The copycat waved his hand, emitting a blast of wind that sent Zinya slamming against the wall so hard that a new bloody wound opened on the back of her head.
A flick of the fake Fallmug’s fingers made Frey float in mid-air, forcing him to come closer while an air blade formed around the left hand of the mage, emitting a buzzing sound.
“Feel free to scream, kid. It’s not going to help you with the pain, but it sure will make the experience funnier for me.” The blue-robed man said while enjoying the terror on Zinya’s and Filia’s face.
Killing Mirim so quickly had given him no pleasure. He had worked hard to make sure that this time no one would interrupt him and that he could set up another masterpiece like the display he had left at the Lark’s household.
“Feel free to follow your own advice.” Tezka’s eyes brimmed with Chaos and fury as he came out of his dimensional space.
He grabbed the blue-robed man’s extended right arm that was about to touch Frey and twisted it so violently that the arm broke in three places at once. The wrist, the ulna, and the radius shattered in unison as the Fylgja’s right fist struck the man’s face like a meteor.
“Hands off my children!” The Abomination-Warg hybrid roared as the man wearing Fallmug’s face was sent flying away, breaking through the door and darting in the air as if he had been shot by a catapult.
Despite the pain and the surprise attack, the blue-robed man managed to emit five elemental beams, one from each of the fingers of his still intact hand, and aim them with surgical precision.
Tezka’s Davross-coated tails intercepted the spells before they could strike at the hearts and the heads of their respective victims.
“Zogar?” Zinya asked in confusion.
The creature in front of her was over 2.5 meters (8’2″) tall, wearing a full suit of silvery armor over pitch-black fur and wielding a longsword whose black surface was covered in stars.
He resembled a humanoid wolf with shoulders as broad as a door with ten tails coming out of his back instead of just one. Nine of them were four meters (13 feet) long, whipping through the air as if they had a mind of their own.
The last one was atrophied, barely reaching 1.5 meters (5 feet) of length.
Her savior looked and sounded nothing like the man she knew, but the fury in his voice and the fact that he had referred to the children as his own could only mean one thing.
“I wish, Zin.” Tezka said with a pained sigh.
Between the bond that all the Abomination-hybrids shared, his debt of gratitude towards the Master, and his paternal instincts, he really wished to be part of that family.
After spending so much time watching and protecting the children from afar, this wasn’t as Tezka had pictured their first meeting. The once cruel and calculating Eldritch that just a few years back wouldn’t have cared for weaklings now hated himself for having waited so long before stepping in.
He had been forced to hold his hand to learn as much as he could about the Balkor copycat and to make sure that he wouldn’t escape.
“Stay here and don’t move. I’ve already called for reinforcements. That bastard is mine.” Tezka’s Spirit Tail detached from his body, taking a form barely taller than the kids.
It looked cute and fluffy, like a really big fox that had learned how to stand on its hind legs. The creature didn’t have much magical power being Tezka’s Spirit Magic still sealed, but its equipment made up for it in full.
The armor had slipped off Tezka’s body and now covered the embodiment of the Spirit tail who also held Endless Night in its left hand. The blade had reduced its size to that of a short sword but had lost none of its power.
“Don’t worry, kids. I’ll protect you.” The Spirit Tail clone licked their wounds, healing them with a spark of light magic.
“Please, don’t go.” Filia desperately grabbed Tezka’s leg and tore his heart. “If you leave, Dad will come back and hurt us again.”
“That’s not going to happen. The pipsqueak is still a part of me and way stronger than he looks.” The Fylgja delicately pushed her away as his clone comforted Filia. “As long as he is here, nothing bad will happen to you. You have my word.”
“Hold tight, I’ll be back before you can say Tezka the Suneater.” He winked as a dimensional corridor opened in Leria’s shadow, moving him right behind the still flying blue-robed man.
‘How the heck can he be still alive?’ The Fylgja thought. ‘I hit him with so much strength that his head was supposed to burst or at least be ripped off his neck. Yet he flew away instead, which means that his body is strong enough to withstand my hits.’
The blue-robed man had already tried to counter the momentum behind the punch, but to no avail.
The pain from his broken face and arm, the nausea from his body spinning like a top from the impact, and the bouncing on the ground like a pinball, smashing through trees and rocks alike, kept him from focusing.
All he could do was to wait for the momentum to dissipate enough for him to stop while healing his wounds with magic.
Or so the copycat thought until a second fist hit him square on the chin. The right hook ripped his jaw off, sending him crashing against the mercenaries that he had hired.
The members of the Queen’s Corps thanked the gods for the unexpected backup for almost a full second before freezing in fear along with their opponents.
“What the fuck is that?” A member of the mercenary unit known as the Black Dragons said, taking the words out of everyone’s mind.
Tezka’s body emitted a dark gold aura due to the combined effect of both his Warg and his black cores going all out. The coldness of his Abomination side filled his mind, allowing him to see through the golden veil of frenzy from his Warg side that had clouded his mind until a second back.
“You’re wearing a full suit of Adamant and one filled to the brim with enchantments at that!” The Eldritch said.
“Guilty as charged.” The man said while reattaching his jaw as if he was just fixing his hair. At the same time, several spheres of all elements appeared around him, each one holding a tier five spell from a different specialization.
Now that his head wasn’t spinning anymore, the blue-robed man could finally fight back
“You’ll regret leaving your armor behind. Sacrificing your safety in order to protect mere ants and stopping my fall will be the last mistakes you m-”
A huge grin appeared on Tezka’s face, filled with so much bloodlust and mana that it cut the fake Fallmug short. Just like everyone else standing in the Verhen’s fields, the copycat was covered in a cold sweat as his body trembled in fear.
“Howling Hunger.” Tezka said, unleashing the tier five Chaos spell.
A tidal wave of blackness erupted from his body, moving with the speed of a freight train.
