Chapter 4032: Set Up (Part 1) "Let’s hope that the Council’s ’any moment now’ is not my ’too late and a quarter’." Faluel took deep breaths, feeling her mana core and body heal. "If it keeps up like this, we’re going to lose. We need-" A second flash of light came out of Thorn, cutting Faluel short and Feela asunder. The Behemoth’s two halves fell to the ground in front of Raagu’s horrified gaze. The blast of Shattered Moon had missed the human representative only because the massive armored body of her late friend eclipsed her. "Bring them all down!" Orpal shapeshifted into his full Vurdalak form, covering Thorn and Moonlight in black crystals that formed respectively a Divine Beast-sized spear and armor. "Give them no quarter or mercy!" Those words made no sense to humans, beasts, and Fae alike. Mercy wasn’t something anyone in the Dead King’s army possessed, so they couldn’t grant it to others. The Upyrs had fought like the savage monsters they were since the beginning, trampling over innocents just because they could. There was no way they could do any worse. That was what everyone thought, and they were wrong. In the blink of an eye, countless lights erupted all across Lutia, and hundreds more died. Awakened fared no better than regular humans, and the collapsing Hydras buried many people under their corpses. "You bastard!" Warm tears streaked down Raagu’s eyes as she fought for her life, conjuring barrier arrays, Warps, and Tier Five Spells at the same time. "You cheating son of a syphilitic whore!" "Thanks." Orpal laughed. "By offending my heartless mother, you give me the kindest compliment I could ask for." He gave the human representative a polite nod before pointing Thorn at her. Raagu reacted in the nick of time, Warping away before the Shattered Moon vaporized everything in a hundred meters around her. The two Upyrs attacking her weren’t so lucky, but the Dead King didn’t care. "Are you ready for a real battle, little kindling?" Akhton laughed as he unleashed a combination of the Tier Five Spells, Raging Sun and Duskwind, upon the plant representative. The first spell created an artificial volcanic eruption while the second conjured a darkness-filled tornado. The final result was a fiery explosion large enough to cover two city blocks that drained the life out of everything it touched. Lotho was sent flying despite his bulk, while his many limbs withered and turned into ashes. "Don’t bother answering. I don’t care!" The Bastet hurled a river of Origin Flames that drowned the Treant while neutralizing the pummeling of the Treantlings swarming him with Mana Body. The golden light made Akhton impervious to both magical and physical attacks, allowing him to recklessly charge forward, uncaring for the sea of quasi-plant folk blocking his path. "I’d say I’m sorry about this, but only because I’m told I’m a pathological liar." Jorl bolted from one point of the battlefield to another, squashing heads with his twin maces and unleashing a hail of spells on the stupefied Hydras. A few of them died, but the Storm Griffon didn’t care. He left them in such a bad condition that even the weakest among the Upyrs could deal the final blow. "Meln! You son of a-" Xenagrosh managed to stop herself just in time to spare Elina from further slander. "Everyone, beware! The first flash signaled the Upyrs to start preparing their spells, and the second to stop using Frost Soul. He set us up from the start!" Her analysis was indeed correct. Knowing about Frost Soul, the Awakened had prepared and kept at the ready only the mana-expensive Spirit Spells they thought would be the most useful. Without access to the world energy for Invigoration, the Awakened couldn’t recover their strength and had to make every spark of mana count. The Upyrs had exploited such a reasonable strategy and had prepared several mana-cheap elemental spells right upon the first flash. After the second, they had unleashed those spells and used those precious moments of confusion to use Invigoration while their enemies burned, withered, and froze. Now the Hydras, the humans, and the Emperor Beasts were weaker than ever, while the surviving Upyrs were back to their full strength. Before the allied forces could use Invigoration as well, the corrupted Divine Beasts launched a savage offensive. "Surprise!" Orpal downed Xenagrosh again, pinning her to the ground with Shattered Moon before moving the energy beam onto Fyrwal for a second and then Faluel. It would have taken too long to kill the Elder Hydra with the Blade Spell, and time was of the essence. Orpal aimed Shattered Moon at the backline, mowing down the wounded and preparing for the final act of his plan. Without Fyrwal, the battle formation of the Hydras collapsed quickly, and the corrupted Divine Beasts piled up on her in the hope of killing her first and imprinting her equipment before any other Upyr could. "Fuck!" Ajatar activated the defensive arrays of the field hospital just to see them collapse faster than he could repair them. The Collapsed Moon punched through the barriers and moved towards Faluel almost unimpeded. Almost. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞 The brief delay provided by the magical formations was enough for Ajatar to activate Spirit Fusion and form a concentric wall of Tier Five Spirit Spells in front of the Hydra. Spirit Fusion allowed Ajatar to cast spells with the speed of thought and to weave one into the next to amplify their effects, making the final result much greater than the sum of the single parts. Sadly, it came at a price. The Spirit Magic that Ajatar employed fed off his body. To achieve such power, Spirit Fusion required converting one’s mass into pure mana and consuming it to conjure spells while in that state. Ajatar stopped the blast of Shattered Moon, but only because it didn’t last. The effort forced the Drake back into his physical form, but he came out of Spirit Fusion as if he had fasted for weeks and had no water for days. He was all skin and bones, his sapphire eyes red due to the broken capillaries. Ajatar tried to speak, but only a rattle escaped his throat. He tried to gesture for Faluel to run, but his wizened fingers trembled uncontrollably. "Well, it’s been a pleasure, Xenagrosh." Jorl landed like a comet, dealing a double blow of his twin maces on the regenerating form of the Shadow Dragon. "You were really strong for someone my age, but I expected much better from Leegaain’s lost daughter." He avoided using light spells she would feed upon and unleashed a barrage of darkness spells. "I heard a lot about you. First Abomination, then Eldritch, then lapdog of the Monster or something. I guess you wouldn’t have lasted for so long against me if not for Frost Soul crippling my strength. "Without Spirit Magic or Invigoration, even an Eldritch like doesn’t stand a chance against someone like me." Zoreth’s troll side absorbed over half of the darkness element, converting it into energy that the Eldritch side could feed off as well. Yet it wasn’t enough to turn the tables. Shattered Moon had blown the Bookwyrm armor open and shattered both the Maw and the Skull. The artifacts were already self-repairing, but they wouldn’t make it in time before the Storm Griffon finished her off.