Chapter 2659.1: Glass Cannon (Part 1)
'Don't worry, Friya, you just scrambled three enemy units in a split second whereas it will take them a while to recover. Your shot relieved a bit of pressure and that's more than enough.' Nalrond burned all the mana he had left to conjure a multiple layered barrier around him and Friya.
Imbued with Life Maelstrom, the golden constructs stopped several tier five spells, collapsing one after the other until only one was left. By that time Friya had already used Invigoration on the Rezar, bringing him back to his peak condition.
When the final barrier crumbled, there was no one to hit.
Friya had Warped Nalrond back into the fray and herself to a safe position.
'Gods, if only Nalrond was also an Awakened those two would be an unstoppable force!' While watching them, Aalejah felt a glimmer of hope that quickly faded when she looked at the battlefield and realized how many enemies were left.
She finished mixing her spells inside the Yggdrasill staff and cast a wide area-of-effect four elemental sealing array juiced up by a bolt of silver lightning. Elves were just true mages and had no access to Spirit Magic.
This way, those inside the arrays could only attack with their weapons and any spell cast against Aalejah's allies would fade. She had only left darkness and light available to allow everyone to heal and make Nalrond's constructs the only offensive spells in the area.
Darkness magic was slow and from such a close distance it lost most of its worth since physical attacks were faster and more effective in a one-on-one situation. At least for the elves.
They had to focus on single targets, making area of effect darkness spells as wasteful as they were slow whereas her allies had to deal with groups of enemies that needed coordination.
To them, darkness wasn't a weapon either but it was a precious tool. Placing a darkness mist was enough to disrupt the enemy formation or force the elves to scatter, loosening the pressure from the encirclement.
'I'm so angry right now that I'm going to kill someone to vent!' The moment Quylla finished telling Morok about the tower, he dropped her like a live grenade, literally.
The Tyrant threw her with all of his strength, sending her to crash into the space between two elven units. They replied by turning toward her point of impact in unison, unleashing a concentrated volley of arrows and spells.
Yet Quylla suffered no damage.
She had enveloped herself in a hard-light sphere that exploded on contact with the ground, generating a burst of air and fire that scattered the arrows and triggered the spells before they could reach her.
"That was rude!" She extended her arms in opposite directions, each releasing a silvery bolt of lightning from her sleeves.
The elves fell to their knees, dropping their bows and raising the shields they carried on their back together like clockwork. The artifacts had each an individual barrier and had been imbued with an earth and darkness spell.
The earth element further enhanced the Orichalcum's hardness, bringing it to near-Adamant, while the darkness would smother the power behind any attack, boosting the efficiency of its earth counterpart and of the shields' enchantments.
Unfortunately for them, Bloodbind snuck inside the gaps between the shields, making them useless. Then, it started to spin around its chain like a blender and turned the wall of shields into a disorderly pile of meat and metal.
Quylla had yet to master the art of making constructs and Bloodbind had no edge. It was meant to defend her and carry her spells at a distance, transmitting them like she was touching the enemy.
Even though her Light Mastery was rough, she had made up for it by infusing it with Spirit Magic and using Bloodbind as a scaffold for her creation. Each link of the mystical chain had turned into a razor-sharp golden blade that cut through flesh, bone, and armor.
As for the Tyrant, he plunged himself into the middle of the enemy ranks, strong of the God of Fire spell. Upon his arrival, the four spheres combined in a tier three Fire Wave that spread in every direction while the Tyrant advanced.
His twin hammers, Grimnir, crushed heads like melons as he stepped forward, his newfound strength enough to dislodge the spines of his victims. The only problem was that his back was exposed, taking several hits.
The elves avoided spells that could hurt their comrades and relied on their arrows to deal damage solely to the enemy.
Morok collapsed on the ground and turned his head just in time to say:
"Hey. Want to see something cool?" Then, without waiting for an answer, he channeled his mana into his wings.
The elemental burst propelled him back to the safety of the sky and drowned those behind him in a searing heat akin to a jet turbine.
Those closest to the Tyrant became a lump of charred flesh while those further away suffered from third and second degree burns all over their bodies based on their position.
As for the Tyrant, it took him but a few breaths to heal from his wounds and regain the lost strength.
'Man, being Awakened is awesome. I can only hope it will also be enough.' He thought while turning toward the real fight.
At M'Rael's command, all the forces that Lith's friends had failed to distract had unleashed a swarm of arrows so thick that it darkened the sky upon its passage.
At the same time, the High Chancellor had combined the dimensional awareness from the Watchtower and the amplifying effect of the Master Mirror to unleash a powerful tier three gravity spell, Collapse, without affecting himself or his allies.
It increased Mogar's gravitational pull by one hundred-fold, locking the three Wyrms into place and putting their joints under so much pressure that they cracked.
"Fuck!" Ajatar had no idea what was happening and no time for explanations.
He simply took in a deep breath and activated his bloodline ability, Elemental Stream. Unlike Dragons, Drakes didn't have Origin Flames yet they could breathe in the world energy and release it after amplifying one of its elemental aspects.
Ajatar chose fire to both shrug off the lingering cold that plagued his body and burn the incoming arrows. At the same time, Lith did a similar thing, but he released Origin Flames from his body instead of his mouth.
The mystical fire disrupted the gravity field and ate at the arrows that survived Elemental Stream while phasing through the Drake. On top of that and outside of Lith's expectations, the Voidfeather Dragon appeared above his head as a Soul Projection.
"Thief! Give it back! Give her back!" He roared as once again blue magic circles appeared in front of the Voidfeather's hands and wings.
M'Rael took a good look at the unknown arrays but neither the Eyes of Menadion nor the World Tree could make heads or tails of them. To the Eyes, the magic circles didn't even exist while the Yggdrasill uttered in shock the three scariest words that the most knowledgeable being of Mogar could conceive:
"I don't know."