‘I have to keep the female Verhen at bay while using my superior strength to crush the Demons. If they combine their powers or conjure arrays, things can get ugly.’ The Thunderborne thought while focusing a second burst of Stormlight against Solus.
While Trouble gave the fallen Demons the strength they needed to reform their bodies, Raptor ran to Solus’ side, helping her to stand up.
‘Nice trick with the Annihilation, can you do it again?’ Locrias asked as he came out of the Golem that he had used as a safe haven against the plasma storm.
‘Yes, but I’d need more time than we have.’ She had given up on casting Yurial’s Hexagram again.
The spell was stored inside the Mouth of Menadion so its casting time was significantly reduced but it would still take a while for someone without body casting.
‘If we don’t stop this Divine Beast now, she’ll wipe us out. Time to start plan D.’ Solus said via the mind link and Locrias relayed the message through the chains that bound him to the other souls.
‘Copy that.’ The ex-captain, Valia, and Trion who still had all six eyes turned toward the Thunderborne and breathed a jet stream of Void Flames in unison.
Leari was still charging the second volley of her when she felt three powerful stings burn the layer of darkness that insulated her physical body from the wild energy it produced.
Void Flames had a highly destructive power, but the small amount that a human-sized creature produced couldn’t deal much damage to a 25 meters (82 feet) tall Divine Beast.
The Thunderborne wouldn’t have deigned their attack with a second glance if not for the rest of the Demons regrouping and taking a deep breath at once. One burst of Void Flames was a pinprick, three a bother, but one thousand of them was more than enough to turn even a Divine Beast into a pile of ashes.
‘Me and my big mouth! I had to jinx it, didn’t I?’ Leari thought.
“Don’t worry about me! I’ll draw the enemy fire. You focus on destroying them while they are being so kind to gather.” She actually said to the commander of the second battalion who nodded in agreement.
She flapped her wings in order to put enough distance between her and the Demons to dodge the next volley or at least have the time to Blink away safely.
Alas, the moment she took off, clearing the line of fire, she noticed two things.
The Demons were still grouped in the same spot but they seemed to pay her no heed.
“Oh, shit!” Leari saw their bodies brimming with black light as their mouths opened toward the now defenseless second battalion.
The silver lining was that if no one disturbed her, she could easily fry them all at the same time with Stormlight before the Demons attacked. The second item on her agenda, however, was a small lump of dead flesh and Adamant that was bolting towards her.
During the fight in Verendi, Solus had learned the hard way that having an analytical mind and excellent equipment was pointless if she was incapable of hitting her target. No matter how good her plan or how strong she was, if her strikes didn’t connect, she had no way to win.
Thrud’s chosen had yet to reach the bright violet core but they were already at Lith’s level and too fast for a blue cored Awakened like her. It was the reason she had made some slight alterations to Raptor’s original blueprints.
Now the Golem still acted as Lith’s general but also as her steed. While at full charge, Raptor’s power core granted the construct a physical prowess similar to a bright violet cored Awakened.
The Adamant body would never get tired and instantly responded to her telepathic commands, acting as Solus’ limbs. The Vagrash had bolted at full speed on the ground and spread its wings the moment Leari had taken flight.
Between its cloaking runes and Solus’ ring, the Divine Beast would have missed their arrival if not for sunlight glistening over Trouble’s body. The Thunderborne wondered what point could such an obvious frontal assault have.
The answer was irrelevant so she simply adjusted her altitude, lining up Solus and the Demons in order to hit them all in a single strike. Stormlight emerged from her body true to its name, producing the roar of thunder and shining so bright that a second sun seemed to have appeared over the battlefield.
Trouble folded its wings, using solely a flight spell to offer the smallest target possible as it dodged the plasma discharges. Solus had fought at Lith’s side since she had memory and the mystical senses that the tower bestowed upon her exceeded those of her human body.
Mana sense allowed her to see the energy arcs before they formed, her brilliant mind to predict their movements and where they would branch, and the mind link to tell the Golem how to avoid them.
‘Run as much as you want, you are still rushing to your own death.’ Leari thought. ‘The closer you get the harder avoiding Stormlight will become. On top of that, you are disregarding the fact that bloodline abilities aren’t that simple.’
The Thunderborne waited for the golden knight to come so close that not even Blink could save her and then released a second volley of Stormlight. Bloodline abilities were comprised of world energy and life force which could be infused with willpower.
A new barrage of plasma bolts aimed at Solus and Trouble erupted from Leari’s body, following their every move in order to get rid of her, the golem, and the remaining Demons with a single burst of power.
Solus threw the Fury that had been accumulating power until that moment and activated her own bloodline ability, Draining Grounds. Her tower half separated the world energy from the life force, turning Stormlight into a cascade of will o’ the wisps.
The tower absorbed the world energy, filling Solus with new strength, while the life force contained in the attack was used to put a temporary plug on the cracks of her own.
Leari’s eyes opened wide as her best weapon failed her when she needed it the most. When Thrud needed her the most. Draining Grounds exploited Stormlight’s vast area of effect to drain its energy from multiple points at the same time.
The white blasts disappeared when they were just centimeters away from the Demons, yet they didn’t bat any of their many eyes. They had experienced death once, they knew its touch and feared it no more.
Their mouths opened in a choir of black fire and light, fusing into an enormous pillar of Void Flames that struck right in the middle of the second battalion before detonating.
The mages from the first battalion who had survived the previous battle and those of the second conjured several barriers of all elements, praying to their Queen that they would take form in time.
Unfortunately, they were no light masters and the short time they had served under Thrud wasn’t enough to learn Spirit Magic. Ice crumbled, air strengthened the black flames, earth was too slow to matter, regular fire was pierced like toilet paper, and darkness only turned more of the Void Flames into Chaos.
