Orpal’s clone screamed in pain and frustration as his Thralls started to fall like flies and his carefully planned ambush crumbled.
“Curse you and your bloodline abilities! Why do you have so many? Why?” The Vurdalak’s hands had fully regenerated, but he needed some time to craft a spear from his prisms.
‘Maybe Leech is still stronger than me as an Awakened, but I know Blade Tier spells. My Shattered Moon killed Manohar. Thanks to the life force that my Thralls harvested for me, it should be no less powerful than the one I cast with the help of my steed.
‘Whatever a Tiamat is, not even he can withstand the collective might of hundreds of blood and mana cores!’ Orpal thought as he unleashed the closest thing to a bloodline ability he had discovered.
The accumulated darkness element stored inside Night’s prisms joined his hybrid life force, generating what he called King’s Wraith.
A vortex of dark fog the size of a tornado formed around the Vurdalak and moved toward Lith. Orpal wanted to keep the Tiamat away while he completed the crystal Thorn and cast his spell.
Lith didn’t answer, conjuring two items out of his pocket dimension instead. One was War and the other was Double Edge. A silvery-white giant bastard sword made of Dragon bones coated with Orichalcum.
War was too small to fit into the Tiamat’s hand whereas the Double Edge was of the right size and had a power core, yet its prowess was still incomparable to that of the angry blade.
Which was why Lith used them both.
Double Edge had a War-shaped slot in its blade, right above the hilt. The angry blade reached it and disappeared under the surface of the Orichalcum as the two weapons became one.
The colossal blade was just an exoskeleton for War to use when Lith had to assume his full Tiamat form. The silver and white turned blood-red as Double Edge reshaped itself into a copy of War down to the smallest detail.
Yet it wasn’t a mere copy. War’s semi-sentience allowed it to combine its own pseudo cores with Double Edge’s power core, gaining access to new combinations of enchantments and abilities.
At the same time, Lith received a telepathic warning from Trion.
‘Beware, if Orpal manages to conjure his spear he can cast Shattered Moon! It’s an all-powerful spell that he used to kill Manohar, but it has one weakness. While I watched him, Orpal always whined that it takes a long time to cast a Blade spell.
‘Something about harmonizing his core with that of his equipment.’
‘Thanks.’ Lith replied as a plan formed in his mind and another in War’s. ‘Since you know everything Orpal has planned, I give you command over my Demons.’
A single breath rose dozens of new Demons that Trion led into battle, countering Orpal’s contingency plans before they started.
“All those deaths, all this suffering, and for what?” Lith said as his emerald and black eye lit up, flooding Double Edge with their power. “Just to satisfy your childish ego? You act all high and mighty yet you are a coward!”
A single slash of the blade cut King’s Wraith asunder, leaving Orpal defenseless.
“If you hate me so much, you should have taken it out on me!” The Vurdalak blocked the overhead attack with the half-formed spear that shattered upon impact.
“Instead, you choose to lurk in the shadows like the cockroach you are.” Lith cut off Orpal’s right dominant arm and hit it with Origin Flames to keep it from being reattached.
The clone and Orpal screamed in agony as they felt the pain with the same intensity as if their arm was still attached.
“You always target the weak and when you do, you even wait for the moment when they are alone!” The left arm fell and burned as well.
“You are a coward and your attempt to imitate my hard work isn’t flattering, it’s an insult!” The clone tried to fly away, just to have his wings ripped off.
“How dare you mock me?” Orpal tried and failed to hold back his tears of frustration. “I worked hard as well. You have no idea of the pain and sacrifices I went through during the past year!”
“A whole year?” Lith’s voice held so much sarcasm that the whole Mogar was left dry. “I worked hard all of my life while you whined, blaming everyone for your failures but yourself!”
War answered its master’s fury to the best of its abilities, somehow feeling offended by that senseless rant.
“Even I work harder than you.” All it took was a speck of air magic to turn each swing of the sword into an inhuman voice. “With every life I take, with every enemy I consume, I learn!”
War had already practiced controlling Double Edge, but only now did the sword have a clear idea of what it could do. The angry blade combined his pseudo cores with those that formed the power core of the exoskeleton to produce the Gleipnir skill.
Golden fetters emerged from the hilt of the colossal blade, connecting War with the Voidwalker armor’s power core and then with Lith’s mana core as well. The Tiamat didn’t know what was happening, but he trusted the blade enough to not interfere.
War combined what it had learned from witnessing Orpal’s failed attempt at producing Shattered Moon, Phloria’s Omnislash, and the Blade Tier spell that Lith and Solus had unwittingly weaved against Jormun to create one of its own.
The angry blade forcefully harmonized the power cores with the mana flow from Lith’s body, producing the Blade Tier Spell, Ruined World.
The spell lacked real coordination between the weapon and its wielder. It was rough and amateurish, being the product of War’s simple mind.
Ruined World moved in an upward slash that cut the Vurdalak into shreds, leaving only the prism core of the clone intact and still having enough power to split the thick layers of cloud above Lutia asunder.
The sun returned for a few seconds, reinforcing the demons before the gap closed again as the tribulation continued.
It was then that fear started to replace rage in the Vurdalak’s heart. Even though he was fighting the Tiamat by proxy, with each exchange Orpal could feel the gap in power between their bloodlines.
The Vurdalak could raise corpses into greater undead, empower them with the darkness element and, through Night, even allow them to share their most powerful traits and bloodline abilities.
The Tiamat, however, was different. He didn’t seek corpses, everything that died came to him on its own. The Demons didn’t just serve him, they lived inside of him.
It was then that Orpal realized that Night had been wrong all along.
Lith wasn’t a monster spawned by the Abyss, he was the Abyss itself.
The Tiamat clenched the bundle of prisms that formed the clone, using War’s World’s Mirror and Counter Flow abilities to amplify the feedback that Orpal felt whenever his Chosen were hurt.
“Wherever you are, this isn’t going to be quick.” Lith stabbed the prisms with Double Edge, being careful not to break them. “This isn’t going to be painless or merciful either.”
War pierced through the crystalline mass while using every pseudo core at its disposal to repair the prisms and inflict as much pain as it could for as long as it could.
