Link held the Eye of the Earth propped in his left hand while his right swung the bone club, head wagging, mouth muttering incantations, his face one big smirk of satisfaction. He could not wield two staffs at once—the Eye of the Earth could itself serve as the medium for casting divine arts—but Link had long since gotten used to waving the chief's scepter around.
As he cast, the calm pool water began to move, a whirlpool forming at its center; the whirlpool spun wider and wider, and the water seemed to grow heavy, flowing visibly slower now, slapping the rocks with a deep, humming boom. Link was still using his specialty, earth elemental divine arts. If anything was hiding in that pool, it would not be able to stand it.
Sure enough, a strange roar came out of the cliff wall near the water's surface, and four ugly big heads suddenly popped up, their huge mouths full of fangs and jagged teeth—one mouth could swallow half a man whole. One of the heads spotted Metatron at the water's edge and immediately ducked back again; that was probably the big iron-armored beast whose claw Metatron had severed last time.
Metatron had already drawn his sword and was standing at full guard—when the situation changed in an instant. A long whip mottled with golden spots came flying silently out of the pool close to the bank, lashing straight at Metatron and Link.
On closer look it was an iron-armored beast's tail, but plainly longer and thinner than those of the big iron-armored beasts, its dark horny scales covered all over with golden-yellow spots. It came urgent and fast, yet without a whisper of wind. The tip curled down out of midair, drew an arc that carried it past Metatron in front, and went straight for Link behind him.
If that had landed squarely, Link would have died on the spot. Metatron bellowed and raised his sword to chop upward; the blade blazed with dazzling light and carried a formless force, as though it could brace heaven and earth and hold the long tail aloft, keeping it from falling, pinning it in the air to be cut by the sword's radiance.
Divine arts reinforced his sword technique, making it far more powerful than before. The sword did not cut into the tail directly, and yet it rang out like metal striking metal. Metatron had, in effect, propped the tail up where it could not reach his own head. His boots sank into the soil as well—plainly the pressure on him was enormous. That lashing tail actually carried the heaviness of earth elemental divine arts.
But a tail is soft, remember. The middle section bowed upward with the momentum of the sword, and the tip still whipped toward Link—only a little slower, a little weaker.
While Metatron swung, Link had also cast a divine art to cover him, earth elemental magic with heavy and slowing effects, but it did not accomplish much. The one springing the ambush had to be the iron-armored beast king; rearing that long tail in the water it had monstrous strength, as though it did not care that its own body felt heavier, and it was not slowed much either.
Link, in the middle of casting, had his line of sight blocked by Metatron. He looked up to find the tail tip already whipping at him, too late to dodge. In his panic he burst out with unbelievable potential and, through the Eye of the Earth, summoned an earth elemental defense in an instant. Mud or blowing sand—impossible to tell—appeared above his head, a murky, hazy mass of it.
The tail came down and stirred up a burst of yellow-gray light, shattered the earth elemental defense Link had summoned, and its tip just barely clipped his left wrist. There was a crack—Link's forearm was broken, and the Eye of the Earth flew out of his hand. It was lucky that both he and Metatron had blocked the blow a little, or his head would have been struck head-on.
Then Amon's shout came from up high: "You two, run—!!!"
At the same moment a string of crisp cracks rang out, like many vessels bursting one after another, and a huge beast suddenly shot up out of the water—but its forward lunge froze solid midair, because a wave happened to surge up in the pool and smash into it, turning into a hard shell of ice that locked it inside.
The iron-armored beast king finally revealed its true form. In length it was about the same as the big iron-armored beasts, maybe even a little shorter, but its build was different—noticeably slender, with a very long tail that accounted for about two-thirds of its total length, and its scales were covered in golden-yellow spots from head to tail.
The moment it launched its ambush underwater, Amon up above had sensed that something was off. He felt the fluctuations of earth elements around him—so one of the iron-armored beasts here could instinctively use the simplest earth elemental detection, finding the people on the bank without ever showing itself. Amon had used that trick himself; he had once discovered Ma Qi following him by sensing water elemental fluctuations.
This iron-armored beast king was clever—it even knew to skip the strength in front and strike the weak point behind, sending its long tail around through the air to attack Link behind Metatron. And the first blow landed!
Link had made a mistake. He used his strongest earth elemental divine arts against the iron-armored beast king, but the beast king itself was skilled in that same kind of earth elemental power, and its power was far greater than Link's, so the effect of his divine arts was sharply reduced. Seeing the power and speed of that tail lash, Amon realized that Link's "intelligence" was wrong!
This iron-armored beast king was definitely tougher than Metatron, no less than a mid-rank warrior, and its command of earth elemental divine arts far surpassed Link's; the two of them together would be hard pressed to deal with it. In this completely unexpected situation it had broken Link's left arm in a single exchange. At such close range, of course the two of them had to be told to run for their lives. Amon also used his strongest divine art skill, rolling waves into ice, freezing the iron-armored beast king inside just as it leaped from the water.
The iron-armored beast king struggled hard; the ice wrapping its body cracked all at once and broke apart immediately. Metatron saw that things looked bad and, obedient enough, turned, grabbed Link, and bolted. A fourth-rank warrior's running speed is astonishing, especially when his life is on the line—even dragging a man along, he ran like the wind.
