The Whisper of the Nightingale

Chapter 77: Falling

The moment the two remaining Shadow Blood Raptors released even more of their mysterious red mist, Raven felt her own blood act as if frozen; she couldn't move an inch.

Raven frantically circled spirit essence through her body to dispel the effects but the process was too slow so she could do nothing as the hard tail of the closest raptor whammed into Raven's side and sent her flying through the air. Searing pain shot through her practically undefended body but Raven forced herself to ignore it; she could tell right away that the raptor's attack would send her off the cliff and since she couldn't sense the ground below it was bound to be a long fall.

As she flew through the air Raven caught site of Javelin, who stared at her with terrified eyes. 'Run to Aves, you nitwit!' she thought, but since Raven's body still wasn't responding, the words never left her mouth.

Her line of sight to Javelin was broken but that didn't stop her from suddenly widening her eyes in surprise; he had actually jumped after her.

"Raven!" she heard him calling as he dove towards her.

At this point Raven didn't know whether to laugh or cry. On one hand, jumping after her was pure insanity - while Raven had fairly good chances of surviving most free falls as long as she was conscious, Javelin was not the same, any fall beyond two hundred meters would definitely kill him. On the other hand, the likelihood of Javelin managing to outrun the Shadow Blood Raptors, even only to the cabin - was perhaps even smaller.

'At least this way, I should be able to help him. . . .'

Movement was returning to Raven's body so she spread herself out let Javelin catch up quicker. It took barely a second before he reached her, his strong arms wrapping themselves around Raven tightly. She forced down a wince at the sudden pain as he inadvertently put pressure on her injury from the tail.

"Raven!" he shouted again, "are you okay?" Javelin's own spirit essence poured into her as he activated a healing skill - right away his grip loosened a bit as he realized where Raven was hurt.

"Shut up," muttered Raven and shifted her body so she was holding Javelin with one arm and her staff in the other - by the time Javelin had caught up with her, Raven's ability to move was almost completely restored and with the aid of Javelin's healing she was pretty much back to normal, in that aspect at least.

Raven looked downwards. She could still not sense the bottom of the ravine, but her eyes told her what she wanted to know: roughly 600 meters remained before they would slam into the river that was flowing rapidly beneath them.

"Raven, I-"

"Shut up, and stay still."

There was no time to hesitate. Using the wind resistance Raven moved herself and Javelin closer to the flat mountain wall while spirit essence flowed from Raven's spirit core out into the arm holding the staff. A copper-like glow spread over the weapon before she thrust it diagonally downwards and into the mountain. One would expect the shrieking sound of metal on stone, but no noise was made as the staff penetrated a few centimeters into the stone and started grinding its way downwards.

Raven winced as the sudden friction slowed their decent considerably, at a high cost; inside her, Raven's injuries were put under immense pressure as seemingly boundless spirit essence poured through her in order to keep the right pressure and angle on the staff.

'Just a bit further. . . .' Raven gritted her teeth and persevered.

However, just over two hundred meters from the ground, the mountain wall changed, growing more ragged and inconsistent, so Raven had no choice but to push away from it or risk hitting some protruding rock. Instead Raven held the staff beneath her and Javelin, spinning it at a steady pace. A thin membrane of spirit essence formed in front of the spinning staff, substantially increasing their wind resistance and preventing the speed from picking up as much as it should have. Nonetheless, they still plummeted towards the wild surface of the river too fast for comfort.