Chapter 2757.1: Careful Planning (Part 1)
2757 Careful Planning (Part 1)
"At that point, all I had to do was to fill the Verhen Mansion with Tiamat Fear with the help of my Demons and make the intruders waste enough time so that their cores, bodies, and even their weapons were infected by world energy carrying our will."
While Dragon Fear affected solely the magical aura surrounding a Wyrm, infusing it with their killing intent and making it almost tangible, Tiamat Fear would also spread to the surrounding world energy thanks to the power of Lith's eyes.
A power that now Tista shared and so did his loyal Demons. They had all received through him a boost to their abilities from the tower and used it to spread the Tiamat Fear while pretending to patrol the corridors.
At that point, with each second the undead had spent inside the Mansion, with each spell they had cast, the infected world energy had replaced that stored inside their bodies, building up slowly until it had become dominant.
The assassins had been cautious professionals who didn't take unnecessary risks and always created the best scenario for their hits. Lith had counted on that, turning their careful preparations against them.
By the time they had reached the tower, even their weapons were filled with his willpower. To make matters worse for the undead, the Mansion's Keep was the room from which Lith had spread the Tiamat Fear and also where its concentration was the highest.
It had been the Tiamat Fear taking control of their spells, bodies, and equipment, turning them all into puppets that danced to his tune. The presence of the tower was also necessary to boost Lith's abilities otherwise capturing so many powerful undead alive would have been impossible.
It was also the reason he had asked Tista for help after conjuring the Demons. The Hekate was the only one with also a Spirit Eye and had helped him to shut down bloodline abilities from behind the scenes, reinforcing Lith's apparent omnipotence.
As for the Demons, they were an extension of Lith's power and carried his same energy signature. Together, they had emitted five times the amount of Tiamat Fear Lith alone could and then had helped him and Tista to keep the prisoners under control.
"If Tiamat Fear is this strong, why did you make us hide?" Tista asked. "Maybe if they felt outnumbered and outmatched, they would have talked faster."
"It's strong indeed, but nothing strikes fear more than the unknown." Lith replied. "Had the assassins seen you or had I explained to them what was happening, they might have actually felt hope.
"After all, if I need so many people to restrict them, it means that another squad might have succeeded where they have failed. They wouldn't have talked so much as tried to buy time while trying to escape.
"This way, instead, they felt crushed. They were many against one and yet they lost. They died believing me much more powerful than I actually am. They folded only because they thought that any future mission would fail as well. Solus?"
"Everything went fine." She said while collecting the undead's equipment and accessing their dimensional amulets in search of clues. "The space-compressing array didn't feel any pressure so no one of them was Awakened or a Blood Witch.
"I kept studying their spells and abilities with the Eyes on their way here and I noticed this." A wave of her hand created a hologram depicting the now-dead assassin unit using a map to navigate through the Mansion.
"Even weakened, the Undead Courts have access to the fake blueprints of our house. We need to warn Farg."
"In a minute." Lith brought Elysia back to the master bedroom where Kamila was sound asleep.
He kissed her forehead, Hushing her ears before putting the also sleeping baby in her crib.
"I'm sorry, little one." Lith held her tenderly to his chest. "Daddy would have loved to keep you out of this, but I needed your help to amplify my powers. I needed to make sure whether the bad guys were after Mommy or not.
"It was the only way I could protect her properly."
Elysia reacted to his voice with a yawn, opened her eyes for a second, and as soon as she recognized her father she went back to sleep since she wasn't hungry.
Before leaving, Lith connected to the tower, checking the status of all arrays and spells. Only once he was sure that there was no intruder left in the house and had sealed the rooms of all the members of his family did he return to the keep.
From there, he sent the Demons away and Warped to the Main Hall. He planned to keep the tower in position and not reveal its existence to anyone, not even those tasked with protecting his family.
Then, he pressed two runes on his communication amulet, belonging respectively to Amyla Farg and Brinja Distar. The former was his liaison with the Queen's Corpse while the latter had achieved the status of Lord Commander of the Queen's Corps after her mother's death.
Even though the army amulet was supposed to be secure and the line protected, both women preferred to reach the scene of the crime in person to talk.
"Dammit, Verhen. Are you really telling me that the undead managed to enter this place? This is a fortress!" Farg was a woman in her early thirties with chin-length red hair streaked orange all over.
She was very tall, almost 1.8 meters (5'11") high with the muscular build of a front-line soldier.
After Mirim's death and working hard, Tyris had refined Farg's core to the bright violet, bringing her to the top of the strength that a fake Awakened could achieve without learning a breathing technique.
"They did." Lith nodded. "But before showing you the surveillance tape, let's wait for Brinja."
He handed the various pieces of equipment left by his victims for her to study and the few documents they carried. Farg thanked him with a nod of the head, using both Life Vision and Forgemastering spells to understand how powerful the enemies had been.
"Did you really take on alone so many people of this caliber?" The former Professor of the White Griffon was shocked, yet there was something noble about the grace of her movements.
Even while examining the Adamant chainmail of the fallen Ghoul, her touch was full of strength yet incredibly delicate.
"Yes." Lith lied through his teeth. "But as you said, this place is a fortress. I had the home advantage."
Farg tested the space-compressing array with her own Spirit Blink and she was glad when it failed.
"Sorry for being late." Brinja walked through the Gate of the Mansion a couple of minutes after Farg. "The baby was crying and after what happened tonight, I didn't feel like leaving before doubling my own security detail. What did I miss?"
Marchioness Distar had inherited her beauty from her mother, Mirim. She was now 24 years old, about 1.63 meters (5'4") tall with silky blonde hair that looked like a golden waterfall and almost reached the floor.
Lith then projected the security feed with a hologram, showing them the undead's chosen access point and the information they displayed to know while navigating through the Mansion.