Nateaser: Reborn As My Love Interest

Dio - Chapter Eight

That flurry came out of nowhere.

"Dio, watch out!" The yell came from my right too late. The beastmen banked away, but I flew straight into the whirlwind of the frozen debris, suffering a thousand tiny cuts. Forced to close my eyes, I lost altitude fast and no sound reached me anymore. I became a plaything for the elements, thrown around by the winds, blind and deaf.

Not even the wyverns predicted this calamity, and I always relied on their sense of danger. Our formation scattered miles apart in just a few seconds, until I couldn't reach them. My mount smashed against the jagged cliffs on both sides of the valley and screamed in pain as it struggled against the currents.

"To the hell with this place!" I cried out, my straps stretched thin from the extreme forces. My luck ran out and my hands slipped. I fell upwards, at least that's how it felt.

The saddle disappeared but it was for the better since only the sound of a horrible thud reached me. The massive beast might shake that off, but I would have died by smashing against the same rocks. The rest of the formation fared barely better, spotting them momentarily, but at least the rear turned around in time.

I went down immediately and the same happened with the entire vanguard. Fortunately, the snow dampened the fall, but death seemed more desirable than to repeat that. From up high, I fell about a hundred feet but luckily didn't order us to fly any higher. Planned to glide through the valleys instead of over the peaks to save the beast's strength, but who expected a whirlwind hidden inside the fog?

"Ugh, at least I'm still in one piece!" I shouted to encourage myself, though everything hurt.

The young wyvern disappeared for a few moments, and in the next the majestic wings were caught up on the rocks, shredded into pieces, and showered the snow in green, poisonous blood. One of the undead champions fell hundreds of yards and bones scattered on a huge cliff, but that was all I could see with this poor visibility.

Two elder wyverns managed to rise above the storm after they dropped their riders along the way. An ogre landed roughly half a mile from me, and observing the impact, I oriented myself carefully. The next moment it all disappeared, but I was sure, he'd remain there. Gathered my strength and popped open a healing potion before heading his way in the waist-deep snow, I struggled to move and pushed against a cold wall that mercilessly slashed my skin.

"Just wait for me!" I yelled, but my voice could not penetrate the winds. It threw frozen snow into my face and forced me to keep my eyes closed. We prepared for the cold, but not for this insanity. Ghell fortress felt like a nice and warm place compared to this hellish storm. Without alternatives, I clenched my teeth to press on and tried to duck under the wind becoming as small as possible. At least my height helped me with that.

There was a good reason we chose to fly north, this part of the continent was hard to traverse. The twin volcanoes called Gates of Hell deserved their names to the last letter, still dozens of miles away. Even the most seasoned adventurers refused to cross this mountain range.

Yet it was still the safest route north since the Sea of Storms smashed any boat into pieces and shallowed anyone who tried to fly over. It took a few hours to cross the mountains even in the air, but I probably jinxed that.

Suddenly, it calmed down and I found myself in the eye of the storm. My journey got much smoother through the valley, but the wind built a literal wall of snow further out, which looked unbreakable. Suddenly as it arrived, the tornado disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The snow imploded and came down hard, the smoke from the volcanoes still twirling in the distance. They obscured my vision, but now and then, the cries of a wyvern reached my long ears. Now that the wind was gone, everything echoed strangely between the mountain peaks so it was hard to tell which way they came from. My sense of direction couldn't recover.