The Sorceress: Blossoming Power

They became wary of the flying beasts surrounding them on air. They were in a disadvantageous position when most of them couldn't fly. 

"Can you not just teleport us to the chameleon's lair, Meirga?" Lengshui asked. Their eyes went to Meirga, eager to hear her say yes. But to their dismay...

"No way I can pull that off. I could have done it, if I could. I can't even teleport myself in my dragon form. But teleporting all of us twice in a day will drain all of my powers too. I might go into hibernation if that happens."

"But you said you teleport with the chameleon." Xinyi said, recalling the gigantic chameleon she fought against.

"He transforms himself into a human before we teleport."

"What? He could transform too?" Xinyi never thought of this before.

"All spirit guardians can. That sly spider can do it too." Meirga said with a wry smile on her face.

All of them looked at the fox-spider, who feigned sleeping on Nianshi's back with its steel web wrapped around Nianshi to keep itself from falling.

In despair, each one left to their thoughts on how to fight or escape from this predicament.

Lofey thought of using fire boosters on his feet, but Tyriece couldn't make flying rocks. Tyriece could manipulate stones like boomerang, but had to concentrate when using one. For certain, he couldn't avoid an attack if he would use this technique. 

The rest began their flight plans, but winning against swarms of flying beasts in all sizes was inconceivable unless the dragons would burn them, of which Xinyi would never allow.

Before they could even think more, the beasts began their assault. Nianshi and Meirga swatted every beast coming their way, sending the beasts in all directions. Yet, these red-eyed beasts got back up and zoomed toward them again and again.

Steel nets came out from the fox-spider's mouth and bottom, catching and sending beasts down through the forests below. The fox-spider was elated to see his nets were an effective attack without killing, but it missed trapping the minute beings. It gritted its teeth in anger as the insects stormed on its head. 

Lofey saw this and burned the insects, charring a bit of the fox-spider's hair.

"Watch out!" The fox-spider winced, smelling the burnt hair.

"Your welcome." Lofey said without restraint. 

This embarrassed the fox-spider and shut its mouth as it sent holeless nets to capture these pesky insects. 

All of them fought against the beasts with all their might.

Although, Xinyi hated killing these flying beasts, but some died after her companions' attacks. There was no other way around.

Xinyi used her light, stunning the flying beasts for a time. They fell down but regained back their composure and flew back toward them. She was desperate but couldn't bear to kill them. 

She tried to communicate through the beasts' minds again, but was only overwhelmed by unending cries of help. And had to close her mind. How could she talk sense to these beings? She was in despair.

"My lady, please forgive me but we need to kill these beasts or it's us who will die," Nianshi said.

Yet, even before Xinyi could reply, a black swarm of unknown species blackened the sky above them and ascended in great speed. 

The two dragons opened their mouths and about to breathe out deadly flames, but Xinyi yelled.

"No, wait!" She closed her eyes and dug deep in her to find the shield essence brightened, as if beckoning her.

"Hurry, my lady." Lengshui yelped as the swarms were already about a meter from them. His body was now an ice, ready to freeze these insects to their death. But he knew he couldn't kill them all, but freezing thousands would pave a path to escape, at least.

Nianshi, Lofey, and Meirga thought the same way with their fire. As the swarm went nearer and the group inhaled deeper to begin their attack when...

"Shield!" Xinyi yelled at the top of her lungs. In that instant, a blue light radiated from her and spread before they could blink their eyes.

The incoming insects rebounded on that blue bubble, and their bodies flickered. Xinyi watched them carefully and saw the fluctuation of the runes slowly fade when a beast's body hit the blue light. With this, a light switched on her.

"Heal," she softly said as she let the blue seed's power to blend with the shield, making the color dark blue. To her delight, her experiment worked. The runes of all the beasts that hit the wall disappeared.

This inspired her more and opened her hands wide. With this action, the healing essence spread out further outside the bubble, hitting most of the beasts a hundred meters radius around them.

This astounded them, but not for long because her body fell on Nianshi's head. 

"Nianshi, leave now. I overdid it," she whispered, but Nianshi could hear it well.

Without delaying a second, Nianshi's claw held Meirga's opened claw. 

"Hold tight." He hollered and flew as speed as lightning away from the swarm. 

Seeing their prey disappeared, the bewildered beasts flew back to the dry forest.

With bedraggled looks and widened eyes, no one could utter a word as they arrived on a lofty peak thousands of kilometers from the swarm. Their hairs, including the spider's, were still swaying on one side before Nianshi could bring his feet down.

They couldn't believe they survived that speed while their flesh throbbed under their skin. But the answer lay in Xinyi's waning blue light, engulfing them before it vanished from their sight. 

"Whew!" Nianshi descended with a heavy smash of his huge feet on the snowy ground below.

Meirga was not fl.u.s.tered the least of the speed and came behind Nianshi, clearing a suitable area of snow, uncaring of the avalanche racing down the mountain. Somehow, no harm done because reaching that peak wouldn't be an easy feat for humans, Chiangda or not. 

Dead-tired Xinyi lay on Nianshi's head. The latter transformed into his human form and lay Xinyi on the snow. The rest gathered around them.

"How is she?" Tyriece asked, running to her side and hugging her tight. "Xinyi, what's wrong?"

Dumbfounded, all stared at him, cuddling her with a pure concern like a relative or to be accurate like a lover does to his beloved, but couldn't say a word to scold him out of concern for Xinyi.

His yells woke her, and she asked to be seated. Then she lifted her arm up, stretching her upper body. "Oh, I'm fine. I'm just dead-tired after using so much of my powers."

"Be careful then, my lady. Exerting so much of your essence would drain you and completely render you immobile for days." Lofey said.

"Really? Is it really that bad, but I feel refreshed now. In contrast, I think my life essence is full to the brim and ready to use again." She looked inside her and saw the shield and blue seed sparkling bright compared to how it was before.

"How could that be?" This astounded the veteran General Lofey. But as he thought deeper, he only experienced draining his powers twice. Those were incidents where he saved his soldiers from a grave attack, burning the whole damn place down. Analyzing deeper, although he slept the whole day after, but he felt refreshed and got stronger.

Then a thought came to Xinyi. "I think draining our powers once in a while will be helpful to us." Her thoughts went to the Chiangdas rituals of draining their powers to the power veins. This might be the reason the ritual existed and not just for the power chains.

With this in mind, she stood up and shouted, "Shield." The blue light appeared again, but this time she had it grow bigger, covering more area compared to what she did earlier. A huge smile broke on her face, thinking her theory was right.

"My shield essence got stronger. I can cover a bigger area now." She let it illuminate for quite some time and siphoned it back in her.

"Are you sure? Can you really tell the difference?" Tyriece asked.

"Yes, I can. I always have a knack on the surrounding things. I'm the observant type."

She suddenly punched Tyriece's face, sending him to the ground.

"Eesh! That hurts." He held his painful skin, but before he could say more, her soft palm went to his cheek, making him speechless, forgetting his painful face and what he was about to say. Her sweet smell and warm touch made him bash and didn't want her to let go, but she did. And he realized the pain was gone that instant.

"See? My healing is faster now." She said, a pitch higher.

Lofey saw Tyriece enjoying the lady's action. He shamelessly stopped this before it would lead to a misunderstanding on the young knight's part. "Hmm, interesting. But you can try it more later. Where are we?" Lofey said.