Chapter 3696: Up Close and Personal (Part 1) To make matters worse, due to the Doom Tide, there was no world energy and no way for Lith to use Invigoration. The only silver lining was that Valeron the Second was unscathed. Despite everything the Awakened had thrown at the baby boy, Lith had managed to keep him safe. Yet that didn’t make Valeron feel any less scared or tormented by the truth he had just learned. The baby boy had discovered the concept of death after Valtak’s passing. The loss of the Father of Fire had stung hard, but it was nothing compared to what ravaged Valeron’s heart today. His father was dead, his mother was dead, and the man who Valeron had proudly called dad until two minutes ago was responsible for that. The pain from the grief and the betrayal Valeron felt struggled for supremacy. Yet, akin to two lions fighting among them while tumbling down the edge of a cliff, victory was pointless. Valeron suffered anyway, and despite the desire to reunite with his parents, the baby boy was terrified of death. He didn’t want to lose Elysia. He didn’t want to lose Surin, Kamila, Solus, Raaz, and all those people he loved and could only hope were unaware of Lith’s murders just like he had been. Valeron had lived for little more than two years. He had yet to learn how to speak properly, to run, and to fly. He didn’t want to die before he could do all those things. Before he could taste all the delicious food the grown-ups ate. Before he could play the games of the older children of the house. Before he could express with his own words how much he loved his family. Valeron was safe, but he was terrified of death. And so, he cried. He cried for his parents, but no matter how hard and loud he called, no one answered. It was then that he finally understood what the emptiness that had plagued his heart for almost a year now meant. It was then that he understood that Jormun and Thrud were dead and he would never see them again. ‘I’d tell Valeron to be quiet, but what’s the point?’ Lith felt the baby’s desperation through the Dragon Scales, but he couldn’t afford the luxury of feeling guilty. ‘He has every right to cry, and it’s not like the noise is the issue here.’ As soon as he escaped the elemental void created by the Doom Tide, Lith took Trouble and Raptor out of the pocket dimension and cast the Forgemastering spell, Restore. It boosted the Golems’ self-repair abilities and supplied them with world energy, so as not to deplete their power cores further. Raptor bore several deep wounds left by the Titania’s blades, and the Doom Tide had made them worse. The moment Restore fixed most of the damage, Lith stored the Golems again to keep them as a wild card. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂 ‘My opponents know of my pocket dimension, but that only keeps them on their toes. Dimensional sealing arrays don’t work on it. Only space-compressing arrays do. Unfortunately for them, I’m not going to give them the time to set the array or stay still while they set up a suitable energy source for it.’ ‘Two of us have already died, and Verhen is still on the run.’ Uryn Felt, the Awakened man, said via the mind link. ‘That’s not a Divine Beast. That’s a monster.’ ‘Monster or not, we can’t allow him to escape.’ Lelira Thern, the Awakened woman, replied. ‘If attacking him in the sky doesn’t work, then we need to bring Verhen down to the ground.’ A wave of her hand conjured a Warping array that moved six of the twelve Awakened in front of Lith, trapping him in a pincer maneuver. Lelira was in the backline with other two Awakened not suited for close-quarters combat, while the three fighters in the frontline joined their Spirit Barriers into a sturdy wall. Uryn was in the backline of the other six-man unit so that each had an array specialist. Lith refused to slow down, planning to dodge the emerald barrier at the last second, but Uryn filled the space between the two advancing formations with a powerful gravity array. The Tiamat tried his partial expansion trick again, but this time, Uryn alternated low with high gravity, messing with the tempo of Lith’s fall. The two Awakened beside him and Lelira cast the tier five Raging Suns to turn the solid ground into burning magma, making the impact as dangerous as possible. When Lith started to plummet, the six Awakened on the frontlines dropped the barriers and unleashed a storm of lightning, hail, and darkness. Each one of them used a War Mage spell that fused and synergized with the others, mixing the three elements into a Tower Tier Spell. The air element generated wind blades and lightning bolts. The water element drenched the Tiamat, conducting the electricity and sapping his body heat. Leegaain’s blood made Lith weak to cold and darkness fusion couldn’t stop seizures. The darkness element coated everything, increasing the destructive power of the other elements and leaving the Tiamat no place to take cover from the pouring onslaught. Lith used gravity fusion to reach the ground as fast as he could, and plunged into the magma. The fire restored his strength, and the earth protected him from lightning and darkness both. The Raging Suns didn’t mix with the other six spells and weakened one another. Lith exploited the conflicting energies near the surface to dig a safe nest for himself with Domination. ‘Son of a bitch!’ Zakra the Titania cursed. ‘He should boil like an egg instead his energy signature is growing stronger!’ ‘Is that because of Origin Flames, his eyes, or what?’ Cailm asked. ‘My money is on “or what”.’ Lelira replied. ‘We only know about Verhen what he revealed in front of witnesses that he couldn’t or didn’t want to kill. Everything else is still a mystery since dead men tell no tales.’ ‘Yeah, like how he killed Aragath.’ Uryn nodded. ‘Did anyone see how he died?’ ‘No.’ The other eleven Awakened replied unanimously. ‘Screw you and your fancy magic.’ Zakra said. ‘Jissha’s Living Thunder and Cailm’s blades are the only things that hurt him. We must take this up close and personal, or Verhen will keep twisting everything we throw at him against us with one of his tricks.’ ‘I agree.’ Uryn silenced the others. ‘Magic would be the best way to kill Verhen, if only he didn’t move at Dragonspeed. We focus too much on following and catching up to him for our spells to be effective. ‘Even when we reach him, we end up so scattered because of his Golems that our numbers and teamwork don’t matter. All those who can survive a blow from a Divine Beast engage Verhen in combat. We squishy ones will cover your back.’ ‘Copy that.’ Fae and Emperor Beasts were prideful creatures, but they recognized talent when they saw it. Humans made up for their weak bodies by being among the smartest, most cunning, and devious creatures on Mogar. Long before starting the ambush, the Awakened had decided they needed a Lith to catch another, and Uryn was the best for the job.