The witch's nostrils expanded as her face started to protrude. From every scale that was expanding, drops of blood fell out, causing her once pure white scales to be fully covered in a layer of crimson. Her hands and fingers elongated as her already existing talons grew into giant claws. Her body expanded in size, her scales unable to keep up with her rapid growth, leaving gaps of exposed, bleeding flesh beneath her now ripping robe, which became fully scarlet.
As this transformation unfolded, a figure emerged from the deeper parts of the cave. Hearing the commotion had his doubts fully revealed to him. "Anna, you should have listened. What were you thinking?" the man said, slapping his hand to his face, revealing that this was the witch's apprentice, Roderic.
He was a man with cold blue eyes and ash-black hair that fell to his neck. Two large blue crystal earrings swayed in the wind the witch was producing. He wore a long black fur coat that reached his knees; the coat's fur bore the same engraving as the witch's. His pants were white, and his shoes were black. Whatever lay beneath his fur coat remained hidden, as it was tightly closed.
"One warning should have been enough, but you still continued. This is what you get for being greedy with your echo," he said, sighing to himself.
"Now for my escape, how should I proceed with this?" he said, taking his left hand up to his chin as a way to think. "Hmm... Perhaps I'll just sprint. The wind rend that is controlling her now seems to be totally out of it anyway," he muttered, taking his right foot forward. He swayed his entire body a little back and forth to warm himself up, before full sending it.
Every step Roderic took launched him airborne before he landed and repeated the action with his next leg. Roderic moved as fast as a horse, propelling himself toward the exit to escape the grasp of Anna.
As Roderic was running, one of the knights lying near the wall started to cough but was still unconscious. The other knight, slightly over his body, was bleeding profusely from his right leg, which was completely mangled.
"Anna," reacting to this, swiped her chain toward both of them. Roderic, watching, couldn't possibly reach them in time, as the green hazy slash hit the knight with the mangled leg. The slash cut straight through the knight's armor like butter, splitting him into two pieces and killing him instantly. The knight underneath, the one with the bucket hat, was luckier—his armor was only slightly dented, but the blood from the severed knight above sprayed onto the ground and completely soaked him in warm crimson.
"What the hell, Wind Rend! That was unnecessarily brutal, but I believe that you might have missed that Solarian knight underneath—he seems to still be alive since his armor is only slightly dented, I think. But should I risk it to try to save him? He might not even be alive anymore." Roderic thought as he sprinted. After a few more steps, his conscience got the better of him, forcing him to veer toward the poor knight trapped below. He knew most of these knights were good people who were just trying to protect the Solarin kingdom from the dangers that rends could bring.
Suddenly, while Roderic was moving, the wind rend whipped her chain towards Roderic, sending a massive wind wave crashing towards him. For Roderic, this sounded like a thousand damned souls flying straight at him. Roderic reacted by exposing his inner fur coat, grabbing the chain strapped around his waist, which had an icy-blue glow. This glow brightened as a massive pillar of ice erupted upward, hitting the stone ceiling with tremendous force, causing the cave to tremble. The massive wind wave hit the ice, breaking it but stopping the force from hitting Roderic. "Such a strong attack—she must be close now, so I better hurry up and get the f*ck out of here!" he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Roderic then jerked to a sudden halt, hunching forward and shoving Sidrian's mangled corpse aside as he scooped up Lucian and hoisted him over his shoulder. Without missing a beat, he resumed his desperate sprint, conjuring ice pillar after ice pillar to deflect the relentless wind attacks. "The attacks just keep coming!" Roderic muttered through his gritted teeth, his eyebrows furrowed in frustration.
While running, the ground grew wet and slippery beneath his feet. Roderic, now at a safe distance, dared to shift his focus from the wind rend and glanced down. The flickering lamplight revealed blood and viscous fluids coating the stone floor, making his stomach turn. "Disgusting! Those knights must have had companions with them. Retainers, most likely. I hope their deaths were at least swift," Roderic muttered, offering a brief prayer for the fallen.
At the same time, the wind rend seized greater control over Anna's expanding form. The scales finally caught up with her growth, completely covering what remained of her human flesh. Suddenly, wings burst from her back, violently expelling her internal organs in a bloody explosion that splattered across the cavern walls. One kidney struck Sidrian's severed corpse directly, embedding itself among his mangled remains.
Roderic steadied his steps on the slippery stone as he finally reached the cave mouth. "YES! I might actually survive this!" he gasped with relief, a weary grin breaking across his exhausted expression as sweat continued to stream down his face and neck.
At last stepping onto the soft grass beyond the cave, the harvest moon's orange light bathed his weary features. "What a beautiful night it is, huh," Roderic murmured, gazing up at the full moon suspended overhead, its glow reflecting in his cold blue eyes and gleaming off the polished steel of Lucian's armor.
Suddenly, a massive explosion erupted from the cave as an enormous white dragon burst forth. Four tornadoes spiraled out with her, each heading in a different direction, destroying everything in their path while growing larger in size by the second.
Anna had now been completely transformed into a dragon with an elongated, sharp horn protruding from her face, being the apparent source of the fierce winds swirling everywhere. The horn gleamed with beautiful scales that shone like gold, perfectly complementing the pristine white scales covering the rest of her body. Her eyes had become a brilliant golden color, with irises that burned an even deeper, more intense shade of gold. Long and thick threads floated around her in the wind, shimmering with a green tint and barely visible through the strong winds. She had completely turned into a rend.
