After reaching the bright violet, the three sides comprising Lith’s life force had come to an understanding, even the Voidfeather Dragon and the Void. They no longer quarreled among themselves and Lith could trust them with more freedom.
The Void was in charge of controlling Raptor and the Voidfeather of Trouble, giving the constructs intelligence and a few tricks.
The Vagrash’s body had been shrunk to the size of a pony to allow Solus to ride it and move nimbly through the corridors.
She saw a wall of runes and mana ahead of them, thick enough to stop the advance of the Demons and even resist their Thousand Flames. From behind its protection, the undead shot darkness spells from point-blank range.
The darkness element was the bane of undead and Abomination alike. With the spells flooding the corridor, leaving the Demons no way to dodge or cover, they were falling like flies.
The corridors were littered with puddles of shadow from which the Demons rebuilt their bodies just to be shot down by the undead.
‘Dammit, that’s something that we didn’t encounter during the past raid. We’ve failed to take into account that the presence of a mana geyser increases our options but the same applies to our enemies.
‘With the difference that they had centuries to set up their defenses!’ Solus cursed their bad luck and conjured the Fury in her right hand.
‘Fall back.’ She couldn’t command the souls of the dead but the Void could.
The frenzied Demons answered by using Shadow Steps to clear her line of sight as they moved inside the nearest empty room to recover.
Solus activated the Furies’ Flight, conjuring eight more copies of the enchanted hammer that flew at the barrier in a bird-looking formation. The white crystals on the sides and head of the Furies turned black, yellow, and orange.
The darkness element increased the destructive power, the air element gave the hammers speed, and the earth element further increased the hardness of the Davross.
The strand of her hair that Solus had fused with the hammer connected the metal head with the Phoenix bone in the handle and the Dragon leather of the grip, amplifying the effects of the elemental mana.
The Furies’ Flight surpassed the speed of sound, creating a sonic boom in its wake.
The energy wall took the first blow without budging, but after the fifth, cracks opened in the points of impact. The shockwave caught up a split second later, hitting the entire wall and preventing the self-repair spell from mending the damage.
Even with the power of the geyser fueling the wards, nine heads of Davross thrown by someone with the strength of a Divine Beast and imbued with the power of Salaark’s altered crystals was too much.
The best the array could do was withstand the sonic boom and limit the spreading of the fractures. Solus burned a spark of her life force to ignore the dimensional sealing array, returning the Fury to her hand in a burst of emerald flames right after the hit.
The first shockwave had yet to dwindle when a second set of Furies took flight followed by another sonic boom. The energy wall withstood two more hammers before shattering.
The Furies from four to nine turned the hole opened by the third hammer into a wide passage and the ensuing shockwave sent the undead flying. Raptor exploited the collapse of the defensive formation to cross over before the array repaired itself.
Solus rode on its back and the able-bodied Demons marched right behind the golem.
“Shit!” Zontak the Dullahan had just got back to his feet when the assault began.
The group of undead had been alerted of the fall of Derios’ branch but on too short a notice to prepare for the invasion. They had betted everything on the defensive measures fueled by the mana geyser and they had little beyond that.
Not many Demons had managed to walk through the broken barrier and only a few of them had four eyes left, but the Golden Warrior’s reputation preceded her and there was something in her steed that gave the creeps even to centuries-old predators.
The eyes of the Vagrash had been replaced by a fire and a darkness crystal while the Spirit Crystal had been moved from the chest to the middle of the forehead. The crystal eyes had no iris or pupil yet they managed to express a savage joy.
The Void looked at them like toys he was eager to break. To cut them open and discover what made them tick.
The undead noticed the resemblance with the Tiamat and wondered if the reason the construct didn’t have seven eyes was that despite the accolades, the Supreme Magus of the Kingdom lacked resources.
Little did they know that Lith had the crystals, he just didn’t trust the Void with that kind of power.
The Dullahan cast spells from both his head and body. One manipulated its hair to make up for the missing hands and trace the mystical runes while the other used air magic to turn the gurgling noise from the severed neck into words.
Jima the Banshee activated her bloodline ability, Shattered Soul, to produce an ear-piercing shriek that carried the kinetic energy of a speeding truck. Demons and constructs had no eardrums to burst but the air pressure still scattered them and sent them slamming against the wall.
The enchantments of Solus’ Voidwalker armor Hushed her ears yet Shattered Soul’s vibrations spread past her armor and into her bones, making her shiver like she was naked under a snowstorm.
Zamor the Mage Slayer followed up by cutting through the weakest Demons, reducing the number of threats while also conjuring one bolt of lightning with each movement of his blade.
The tier three spells were aimed at Solus, too fast for her to dodge them while her body struggled to follow her commands. The electricity sent her into a seizure and left her open to Zontak’s spells.
“Not so fast.” The Void flexed the Vagrash’s tail, using it to wrap around Zamor’s sword and throwing the Mage Slayer right in front of Solus.
The gaseous body of the undead fed upon the mana without letting a single spark of energy reach the Golden Knight.
‘That’s annoying but at least my spells didn’t go to waste. Zamor is now stronger and can take care of the woman while I deal with the construct.’ The Dullahan thought while unsheathing the sword at his hip.
His favorite weapon was actually a spear, but with the cramped space of the corridor and surrounded by allies and enemies he needed a shorter-ranged weapon.
‘I still have the advantage since the golem fares even worse than me with its long body and the short reach of its front-‘ His train of thoughts derailed as the figure of the Vagrash changed into a humanoid appearance.
Long straight horns came out of his forehead while curved horns came out of the back of his skull, covering his neck. The feathered wings on its back turned membranous and small spikes erupted on his arms, legs, and chest.
They were arranged in concentric layers so as to act as both a means of offense and defense.
