Chapter 97 - Demon Hawk King

After a couple of more rotations of the party's baiting plan, they were able to successfully clear out a majority of the demon hawks in the forest.

It took them almost half a day to finish this. The party started from early in the morning and now it was almost midday.

They quickly took a rest and ate lunch in the clearing. It wasn't pleasant since the abominable smell of charred corpses was lingering in the air. Ainz and Eli were able to alleviate this to some degree with their wind magic, but the disgusting smell still permeated in the air.

They couldn't enjoy their lunch so they quickly finished it in order to quickly begin their Demon Hawk King raid.

"Alright everyone, remember the west side of the forest is still untouched. So there's still an abundant amount of demon hawks. Also don't forget that the demon hawk king might summon the rest of the flock from the other areas of the forest to come and assist."

"That's why I said we should have just eliminated every single one of them before we fight the king!" Ainz added.

Cecil shrugged, "Well, if we did that then we would have to take the entire day to clear out the remaining forest. That's too tedious. Besides with the demon hawk king calling out to its brethren, we can just eliminate as much as we can when they come and attack us all at once!"

"Woah... don't you think that's pretty extreme lead?"

"Pfft, why? Got cold feet now?"

"Hah, no way!" Ainz smirked confidently. "The more the merrier I say!"

"Alright, so here's the plan..."

Cecil began explaining their positioning and roles in the coming raid, once everyone got a clear picture of what they were supposed to be doing, the party quickly set off.

Cecil and Eli would be the two who would attract the attention of the Hawk King's attacks, while Velicia would be in charge of protecting their Mages from the small fries.

Ainz will be their main source of damage while Lucia would be on the side supporting Ainz and dealing with the flock of demon hawks that were going to be attacking them.

Fina would help out with Velicia while also on standby, at the ready to quickly cast healing spells on anyone who was injured.

As they headed in deeper into the eastern area, Cecil had everyone stop while he went ahead to scout out the area. It was already midday so there was no way the Demon Hawk King would still be asleep.

Not to mention all the commotion their group had caused, the entire flock of demon hawks would have already all woken up and would be vigilantly watching the surroundings.

Once he got closer to the area where he first spotted the demon hawk king, it was just as he predicted. The entire flock of birds was alert of their surroundings.

'Just as expected...' Cecil looked around the area and thought that their only choice of action was to head straight in for a frontal assault.

'Or we could just wait it out until sunset and launch another ambush at night...'

Cecil shook his head at the thought, 'No, we have to finish the quest by today. The tournament's ongoing and if we keep on delaying the other groups and factions will only pull farther and farther ahead of us.'

Making up his mind, Cecil quickly rushed back to his party.

"Guys, from what I saw earlier. Our only choice is to do a frontal assault."

Eli frowned and said, "Hey, isn't that a little dangerous?"

"We could also wait it out until the evening and launch a night assault, but that would greatly limit our vision and if we delayed our attack until tomorrow morning to do an ambush like today, then we'd fall farther behind in the tournament."

Eli clicked her tongue at Cecil's reasoning, what he said wasn't wrong. They could also just give up and not raid the Hawk King, but according to Fina's explanation of the Maroon Demon Fruit, it was too big of an opportunity for them to miss out on.

The fruit could be eaten raw or processed into a potion that could help increase an individual's mana quantity. For people who are looking to proceed to the next level, the fruit could be used as a catalyst to help condense their mana into the next form.

For Cecil this was something he didn't want to miss out on. He could use the fruit to help him condense all the mana inside his body into liquid form so that he could officially step into the mana sea stage.

"...let's just do it. Ainz switch with me. I'll attack the bird and you deal with the small fries. Don't worry Cel, I won't be using fire magic. I'll stick with water magic this time around."

"...okay."

The reason why Cecil put Lucia as the secondary attacker was because of her preferred use of fire magic, he was worried that she might burn down the King along with the tree and the fruits.

Seeing as they had to do a frontal assault, it was best to hand the attacking role to Lucia so she could quickly finish things off.

"Let's move out, we're having that bird for dinner!" Cecil spiritedly exclaimed, causing everyone to laugh.

"Ahaha, having a hawk king for dinner, huh? Now that sounds appetizing!" Ainz laughed.

"...are they edible?" Eli skeptically asked.

"Of course! If Lucia and Ainz didn't scorch those birdies into ashes earlier we could've had ourselves a chicken buffet!" Velicia replied in amus.e.m.e.nt.

"L-let's just be careful later, okay guys!"

"No worries Fina! I'll finish things in a jiffy!" Lucia reassured.

The group carefully made their way towards the monsters' nesting grounds. When they arrived, it was just as Cecil had described. The birds were all flying in the air or perching on the trees vigilantly observing the surrounding forest.

When the group got close to the area, the Demon Hawks began screeching and some had started swooping down from the skies and trees to assault them.

