from his window, bathing his room in light for a mere split second.
He didn't bother counting it out, as the noise of thunder appeared.
'Still two miles.', getting out of his bed, he started to heavily cough. His coughing fit was intense, making him grasp his chest out of pain. When he was done, he felt lifeless for a bit. Using Light magic, he forced himself awake.
Wiping his mouth, he furrowed his brows as he walked up to the window. Seeing the thunderclouds in the distance, he knew something was approaching. 'Third attempt.'