When the dust settled, it revealed the colossal figure of the hybrid crouching on the ground, their eight wings forming a protective cocoon engulfed in silvery flames around their body.
The emerald armor was cracked and the wings bore more holes than Swiss cheese. The gold and black scales beneath were visible while the four arms of the creature ended at the elbow in bloody stumps.
Yet the aura of the hybrid had grown stronger and it neared the bright white. The wounds healed and the armor repaired itself at a speed that was slightly inferior to that of a real white core.
The Abomination Touch drained the nutrients from the ground, the Hands fed the hybrid with endless world energy, and the Spirit Magic infused in the tower boosted their vitality
“Our turn!” The hybrid unfurled their wings that blazed with elemental power while their twin mouths opened.
Each one hurled a jet stream of Dread Flames that met after crossing a short distance and fused in a fiery pillar ten times the size of the original.
The silvery flames hit the World Tree and created a deep crater on impact. They spread across the bark and seeped inside the cracks, burning at the Yggdrasil inside and out.
Whenever the Dread Flames licked Skyfire’s Origin Flames, the violet fire turned silvery and became as strong as the hybrid’s fire.
The pain of the World Tree spread to their Puppets, making them collapse throughout the battlefield. Without the Tree’s orders, there was too little of the Chroniclers left to pilot the Wood Golems.
Tezka and the others exploited the moment of weakness of their opponents to mow them down and crush them beyond even a Fae’s recovery ability.
The Yggdrasill was still busy minimizing their losses and smothering the Dread Flames when the hybrid breathed a second twin burst of fire. The resulting silvery pillar was bigger than before, digging deeper and spreading across the World Tree like an infection.
‘Since when are Dread Flames this powerful?’ The silver fire neutralized Fusion Magic, weakening the roots the Tree used to fight alongside their Golems from a safe distance, and the spells the Yggdrasill kept at the ready faded away as well.
‘How come I have so little information about them?’ The answer was that Lith had never understood how to control the Dread Flames and after the accident with the blue flames, Valtak had become too weak to make more experiments.
Now, however, the fusion and the tower gave Lith the power to conjure the Dread Flames multiple times. With each use and with the help of Solus and the Menadion Set, his mastery over the Dread Flames improved.
As the silvery fire spread and the white bolts of lightning shook the World Tree’s trunk, the elves started evacuating their villages. It had become painfully apparent that the schemes of their host had backfired in more than one way.
With the protective arrays gone and the elven champions ignoring their brethren, there was nothing left for the various tribes to rely on but dumb luck. The few elven mages who had not joined the World Tree’s army rushed to open Warp Steps leading to the edges of the previous Fringe, away from the invaders.
“Elder Alaqua, we can’t get out!” One of the many elves pressing against the veil separating them from the rest of Mogar said. “There is no mist, only a solid wall of world energy.”
“Cease your struggles, child.” Despite the great difference in age between the youth and the Elder, a human would have likely mistaken the two elves for brothers. “The barrier is not meant to protect us from the outside world anymore.
“Its purpose is to contain the conflict. No one can go anywhere until a victor is determined.”
“What can we do, Elder?” A female elf asked as the air pressure generated by the clash of anti-Guardian spells forced her tribe to its knees despite the distance.
“If you believe in gods, you can pray.” The old elf replied. “If you don’t, you can say your goodbyes.” Alaqua made sure that all the members of his family had reached the rally point safely and told each one of them how much they meant to him.
***
As the greeds of Dragons and the Eldritches-hybrid advanced, the World Tree could afford less and less to pay them little attention yet the Yggdrasill had no other choice.
Menadion and the Raiju were harrying the Golems with bolts of plasma, keeping the constructs from conjuring the anti-Guardian spells the Yggdrasill so desperately needed to get rid of the hybrid.
The five under the When All Are One array were farther away than the First Ruler of the Flames but distance mattered little to their Chaos Annihilation. The Cursed spells flashed like lasers, boring deep holes in the World Tree that poisoned their sap with Chaos.
Under Xenagrosh’s Dragon Eyes, every crack and weak point in the Yggdrasill’s waning defenses was obvious and the five always aimed the Annihilations where they hurt the most.
To make matters worse, a final bolt of lightning had just painted the aura of Lith and Solus bright white the moment their wounds had fully healed.
‘Finally!’ They thought as the edges of their aura flared with gold and silver. ‘If something lies beyond the white, it’s not going to matter anyway. This power will be lost when the fusion is broken and we have already revealed too much of our strength.
‘We don’t want the entire Mogar to pick Lith Verhen apart to find the secret of his unlimited strength.’
The Mouth had long finished weaving the second Extinction and there were too many runes floating in the sky still available to the World Tree.
‘If the World Fucker casts another barrage of anti-Guardian spells at us, we won’t have the mana to cast our Tower Blade Spell a third time.’
As the hybrid’s elemental wings and emerald body flared up again, the bright white aura turned inward. It flooded Ragnarök, the tower, and everything inside of it.
The Yggdrasill noticed the sudden increase in Lith’s and Solus’ power with Soul Vision and rushed to condense an equivalent amount of energy in the form of several Tower Tier spells, no matter how many runes they had to consume.
Ragnarök cut the air, tracing sharp lines that combined to form a massive mana circle. Three copies of the angry blade appeared in the hybrid’s hands, completing the circuit before the World Tree could finish their spells.
Lith and Solus reabsorbed the power dispersed in the copies and lunged at the center of the seven-pointed star in one fluid movement. The magic circle shrunk and coated Ragnarök with a shining multi-colored layer that resembled an aurora.
The collapsing mana gathered at the tip of the blade in the form of a small sphere that burst forward at supersonic speed. It grew in size as it crossed the space between the hybrid and the Tree, engulfing them from the base of the trunk to the lowest branches.
The Yggdrasill fought Extinction with everything they had, condensing the remaining runes into Tower Tier spells and hoping it would be enough to save them from the incoming onslaught.
