The moment the array struck and froze Tista in place, a white-furred cannonball hit her in a flurry of fangs and claws.
“You have such a nice egg, little bird. Once I break it, I’ll make good use of it.” The Warg had clear blue eyes and a deep guttural voice, her tongue lolling out of her mouth.
“It talks?” Tista blurted out in surprise.
Monsters weren’t supposed to understand human language, let alone speak it.
“*She* talks, little bird, and Meva is also going to gut you.” The Warg had jumped above the magical formation so that when the gravity spell had enhanced her weight it had boosted her charge.
She punched Tista with one hand to exploit the momentum of their fall while grabbing Tista’s arm with the other hand. This way, the recoil from each hit pulled Tista back in a whip-like movement that doubled Meva’s already impressive strength.
Tista was a bright blue-cored Awakened with perfect body refinement yet each blow squeezed the air out of her lungs and hurt like hell despite the protection offered by the Scalewalker armor.
To make matters worse, when they crashed against the ground, the Warg landed on top of her and used her as a cushion. From so up close the gravity field was much stronger and the Goblins conjured countless tendrils of earth to assist their ally.
‘This bastard not only has an absurd life force but she’s also hammering at me with spells every time she hits.’ Tista could see with Life Vision that Meva had infused her hands with air, darkness, and water magic.
The arm holding Tista flooded the right side of her body with jolts of lightning that caused her spasms, cold that sapped her strength, and darkness magic that spread like a disease.
The Warg’s left arm, instead, hit like a hammer at her vital spots, injecting the spells where they hurt the most and exploiting the natural weakness of enchanted armor against blunt damage.
Any other person would have been frozen in surprise and fear, with no idea of what was happening or how to defend themselves. Luckily for Tista, Lith had shared his previous battles with her.
‘This is something in-between the Wargs possessed by Tezka and those Hati Protector faced.’ She thought and the barrage of spells that she kept at the ready blackened the pristine white fur for a split second before apparently healing without leaving a scratch.
To confirm her theory, Tista opened her extra three eyes and scoured the field, noticing several nearby Wargs doubling over in pain due to the damage caused by her spells.
‘What the actual fuck?’ All of her eyes went wide open as a famished Troll neared a wounded Warg and instead of eating him, the Troll used healing magic.
While the Warg recovered, the Troll partially reverted to his unfallen state by getting rid of some of the excess light element that plagued his body.
“You have nice eyes, little bird. I hope you taste good as well.” The Warg exploited the earth tendrils and Tista’s shock to plunge her claws into the eye slits of the armor.
Tista screamed in pain as her blue and red eyes popped, blood and vitreous fluid blinding those she had left. She fell into a panic and shapeshifted into her Red Demon form.
Her screams of pain turned into a twin burst of Cursed Flames.
“I was right. Your eyes taste almost as good as yolk-” Void incinerated the Warg’s hand while she was savoring her prize and Blight dried up the tendrils and everyone too close to the Red Demon.
The Warg stepped back in pain, howling, but her wounds passed onto her companions and she was able to resume her attack before Tista could clear her vision.
“That wasn’t nice, little bird. I can use some chicken wings, though.” A punch straight to the chest sent Tista out of the protective circle of flames and crashing against the nearby Trolls.
The mouths on their hands, arms, and chests had an easy time biting deep into the wings whose size made them nothing but an easy mark in close quarters. Each bite ripped off the flesh and plucked feathers, turning Tista’s pain into terror.
To her Phoenix half, losing her feathers was akin to being stripped naked and then skinned alive. It was much worse than being cut or hit because it felt like losing a part of herself.
“Tista!” The Eyes of Menadion allowed Solus to follow the battle from a distance so she knew that neither of her companions was faring well.
Yet she also knew that away from the geyser she wouldn’t last long and that if any creature managed to slip past her, Ne’sra would be doomed. Solus looked at the stone ring on her finger, cursing the weakness that plagued her despite Lith having entrusted her with the physical manifestation of the tower.
Without it, the moment she ran out of energy her body would have no place to return and shatter for good.
Solus yelled orders in her amulet, but the mages were simply too few and the troops stationed in Ne’sra ill-prepared to face a monster horde. Soldiers and mages who got too close would quickly become fodder.
The odd powers of the monsters were hard to predict and counter even for Awakened who understood what was happening, let alone for humans who were caught by surprise.
Solus would have liked to explain the situation to them, but there was no time for it.
All she could do was spin the Fury faster until her arm hurt and throw it at the incoming wave of monsters. As soon as the hammer left her hand, Solus activated one of the abilities of the Fury, Burning Rain.
The hammer split into nine copies, each one with its mana crystals of a bright red. The mystical gemstones sucked in the world energy, amplifying the fire element to the extreme until the Furies became engulfed in flames.
The heat rose, turning the hammers from blood red into pristine white as they flew amid the enemy lines, carrying along everyone they hit and turning them into living battering rams.
Burning Rain made the heads of the nine hammers explode into countless white-hot Davross shards that pierced through the flesh of the monsters that they had herded, making their blood boil.
Troll, Wargs, and Goblin burned all the same, throwing their ranks into disarray.
The magical formations that the Goblins had prepared crumbled. A Warg who had jumped at Solus, confident that the collective might of the pack would defeat the small woman, was now the sole survivor and had nothing but his own strength.
A single punch from Solus welcomed the Warg coming and sent him on his way to the afterlife.
“I have plenty of juice for you, jackasses!” She yelled at the white tide of Trolls as she conjured the Mending Field array from the Mouth of Menadion.
It was a tier four Warden spell meant to heal minor wounds and keep patients in severe conditions stable until a Healer could focus on them. For Trolls, however, it was a cruel torture that robbed them of their sanity.
