The Treant was too stunned from the shock and the hits to Blink away, taking the six beams in full. Before he could recover, a second Furies’ Flight turned him into wood splinters again but this time Solus didn’t space out and finished him off.
At the same time, Asa and Locrias had resumed their dance where he tried to get close without wasting precious energy while she tried to keep him at a distance and wear him out with her bloodline abilities.
‘If only I could use low tiered spells.’ She inwardly cursed while looking at the six eyes of the Demon that shone the same way as those of the Tiamat.
She unleashed her tier five Spirit Spell, Blazing Storm, the moment she bought enough time to cast it with true magic. It produced a small-sized tornado of emerald fire that would grow in size the moment it got past her allies, making it look like a funnel.
‘Dammit, she’s cornering me. If I back down or dodge the spell, it will take Lith and Solus by surprise, breaking their focus. Thrud’s soldiers know how to work as a team whereas each one of us fights for themselves.’ Locrias thought.
With no other choice left, he took the Blazing Storm head-on. Yet he couldn’t just sacrifice himself or the Roc would escape and call for reinforcements, foiling Lith’s plan.
He breathed a third blast of Void Flames, hoping that this time they wouldn’t explode, and used them as a cover. Asa was too focused on putting all of her mana and Life Maelstrom into the spell to notice that the conflicting flames had just blinded her Life Vision.
Not having her back against the wall gave her space to maneuver and Locrias the opportunity to Blink behind her. His hands grabbed her head, his wings plunged into her chest, and the talons of his feet pierced her legs.
The Abomination Touch that the spark of Chaos inside every Demon bestowed upon them killed the Roc before Locrias’ allies could even notice the Blazing Storm coming their way.
Or so Locrias thought until he looked ahead, discovering to have finished last.
“Well done.” Lith reverted to his human form and opened a Warp Steps leading to the ground floor.
“Why didn’t you help me or the girl if you were already done?” The ex-captain said in anger.
“You said it yourself. Knowing and doing are different. You need to get used to your new body and this fight was merely a spar. These guys were green.” The Tiamat replied.
Locrias snorted in annoyance but he didn’t complain further.
Based on Lith’s knowledge of Awakened, those they had faced were the equivalent of Thrud’s foot soldiers, those tasked with keeping the cities while her elites conquered them.
“Don’t worry. I suck as well at fighting.” Solus said, jumping back into her ring to save her remaining strength.
Her attempt to console him only made Locrias feel worse. He knew that Solus had just recovered her body and that she had rarely fought whereas he was supposed to be a seasoned warrior.
In his Demon form, the ex-captain was much stronger than he had ever been in life and the chain that bound him to Lith also gave Locrias an exhaustive knowledge of his new abilities, yet his human mind was still at odds with his new body.
Just like Glemos’ newly evolved Fallen species, the final result was inferior to the sum of the single parts. Instead of working together like clockwork, they clashed against each other, making stupid mistakes like with the Origin Flames.
Locrias knew that there was only a cure to his condition: training. He sighed and went back into Lith’s shadow to not betray his nature of Tiamat.
Before walking through the Step, Lith took out the Royal Override again and turned on the power line feeding the Warp Gate. Once he reached the ground floor, he found several pleasant surprises.
Most of the guards had gone to the third floor to fight his Demons so he took a short break to use Invigoration and send them more power that would prolong the fight long enough to carry out the last part of his plan.
The Demons of Darkness spontaneously evolved into Demons of the Fallen with each person they killed, but they were no match for Thrud’s Awakened and were falling like flies. The sudden wave of darkness and Spirit Magic gave them a second wind that caught the enemies by surprise.
All the Demons now had at least three eyes, then four, and then five as Lith kept using Invigoration to refill the energy reserves that he poured non-stop into them.
Another surprise was that not only had the City Lord and the mages from the Association actually followed Lith’s orders, but they had also gotten themselves several helpers.
The guards were bound to discover them during their rounds and the grunting and panting from moving around the heavy mana cables made their presence ever more obvious.
“What the heck do you think you are doing?” The Captain of the night shift, one of Thrud’s loyalists, asked the moment he found them reassembling the Gate.
“What do you think? We are just following orders!” The City Lord snarled. His annoyance was genuine and a life spent in the political arena had taught him quick thinking and how to twist the truth to his ends.
“Can’t you hear the noise from the third floor? We are under attack and the new Lord of this city ordered us to fix the Gate and call for reinforcements!” It was all true down to a T, he just had glossed over the fact that Dhenma was likely to be dead and that the person he referred to as the Lord was Lith.
The Captain took his words at face value since there was no way that such a weakling could escape Dhenma and most importantly, the standard protocol in the case of enemy attack did require to reassemble the Gate.
He assigned to the City Lord the most skilled with magical contraptions among his followers and he left for the third floor to join the fight. Thanks to his unwitting help, by the time Lith arrived, the Gate was up and running.
To make things even more convenient for Lith, the Captain had left behind technicians, not fighters. The Captain had recalled the rest of the guards, thinking that in a matter of minutes new waves of Thrud’s soldiers would swarm through the Gate.
“Well, done.” Lith nodded as the heads of every single person in the room that Lith didn’t know flew off, their neck cauterized on impact to not make a mess of the room.
He couldn’t afford to have the reinforcements slip on the blood, it would prolong his mission.
“Now it’s my turn.” Lith took out the golden plaque bearing Meron’s imprint and the Gate activated on its own.
A Royal Override was a one-time alchemical tool that allowed its bearer to act as the King himself, giving him absolute authority over every piece of magical technology in the Kingdom.
Lith had no need to operate the complex controls of the Warp Gate nor to bypass the multiple layers of protection and passwords that Thrud had set.
