The King's Beloved

[Music Recommendation: "The Ancient City" by Masayoshi Soken (Final Fantasy XIV OST) - available in Spotify or Youtube]

Fauna and the Dark Grypus stared at each other until Fauna's head began to throb again.

"Arghhh! I-It hurts!" Fauna screeched in agony. "My head… ugh… my heart… haaah…." She breathed heavily and held on to her head and chest.

"What's wrong?" Elliot asked, worried.

"M-Master, I—I feel… angry and frustrated, but I don't know why," she replied, with tears falling from her eyes. "And my head—it hurts so much, but I can't heal it or make it go away. Hah… hah… hah…." Her hands kept on traveling from her chest to the back of her neck and head, unsure which part to focus on. "I feel so angry…."

While Elliot tried to help Fauna, Luna and Ducis battled the Dark Grypus, who by then kept on trying to attack her for some reason. It shot lasers of light from its eyes, flapped its giant wings sending violent wind blades to them, and screeched with its deafening voice that could render an ordinary Magi confused and weak. Each attack held tremendous power, unlike any other monster they fought before. Luna and Ducis, who were considered two of the strongest Guardians, could barely put a fight with it.

"What kind of monster is this?" Luna complained as she shielded herself from its attack. "I expected it to be strong but not this strong. How could a normal griffin be this strong even if it absorbed lots of spiritual energy? We're Guardians, and this is just—ahh!"

Luna's barrier suddenly broke, and the Dark Grypus' wind blades almost hit her. Thankfully, Ducis caught her in his arms and dashed towards the opposite direction, putting a distance between them.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, thank you."

"For now, let's focus on fighting it."

On the other hand, Rania tried to touch the fissures from the side of the crystal obelisk to see if it would help weaken the Dark Grypus somehow. Unfortunately, even with her clones, she couldn't get near it or focus her energy on it. The large movements of the Grypus kept on distracting her and throwing her off the shrine's walls.

By the third time she was thrown off, it was only then that she noticed something weird. Looking at the Dark Grypus and Fauna from afar, it looked like aside from trying to attack Fauna, there was this darkness that was transferring from the monster's body to Fauna's? What's weird, though, was how no one else seemed to notice it. Wasn't it just the dark miasma? But if it were, Elliot would have already put it away.

Unable to help Fauna, Elliot stood up and joined the fight.

"Ducis, create an absolute barrier right now!" Elliot shouted from the other end of the shrine.

  Ducis heard him and immediately erected a thick barrier like the one he used long ago to trap the enraged Amare before she turned to Vindicta. When the barrier covered the whole area, Elliot, who had been keeping his aura from seething out, released it, and a huge blast came from him, throwing everything on his surrounding away from him. He almost destroyed the whole shrines— and to think it was just his aura!

"That's quite enough rampaging, you beast!" Elliot said sternly as his deep voice echoed all around. 

His gentle eyes were replaced with a menacing glare. Lifting his left arm and pointing it to the Dark Grypus, a scorching white fire suddenly shot from his hands so fast that the Grypus didn't get the chance to dodge it! The white fire looked like an arrow, thin as a sword, but filled the nearby area with immeasurable heat and bore a huge hole in the monster's body.

"CAAAAAAAWWWW!" the Dark Grypus squawked so loud from the pain. Furious, it went berserk and flew around the crystal obelisk, preparing to lounge a powerful attack.

Rania then took the chance to go straight to Fauna—in front of her, and shielded her from the darkness. Unsure what to do, she released holy energy in her body until it became an aura enveloping her and Fauna. To her luck, she succeeded and broke the link between the Grypus and her.

"Haah… haah… haah…." Fauna breathed heavily, finally feeling her body getting better all of a sudden. "I-I'm okay now. What did you do, Rania?"

"I'll explain later," Rania answered her, keeping her aura that looked like a bubble around them. "For now, I think it's best if you don't fight."

"But my master is fighting. I need to help."

"It's alright. He can do it! He can definitely defeat that monster. As for you, why don't you try focusing your powers and channel that to him? That way, you can help."

Fauna tried to do so however, when she looked in Elliot's direction, a giant ball of fire hit him and consumed his body. A strong blast then followed, covering the whole area within the barrier with blinding light and turbulent winds. When the wind died down, she couldn't see Elliot anywhere. 

The next thing she knew, a great zeal overcame her heart, and she transformed herself into a Griffin as big as the Dark Grypus. Her golden eyes burned in anger, and her orange aura filled the place like rays of aurora.

"HOW DARE YOU HARM MY MASTER!"

"CAAAW!"

"Feel my strongest attack! BEAST FURY!!!"

And so, the two colossal birds fought with great speed and strength that every blow they made towards each other resulted in a powerful blast that circled around Ducis' absolute barrier. As they fought, Fauna's spiritual energy kept on increasing and increasing up to the point that she managed to overpower the Dark Grypus!

Feeling the immense strength of its opponent, the Dark Grypus tried to use its darkness again towards Fauna. Good thing Rania watched out and immediately protected her with the holy aura she used earlier. Since Fauna was so big at that moment, she had to create a huge one as well. The Dark Grypus was then enraged and shot wind blades towards Rania. Luna and Ducis went to her aid and protected her while attacking the monster back.

The fight went on and on for what felt like hours. Still, Elliot was nowhere to be seen. Everyone started to worry. Did he really get consumed by the monster's special skill earlier? There's no way that's possible, right?

"Haaah… haaah… haaah…" everyone breathed heavily from trying to fight the Dark Grypus for hours.

The monster, in return, looked pretty exhausted as well since its attacks started to get weaker compared to earlier. After all, it was one thing to try and heal yourself or revitalize your body, but another to try and recover from spiritual energy exhaustion.

Cornered, the Dark Grypus flew again and circled the crystal obelisk, ready to launch its special skill once more and attack the whole group. The team then created another barrier to protect themselves.

But then… before the Dark Grypus reached them—

"Disintegrate."

C-crack… Crack… Crack… Tsssshhh…

With just a single touch, the monster's body cracked into pieces and turned into dust until it was no more. Its ashes remained on the floor, only for the wind to blow it into nothingness.

Behind the monster stood Elliot, floating in the air and smiling at them.

"Elliot!"

"Master!"

Everyone was overjoyed. Fauna returned to her usual form, and her fury also seemed to be gone.

"Where did you go? You scared us!" Luna complained.

"I hid my presence and created an ultra-concentrated spiritual energy in my hands to disintegrate that monster. I figured attacking it would only damage its body, but it can easily heal itself, so I thought of an attack that would kill it in one go. It took a lot of time, though. Sorry for that. I needed to match the concentration of my spiritual energy to its overall spiritual energy." Elliot explained.

"You tried to what?" Ducis was baffled. "But that monster's energy is equivalent to probably 20 years that it's absorbing powers like Vindicta."

"Yeah!" Luna agreed. "How did you manage to produce the same amount of concentrated spiritual energy in just a matter of hours?"

Their mouths were left open. But then again, it was Elliot, so they shouldn't be surprised anymore. They laughed afterward, and Rania put her clone by the fissures to fix it. Soon enough, Clavis, Selena, and Illuminaire came—all exhausted like them from defeating thousands of monsters that just didn't stop coming until the Dark Grypus was defeated. Ducis created another thick layer of a barrier for Fauna's shrine.

After that, the team decided to rest before setting off to the next shrine.

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