336 Chapter 336: Blizzard

The entire group stood on the ledge and watched as the horde of monsters continued to stampede forward. There were literally hundreds of them – Horned Boariceratops. No, seriously, that was their names. They had a horn at their snout, and another larger one jutting from their forehead. Getting impaled by those rank D monsters would hurt tremendously…assuming you survived getting stabbed and pierced by those massive and deadly horns.

"Phew, that was close." Theodore wiped the sweat off his forehead.

"Good thing you spotted this cliff, Captain." Craig glanced and nodded at Harrison, who in turn smiled in my direction.

"If it weren't for Richard's flying Constellation spirits, it would have been difficult for us to scale the steep cliff wall."

"That's true," Pearl admitted with a laugh. "I was never good at rock climbing."

"It's also a good idea to just avoid such a huge herd of monsters," Sheila added as she glanced down at the unceasing tide of Horned Boariceratops. "Trying to fight all of them would be suicide."

"However, if we continue experiencing interruptions like this, wouldn't we be delayed further?" Lily asked nervously. "At this rate, we won't make it in time."

"And we can't just cut straight through the Den of Dragons either," Yue Chu grumbled, glaring at the valley further below. "Not unless we don't mind becoming food for the dragons. Maybe we can beat one or even two of them, but a whole den of them? Not happening, even if Richard nukes the whole valley."

"That will just attract unwanted attention to us," Bu Fan warned darkly. "Even if we nuke the dragons, there are bound to be other high-ranking and powerful monsters around, and they won't just sit still and watch us nuke the place to oblivion."

"That's right." Theodore noded grimly in agreement. "No point risking it. It's too dangerous."

"Speaking of dangerous," Cody began and pointed into the distance. "Everyone, watch out!"

"!!!"

Everyone stared in the direction in which Cody was pointing. A howling blizzard was rapidly encroaching upon our position, blowing a ton of huge hailstones into the cliff. It was so powerful and violent that it actually lifted the few unfortunate Horned Boariceratops that were lagging behind and lifted them high up into the air, battering them with immense hail the size of small cars.

"It's a blizzard!" Harrison exclaimed, his voice filled with cold dread. "No wonder the Horned Boariceratops were running away!"

"It's coming in our direction!" Lily cried out. A little unnecessary, I might add, but given the dire circumstances, I couldn't blame her or Harrison for stating the obvious.

"Is Blizzard coming to announce a new Starcraft game?" I asked. Everyone turned to stare at me.

"…huh?" Yue Chu gaped dumbly.

"Starcraft?" Lily repeated incredulously.

"What the fuck are you talking about?!" Craig demanded, annoyed.

"Never mind," I muttered. "I was just trying to lighten the mood."

"This isn't the time to be making jokes!" Sheila snapped. I shrugged.

"Should we start screaming and running then?"

"Where can we run?" Theodore asked, looking left and right. The cliff we were on was pretty narrow, and at the rate the blizzard was heading toward us as well as the immense speed at which it was approaching, there was nowhere to escape to. There was also no shelter under which we could seek cover from the storm.

"Pearl! Defensive enchantment!" Harrison ordered without hesitation, turning to our blue-haired healer. She nodded and closed her eyes for a moment, still looking a little pale. Taking a deep breath, she then raised both hands and murmured an incantation.

"Guardian Sphere!"

At her words, a spherical barrier formed over us, a blue-tinted transparent screen that solidified into a protective bubble. And not a moment too soon. The second Pearl finished casting her defensive spell, the howling blizzard slammed violently against her Guardian Sphere. Vehicle-sized chunks of hail relentlessly banged against the seemingly fragile screen, almost causing it to warp inward from the immense impacts.

"Ugh…!"

Perspiration running down her pale face, Pearl struggled to maintain her Guardian Sphere. A few huge hailstones were getting through, smashing their way through her thinning barrier and crashing down upon us.

"Damn it! I'm sorry, everyone!" Pearl almost looked as if she was about to cry. "I won't be able to block all of the hailstones!"

