Agatha The Legendary Guild Master

Gen looked at me with questioning eyes as he said:

"Shouldn't we wait to find a safe place to hide?"

I glanced at the extended yellow lands with green trees as I didn't find anything new beside these two. there was nowhere to hide right now, and our best option was to remain in the air trying to avoid the monitoring of that voice owner.

"This is our best place to hide," I replied.

"Here?!" he said as he pointed to the empty air we were flying through, "like this we will be an easy food for many flying predators."

His words told me much, as he added:

"These demons weren't the only weird things there. flying demons were more scary, and honestly I don't want to face anyone of them right now."

He had a point, if we faced a flying demon then we wouldn't be able to hide, and wouldn't be a match for it. That was of course if this demon was alone, besides the voice owner would spot us again.

This was tough, as the forest down there wasn't a better place either. Gen noticed my hesitation so he tried to convince me:

"We know the situation down there, and we can hide ourselves and defend well using the combo between the balloon and the skill. However here, nah that is hopeless. We will be eaten even before we know it."

His words were really convincing, and the looks of every other player here made it clear to me. I was the only one who seemed to feel comfort and secure right here, as everyone else was aware of what was lying ahead if we continued to fly like this.

"Sigh, ok I will move the balloon down, select a spot for us to dock. It must be easy to defend and hard to attack," I said.

"Ok, you can lower the balloon further and I will tell you when there is a suitable spot to stop at," Gen said.

I began to control the balloon and make it fly on a lower altitude to the degree that you could see the tops of the trees perfectly from the balloon and even feel you could touch them.

However I was feeling insecure about flying like that, as the ground was so close and any ground demon could easily see us.

However I wouldn't just lower the balloon and dock at any place, I must use this rare opportunity and select the best terrain for me and my players.

"Princess, look," Gen suddenly yelled as he pointed out towards a certain place. I moved my eyes following his fingers hoping to see a suitable place to dock, however what I saw made me feel somehow stupid.

There were people, normal humans who were trying to escape the hunt of multiple large dark red colored demons like the ones lying in my balloon.

This wasn't a weird thing, as the weirdest thing ever was the presence of a couple of white colored demons who were running side by side with those humans.

They seemed to escape from the same enemy, and I felt they were on the same side with humans. How could this be possible?

"Should we help or not?" Gen asked with a stressing tone. He had the right to feel stressed, as the dark red demons only needed less than five minutes to catch and kill everyone escaping from them.

Well, I had to admit I didn't even imagine the possibility of sides inside the demon ranks. This came totally out of the blue and hit me without any notice.

My hesitation didn't last for more than ten seconds, as I declared my intentions with actions.

I turned the balloon to head towards this weird battle as I tried to get closer to the dark red demons as fast as I could.

It didn't take long for the demons and I to be close enough so I could use my balloon skills upon them. my appearance came like thunder which had no notice and caused great calamity upon my enemies.

"defensive reflective shields activate."

I started using my trump card, as it could perfectly absorb the attacks coming from these demons and reflect these attacks with some enhancements back to them.

These demons weren't smarter than the last ones, as once they spotted the balloon blocking their way, they started to use their strongest attacks to destroy it.

This made the battle easier than expected, as once the attacks fell on the balloon, the defensive shields of these demons were hit strongly by the effect of my balloon skill and were shattered to pieces.

My players led by Gen didn't need my orders this time to finish off these demons. The number of these demons was much larger than before, as they were about twenty five demons.

This battle ended swiftly as it started, and the balloon was led by me to land beside the fallen demons as I ordered:

"Move them in now, and be ready for any newcomers."

The players were more used to my way of fight, so they expected I would do this move when the demons were slain. They moved in unison to carry the large bodies of the demons and put them beside their dead brothers.

These actions grabbed the attention of the humans and demons who were flying for their lives. They stopped running as they watched the brief battle with great shock.

The efficiency of my balloon was way beyond their expectations, and the nightmare they were running from ended abruptly simply like that.

I had many questions for them, however just as my players were busy mobilizing the demons and I was about to go there and ask for them to come over and talk, I heard a regular rumble coming from far.

"Is this cavalry again?" I muttered with great annoyance, however the look of horror over the faces of those I just saved piqued my interest at once. they just looked at me as they moved their lips to say something before they turned around and ran to disappear in the woods.

"What's wrong with them? did they say something to you?" Gen came to stand by my side as he asked with confusion.

The demon cavalry was a mighty weapon, however these people and demons had seen my balloon and realized its strong traits, so why did they do this?

"They told me one word," I replied as I began to focus more on the humming regular rumbling sound coming from far.

"What word?" Gen asked as I turned to gesture to the players behind to move faster. There were only five demons left on the ground and these bodies were about to be lifted towards the balloon.

"Run!"

I muttered softly as I felt more distress when I replayed that scene in my mind again. the attitude they used to deliver this message to me was peculiar. The distance between us wasn't that large to begin with, so why did they just move their lips to warn me?

There was only one explanation, sound! The sound we made was risky to us.

'Use the team chat and organize things from there with the players. let them be more careful and not to issue any sound at all.'

I sent at once privately to Gen as there was no time to waste. The enemy who was closing on us from far away was unknown, however it was obvious it could be attracted using sound.

That was weird, as the enemy was monitoring our movement first using the sound in our heads, and now the enemy could use our voices to locate us. Sound had a special place here it seemed, however I had no luxury to think about this as my players managed to pull the remaining demon bodies into the balloon and they jumped into it.

I didn't delay as I began to move, and at the same time I used a defensive skill:

"Silent fog skill activates."

The balloon began to fly higher and higher, however it was clouded by a thick layer of fog that shielded us from the eyes and the ears of everyone watching us.

We were still in the daylight, so the fog was more resembling a cloud than anything else. The balloon moved higher and higher until it reached a suitable distance away from the ground.

'Tell me, is my balloon special or not?' I sent this question privately to Gen, who turned to look at me with surprise as he replied in chat:

'Sorry, didn't get your point.'

'I mean can anyone guess the skill list of my balloon by first glance or not?'

That was the issue that was bugging me, and his answer made me more worry than before as he said:

'Its skill set is common to any balloon, however the skill efficiency might be different .'

That meant these humans and demons back there recognized the skills available to my balloon, and if they knew and ran then my balloon was worthless.

I didn't wait to confirm my doubts, as I decided to trust my feeling which was warning me of staying here.

So I began to direct the balloon to move as fast as it could away from here. I selected the direction where these humans and demons fled to, as they seemed to know better than me here and they wouldn't run towards a dangerous place, right?

Suddenly I felt an elbow hitting my side, and just as I turned to yell at whoever did this I putrefied in my place when I saw what was back at the place we just left.

"What the hell is that!"

In front of me I found a huge mountain-like thing that was moving. That mountain had long weird shaped arms that sometimes appear and others disappear like they were illusions.

I hoped this thing would be an illusion, however Gen's words made this a fantasy:

'T-T-This is Arbandar Giant.'

'What?' I asked with disbelief, was this mountain like thing known to him as well.

'It's the thing that killed my master and made me and all my mates become slaves.'

I was watching his expression as there was extreme hatred, extreme to the degree I never met before. I swallowed my throat which was desert dry. If such a thing killed a mystic art master that had level one hundred players as his aides, then what about me? would this thing even bother to fight me?

I felt like I was already dead, a dead person trying to escape his doom without any hopes of success.

Dam it!