Vastor walked through the reinforced door leading to Vesta’s fortified walls.
The city was fighting valiantly, but many fortified towers had been destroyed. The protective walls and arrays surrounding Vesta were filled with small cracks that spread faster than their self-repair spell could fix.
“What madness is this?” The Master walked along the elevated perimeter of the city walls, trying to understand what made the attack so dangerous that it required his presence.
Then, while he looked at the swarm of undead that surrounded the city like ants at a picnic table, Vastor found his answer.
Coated in a full suit of black crystal armor, Night led her troops on the battlefield and every one of the undead was engulfed in a thin black aura.
The power of her steed not only increased a Horseman’s physical and magical prowess, but it also allowed them to share their innate gift with undead that weren’t their Chosen.
In Night’s case, she was immune to darkness magic and so were now her troops. Be they wands, cannons, or spells of any tier, the black aura surrounding the undead would become thicker on impact, neutralizing darkness with darkness.
Baba Yaga’s children were naturally resistant to all elements but weak to darkness, otherwise there would have been no need for war since the undead would have long conquered the whole Mogar.
“Hello, dwarf pig!” Night floated in the sky, laughing as the night breeze made her long silver hair whip around as if she was the goddess of the storm. “The last time we met, you’ve killed a lot of my elders just to save a single sow and her piglets.
“You humiliated me in front of my Court and for that, I’m going to make sausages out of you and feed them to that whore!”
At those words, Vastor’s eyes didn’t burn with mana nor did they turn into a death glare. They became as cold as perennial ice, the eyes of a Highmaster on the job. Once he wore that armor, love and hate became irrelevant.
Only the mission mattered.
With a wave of the Yggdrasil staff, Vastor conjured several tier five Death Fog Arrays in critical junctures of the battlefield. War Mages used spells, whereas Highmasters mostly used arrays.
Spells were noisy and flashy, whereas an array was silent and their effects unnoticeable unless one stepped inside of them. Highmasters were invisible mass murderers, lone vagrants who few noticed and even fewer remembered.
“A darkness-based array?” Night laughed her ass off while unleashing several lounges of her crystal spear, Thorn. “Are you stupid or what? Darkness doesn’t work on me. I am the god of darkness!
“Relinquish your hopes to stall for time until dawn, because I have another dreadful surprise for you fleshlings.”
Vastor looked at the first lights of the day coming from the horizon, noticing that no undead seemed afraid of it or weaker for it. Yet he didn’t care.
“I’ll end this in a minute so save your surprise for birthday parties, clown.” Vastor deflected all of her attacks with his staff, using just enough power to take off the brunt of the impact and let the city barriers do the rest.
Back when he was young and fully human, the Highmaster armor would have allowed him to barely accomplish such a feat against someone as powerful as Night. Now, however, it was a child’s play to him.
“Fifty years.” The Highmaster said. “I’ve spent fifty years of my life studying darkness and light magic. I sacrificed my youth, my family, and my happiness for it, yet it was worth it.
“You know nothing about your own powers, Night. You wasted centuries playing god instead of working hard, and now that’s going to be your downfall.”
Vastor walked over the edge of the walls, using a Float spell to land with the grace of a feather. The Horseman relentlessly attacked him with her weapon and her spells, yet the Master spun the Yggdrasill staff to deflect the spells and used it as a spear to block Thorn.
The moment Vastor’s feet touched the ground, death cries and ash filled the air around Vesta. Night’s troops inside of the arrays were all dead and even those in their vicinity were being mowed down by the Kingdom’s soldiers.
“What? How?” The Horseman said, landing in front of Vastor.
“There’s only so much darkness element in the air.” The Master spun his forefinger to encompass the entire battlefield. “You and the city already hog most of it, leaving little for the rest of us.
“My arrays aren’t meant for killing, only to conjure as much darkness element as they can, leaving not enough to protect your men. A storm is much less scary after setting a lightning rod because no lightning comes after the thunder.”
Vastor lunged forward with his staff, but Night dodged it with ease. Unfortunately for her, she had never been his target. Vastor’s tier five War Mage spell, Chasing Death, released a pillar of darkness energy that killed everyone on its path.
Its movements were slow, but the frontline was a chaotic place. To dodge it, the undead had to either shove their comrades away, causing their deaths, or ignore other less obvious threats and die for a different reason but die nonetheless.
To make matters worse, Vastor’s spell was true to its name. It would keep scouring the enemy lines until the last shred of its energy had been consumed.
The Highmaster’s and the Horseman’s weapons clashed against each other with near-sonic speed dozens of times per second. Each time Vastor blocked or dodged, Thorn emitted a pillar of darkness that the city arrays neutralized.
When Night blocked or dodged, instead, a new Chasing Death was released, killing dozens of undead before it faded away. On top of that, the shockwaves of their clashes turned into dust everyone and everything that got too close to them.
The Kingdom’s soldiers knew that they had to stay away from the Highmaster, whereas the undead felt invincible thanks to their leader and attempted to help her more than once.
“What the fuck are you?” Night and Farg said in unison, staring at the small figure clad in black who alone fought against an unstoppable army.
“I’m just one man.” Vastor replied.
“But you know how humans are. Kill one person and they call you a murderer. Kill a million and they call you a conqueror. Kill everyone on your path and they call you god.” Thus spoke Highmaster Zogar Vastor, god of the battlefield.
A title very few knew, only whispered in the most secret rooms of the Royals court, that made him the third god at the service of Jirni Ernas.
As more and more undead fell, the tide of battle turned quickly. Vesta’s walls and its arrays mended themselves, now offering increased protection to the soldiers whose spells had become capable of killing again.
“No!” Night yelled in frustration, barely containing Orpal’s fury at the thought of being humiliated by Vastor for the third time. Once in Lutia, another on the battlefield, and the last one because the Highmaster had kept his promise.
The battle wouldn’t last until dawn because her army was already retreating to cut their losses to a minimum.
‘Let me out! I’ll show this fucker how a real man fights!’ Orpal said.
