Chapter 2213: Chapter 2214: Wind and Fire
"I-it... itâs charging towards us!" Fear flashed in Dangrossâs eyes as it jumped and quickly hid behind Angel.
"Watch out!" Jack also shouted, and his slender stem abruptly extended and wrapped around all the elemental sprites on the ship, including Arnott, shielding them like a protective barrier.
The tornado drew ever closer, its immense suction making it difficult for the gondola to retreat.
The eyes of all the elemental creatures on the ship were filled with trepidation. Even Arnott, a Wind Spirit, shivered in fear in the face of such a terrifying whirlwind.
Just as everyone felt the powerful pull, with the tornado about to engulf the gondola, a sharp cry pierced through the howling wind.
Dangross looked up in confusion.
Toby, who had been perched on Angelâs shoulder, suddenly flew out of the ship. As Toby crossed the Wind Force Field and was exposed to the onslaught of the tornado, it let out a cry to the sky. In an instant, it transformed into an enormous Flame Gryphon, fanning its flaming wings, with Flame Power and Gravity Meridian swirling around it like a cloud-piercing arrow, charging straight at the tornado!
The terrifying whirlwind, which seemed to blot out the sky, was pierced through the center by a fiery hole created by Toby.
As Toby passed through the whirlwind, the fire light illuminated the world, dispersing the clouds, turning midnight to day.
The once tumultuous tornado, which had been spinning at high speed, began to slow down. The pierced opening started to crack with numerous fissures, dispelling the surrounding fierce windâs force.
Seconds later, the horrifying whirlwind, which Dangross thought could tear it apart countless times, completely dissipated.
With just one strike.
The fear in Dangrossâs eyes vanished, replaced by ecstasy and admiration.
"This is the power of the ancestral lineage!" Dangross gazed obsessively at the stream of fire burning the sky, his respect soaring endlessly. With visions of one day transforming into the ancestral form and possessing such power, he couldnât help but dream.
As Dangross was lost in aspiration, the bean vine Jack behind him also flashed a smile. But within Jackâs joy was a trace of puzzlement.
Tobyâs transformed appearance seemed familiar?
The Sage might have mentioned a similar shape once?
As Jack tried to recall, the massive shadow on the opposite side voiced a curious sound, seemingly also surprised by Tobyâs form.
However, Toby gave no time for reflection. After breaking free from the tornadoâs constraints, flames and ash swirled around him once more.
The shadow, attentive to Tobyâs movements, observed the soaring flames. It protected itself in secret, sensing the surrounding windâs direction to predict Tobyâs actions. Except, it was completely unprepared for what came next; Tobyâs body suddenly vanished.
It couldnât capture the windâs direction nor see how Toby disappeared.
As it pondered, it suddenly felt the wind around it become a bit more tumultuous.
It sharply lowered its head, a raging flame already appeared before it.
"How is this possible? How did you appear here?" the shadow spoke for the first time, disbelief in its tone as it had felt nothingâneither the wind nor any movement.
Toby didnât answer, his wings like blades of flowing fire, spiraled and pierced directly into the shadowâs body.
The speed was again too fast to catch, leaving the shadow no time to react before a hole was made in its body.
However, this hole, unlike the previous tornado, did not remain unhealed. Instead, the shadow absorbed a vast amount of surrounding wind elements, swiftly closing it.
Seeing the rapidly healing shadow, Toby was stunned, not knowing what had transpired.
The shadow offered no explanation. Since a conflict had commenced, it had no choice but to give its all.
The shadowâs wind and Tobyâs fire swiftly clashed.
During their skirmish, everyone on the gondola finally saw the shadowâs true form.
It was a whirlwind resembling Arnott, a "big head, thin body, and slender legs" inverted triangular spiral. However, this whirlwind was many times larger than Arnott, akin to a real mountain, rendering Arnott akin to an ant or dust in its presence.
Despite their similar shapes, the color of the large whirlwind was entirely different from Arnottâs.
