[Wilderness]
Over the next few days, a similar pattern of long march followed by the building of a camp in the late afternoon repeated again and again. Each time, the ready availability of flight to Darganth and the rest of his group meant that they had built a sizable lead toward the tribe, resulting in a drastically lower travel speed than what they had managed on their own.
As such, it took until noon of the fourth full day since their departure for their destination to come into sight. Towering in the distance, the presence of the mana spring was made visible far and wide by the impact it had on its surroundings. Like a beacon, the mana flowing out of it spilled into the air, its density twisting the laws of physics and causing the different elements to occasionally become visible to the naked eye as strands of different colored energy.
Around this, floating rocks and streams of water that defied gravity circled the central pillar of magical energy. Emerging from the river as it neared the mana spring until it completely dried out a few thousand meters away from it, the latter connected the floating islands that the former formed. From them, the current of the river then reemerged in the form of dozens or even hundreds of waterfalls that surrounded the mana spring on all sides.
Streaming downward through the thin mist the falling water was creating in the air, these waterfalls then vanished behind a crystalline forest. Trees encased in an ice-like shell of a light, almost neon blue coloration formed a small forest just a kilometer or two around the mana spring.
While approaching, Darganth's group and the ogres also came across smaller crystals similar to the ones covering the forest. Far more scattered and rarely larger than one's fist, these were found as far as over a dozen kilometers from even the forest edge. Their smoother surfaces were also far more transparent than the crystals hiding the trees from view, with only the ares around any edges, cracks, and other fault lines found in their smooth structure carrying the same solid coloration.
Furthermore, when their group walked past these, a soft glow lit up in the crystals. Upon noticing this, Darganth's lips curled up into a smile.
"This is getting better than I'd have thought."
His words drew some intrigued looks from the ogres who overheard them. Ignoring this, he used his mana to reach out to one of the loose mana crystals nearby, using telekinesis to lift it up and toward himself.
The moment his spell touched the crystal, the glow inside rapidly intensified as it siphoned the magic energy into itself. With it, Darganth's telekinetic hold on it quickly started to weaken. In response, he channeled more mana into the spell, causing it to grow unstable and the crystal to shake as the mana fluctuated wildly.
This only stopped when the crystal he had picked up dropped into his hand a few moments later. Holding it before his eyes, he studied it for a moment before shaking his head with a sigh.
"A mana crystal this far out, how wasteful must the spring's current owner be for that? Though at least that means our price just turned out even more valuable than what we can sense right now." He said.
With these words, Darganth siphoned the mana he had accidentally channeled into the crystal back into himself. Though only a fraction of his total mana pool, the lack of information they had about the beast inhabiting the area meant that he was taking the situation seriously enough to take any advantage he could get.
A similar sentiment was shared by the rest of their traveling group. Even the usually chaotic and disorganized ogres had grown composed as their march took them closer to their destination, ultimately resulting in an order in the current formation that even the chief couldn't enforce in a normal situation.
Meanwhile, Scalladras had followed Darganth's example and pulled a mana crystal toward him as soon as a sufficiently large one appeared near their path. Though certainly not the most efficient usage of it, he planned to use it as an emergency battery by relying on the trace amounts of mana he, the ogres, and the rest of their group constantly emitted, and which went to waste in the process. While this wasn't even remotely as good as using dedicated potions for the same task, they didn't have the time to utilize it more efficiently through a magic item or similar, so they'd have to settle on using it to ever so slightly reduce their reliance on the rather limited potion supply they had.
While these last-minute preparations were running, the group continued to march onward. With the river to their left, they moved across the hilly and forested terrain at a quick pace. Though well over a dozen kilometers separated them from the crystalline forest that lay ahead, the constellation of distance universes at which the passage of days was measured in the realm fragment hadn't even fully finished an hour's worth of its daily shift before they reached the crystalline forest.
A few minutes before they reached it, their mana senses also started picking up a presence amid the raging mass of ambient mana. Practically invisible in the far denser magical energies that enshrouded its body, the creature rested atop the mana spring without much worry. Furthermore, as the expedition closed in, they started suppressing their mana signatures, leaving the beast unaware of their presence even as they stepped into the crystalline forest.
Stopping shortly after the last ogre in the expedition also crossed over from the normal into the crystal-covered forest, Darganth turned to the tribe's chief, "Have your people spread out, we're going to go with the encirclement plan."
"If you think we have the time for that, alright, it's your call."
