Chapter 653: Slaughter

Lilica twisted her upper body evading an icicle while using Invisible Projectile on her daggers. The daggers didn't turn invisible right away. Instead, they were camouflaged first, only to merge with the surrounding colors as she threw one of them at the closest enemy.

The Awakened was taken by surprise, but he reacted fast enough to raise an ice wall. The wall cracked as the dagger impacted, but it didn't shatter. Lilica inched closer to the Awakened while evading a downpour of a dozen icicles. Not a single icicle managed to touch her, however, her movement speed suffered greatly in response to her actions to evade all incoming attacks.

She retrieved another dagger from her War Rune and threw it at the Awakened. With Weakness Detection activated, Lilica found a fragile spot in the ice wall, shattering the Awakened's defense at once.

Lilica kicked the ground with great force and appeared in front of the Awakened, who'd readied his weapons as well. Their weapons were just about to collide when the Awakened noticed that one of Lilica's weapons was missing. Lilica had thrown the weapon right before her other dagger was about to clash with the Awakened's blade.

The Awakened's eyes widened in terror when his danger sense tingled like crazy. He knew that something was wrong and was about to retreat when Lilica used her empty hand to grasp something out of the air. The invisible dagger turned visible once again in Lilica's hands. She slashed down, piercing the dagger deep into the Awakened's collarbone.

The Awakened pulled away, glad that he was clad in a full-body armor set. There were only two things he didn't take into account; Lilica was not the same friendly Forest Elf that she used to be, and her Soultrait, Weakness Detection, does not only work on living entities. She could pinpoint the weak spots in heavy-metal armor as well.

The dagger pierced through the seams of the heavy-metal armor and cut deep into the Awakened's collarbone right before he backed away. He conjured several icicles and was ready to kill Lilica before she could charge at him once again. However, it was at this moment he noticed that Lilica was smiling.

Something was wrong.

Suddenly, the Awakened's shoulder felt like it burned from the inside. He broke into a cold sweat and glanced at the dagger that was still stuck in his armor and collarbone. His heavy-metal armor set had been well-maintained and polished until it shimmered. Yet, at this moment, the area around the blade looked like it was rusting. The rust spread rapidly, corroding the heavy metal armor set rapidly.

However, the armor was not the only thing that corroded.

The Awakened looked left, his eyes filled with shock. His veins protruded through his skin and turned purple. The dagger had been poisoned and the poison spread rapidly through his body!

Distracted from feeling unbearable pain for the first time in years, he noticed too late that Lilica appeared next to him. Her arm shot forward and the sound of metal cutting something resounded in the Awakened's ears. Only as the fountain of blood filled his view did he realize that his neck had been sliced.

Lilica left behind a gaping wound in the Awakened's neck. She retrieved the dagger in the next instance and her Bow Artifact, Silent Reaper, appeared in her hands. She conjured an arrow using an archery technique and applied Invisible Projectile before starting her rampage against the Council of Xylon.

She released one invisible arrow after another in quick succession, reaping the lives of the border guards without paying any attention to her allies' situation.

Fortunately, nobody was in a tricky situation. Their surprise attack was a great success.

Mika focused on using the Wyvernwood Bow with Pierce and Rapid Fire fully unleashed. He eliminated even more enemies than Lilica.

His expression was filled with anger and guilt. Even if he grew stronger during the last few weeks, Mika felt weak and helpless. He was useless.

Nobody would consider Mika useless. He killed more enemies than the rest and had more than enough energy reserves left to keep fighting for a long time. However, the battle at the border ended before he could go all-out.

"That's not even a warm-up," Frederik mumbled, his attention drifting to the Forest Elves soon after the skirmish ended. He tried to distract them, but his attempt failed miserably.

The Forest Elves stared coldly at the corpses. Mika kicked one of the lifeless bodies in the face.

Lilica and Mika acted unusual since they entered the Savannah Region. It was almost like someone haunted them. Even Opars wasn't feeling alright.

Michael looked at them for a moment. He made a mental note to keep an eye on them before diverting his attention to the corpses. Tens of Extraction tendrils shot out of him on command. The golden tendrils burst forth and smashed heavily into the lifeless bodies, extracting. SoulStar Fragments, Soultraits, Memory Orbs, and the like.

"Are any Kalivera nearby to kill?" Michael asked lightly.

Creating an illusion on the battlefield to make it seem as if the forces of the neighboring Lords clashed wasn't supposed to be too difficult. The only issues were that he didn't have any bodies of the Kalivera and that the Untamed Awakened took down the guards way too easily. There was little to no struggle visible on the corpses. They had been killed within two to three exchanges.

Anyone with two - maybe three - brain cells could tell that the guards had been killed too swiftly. The Kalivera were not strong enough to take down these idiotic guards that easily. Most of them, at least.

"I don't think so," Tiara responded.

Michael channeled some energy into Spirit Eyes and looked around. Nobody was in their proximity.

"That's fine as well," He shrugged and unleashed the Dome of Extraction.

The Dome of Extraction spread across the entire battlefield, extracting the traces of the battlefield. The corpses, their spilled guts, rolling heads, and missing body parts were collected after Michael finished extracting their Memory Orbs and other goods. Following that, Michael extracted the blood that had been spilled all over the battlefield.

It might not be possible to remove all traces of the battlefield within two to three minutes, but it was no problem for Michael to turn it into a challenge to find out that there had been a fight. It would be even more difficult to figure out who killed the border guards.

Michael fused the Extraction Aura with the Dome of Extraction to accelerate the cleansing. He retracted both once he was done and retrieved the Memory Orbs of the Awakened he'd just killed.

There was no need to waste any more time. Michael consumed the Memory Orbs, his focus lingering on the location of the strongest Awakened and the Lords.

He closed his eyes and digested the memories swiftly. The influx of memories was interesting, but it looked like none of them had an idea where their Lord could be.

However, the memories shared some other pieces of information that could come in handy.

'If I can't find the Lords, I might as well look for their most trusted subordinates!' Michael thought as he found a piece of memory that revealed the location of some Awakened, who were aware of their Lord's location.

That was not the best scenario, but it was more than enough for Michael. He wouldn't want to miss out on eliminating a few more Awakened. After all, Awakened are like walking treasure troves to him!

"I found some Awakened who's meeting up with another Lord's embassy. They're also Awakened," Michael announced, "Get ready, we're going to move."

The embassy was going to meet on neutral grounds instead of a settlement. That was an advantage Michael could exploit.

The others gathered around Michael, who utilized Cosmic Stride to transport through the Savannah with the least spatial fluctuations.

In a matter of minutes, they discovered themselves close to a well-guarded camp.

Dozens of Awakened and hundreds of combat Summons guarded the camp. They paid attention that no one could enter the camp unsupervised. It would be difficult to enter the camp without getting noticed.

Fortunately, Michael never planned to go unnoticed.

He didn't have to leave any hostages, either. All he truly needed was their corpses!