Tales of The Mighty Dragonair

As expected, that leader had taken out one bird's wing, and after a moment it burnt away. After ten minutes, another bird's wing appeared and once he read it, he turned sharply to glance with extreme anger towards Arthur.

'So you have already figured it out?' Arthur inwardly smirked, while his face showed a neutral expression. The leader just gritted his teeth, as the letter he received just now from his benefactor had the most unexpected news for him.

Willy was lying, and he had nothing from the clan head! That was what was written inside the bird's wing that came from Forij just now. After this one burnt, the leader said nothing, except for a loud harrumph, as he returned to look towards the distance with a serious look on his face.

He realized that he was already discovered by his prey, and that alone made him quite vigilant towards Arthur. He didn't know how or when his plans were unveiled, as he was so sure not to make a slightest mistake ever from beginning to end, and that made him wary towards Arthur.

And the desire burning inside him to kill Arthur had been ignited stronger, Arthur must die!

Arthur knew that the leader had discovered his lie, and he didn't give any care to that. He had already returned to the main route, and the moves his enemy could pull here were already limited.

Just as he was observing the moves of his enemy, another bird's wing arrived at him from Forij, with further instructions about what to do next.

The leader just read, nodded his head in admiration, as he then let the bird's wing burn. He then whispered a few unheard words to his followers, but Arthur was focusing on him with all his senses, so he heard what he just whispered.

"blindfolded rat!"

That was the words he muttered, a key word only known to his men. Arthur just chuckled, as this leader was already so vigilant and careful, and so he whispered to Amelia:

"Get me near Lily."

Amelia understood how serious the situation they were at right now, and she realized what Arthur wanted to do. Despite hating Noura, she had to admit that she was the only one here who could help them with info regarding the remaining distance.

She moved smoothly towards Lily's Birdy, and the moment the two got near each other, Arthur didn't say a word, just extended his hand towards Noura, who understood his meaning, grabbed his hand, and jumped over to his side.

This simple move didn't escape the careful eyes of the leader's mages, who hurriedly informed him about this. The leader just smirked, and said nothing, as the plan put by his benefactor was really brilliant.

He was so sure his little sneaky fish wouldn't be able to evade this deadly trap this time. as for Arthur, the moment Noura jumped in, he whispered to her:

"Do we have any enemy clan on our way to the academy?"

She glanced at him with weird eyes, before she replied, in a nod. "There are tons of places where rivaled clans are there," she whispered softly, as this was an obvious thing, not needing her to come here.

He then took out one bird's wing, as he used his fingers as he drew a circle. "Is there any arrangement like this?" he asked. She glanced at his imaginary drawing for a moment, before she pointed to a point, then stretched a long curved line to the front, before it stopped and then she drew a circle.

"The lake of fallen, that is the only place with such an arrangement," she said, before adding, "but no one had ever flown over it to the academy, it's risky, as a very ancient being remains lying there."

Arthur just glanced at her imaginary drawing for a while, before he raised his eyes and looked in coldness towards the leader while muttering to himself, 'Who will you use as a bait then?'

The two smirked at his enemy silently, while the leader was confident about his trap success, Arthur started to wonder about the means to stop it!

"How long to reach there," he asked.

"Six to eight hours perhaps," she thought for a moment before answering, "after that we will have the academy walls in sight in less than three hours," she added.

"When we get near it, just inform me," he simply said, before he returned to his silence, deeply contemplating how to respond to this trap.

The easy way was to change direction, evading the whole trap, but that wasn't feasible to do. This place was such near the academy that he doubted any other route would lead into it eventually. He was forced to walk there, and so he was thinking about how to stop it.

The first thing that came in his mind was to stop the most basic and simple step ever in this trap, the bait!

If he stopped that leader from taking anyone as bait, he would be able to buy himself some time to adapt to the next move of his.

The only problem he had was who and how this leader would kidnap that bait. He glanced at his team, most of them weren't that strong enough to face the direct assault of anyone of the falcon mages.

"Spread the word, just keep our distance between us and the falcon," he muttered softly to Amelia, who just nodded and started spreading the words, in whisper.

Despite doing that, he didn't feel any relief inside, as if there was something missing here. He then started to put an arrangement to his men, and suddenly an idea popped up in his head.

'So you aren't going to attack us in person, but use those minions running all the way behind us?' he thought to himself, as this was the only way this leader could trick him and kidnap one of his group.

This was quite challenging, as those who were able to stop these at front and back were really few! He only had Noura, Amelia, and himself, with others only lacking in either strength or experience.

From the three, he would put one to the front, one in the back, and he would stay in the middle waiting for the real attack to come and went ahead to intercept and aid.