The magical beasts started moving at a speed the humans could follow while keeping their spells at the ready.
Scarlett could feel that each one of them was grieving and was filled with hatred. Yet there was no bickering nor disrespect between the different races. It was enough to give her the creeps.
“We can’t afford to stop. If you want answers, you’d better follow us.” The Ry said.
“We are all that’s left of the entire Gheluan forest. The others have either already escaped or died. To answer your earlier question, Mogar has turned against its children and none can escape its fury.” His words made Scarlett sneer.
“Very dramatic. I never heard of a Ry with so much talent with words. Do you mind being a bit more specific?”
“It’s hard to explain. One day the natural order was simply turned upside down. You could see a plant eat a deer, the deer hunt a wolf, and the wolf attack his own pack. Humans too were affected by the phenomenon, but them attacking their own or killing for sport is hardly a novelty. No offense.” The Ry said.
“None taken.” Replied a middle aged magician who was sitting on top of a Cingy, a boar type magical beast, to be able to cast the Life Sensing array from time to time. It had allowed them to identify the enemy hidden among the grass and escape from several ambushes.
“Whatever it is, it’s capable of taking any form it wants. A flower, a Ry, a human, anything. Even its smell is almost identical to the original. I almost died twice just to learn how to distinguish the anomaly it holds.”
“What anomaly?” That word reminded Scarlett of Lith, making her fear that her decision to spare him all those years ago had finally backfired.
“It’s a hybrid smell. Part beast, part Abomination, part undead.” With each word the Ry spoke Scarlett’s stomach churned stronger, at least until she heard the last part.
“Undead? Don’t you mean human?” She asked.
“No, I’m sure of it. For once humans are innocent.” The Ry shook his head.
“Ambush!” The Warden yelled one second before black sprouts emerged from the ground. They grew at an unbelievable speed, draining all life from their surroundings to sustain their existence and turning the grasslands into barren earth.
Like the group they were chasing, the creatures mimicked the appearance of members of different races. Their age and gender appeared to be random. There were even children and elderly among them.
The creatures were a pulsing mass made out of bones, of the Chaos energy typical of Abominations, and of black vines instead of flesh. The red light of undeath burning inside their eyes revealed a desperate hunger.
Yet as fast as they had appeared, their forms became indistinguishable from the living. Vines turned into flesh, and the red light was replaced by normal pupils as their skin or fur turned from pitch black to what it was supposed to be.
“Why did you abandon us, mom? We miss you. We promise to behave if you return.” Said two little kids to the Warden. They had big watery eyes, like those of a child too naïve to understand what they have done to anger their beloved parents.
“You’re not my real children! I’ve seen you die.” Rage and grief boosted the power of her darkness magic spells. Two black bolts erupted from her hands turning the two kids into rotten mush among high-pitched screams of agony.
“Don’t run away, my love.” Said a female Ry to the leader of the group.
“I’m not dead and I mean you no harm. I just want to be reunited with you. If you pledge your allegiance to the Great Mother, we could both happily live forever.”
The male Ry hesitated. He had fought many of those creatures, but never before had one of them taken the semblance of his beloved Nia.
“Nice try, scum.” Scarlett raised her pince-nez above her head, making it emit a pulse of light that brushed off the illusion and revealed the cruel reality underneath. No matter their gender, age, or race.
All the creatures had a single life force, a single smell, and were made of mud. The Vines that covered their bodies allowed them to move, while the Chaos energy covering them replaced their true semblance with a familiar face.
Once their secret was exposed, the creatures dropped the act like it was a live grenade and turned toward Scarlett.
“Long time no see, Scorpicore.” They said in unison with a neutral voice. “You might just be what I need for my final breakthrough.”
Scarlett ignored the ramblings and focused on the voice. She was certain that she had heard it in the past. With the pince-nez back on her face, she studied the creatures’ cores.
‘Whoever is behind this it’s not Lith. That is not his voice nor his ring’s and these creatures have three cores each, whereas Lith had a single hybrid core with multiple properties.’ She thought.
The hybrids extended their arms to attack, but the group of survivors wasn’t willing to chat, so they attacked the moment the Eyes of Menadion stripped the creatures of their disguise.
Killing a pile of random stuff was much easier than murdering your loved ones over and over again. The undead nature of the creatures made them incredibly sturdy so that most spells had little to no effect on them.
Darkness magic was their bane, but it was also slow, and very few creatures could use it aside from humans. That was why the group had formed and how they had survived for so long.
The magical beasts would pin the enemies down to the ground, the humans would kill them with darkness magic, and the awakened plants would keep their allies alive without fail. Plants were the most gifted creatures in the rejuvenating arts. There was no injury they couldn’t treat in a matter of seconds.
By harnessing Mogar’s life force, they could almost regrow an entire body with no burden on their patient’s stamina. Yet that was before Scarlett’s arrival. Now that she was the creature’s target, the mastermind was no longer interested in capturing the others alive.
Scarlett could see the Chaos magic assembling on the creatures’ fingertips a second before they unleashed a barrage of black rays as fast as bullets. A wave of her hand enveloped the group of survivors in a dome of light that stopped the Chaos spells.
Chaos magic could destroy matter almost to the atomic level, but light magic was its fatal weakness. Chaos magic was nothing but darkness magic that had been forcefully stripped of its light counterpart.
It was the imbalance that made Chaos magic so powerful. The raw darkness magic was drawn to the light element residing inside its target, making it fast. While simultaneously stripping its target of the light element to restore its own equilibrium, amplifying the destructive force of darkness magic by several times.
A light magic energy construct would restore the balance, turning Chaos magic back into common darkness magic.
“Your version of Hollow Void is truly amateurish. It didn’t put a dent in my Source Wall.” Scarlett said. Her aim was to taunt her opponent into revealing their identity.
No matter how hard she racked her brain, she had met too many people to remember them all.