The monsters were easily dealt with by the party. They progressed further into the area and finally arrived at the spot where the Demon Hawk King was nesting. It was looking down at the party dismissively.

It screeched into the air and the surrounding forest immediately began to bustle with activity. From afar, Cecil could sense and see that the demon hawks in the forest were making their way towards their king with the help of his Mana Vision.

He immediately whispered to his friends in warning, "Guys, here they come... get ready."

Everyone began to silently get into position. Seeing this, the Hawk King screeched at them, and then it flapped its wings and flew into the air.

Cecil immediately burst into action. He activated Mana Burst and flickered into the air. He appeared just above the Hawk King and hacked down with his sword at the monster's wing.

The Demon Hawk King felt the danger and tried to shift its body away from the attack, but Cecil's strike was still able to connect and the aura wrapped blade sliced off a portion of the Hawk's left wing.

With its wing sliced apart, the hawk plummeted to the ground while screeching in pain. The pained cry from the king caused the surrounding demon hawks to burst into a mad frenzy. They immediately began to assault Cecil's party.

Cecil who was in the air readjusted his body to face towards the flock of demon hawks coming in from afar. He grabbed the hilt of the sword with both hands and positioned it behind him. He wrapped a large amount of mana onto the blade and swung the sword upwards.

"ASCENDING BLADE!"

The Mana that was wrapped around the sword immediately flew forward and smashed into the flock of demon hawks. As the Mana passed through the flock, the demon hawks began disintegrating.

Cecil plummeted to the forest floor and gazed at the battle that was ensuing.

'Okay, that should buy us a little more time."

Lucia and Elizabeth were currently assaulting the Demon Hawk King with wind and water elemental spells and sword strikes. Their figures constantly flashed around the monster at incredible speeds, but the hawk king wasn't a called a king for nothing.

Even as they were moving around and striking it at speeds where sight alone couldn't possibly keep up, the Hawk King was calmly responding to it with spells and blocking the sword strikes with its mana enhanced feathers.

The only reason why Cecil was able to successfully cut apart the Demon Hawk King's wing earlier was because he had caught it off guard. The king hadn't yet reinforced its body with mana and took on Cecil's crippling attack with its body alone.

Ainz and Velicia were dealing with the demon hawks that were occasionally swooping in to interfere with Lucia's and Elizabeth's battle. Fina was on the side casting aqua barriers on Ainz and Velicia while also forming water walls and ice ramparts in the surrounding air to hinder the other hawks.

Upon landing, Cecil immediately rushed into the fray. The Hawk King quickly turned even more vigilant when it saw the human that had cut apart its wing. It screeched and swung its uninjured wing at Cecil, sending forth a flurry of razor sharp feathers flying at him.

Cecil dodged or parried the feathers flying at him. Not missing this chance when the monster's attention was momentarily taken away, Elizabeth dashed in and sliced at the bird's feet.

CLANG

It only resulted in her rapier being repelled, but in the next instant Lucia had also come swooping in and slashing at the exact same spot where Elizabeth had struck at the monster's feet.

The sound of metal cutting through flesh rang in the air. Elizabeth's attack was able to momentarily cut apart the mana that was wrapping around the bird's feet, enabling Lucia's subsequent attack to perfectly connect.

SCCCREEEEEECCCCHHHHH

The demon hawk screeched in pain and furiously thrashed about with its body, sending blade-like feathers flying all around it.

Fina quickly moved her ice ramparts in front while everyone else dodged and hid behind them.

The feathers struck powerfully into the ice ramparts creating cracks or directly gouging the entire rampart apart.

Fina grimaced, but channeled even more mana into her ramparts, preventing them from thoroughly shattering into pieces.

Once the flurry of feathers had stopped, the demon hawks in the surroundings were flying away in fear. When Cecil took a quick glance at the surroundings, the feathers had also struck dead some of the unfortunate demon hawks that were in the projectiles' paths.

Cecil smirked, "Nice, friendly fire."

He then turned to look at the demon hawk king in the distance. It was vigilantly look at their group, but it still looked visibly tired. Cecil smiled and encouraged his party, "It's exhausted itself! Let's bring it down now!"

Cecil pulled out his spear and activated the array inside. The spear was quickly wrapped in a golden aura. He dashed out from behind an ice rampart and threw the golden spear at the Demon Hawk King.

The Demon Hawk King saw the flying projectile and raised its wing to defend, but the golden spear powerfully pierced through its wing and embedded itself into its chest. Cecil quickly arrived in the next instant, he kicked the butt of the spear and embedded it deeper into the monster.

With both its wings impaired, the Demon Hawk King visibly panicked. Seeing the opportunity Cecil created for them, with only Fina as support and Velicia watching their backs, the rest of the party began to assault the weakened monster king.

Not long after, the party was finally able to bring down the Demon Hawk King.