Roderic slowed down, staring at the chaotic scene. "Sh*t," he cursed as he noticed one of the tornadoes seemed motionless in the air. The terrifying realization struck him immediately. He twisted his body into a runner's stance and exploded forward like a shot from a bow.
Roderic felt the toll of his overexerted abilities, his chest heaving as he gasped for air as the tornado behind him grew bigger and bigger.
The tornado finally swallowed them both whole. "Accursed tornado!" Roderic cursed internally, his face contorting into a grimace of fury and desperation. "What now? I have some immunity against having my breath stolen, but this poor knight doesn't possess the same abilities we mages do—unless he's secretly a mage himself, which I seriously doubt." His thoughts raced as he fought to keep the violent winds from tearing the air from his lungs, his grip tightening on the unconscious knight slung over his shoulder.
But as these thoughts raced through Roderic's mind, a massive boulder came hurtling toward them through the swirling chaos.
Roderic was about to be hit by the giant boulder. However, he thrust up his right hand, revealing it to be covered with small black scales that reached his palm. His nails were sharp draconic claws, black with blue tips that emitted an icy blue mist. Nevertheless, it was still nothing compared to Anna, who was completely covered from head to toe in scales.
The boulder struck, and Roderic forced his arm muscles to absorb all the kinetic energy before letting it course through the rest of his body. Small cracks spread across the boulder's surface where his claws had pierced and embedded themselves.
Roderic lost a small portion of his breath but managed to retain the rest. Luckily, he could normally hold his breath for up to forty minutes, but with the tornado compressing his lungs, he had ten minutes at most to escape.
"I must wonder, what did I possibly do to deserve this?" Roderic thought as he was barely holding on and being whipped around. Just when his luck couldn't possibly get any worse, it did—another boulder came hurtling from the opposite direction, perfectly aligned to collide with the one Roderic clung to.
With no means of using his echo, Roderic had only one option: try to release himself from the boulder. But his claws were embedded deep, and when he tried to pull them out, he realized he was completely stuck. Just as he struggled with his trapped claws, Lucian abruptly woke up, whipping his head from side to side in confusion. When he instinctively tried to take a deep breath, he realized his lungs were completely empty. Panic overtook him, and he fell unconscious once more.
Roderic, losing his focus thanks to the movements from the knight, stopped trying to get his claws out only to realize that the other boulder was right behind the boulder he was clinging to. It hit, causing Roderic to get thrown right off the boulder, releasing his claws and sending him flying straight up. The howls from the tornado started to hurt Roderic's ears as they got louder and louder until they finally stopped. Roderic then truly experienced what it was like to fly, sending him flying away from the wind rend. Below him, he watched as it rapidly constructed a giant island in the sky, held aloft by the four tornadoes while simultaneously laying the foundation of a massive castle atop it.
"Rends sure do move fast when it comes to laying their nest, huh," Roderic said, his expression slightly astonished by the speed of construction that rends were capable of. His vision of the floating island slowly disappeared as he neared the ground, now quite far from the wind rend's nest. Roderic began preparing for landing, positioning himself mid-air and pulling the knight against his chest. He wasn't worried about himself—he could easily handle the pressure with his enhanced abilities—but the knight was most likely not a mage. The only option he believed could prevent breaking the man's bones was to take the full impact himself, using his body as a cushion while landing on his back with the knight protected against his chest.
Roderic landed with a crash, his fur coat now caked with dirt, but he had successfully absorbed most of the impact and spared Lucian's body. Roderic remained there for a moment, finally allowing a sigh of relief to escape as he gave himself a brief rest before rising.
He knew rends usually stayed near the place they descended, with a few exceptions of course. But such exceptions were quite rare, so he felt no need to rush anymore.
Roderic moved over to the knight, placing his fingers on his pulse. Feeling the steady beats, he knew the heart was at least functioning. Next, he positioned his ear near the knight's nose and mouth to check for breathing. Luckily, he found a positive sign; air was moving smoothly through his nostrils.
He then lifted the unconscious knight and slung him over his shoulder before searching for a suitable place to make camp. There, he could let the knight rest and perhaps recruit him as a companion for his future adventures.
He knew most Solarian knights were quite prideful, and this knight had just experienced the worst situation imaginable for his kind. All his companions had died while he survived; most likely he wouldn't be returning home once he finds out the news. That would be Roderic's chance to gain some company, as being alone truly sucked.
Roderic, now walking and carrying the knight, found a promising path that led into a less dense wooded area. Dawn was approaching as he made his way forward.
He continued until he found a pleasant hill with a beautiful bird's eye view overlooking the lake. Clouds surrounded the emerging dawn, its light reflecting across the water in a beautiful golden hue that contrasted with the morning mist.
He picked up some sticks to prepare camp, arranging rocks around them as the grass was quite dry, as well as placing a tinder nest. He opened his pocket, taking out a flint and steel that were sewn to his fur coat's pocket, seeming to be part of the design the clothing designer intended—both having an eye carved into the side of them. He took the flint and struck it against the steel, causing sparks to fly into the tinder he was aiming at, creating some embers. He cupped his hands around the tinder, blowing at it, causing the embers to grow until it became a proper campfire flame.
Now that the fire was done, he gathered handfuls of fallen pine needles from under nearby trees, piling them thick to create soft, fragrant beds, then placing the unconscious knight on top of one of them before going to the other one.
He lay down, feeling the warm morning sun wash over his now relaxed body. It was still quite cold, but the fire helped ward off the early morning chill, and his escape had drained so much energy from him that he fell asleep shortly after.