It was the ritual Leannan had resorted to in the past to replace the old Sovereign.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Erlik was flabbergasted. ‘What about my army?’
‘As long as you have me, you don’t need an army.’ The Sapling’s voice was condescending. Even with his long life, Erlik was barely more than a seedling in the tree’s eyes.
‘If they die, it means that they weren’t worth the trouble I took in keeping them alive. The same stands for you.’
Erlik inwardly cursed. The Sapling was still a plant folk to the root. Plans and deals didn’t mean anything to it, only power. Leannan had unraveled his plot, predicted his moves, and even managed to hold her ground despite the fact that the Sapling was actively helping him.
In the ancient tree’s eyes, a stalemate under those conditions was as good as a defeat.
‘You old fool! You have no idea what you have just done.’ Erlik thought.
Now that the living array sealed him from the outside world, his contingency plan in the case he was captured or gravely wounded sprang into action. The sacks of symbiote he had left inside of the treehouses belonged to a different strain than what he had used to infect the plant folk.
It would take over its host, shaping the treehouse to resemble Erlik and give them part of his abilities.
The moment that the mind link with Erlik was broken, the sacks released their content, turning the treehouses into Draugrlings. The monstrous titans were as tall as a five-storey building and moved to aid their master.
Yet now that the bond with the Sapling was weakened, not even their orders could keep them from sharing the hunger of their maker. With each stride they took, the Draugrlings swung their massive limbs, catching a handful of plant folk that they swallowed whole to fuel their march.
Erlik knew that he had no time to waste. Once the Draugrlings arrived, their priority would be to help their master, even if that meant attacking the Sapling. He could feel the ancient being becoming more and more annoyed at him.
A direct attack was likely to be the last straw that would break their deal.
Erlik went all-out and activated all of the most powerful abilities of his undead race. Not only were Draugr much stronger than their alive counterpart, they could also increase their size at will without it affecting their speed.
Unlike shapeshifting, the extra mass came from the victims that Erlik still stored inside his massive body, temporarily adding their flesh to his own. The transformation even temporarily boosted his blood core since when a Draugr ate, they didn’t just consume the living matter but also the life essence of their victims.
Part of their mana cores was preserved by the necromantic energies animating a Draugr and could be assimilated to enhance their magical abilities. Yet it all came at a price.
The transformation would not only put a heavy strain on the Draugr’s energy reserve like what happened to Grendels, but also on their blood cores. Assimilating foreign energy was akin to mana poisoning.
Even though undead were naturally resistant to it, processing too much energy at once would not damage their bodies but it could break their cores, killing them on the spot.
Erlik doubled in size, swinging his fists at Leannan.
‘Neither of us had the time to chant spells and even if she did, by now the strain of keeping them at the ready will make her an easy mark.’ Erlik thought.
The Titania managed to dodge the attack, but the Draugr had grown so big that he filled most of the arena the World Saplings had arranged for them. Erlik used the impact of his attack with the ground to lift his lower body and pivot on his knuckles to follow up with a kick from an unpredictable angle.
Leannan grabbed the incoming foot with both hands, exploiting the enemy precarious stance to lift him off the ground and throw him against the barrier surrounding them. The spinning vines struck Erlik’s back with enough strength to damage even his augmented body and send him back in the middle of the ring, where Leannan was waiting for him.
“Do you really think that size is the only thing that matters? Have you ever wondered where the word ‘titan’ comes from?” The Titania said, striking at the Draugr’s chest with her fist.
Even in her Fae form, she looked smaller than a child if compared with her opponent. Yet her attack smashed through the rotten bark, making a web of cracks spread from the point of impact to the edges of his limbs.
Erlik was flabbergasted, bust most of all he was confused. None of what was happening made sense to him.
Just like Hydras and Dragons, there were Fae that kept their most powerful abilities hidden even from the members of their same race. Titanias’s bodies were the result of compressing their mass to the utmost limit.
They could become even bigger than what Erlik was, but that would mean spreading their life force and offer a bigger target. Their line of evolution had progressed by favoring quality rather than quantity.
The branches coming out of her head, the vines among her hair, and even the leaves decorating her forehead, were just vestigial parts that had been discarded over time.
Erlik was sent bouncing against the wall of vines again, but he managed to regain his cool and put the experience of centuries to practice. Sapling or not, their mastery over the earth and water elements allowed Treants to manipulate wood at will.
It was one of the skills that he didn’t lose when he had been turned into a Draugr. Their cage and even his own body were made of wood, hence Erlik could shapeshift them as he saw fit.
Countless arms and mouths sprouted all over his body, chanting several spells at once, while wooden spikes infused with the darkness element were fired from his palms as if they were two enormous Gatling guns.
All of this while he was still in mid-air.
“Thanks for the lesson, but quantity has a quality all its own.” The Draugr replied while his wound disappeared, making Faluel curse. Undead felt no pain nor fatigue. Only death and lack of mana could stop them.
“Gods, yes!” Friya said with an enthusiasm that left her opponent shocked since usually having your heart impaled was hardly cause for celebration.
‘This human must be an extreme masochist for…’ Tyria the Redcap’s mind went blank when she realized that, her halberd infused with enough darkness magic to kill a magical beast in one hit, had struck the right place but the wrong target.
The moment the Sapling had refused to obey Erlik, Friya had felt the space around herself relax, giving her back her best weapon. She had Switched herself with a Banshee who was her size so fast that Tyria had noticed Friya’s voice actually coming from behind only when it was too late.
The Banshee spat out a mouthful of black blood, looking at the Redcap with angry eyes. Tyria ignored her and pulled the halberd out, lunging at the voice’s point of origin without even looking.
A vampire’s senses were so keen that they could always find a target whose blood they had spilled. Friya had suffered several cuts during their short battle, making her an easy target.