Thankfully Amon's casting had blocked the beast for a moment and covered their run into the woods; the beast king tore free of the ice and gave chase at once. The shattered ice was swept up by a wind that appeared out of nowhere and became countless needle-shaped, razor-sharp ice crystals that shot through the air at the beast king's eyes.
The iron-armored beast king shut its eyes; the ice crystals could do no harm to its hard scales. It only paused for a moment before charging on, clearly meaning to run Link and Metatron down, and its speed was no slower than theirs. Then fire suddenly blazed up at the edge of the woods—two trees that had just fallen were burning.
This was not Amon's divine art. When Metatron fled into the woods he had swung his sword and cut down two trees to block the path, and Link, with a broken arm and death on his heels, had cast a fire elemental divine art. This time he was much quicker about it than when he burned down his own house—he set both big trees alight in an instant, and then his mana was spent.
The sudden blaze blocked the way. The iron-armored beast king halted and crouched on the ground, gave an angry roar, and leaped with all its might. The beast could not fly, but it jumped very high, clearing the fire outright. When it landed, the damp soil inexplicably turned into a swamp that swallowed its heavy body, and over the swamp a layer of earth hard as stone surged up, pinning its head and forepaws inside.
Amon had cast earth elemental divine arts too—he had no other option; it was the best way to hold the beast king back. The iron-armored beast king in the mud gave a furious roar, a faint yellow glow surfacing on its hide; it forced its way out, smashed apart the hard layer of earth, and kept on chasing, its long tail rising to carve an arc through the air before it vanished into the thicket.
Three times in a row Amon cast to block the iron-armored beast king, buying Metatron and Link enough time to get away. After that he could only wish the two of them luck, because he had run into trouble of his own.
The moment the beast king disappeared into the thicket, one of the fiercest of the big iron-armored beasts had already climbed the cliff wall and lunged at Amon, its huge mouth gaping wide with fangs and jagged teeth. Amon was short—he looked like a full-grown dwarf—and the thing in his hand was a tree branch, plainly nowhere near as dangerous as a warrior's sword; he seemed to have no ability to resist at all. But this big iron-armored beast had run into a wall.
The "branch" in Amon's hand was a whole bar of top-grade refined iron—not only a staff but a weapon, far heavier than a warrior's longsword, and just the thing for dealing with these thick-hided big iron-armored beasts that even a sword could not pierce. From his commanding height, Amon put his full strength into a blow across the beast's shoulder and back, and at the same time a gale of wind wrapped its body and flung it out past the cliff wall.
Never mind the iron-armored beasts—even the warriors and divine artists of the continent had never seen anything like it. A staff striking a body directly and still channeling the power of a divine art: with a single blow Amon knocked the beast off the cliff. It landed in the pool without a splash, but with a heavy thud—and several cracks were smashed across the water's surface.
How could cracks appear on the surface of water? A thick layer of ice had already formed on the pool, and the ice had frozen at a slant. Just now, when Amon cast on the cliff wall and raised a wave to wash over the bank, the water near the cliff had dropped away; once it froze, the mouth of the den was completely exposed.
The Eye of the Earth that had been knocked away dropped into the pool and rolled along the slanted ice straight into the iron-armored beast king's den. Amon could not afford to lose that thing—the Old Madman's message was still inside it. In desperation he swung his staff and roused all the power of the Deep Blue Water Heart, freezing the pool water again and again until the ice grew thicker and thicker, so that the Eye of the Earth would not sink into the water and could still be retrieved.
The big iron-armored beast's fall did not break the ice, and then came a huge clang—another big iron-armored beast toppled off the cliff wall and landed right on top of it. Both beasts were knocked silly. The one still climbing the slope turned around and came down at the sight, while the last one, with a broken claw, had never gone up in the first place.
Amon had smashed one down with his iron bar and brought another down with a divine art, mostly because he had picked his spot well and combined his divine arts with real skill. Amon gave a shout and swung his staff again; a wind rose, carrying a piercing cold fog that swept over the big iron-armored beasts on the ice. The beasts, already frightened out of their wits by him, turned and burrowed into the dense woods at the foot of the slope, abandoning the den by the pool they had been guarding.
Amon's divine arts were stronger than Link's, and his staff was far mightier as well, but more important was that he had the right position and the right method. He knew the habits of iron-armored beasts: they were hibernating animals, and cold made them sluggish and sank them into deep sleep. Mutated big iron-armored beasts were much stronger than ordinary ones, but they still had their inborn habits, and in the end the biting cold drove them off.
But Amon did not dare rashly jump down the cliff to fetch the Eye of the Earth from the den. He had no idea whether the four big iron-armored beasts had gone far, and being surrounded down at the foot of the cliff was no joke; besides, the beast king might come back at any moment, and when that happened there would be no one to cover him.
Then he suddenly remembered there was a companion in the leather pouch slung over his shoulder. Schrödinger clearly understood human speech; Amon at once patted the pouch and called out, "Schrödinger, get down there and bring back the Eye of the Earth, I'll cover you! ... If you don't go down, I'll throw you down."
Before the words were out of his mouth, the cat went swish and leaped out of the pouch and down the cliff, moving with far more agility and speed than the big iron-armored beasts. It vanished at the foot of the cliff only for a moment, then came running straight back up with something long and white carried in its mouth.
Amon's nose nearly twisted with rage. "I wanted the Eye of the Earth, that black godstone—not this bone!"