“You two bring the children to the woods! We’ll cover for you.” Selia released the arrow just to watch it being deflected by the nearest undead’s enchanted protection while more of Night’s soldiers ripped out the windows from the outside.
Selia cursed her useless bow, regretting for the first time in her life to have never learned magic. Her hunting knife was enchanted, but with her speed, she had no chance to beat even a skeleton in close-quarters combat.
“You’ve heard her, run!” Nalrond’s eyes blazed with black and white mana as the enemies swarmed the house.
Slash and Crash would have gladly obeyed if only they could find an opening in the undead’s formation. They had even put Lilia and Leran on their backs, but unless something happened, running away would only put the children in pointless danger.
Nalrond pushed Selia on top of Crash while he helplessly watched their house being torn apart.
As the walls crumbled and the first wave of enemies hit him, Nalrond released the very spell that he had learned from Dawn during her fight against Lith, Daybreak.
It was a mix of light, fire, and darkness magic that generated a wave of dark energy followed by a volley of fiery constructs shaped like snakes. The darkness engulfed the room, sealing even the undead’s mystical senses while the hard-light constructs attacked from every side.
The spell turned the Rezar into a one-man army while the light blooming from the shadows made him look like a rising sun. Each tendril of light moved akin to a new limb, coiling around his enemies and paralyzing them.
The heat coursing through the constructs was so intense that the undead’s regenerative abilities couldn’t keep up with the damage fire magic caused, making it impossible for them to escape the constructs’ grip.
The darkness spreading from the Rezar destroyed their protections first and then seeped inside their blood cores. One after another, the undead disappeared in a puff of smoke and the tendrils of light started to chase a new target.
The magical beast decided that the chaos following the tier five spell was “something” enough and ran towards the Trawn woods, hoping that the rampaging Rezar behind them would keep anyone from noticing their escape.
***
A few hundreds of meters above the ground, Night looked at the mess unfolding in front of her eyes, wondering how could her plan have gone so wrong.
‘I spent weeks planning this attack, waiting for the moment when only small fries are around and studying the Queen’s Corps routine. Heck, I even disobeyed Mom and messed up with the Council, yet this is all I got?’ She thought.
The team she had sent to kill Rena had yet to report, her sister Dawn seemed to have infiltrated her ranks to sabotage the mission, and the complexity of the arrays protecting Lith’s home was beyond her wildest expectation.
‘What kind of madman puts so much effort into protecting a frigging cottage and what the heck is that array?’ Yurial’s Hexagram spread its blue light above the house, thwarting Night’s plans over and over again.
Right after completing the several arrays necessary to seal air magic in the area surrounding the Verhen household and to keep the noise from the attack to draw unwanted attention, Night had cast one of her personal tier five darkness spells.
Shadow Maelstrom was supposed to put the house’s barriers to the test, if not even bring them down in one fell swoop, yet it had been absorbed by Yurial’s Hexagram before it could deal so much as a scratch.
Then, she had unleashed another powerful spell, Seismic Blast. It was a mix of fire and earth magic that should have damaged the defensive array’s focus point and breach through the barrier, but the Hexagram had absorbed it as well.
‘I have no clue how that thing can eat my best spells as if they are candies, but I don’t like it. After every spell, not only did the array’s light grow stronger instead of weakening, but also the points of the star lit up one after another.
‘Now only two of them are off and I really don’t want to know what happens when all six points are charged. Dammit, the attack was supposed to be the undead version of the Feymar mines, with me killing everyone without leaving a trace nor witness, but it’s taking forever!’
Her fight with Balkor and Deirus’s attempt on Phloria’s life had given her an idea. The humans’ stupidity had already given birth to a monster like the god of death. All she had to do was to replay those events, pin the blame on Deirus, and then lure Lith in her fold before he could get over the grief on his own.
She had made sure that, if interrogated, the people she had sent after Kamila would lead Lith back to Yurial’s father. With his known deals with the Dusk Court, the Archmage was the perfect scapegoat.
As for Lith’s family, her plan had been to kill them all swiftly, before anyone noticed, recreating the scenario that had given birth to the Blood Magus and destroying Lith’s faith in those who he considered his trusted allies.
Her plan would allow Night to humiliate the Council, weaken the Kingdom, and erase the humiliation of the Horsemen’s defeat at the hands of the Abominations at the same time.
Her sources in the Council had reported Night how Xenagrosh cared for her ‘little brother’, making the Horseman eager to kill the Dragon Abomination while wearing Lith’s face.
On top of that, Night wanted to put to the test Baba Yaga’s theory about hybrids and Lith was the perfect specimen.
“By the Red Mother!” Night cursed as a blast coming from Lith’s house sent her crashing onto the ground.
“I get that taking down the array surrounding the Verhen’s house is hard since the Queen’s corps is barricaded inside. I can sort of understand that the huntress is still alive thanks to arrays left by her husband.
“What really doesn’t make any sense is how the heck the third house is still standing!” With each passing second, the risk of Night’s plan failing increased dramatically.
She had underestimated the time and effort that both Lith and the Royals had invested in defending the Verhen household, making its defenses so sturdy to resist even the combined efforts of her army.
She couldn’t afford to help the teams attacking Zinya’s and Selia’s house because the three units of the Queen’s corps who had taken refuge inside not only blasted anything that came too close to the house, but they were also waiting for an opening to call for reinforcements.
“We don’t know.” A hapless undead she was lifting by the neck said. “The Yehval household has no arrays nor mages, yet everyone we sent there died.”
“Then send more! I can’t waste any more time on- Fuck!” Night cursed at the light pillar coming from Selia’s house. Just a second later, her swearing reached new heights.
After hearing Abominus’s howl, the other magical beasts patrolling the area had relied the message and spread the alarm. What started as a single voice spread like wildfire until it reached the woods and turned into a chorus.
