2789 Spare None (Part 1)
Soon Lith started to hear the clangor of a furious fight, indicating that he was getting close to the front lines of Demons. A few doors leading to the private quarters of the undead's upper echelons were still closed, their enchantments strong enough to keep the black tide at bay.
Yet.
The Demons had no time or wish for finesse so they just took deep breaths and hurled streams of Origin Flames in unison. The resulting Thousand Flames burned at the defensive arrays, forcing their runes to shine bright as they drained their energy source to resist the onslaught.
Alas, there was no mana geyser below the Derios branch so the only way to fuel permanent arrays was to use mana crystals. No one had the luxury of the time to replace the crystals once they ran out of world energy so there could be only two endings.
Either the Origin Flames destroyed the runes, deactivating the arrays while the crystals still had some juice, or the crystals dried up, leaving a room completely unprotected anyway.
The moment a door gave in, the Demons would flood the room with Plague Storm. They didn't check who or how many people were inside. Their mission was an extermination and they followed it through with savage joy.
Suddenly, a blackened figure charged out of a room and pushed the Demons aside before they could release their spells. A cunning Ghoul had followed the events on the surveillance system and found a path to survival.
Before the protective arrays of the room where he lived with his thralls failed, he had opened the door and went straight for Lith's neck. Between the still-active defensive barrier and the regenerative powers of his species, the Ghoul had survived the Thousand Flames.
'If Verhen dies, these monsters will fade away. Coming here was a mistake.'The Ghoul thought, lowering his center of gravity for what looked like a tackle. 'I have no way to pierce through his armor, but luckily, I also have no need for it.
'The idiot wears a cape around his neck. All I have to do is pull it down with all of my strength to force him to stretch his neck and reveal the gap between the gorget and the helm.
'At that point, there will be nothing stopping my blade from cutting off his head but flesh and bones.'
The Ghoul boosted his already powerful physique with earth fusion and by consuming most of the power stored in his blood core. There was no point in saving it for later since there would be no later unless Lith died.
He grabbed the edge of the cape while planting his feet firmly on the ground, pulling at it as if his undeath depended on it. Because it did. The Ghoul knew that Lith was a Divine Beast, but between the burst of strength and the leverage, his plan would work.
Much to his surprise, the black cape turned out to be as slippery as it was sharp, cutting deep into his hands as it escaped his grasp, no matter how hard the Ghoul tightened his grip.
'Who the fuck covers their mantle in metal and why is it this sharp? It's-'A wing.
Lith would never wear a cape. It served no purpose and would have offered his enemies something to grab during a fight. What the Ghoul had mistaken for a cape was Lith's wings resting over his shoulders.
They were also covered by the Voifwalker armor, giving them a silky appearance and the edge of an Adamant blade. The right wing unfurled, revealing its true nature to the flabbergasted undead.
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