Solus followed Lith’s movements via their mind link without the need to look up at the sky. The moment she felt he was getting too close for comfort, she let the world energy reach the final rune and Blinked to the side of the Gate.
On the other side of the dimensional door, the undead watching the entrance sounded the alarm the moment the Gate opened. Authorized guests knew they had to announce their coming or send the Court Lord the password and neither had happened.
The protective arrays of the underground building activated at the same time when a burning black meteor crashed in the middle of the marble floor. The sonic boom accompanying the meteor combined with the shockwave produced by the impact produced the next best thing to a natural disaster.
The air pressure burst the eardrums of the guards and squashed their eyes, making them bleed. The shockwave sent them flying against the wall with so much strength that it caved.
The ground rumbled and the chandeliers hung to the ceiling started to swing with enough violence to give the impression of a quake, except tremors were supposed to come from below, not from above.
Even while in human size, Lith was still a Divine Beast 30 meters (100′) tall weighing dozens of tons. Gravity fusion and the fall had turned him into a human projectile whose impact released the kinetic energy of a collapsing mountain.
The arrays tried and failed to contain the damage, the offensive system was thrown off by the cracks in the floor and walls that displaced the perfect alignment that the runes required to conjure their effects.
The lines of power connecting the runes that comprised the arrays had been either broken or twisted, making it impossible for the magical formation to exert more than one-tenth of its original power.
Also, since the Gate led to a different place, the dust, noise, and debris that came out of the dimensional door affected solely the area right in front of the entrance. The artificial quake left the area where Solus was waiting unscathed, the birds stopping their songs briefly until the noise died down and the clearing returned peaceful.
As she let Trouble and Raptor out of her dimensional pocket, a swarm of shadows flooded the Gate as soon as the dust settled. Hundreds of six eyed Demons made their way inside the underground building, each one of them a two-dimensional blot.
That form allowed them to overcome the limits of the small size of the Gate and kill the guards before they could heal.
Lith had conjured his Demons while at the Verhen Mansion, so that the mana geyser would fuel the tower and both would enhance his powers. Creating so many six-eyed Demons in a short span of time had required him a few uses of Invigoration, but it was worth it.
Now a small army of Awakened Abominations were rushing down the corridors and bursting through the doors of the branch of the Undead Court, uncaring for the traps they triggered.
The defensive barriers shielding the Demons took the brunt of the damage and darkness element of their bodies took care of the rest. Lith didn’t move from his position, keeping the portal in check and giving the Demons the mana they needed to rebuild their shadow forms.
‘The coast is clear. You can come in.’ Lith said once the Eyes of Menadion confirmed him that he was alone.
The moment Solus and the Golems crossed the dimensional door, Lith twisted the corrupted world energy so that it exploded, turning one of the few way outs into a pile of rubble.
The violent release of the dimensional energy enlarged the cracks in the walls and destroyed what was left of the defensive arrays at the entrance.
Raptor followed Solus while Trouble and Lith moved in different directions. She had the strength and the mass of a Divine Beast but her core was still bright blue. It meant that both her speed and mana capacity couldn’t match those of an Elder undead.
Solus’ power would have been meaningless if she couldn’t hit her target so she used the Vagrash golem as a steed to make up for being slow.
Lith ran down a once lavish corridor stomping over the broken vases and scattered flowers. Ragnarök rested in his hand, still sheathed in its bloody scabbard. Lith followed the wake of destruction left by the Demons, searching for an opponent they had failed to destroy.
Most of the undead slumbered during the day or had their strength greatly reduced. They were no match for a six-eyed Demon of the Darkness and they died before even understanding what was happening.
Lith had given clear instructions to ask no questions and give no quarters so his path was littered with the bodies of the thralls that served the undead. Those people took care of the daily affairs of their sires and ensured their safety while the sun was up in exchange for the promise of eternal life.
‘I don’t care about the reason they were here. They chose their bed, now they can die in it.’ Lith thought while walking through the ruin and carnage of the corridors.
He moved slowly, using Life Vision and life sensing arrays to make sure that the Demons hadn’t missed anything or anyone.
At the beginning of the assault, only a small portion of the army of conjured souls had any equipment since they were limited by what Lith possessed and most of his reserves had been consumed for his Voidwalker armor and the Golems.
Yet with every enemy the Demons fell, weapons and armor dropped to the ground, ready to be imprinted. Unfortunately, undead didn’t leave a corpse behind, only ashes, so the Demon of the Darkness lacked the means to turn into Demons of the Fallen.
Each one of them having six eyes, however, more than made up for the lack of a physical body.
Each one of them had the strength of a bright violet-cored Awakened, the bloodline abilities of a Tiamat, and a rage that had simmered for at least decades. Only elder undead could take on a single Demon and there were hundreds of them.
To make matters worse, their bodies were comprised of darkness, the bane of the undead, and every Demon had access to Lith’s spells. Whenever the defence forces retreated, a hail of tier four and five spells rained on them.
If they tried to engage the Demons in close-quarters combat, death would soon reap them. The shadow creatures were too strong for a young undead and their very touch infected their victims with deadly darkness.
Lith noticed that the doors on his path had been kicked in, most of them blackened by fire along with the rooms that they were supposed to protect. The stench of ashes and burned flesh forced Lith to seal the face mask of the Voidwalker armor.
The vaporized body fat in the air was so thick that it condensed in the humidity of his mouth, forming a greasy layer on Lith’s tongue that he had to destroy with a pulse of darkness magic from time to time.
