Thorn was imbued with silver lightning that amplified its prowess tenfold and with it the energy bursts that the Davross spear produced simply by moving.
The problem was that both the speartip and the dozens of darkness pillars hit empty air.
‘Where has Leech gone?’ Orpal asked. ‘You said he Blinked!’
‘Below!’ Night could see in every direction but one: under Moonlight.
Between the accumulated world energy and the silver bolt of lightning, the steed was a blinding sun to Life Vision. Derek had followed his instinct, using the first Blink as a cover as he changed his trajectory
“You talk too much.” Orpal was turning his steed around again when the Void grabbed Orpal’s face and dragged him off his high horse.
Away from Moonlight, the Dead King felt his strength leaving his body and then entering his brother’s. The Abomination Touch was sucking the Life Maelstrom along with Orpal’s life force.
The Dead King lunged his spear through Derek’s chest, meeting no resistance. The darkness of his body and the Voidwalker armor opened in front of Thorn so quickly that the spear and the energy blast in its wake simply passed through.
To an external observer, the Void looked like a doll that had been torn in half at the midriff, the two pieces connected solely through thin threads of darkness. Yet neither of the monsters had a foothold in mid-air so their strength was unchanged.
“I don’t know who you are, Poopie, but you are delicious.” Derek grabbed Thorn with his free hand, draining it as well while his body closed around the haft like a vise.
‘Since when can your brother do that?’ Night was flabbergasted.
Shapeshifting was one thing, altering the density and shape of one’s body was another. To make matters worse, only the army had been alerted of Lith’s Abomination form.
The public feed only mentioned the amnesia to justify his strange behavior and avoid mass hysteria. After all, very few people knew what an Abomination was and the Royals preferred to keep things that way.
‘I don’t know!’ Orpal unleashed his anti-Tiamat spell, Hailstorm.
It generated a powerful cold wave that lowered the temperature by over one hundred degrees in an instant and condensed the power of a lightning spell in a single electrical discharge.
Based on their studies of Lith’s available videos, Orpal and Night assumed that the cold would sap Lith’s strength while the electricity would bypass darkness fusion and send him into a seizure.
Once weakened and paralyzed, he was supposed to be an easy target.
Except for the fact that his body was that of an Abomination now and his Touch was boosted tenfold by the stolen Life Maelstrom.
Abominations didn’t suffer from cold and electricity was just another form of energy they could prey upon.
Hailstorm achieved nothing but wasting Orpal’s mana and strengthening Derek further.
‘Dammit!’ Night tapped into her crystal to release a powerful darkness pulse that sent the Void back screeching. ‘Verhen is not just amnesiac. He has become a true Abomination. We need to adjust our strategy.’
‘Copy that!’ Orpal opened his mouth, using part of the silver lightning he had left to overpower Dusk’s seal again.
A raging torrent of bright blue Origin Flames struck the still-stunned Derek who tried to absorb them with predictable consequences.
Orpal couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of his brother screaming in pain and flailing his arms like a hysterical bird.
‘Maybe I have to wait until my mana core reaches the violet to awaken bloodline abilities like Dragon Eyes and Origin Flams of my own or maybe I’ll never get them.’ The thought that his Vurdalak form might not be as powerful as a Tiamat made Orpal even more bitter than usual.
‘But now that I have Dusk’s crystal with me, it doesn’t matter. Now I’m finally better than Leech at everything. I have the combined power of Dragons, Griffons, and Leviathans plus my own bloodline abilities!
‘Compared to me, Leech is an insect that I can squash under the sole of my boots.’
‘You mean, compared to us, right? There’s no I here, only we.’ Night corrected him.
‘Of course.’ Orpal replied, knowing that without the Horseman’s assistance, the fight would likely end like his previous encounters with his brother.
Meln needed her help to weaken Dusk’s seal enough to tap into the Guardians’ bloodline abilities. On top of that, this time he had no Chosen to assist him and no way to make up for the gap in mass between him and Lith but skill.
Skill that the Dead King sorely lacked and he knew it. Away from his mage tower, Orpal was scared stiff of Lith. His little brother was more than Orpal’s nightmare, Lith was his nemesis.
After being defeated by Jirni and tortured by Thrud for weeks, the Dead King had lost most of his usual underserved confidence. To regain it, he needed a victory and to win, he needed Night.
All things she knew from their bond and that she exploited to keep him on an emotional leash.
There was no love lost between them.
Orpal knew to be a sloppy third choice after Balkor and Lith just like Night knew that given the chance, Orpal would abuse her body and powers.
‘Then stop gawking at yourself and finish Leech!’ The Horseman weaved a few spells and channeled them into Thorn.
‘In due time!’ After being weak for so long, after being humiliated in public and turned into an object of ridicule, the Dead King wanted to savor his victory.
Being called “Poopie” had opened all kinds of emotional wounds and Orpal wanted to give Lith a taste of what Orpal had endured for so long. Of what Lith had so casually inflicted upon others and even to his older brother.
A second blast of Origin Flames erupted from Orpal’s mouth, reinforcing the first and making him regret he had no clue how to generate Primordial Flames.
The Abomination kept screeching in agony, trying to get rid of the impossible flames.
‘What the fuck is this thing?’ For the first time since opening his eyes near Vidun’s hunting cabin, Derek felt fear. ‘I can’t douse it with water and I can’t absorb it with my body. This fire is burning at everything, even this weird silver lightning.’
Before he could recover from the shock, the Vurdalak emitted a blast of darkness element infused with Spirit Magic from Thorn’s tip. It gave the usually slow darkness energy the speed of a bullet and the kinetic energy of a train.
The energy blast sent the Void crashing into the ground, opening a several-meter-deep crater. Orpal followed Night’s instructions and played it safe. He released one pillar of darkness after the other, using them as a pestle to squash Lith in the mortar of the crater.
‘Never let your guard down.’ The Horseman coached Orpal every action. ‘Abominations can’t die unless the last shred of their energy hasn’t been dissipated. Destroying their head or chest is like cutting your hair, it has no real consequence in a fight.
‘We are lucky that Lith has also lost most of his powers along with his memory. If he had countered your Flames with his own or Domination, your current positions might have been reversed.’
