Chapter 3699: Impossible Feats (Part 2) He parried the first strike, deflected the second, and almost dropped his blade on the third. The tail saved him, and the membranous wings blocked the fourth and fifth strikes. The sixth cut him deep from shoulder to sternum, the seventh would have pierced his left thigh if not for Raptor blocking it. The Golem was too light for the Titania, one hit was enough to blow him away. Trouble blocked the seventh, giving Lith the time he so desperately needed to regain his balance. Golden lightning crackled along Ragnarök’s blade, allowing him to stop the final three blows. Yet when the sequence ended, another one was ready to start, and Lith’s breathing was ragged. His right arm lay lower than needed, tired of the weight of the blade. His chest heaved, his shoulders hunched in fatigue. ‘Again!’ Uryn ordered, and the rest of the Awakened joined the fight. Trouble and Raptor engaged respectively with Cailm and Jissha, moving through the battlefield in an instant thanks to the pocket dimension. Lith cut spells, emitted more from the Mouth, and stopped too many attacks to count, but it wasn’t enough. Fresh wounds piled up while the old ones had yet to close, and with each drop of blood he lost, he became weaker. After one Disarray too many, Uryn gave up on using magical formations. It ended up giving Lith a moment to breathe and hurt Uryn’s comrades more than his enemy. Five against three was already too chaotic, so Uryn switched the backline to focus on tier four spells with surgical precision. Rather than wide area-of-effect spells that would affect his comrades, the seven Awakened exploited the gap in Lith’s defence created by the fighters. This way, the spells created new openings for the fighters, who in turn created more for the mages in a deadly cycle. ‘Why don’t we just use the Annihilation?’ Lelira asked. ‘There are seven of us.’ ‘Exactly.’ Uryn replied. ‘Seven of us would have to group together, stop providing cover fire, and offer one juicy target to Verhen until the anti-Guardian spell is completed. What do you think would happen?’ ‘Point taken.’ Lelira swallowed hard. ‘Glad you are on our side.’ With his legs now as wounded as his dominant arm, Lith knew death was just a matter of seconds. ‘If I have to die, I’ll carry as many of you with me!’ Driven into the corner, Lith did what he had hoped he would never have to do again. He conjured a key out of Dread Flames and opened the door to the Void, freeing the parasitic souls that constantly threatened to devour his life. Lith had no time to breathe or life force to spare, but the blue flames needed neither. They spread out like a disease, burning everything and consuming all life around them. Lith’s body forcefully shapeshifted into the Void Demon Dragon, and the Awakened found themselves in a world of pain. The blue flames burned at their equipment, their spells, and their bodies. They were hard to extinguish and easy to spark. “What the fuck is this?” Zakra stepped away in a panic as the blue flames burned her faster than even a Fae could regenerate. “I don’t know! Shut down the mind links. Now!” Uryn shouted after noticing that the small tendrils of mana connecting the group burned as well. Everything burned, and Valeron the Second was no exception. The baby felt the immense hatred coursing through the Void Demon Dragon via the Dragon Scales. He felt the hunger in the blue flames licking at him, tasting him, trying to break free from Lith’s control and devour the baby. ‘Fuck me sideways, no!’ The blue flames were already hard to control when Lith was at his peak. In his current condition, it was impossible. ‘I made a dumb mistake. I’m so used to calling Valeron my son that I forgot he’s not of my blood. ‘He’s not like Elysia. He doesn’t share my powers and has no protection from the blue flames. If I use them, I might die along with all these bastards, but Valeron would die with me.’ In their new form, Lith’s life forces were the perfect counter to the blue flames. The moment the key of silver flames touched the door, the parasitic souls were shoved inside, and the death energy fueling the blue flames cut off. The baby boy kept crying, incapable of understanding whether Lith had tried to protect or kill him until the Void Demon Dragon was gone. The Awakened were too busy trying to smother the lingering blue flames plaguing them to attack, and Lith used the short respite to catch his breath. Trouble and Raptor had been spared from the onslaught thanks to the pocket dimension, but they were as weak and ragged as him. “Why are you doing this, Verhen?” Uryn yelled in outrage. “Why are you risking your life for someone who is not even of your blood? You possess great talent and have a beautiful family waiting for you at home. “Is the Mad Prince worth losing everything you have? Look around you! Even the Guardians have abandoned the Mad Prince. Why can’t you do the same?” “Valeron is not the Mad Prince!” Lith roared, speaking for the first time since the fight had started. “He is my son!” Lith unfurled his wings and drew in a deep breath. In his fury, he amplified the silver flames of the key, fanning them with each short gasp he took. His eyes and wings drew the surrounding world energy and split it into its elemental components. Then they stripped the six elements of their counterparts, creating the cursed elements, and then mixed them with a spark of Lith’s life force. By the end of his roar, a laser-focused beam of Dread Flames erupted from Lith’s mouth. He moved his head left and right, burning all the Awakened in the hope of evening the field. Winning alone against twelve was an impossible feat, but so was reincarnating after death. Finding Menadion’s tower by mere chance was supposed to be impossible as well. And so was meeting Solus, fusing the life forces of a hybrid, and meeting a woman willing to love him despite the many dirty secrets he carried. Yet Lith had done all of those things. ‘This is not some natural disaster I can’t avoid.’ Lith thought. ‘They are just a bunch of enemies. As long as I’m alive, I can still win!’ The fight resumed immediately after the burst of Dread Flames ended, with the Awakened terrified that Lith might produce more of either the blue or the silvery flames. Everyone was wounded now, but the Awakened’s advantages were all still there. They had just become less overwhelming. Lith still became weaker many times faster than them, and he took alone all their wounds combined. Amid the chaos of battle, between one of Trouble’s parries and a lunge from Raptor, Zakra found her mind drifting away from the battle and back to the training ground with her mentor. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶 Lith was doomed to die, yet he fought to win. There was no desperation in his moves, no desire to meet his end spells ablaze. Each cut he suffered just made him adjust his strategy.