Arnott was overall a pale cyan while the large whirlwind was entirely dark.
Though winds are typically shapeless and colorless, wind elemental creatures differ from pure wind. The color of wind creatures sometimes reflects the unique attributes, inherent properties, and structure of wind elements.
Arnott tends toward pure wind, while the large whirlwind perhaps inclined towards turbulent qualities, such as tempestuous winds.
In mere seconds, the clash between Toby and the large whirlwind reached more than ten encounters. Observing now, even though Toby was much smaller, his power was overwhelming, pressing down on the large whirlwind entirely. However, despite being breached several times, the large whirlwind quickly healed each time.
Watching this, Jack couldnât help but say, "That... flaming one..."
"Donât be rude, thatâs Lord Toby!" Dangross objected.
Jack: "I just wanted to say, can Lord Toby defeat that large whirlwind? It looks like the whirlwind remains unscathed."
Dangross confidently replied, "Of course he can; Lord Toby belongs to my ancestral kin. He is invincible."
Angel thought to himself: although he believed Toby could win, labeling him invincible was an exaggeration.
Jack also noticed Dangrossâs blind praise, so he turned his bean vine towards Angel, hoping for answers from him. However, Angel remained silent, only instructing Jack to keep watching.
Jack suppressed his impatience and continued to observe the distant battle, growing more suspicious. Although Tobyâs strength was undeniable, the constantly healing large whirlwind was problematic and made victory difficult.
Angel surveyed the battlefield clearly. Though he wasnât participating, he perceived the situation more comprehensively than Toby. The current scenario stemmed from the adversary being a wind creature capable of turning entirely into wind, rendering physical damage ineffective, leaving only elemental energy confrontations.
In elemental duels, the one with stronger energy levels can swiftly disrupt the opponentâs energy balance, leading to victory.
Though Toby wielded flame power, his flames werenât pure. Elemental energy levels between him and the whirlwind were likely similar, making it challenging to disrupt energy balance quickly. Moreover, the whirlwind, enveloped in abundant Gale from the Cloud Sea, could rapidly replenish burned internal energy, showcasing the saying, "You can never defeat wind within wind." This explained why its body constantly healed.
Despite the apparent advantages held by the whirlwind, Angel remained confident that Toby could prevail. Even if Toby hadnât uncovered the secrets of the whirlwindâs healing, he believed Toby could still rely on his intrinsic strength to utterly defeat the whirlwind.
The reason for such certainty lay in Tobyâs composite strength, which was not limited to fire alone.
Many seeing Tobyâs gryphon form for the first time mistakenly dubbed him a "Flame Gryphon." However, this wasnât accurate. For Toby, flame power was the least significant attribute. The true name of his gryphon form was "Berserker Gryphon."
The suppression of emotions is Tobyâs strongest technique.
Take now for example, the great whirlwind seems to heal again and again, but its behavior becomes more and more agitated, its combat thinking increasingly mindless.
You must understand, Toby is not an elemental creature, it has a tangible body. The great whirlwind has been fighting for so long, its body riddled with countless holes, yet Toby remains unscathed, not even losing a single feather.
This indicates that Tobyâs strength is a notch higher than the great whirlwind, but not to the point of complete domination. The current situation arose entirely because the great whirlwind was infected by the furious emotions dispersed from the flame.
When reason begins to go offline, anger takes the main seat. There might be an initial burst, but once that phase is surpassed, it is nothing more than fish meat for others.
Evidently, the great whirlwind has now entered the phase of being Tobyâs fish meat.
Toby has yet to find a way to deal with the great whirlwindâs frantic healing, but Angel believes that Toby should soon find a countermeasure.
Toby and the great whirlwind fought for several minutes.
Toby also noticed that the great whirlwind keeps healing, using previous methods is clearly futile. After careful observation, it sensed the flow of the wind.
Each time the great whirlwind broke open a hole, the surrounding wind quickly gathered, filling the hole.
