A single Howling Void inflicted negligible damage on the massive trunk of the World Tree, but dozens, hundreds of them, required the Yggdrasill to divert a considerable amount of their mana to heal the wounds and stop the Chaos from spreading.
Eycos the Garuda helped the Dark Phoenixes to escape by sharing his Life Maelstrom and shielding those grievously wounded with his body. Phoenixes could regenerate even lethal injuries by converting mana into life force with their bloodline ability, Rebirth Flames.
Yet if they ran out of mana or their bodies were pulverized, they would die like anyone else. Eycos’ Abomination side allowed him to resist all elements but darkness and by absorbing the abundant world energy no wound would last long.
The one who shone the most, however, was Zoreth.
Her body was big enough to cover both Gentor and Valtak with her wingspan and her Immortal Flames protected the Wyrms near her from all threats.
A regular Dragon had to use Immortal Flames sparsely since they burned their life force without the aid of world energy. Zoreth, however, was different. Her troll side had an endless vitality that she exploited to release wide bursts of emerald fire that she manipulated like a part of her body.
The Immortal Flames answered her every command even after moving away from her body, becoming thicker when they had to absorb the Tower Tier spells from the Yggdrasill and thinner when they just had to warm a group of Dragons enough to allow them to retreat.
Abthot the Ogre-Eldritch hybrid used her Fae side to heal those too wounded to keep fighting before entrusting them to Aylen’s feline Emperor Beasts.
She focused on those on the brink of death that not even Surtr’s Sanctuary of Light could save while the Emperor Beasts carried the Divine Beasts back to the safe zone, under the protection of Tezka and his Chaos Dimension.
The World Tree didn’t even bother attacking the Suneater. Tezka was the closest one to the power of a Guardian and even though the Yggdrasill was certain to be stronger than the Fylgja, cracking his defenses would leave the Tree too exposed to Lith’s forces.
Despite all that, the advance of the Divine Beasts had come to an abrupt halt and even the white cores were fighting for their lives. Many Dragons had fallen out of the sky, most of them with their lungs intact to use Invigoration or lucky enough to be rescued.
Some of them were dead, their bloody corpses littering the Fringe as the bloody rivers they formed painted the grassland red.
In his mind, Leegaain had a starry sky representing the lives of all his descendants. Whenever one of them died, their star would go out and the Father of All Dragons would mourn their loss.
The Phoenixes fared better only thanks to Rebirth Flames while the Griffons because they had been trained since their infancy to save a good chunk of their Life Maelstrom for situations like that.
Their mighty bodies boosted by the silver lighting were hard to kill and Griffons had no shame retreating when their lives were threatened. The cold paralyzed only the Dragons, sapping their strength and slowing their movements.
The Yggdrasill focused on them to teach them a lesson and because they were the main core of Lith’s forces.
“No!” Valtak cried, seeing his Hatchlings fall. “This is all my fault! All those young Wyrms are dying because of me.”
“This is not your fault, old friend.” Gentor grabbed the Elder Wyrm and covered him from a barrage of Spirit Spells with his Golden Radiance. “You didn’t force anyone to come here. This was a gamble and we knew the r-”
A colossal wooden axe cut one of Gentor’s wings off and dug deep into his spine. The Father of All Golden Dragons fell limp to the ground, his words scrambling into an agonizing throe.
“You bastard!” Valtak charged forward, intercepting the second axe-arm of a Wood Golem with his Adamant claws, Balefire, and kicking the first ax out of the wound before it could reach Gentor’s lung.
“Valtak!” Xenagrosh screamed as she held back the other seven Golems of the eight-man unit. “Get to safety! There’s nothing you can do here.”
She wanted to help him but she couldn’t risk the Puppets casting a Silverwing’s Annihilation. The Shadow Dragon had to keep them scattered and their attention focused on her or the retreat would soon turn into a massacre.
“I can’t!” The Father of Fire cried, feeling the sense of urgency rise inside of him. “Don’t worry about me. We just have to hold out a bit longer!”
He blocked the axes with Balefire and headbutted the Golem away enough to breathe a violent stream of Origin Flames. Even the most basic among the mystical flames was a deadly weapon in the hands of the Elder Fire Wyrm.
Valtak used the Origin Flames like feelers, recognizing the different mana currents originating from different sources by the way they burned. The Father of Fire identified the traces of the Chronicler’s energy signature and had the Flames follow it back to the source until they reached the Wooden Puppet he had become.
The Flames concentrated their power on the former Chronicler and ignored the rest of the construct, burning his remains to cinders.
Without its pilot, the Golem became a useless pile of Yggdrasill wood that Valtak threw to the Liches.
“Thanks, old fossil!” The undead fed upon the construct to reform their bodies and inflict pain on the World Tree.
Then, they fearlessly charged against the violet-cored elves and the Golems to protect Bloodhaven. No matter how bad the situation became, the Liches would never leave the Red Mother behind.
At least as long as their phylacteries were stored inside her tower.
‘We need to fall back!’ Orion said via the mind link while using the tower shield exclusive to the Ernas Royal Fortress armor, Honor Guard, to intercept a barrage of tier five Spirit Spells.
Honor Guard conjured and controlled dozens of elemental shields that its master could move around with his thoughts and imbue them with Life Maelstrom from a distance.
Orion had the elemental constructs converge around Honor Guard to form a Divine Beast-sized tower shield and cover those standing behind him.
‘Never!’ Lith screamed, looking at the short distance separating the strike team from the World Tree. ‘If we go back now, we’ll offer our back to the enemy and get slaughtered.
‘Even if we survive, the Yggdrasill will shift their focus on our allies and kill so many of them that we’ll lack the numbers for a second charge.’
‘Lith is right, Orion.’ Vastor stood by his friend’s side and conjured a Decay Bastion. ‘The Tree is pouring millennia of accumulated energy into this attack. If our defenses falter even for one second, we are dead.’
The Master shared via the When All Are One array the vision of his six auxiliary heads. Even with most of the onslaught focused on Lith and his group, the decoy and support teams were being blown away.
The white cores were barely holding their ground under the barrage of Tower Tier spells born out of the shattered arrays while the Divine Beast lost ground by the second.
The moment the Yggdrasill shifted his focus, there would be no wounded, only casualties.