With those words, the chief turned around and signaled to the ogres behind him. In response, half a dozen individuals pushed out of the crowd in which they were assembled and walked toward the chief.
While the leaders of the different groups into which the command structure of the ogres was split received their instructions, Darganth moved into position himself. Heading straight toward the mana spring, he moved through just two-thirds of the forest's width before the beast started to become visible through the gaps between the trees. Taking a step back upon noticing this, Darganth moved behind the cover of a nearby tree, hiding in case the beast opened its eyes while he waited for the others to catch up.
"I don't want to risk probing the mana spring with my mana sense, so is there anything I should know?" Allaire asked as she arrived at Darganth's side a few moments later.
"With the spring itself, no." Darganth said, shaking his head in response. "The beast, however, is slightly different from the picture the chief painted. For one, its magical reserves are larger than even Venrie's, while its mana quality falls short of hers only by a bit. But that is still within the limit we had estimated for its growth since its last fight with the ogres, even if it's one of the worst-case scenarios. What's more relevant is that it appears to be capable of flight."
In speaking these words, Darganth's tone carried a light hesitancy with it. A central aspect of their plan was for Venrie to counteract the beast's magical prowess so that the ogres wouldn't have spells raining down on them while they supported Darganth, Yldra, and Jennia in the close-quarters fight. But that relied on the assumption that either the beast's raw magical power was lower than Venrie's, or that she held the advantage between the fields of magic they specialized in.
But not only would that not work, if their target were to take the fight into the air, then the help the ogres could provide would be drastically limited. As would Jennia's ability to fight the beast in close quarters, forcing Darganth and Yldra, who were unlikely to match its strength even together, to contend with their opponent alone.
"Should we change plans?" Allaire asked in response to his statement.
"Too risky. We're lucky that we've got this far in our approach without the beast waking up, and I'd like to be in an optimal position when that happens."
Following these words, he then turned toward Venrie. As a central pillar of their plan, her evaluation held more weight than his despite his experience. So while he had phrased his opinion like a statement, he still asked for her input, "What do you say?"
Briefly glancing up at the question, Venrie looked in the beast's direction and deliberated for a moment. Among their group, she was still the most powerful magic user by far, even if one included the ogres, so she was understandably hesitant. Though their group had multiple individuals that at least came close to her in overall strength, in purely magical abilities, even Yldra and Darganth, the uncontested second and third strongest, fell short.
For Yldra, this was largely due to the laid-back attitude she had toward her training for much of her life. So even with the potential of one of the strongest dragon species and multiple centuries of life behind her, there was still a full stage of power classification between her and Venrie. That is despite the comparatively limited impact this lack of effective training had on her physical attributes, making the gap in magical power even greater than this full stage difference, with Darganth having nearly caught up with her when only considering magical power.
The only good news in this was that this meant that Yldra's evaluation as someone capable of Island Stage destructiveness came mainly from her physical prowess. In contrast, their opponent's power most certainly came mainly from his magical abilities, though their physical capabilities contributed enough that the beast only matched Venrie in raw magical output despite being stronger overall. That meant that if Venrie succeeded in neutralizing this magical prowess, the fight would suddenly look significantly better for them.
With that in mind, Venrie's gaze soon hardened as she came to a decision, "We'll go through with it."
"Good to hear." Darganth said, "The we just need to wait for the ogres to get into posit-"
Before Darganth could finish these words, a deafening boom interrupted him. Spinning around toward its source in shock, his eyes widened as he saw the beast that had been sleeping at the center of the mana spring mere moments prior standing wide awake.
In doing so, their group got its first good lock at its full form. And while they had already known that it closely resembled, and likely evolved from, a deer, the similarities were truly exceedingly close for a beast in the mythic rank. Everything from its thin legs with hooves for feet, over its lithe torso, to the elaborate antlers that decorated its head matched those of normal deer. All of this gave the beast an exceedingly agile appearance, something that wasn't hampered in the slightest by the two pairs of small wings that grew from its spine at the front and middle of its torso and which were perfectly tucked against its body.
Simultaneously, Darganth noticed a section of the forest not too far from himself being completely destroyed, prompting him to react with a sigh, "So much for the element of surprise."
Enhancing his voice with mana, he then shouted, "Everyone, get ready. The plan stays the same!"
With his words, Venrie let her mana surge forth, causing the beast's attention to snap toward them. Floating up to be level with its towering fifty-meter-high form, she flexed her magic, shattering the nearby crystallized trees as she shaped the plants into her weapons and prepared for the impending fight.