Toby was not dumb; upon realizing the truth, it immediately changed its approach.
This time, rather than wantonly releasing the flame power, Toby swept its wings, and in the energy vision, a large amount of gray mist began to fill the vicinity.
When the gray mist formed a circle, completely enveloping the great whirlwind, Toby let out a high-pitched cry.
Centered around the great whirlwind, an empty force field was instantaneously formed.
The great whirlwind, still in the burst phase, was completely unaware of the situation outside; it only felt an overwhelming heaviness, its energy rapidly depleting. As usual, it sought an external supply of windâs force but... this time it failed.
The windâs force around seemed to have vanished completely.
Unable to replenish energy from outside, the great whirlwindâs own energy began to deplete rapidly; as layers of windâs force were stripped away, its seemingly formidable shell finally showed weak cracks.
A bright azure light appeared on its forehead.
This is... the elemental core!
Tobyâs eyes lit up, all its tunneling before had been to find the great whirlwindâs elemental core, and now, the elemental core was finally revealed!
Without hesitation, Toby opened its mouth and directly spat out a stream of molten fire, targeting the glowing elemental core.
A cracking sound was heard.
The elemental core cracked, azure light exposed, a large amount of windâs force began to leak out.
Meanwhile, the great whirlwind, always in a state of fury, finally regained a sliver of clarity, but it was too late.
It glared at Toby with resentment and said, "The wind will carry away my memories, I will witness your demise within Master Hurricaneâs body."
As the words fell, the windâs force within it quickly expanded.
Elemental self-detonation!
Toby reacted immediately, yet it was not overly flustered; if the opponent had self-detonated when its energy was still abundant, it might have shaken the heaven and earth, but now, its energy considerably depleted and much of it leaked, its self-detonation no longer had the power it used to boast.
Toby, shrouded in gray mist, gently tapped its feet and appeared near the gondola.
Then it carried the gondola on its back, with a flicker, appearing several miles away.
Simultaneously, the power of the great whirlwindâs self-detonation finally manifested.
Though its energy was scarce, it still created much grandeur through self-detonation, directly breaking the connection between the cloud sea and the nightfall, forming a void of about a kilometer.
However, Gale had passed by, having no impact on the gondola several miles away.
Watching the calamity in the distance, Toby transformed into a small seabird, proudly perched on Angelâs shoulder, chirping to declare victory.
"So amazing!" Dangross excitedly tried climbing onto Angelâs shoulder, but Toby kicked it down with a claw. Dangross was not angry, instead, it kept bouncing on the table, shouting Tobyâs name.
"So strong, to win so easily..." Jack was dumbfounded, in a world filled with wind, how did it manage to defeat such a powerful wind-type creature?
Also... "What was that strange force field blocking the wind just now?"
Jackâs inquiry was also the confusion of other elemental sprites, vaguely sensing a majestic force, seemingly possessing some nature of the worldâs harmony, yet different from its power altogether.
Faced with Jackâs inquiry, Toby did not conceal it, chirping a few times.
Yet, none of them understood what Toby said. Without Loga to translate, they were at a loss.
"A power of laws." Angel answered for Toby.
A power of laws? It sounded rather advanced... Jack had intended to ask further, but Angel shifted the topic.
"That Master Hurricane the great whirlwind mentioned earlier, do you know who it is?"
Angel looked towards Jack, who appeared puzzled, then turned to Arnott, locked in a sand cage.
Yet Arnott said nothing; upon closer inspection, Arnott was silently shedding tears.
Through questioning, it was revealed that Arnott was grieving for the great whirlwindâs death.
Arnott did not know the great whirlwind; his sorrow stemmed purely from witnessing the death of a fellow member of his kind. However, Arnott was rational and understood that if the great whirlwind had not died, perhaps they would have perished, so it was better that the great whirlwind did die.
After grieving, Arnott also began to ponder Angelâs question.
"Master Hurricane? Iâve never heard of it."
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