"Don't worry. You've bought me more than enough time."

Holding up my hand, I summoned Black Tortoise. The Celestial Guardian balanced precariously upon the narrow cliff, which was just wide enough to accommodate his massive bulk. Even so, he dug his feet in and slowly conjured a water sphere that reinforced Pearl's Guardian Sphere. The watery barrier managed to deflect the crushing hailstones.

"You really have some kind of Soul Beast for almost every situation, don't you?" Pearl smiled gratefully at me before she sank to her knees, exhausted. Harrison hurried to help her up, but she waved him away. "Can you hold the fort while I recover? I will definitely construct a stronger Guardian Sphere if you give me more time to cast a more powerful version of the spell."

"There's no need for that. Thanks to Richard, I have the time to start constructing a Holy Barrier that should theoretically be powerful enough to protect us from the blizzard." Harrison turned toward me. "Your summoning magic is more flexible, so once I finish casting the spell, dismiss your Soul Beast and allow me to take over. I need you to conserve your mana in case something happens." He jerked his head in the direction of the disappearing horde of Horned Boariceratops. "We might need your Soul Beasts if another pack of monsters show up. They'll be more useful than my holy spells in combat."

"Roger that." I couldn't fault Harrison's logic. He had a valid point. Not that Harrison was bad in combat – on the contrary, he was far more competent than most in fighting – but he was correct in that my Constellation spirits would deal far more damage to monsters and potential enemies than his holy magic. Which, honestly, specialized in defenses and buffs. It was those buffs that turned Harrison into a formidable fighter when he cast them on himself, but certainly they would be far more effective when he cast them on my Constellation spirits.

It was a matter of delegation, I guess.

"I'll leave it to you then," I told him while I made my way toward Black Tortoise. Outside the Water Sphere, the giant hailstones continued bombarding, but they failed to penetrate my barrier. Hah! My Black Tortoise's defensive spells were invincible!

Of course, as Harrison rightly pointed out, they cost quite a lot of mana. I didn't know how long the blizzard would continue for, but it wasn't practical for me to maintain a magical barrier for hours on end. I didn't have that much mana to spare.

"Give me five minutes and I'll be able to construct a strong enough barrier," Harrison told me. I nodded, but wondered about why he needed that much time. It took me five minutes to summon Black Tortoise, which I had already started casting the moment I saw the blizzard. Pearl's Guardian Sphere bought me another few precious minutes, or I would have done it sooner to spare her the suffering. Then I realized that Harrison had his hands full trying to help Pearl. Not only that, he had been silently buffing Pearl's spell with his holy spells before she was forced to dismiss it, which was the only reason why our healer's hastily cast protective spell lasted as long as it did.

Additionally, Harrison was busily calculating a schedule. He decided to let me maintain the barrier for another five minutes so that he could keep his up for as long as possible. Currently, he was also glancing around to take stock of our team and see who was capable of constructing barriers. He swiftly spoke to Dong Fang Yue Chu, who nodded.

"Yeah, I think my firewall should be able to protect us from the blizzard for an hour or so."

"Good. I'll take the first hour or two."

"Wait!" Pearl raised a hand, still breathless from her earlier exertion. "Yue Chu is one of our combatants. I should take the second or third hour. By then I should recover enough mana to be able to maintain a higher level Guardian Sphere."

"Good point," Harrison conceded as he glanced at me. By that logic, he might as well allow me to take the brunt of the blizzard for the first hour since there wasn't much of a difference between getting me to do it and getting Yue Chu to do it. "We'll do that then. But Richard and Yue Chu, both of you should still standby with your spells."

"Gotcha."

Both Yue Chu and I nodded in understanding. As long as we didn't move, we could indefinitely standby with our spells. Like I said, casting spells were akin to downloading a file from the Internet. Theoretically we could pause the casting process at 99% and standby until we needed to complete the casting. While we couldn't cancel the spell once it reached 100% - it would manifest no matter what – we could still pause it at near completion indefinitely…until we moved out of the 100 meter boundary from where we first started casting the spell.

With the blizzard battering at our defenses, it was clear that we wouldn't be going anywhere for a long while, so we wouldn't be wasting our time or mana casting the spells and remaining on standby. Hell, most of the mana expenditure happened during the manifestation and complete casting of the spell (literally 100% download completed), so it wasn't even a waste of mana, to be honest. Of course, we would still have to spend quite a bit of mana, but it was a mere fraction of the amount we would have to spend if we were to complete the spell and manifest it in reality.

If that was the case, it wasn't going to affect us much even if our goal was to conserve our mana for a future battle. Besides, we were a team. We had to share the load, not leave everything to Harrison and Pearl. If something happened to either or both of them, then we would be in trouble if we weren't prepared.

The blizzard continued pounding away at my defenses, as well as the cliff, with gigantic hailstones. My friends instinctively shrank away from the edge, backing away from the sheer drop and going near a second cliff wall that made up the mountain we were now perched on. Since the Den of Dragons was a valley, to skirt around it, we had chosen to follow a ridge atop a mountain that ran along its circumference.

I stayed near Black Tortoise, listening as the massive hailstones bombarded his water sphere and the face of the cliff, shaking large sludges of snow loose and causing them to crash down below. I was reminded of the avalanche that the Assassins sprang on us a few days ago, and idly wondered if it would work on monsters.

Speaking of which, the Boariceratops were no longer present. They had long since fled the area, with the majority of them having outrun the blizzard. Good for them. Even though they were monsters, I wasn't vicious enough to wish such a freezing death upon them. Or something.

"All right, I'm ready! Get ready to dismiss your Black Tortoise, and back away from the edge!" Harrison was looking at me disapprovingly. "It's dangerous."

"Yeah, but I can't just leave my Celestial Guardian alone, especially when he's the one protecting us all."

"Well…I understand, but I don't want you to fall off the edge."

I scoffed at that. "Are you serious? Come on, man. I can't be that unlucky."

"Better safe than sorry. Anyway…Holy Barrier!"

He raised a hand and conjured a golden sphere of light that settled over us. A few seconds later, I dismissed the water sphere and nodded at Black Tortoise, getting ready to return him to whatever spectral dimension he resided in before I summoned him.

That was when I heard an ominous crack.

"…eh?"

None of us realized it, but the constant and relentless pounding of the hailstones had weakened the cliff tremendously, loosening the rock and rendering it very fragile. The massive weight of Black Tortoise – I mean, look at that huge shell, man – amplified the effects of the erosion, and the cliff had been steadily cracking and crumbling below our feet without us noticing it.

To be fair, how could we have noticed it? Not unless we were hanging off the edge and staring directly at the face of the cliff.

Unfortunately, that fact didn't help me one bit. Before I realized it, the ground beneath me and my Black Tortoise gave way and broke apart as a particularly huge hailstone struck the cliff somewhere below. It was a chain reaction. As the hailstone gouged out a huge chunk of rock, the edge of the cliff – already weakened from the merciless bombardment of hail – began to fall apart, and so the ground disintegrated, spilling both me and my Black Tortoise into the chasm below.

"Whoa!"

"Richard!"

"Richie!"

"NO!"

The last thing I saw before I was swept up and away by the blizzard – along with my disappearing Black Tortoise – was the terrified faces of my friends. Good thing Harrison had managed to erect that Holy Barrier of his. All of my friends were safely protected behind that shimmering gold screen.

Not that it was of much help to me.

I tried to summon Cygnus or Aquila, but I knew inwardly it would be useless. I could attempt to summon any flying Constellation spirit – or even Vermillion Phoenix – but there was no way they would be able to fly inside such a violent storm. Like me, they would be caught by the ferocious, freezing winds and sent tumbling helplessly in the air, unable to control their movements.

That didn't mean I wasn't going to try, however. Taking a deep breath, even though the chilling air burned my lungs, I tried to gather as much mana as possible, to complete my summoning spell.

Unfortunately for me, while I was struggling in midair, a particularly large hailstone slammed into my head.

Then everything went dark.