The sun rose and the reinforced Army of the Thousand Sects surged back into battle. The bombardment from artillery had kept up all night, but that had not stopped the Hephaistians from setting up more traps to waylay their enemy. At some point word had spread of the fact that there was no way out other than winning. Retreat was impossible and surrender was meaningless, so the only thing any of the people within Misty Peaks could do was fight and hope that they would be able to survive to see another day.
The thousands of soldiers that were invigorated by the fact that their enemy was a wounded animal stood at the edge of the marsh of blood and gore. Their war cries and chants were full of fervour, despite the amount of damage that Yun’s clan had done to them. They were truly reinvigorated.
Peter loomed as he reached the foot of the mountains. Despite being alone his aura immediately dominated the view of the distant army. They could not see him, but they could feel him, and what they felt was dread. The image of a giant skeleton was superimposed over the mountain range and as they looked on the soldiers could feel it hunger for their souls. As Peter channeled his mana the image of the skeletal giant only became more clear to the people intending to oppose him. He ran forwards, pushing his rich mana into his limbs to propel him towards the front line of the army. Mud and dirt splashed like a wave every time his foot touched the floor, which only added to the illusion of the skeletal giant walking towards the Army of the Thousand Sects.
As Peter sprinted towards the army he began chanting in a low tone. Ripples of errant mana began spreading from his hand as he bent his fingers into the shape of a claw. As his chant reached its crescendo patterns began forming around his palm, first an eye, then tendrils that came off the eye, then a ring of arcane pictographs around the tendrils denoting a person dying, their soul being released, their memories being cut apart and transformed into a new soul and then their journey to join their new body. As each symbol completed itself an equivalent one would appear on the clawed hand of the skeletal giant.
It was easy for even the weakest soldiers amongst the Army of the Thousand Sects to tell that the giant skeleton that loomed over them was an illusion, but that did not make it any less frightening. The Hephaistians still had a warrior capable of performing such a feat in reserve, and that could only spell disaster for them.
As his chant came to its conclusion Peter could not help but smile. Battlefields were a delicacy for him. The corpses were perfect materials for thralls and revenants, and the errant souls were beyond useful for improving the strength of his oversoul. He was like a fox in a henhouse and each victim he got his claws into would only make him stronger.
He reached the front line and swung his clawed hand into the first person he could, a young Saint in rudimentary armour. As the tips of his fingers touched the Saint’s body, energy exploded out in a heavily curved cone that followed the path of his swing. His clawed strike reached his shoulder, passing through the body of the young Saint in front of him, and as its arc completed bodies began to fall like hewn wheat. The giant skeleton followed suit, but rather than just a simple swing it scooped its hand through the troops below and pulled a translucent dripping mass out of the fallen bodies before plopping that same substance in its mouth. After a moment its mouth reopened and it let out a clattering, scraping sound that was something close to a laugh but every single person who was able to hear it could not help but think that the sound was truly unearthly.
As Peter twisted his hand and moved in for a second swing he felt a force resist his action and bat back his domineering aura. A figure who was more lizard than man walked out between the terrified soldiers and roared in response to the skeleton’s grating chuckle. His own aura began to take shape and an colossal illusory blue dragon stepped out of the aether. Its scream was as loud as the skeleton’s cackle and almost immediately it lunged at the giant skeleton, batting away the creature’s slowly descending hand.
“I did not expect to see one of the Drakes here,” Peter said as another string of arcane pictographs twirled up his arm. “Are you actually taking a swing at one of the Book clans? Even after what happened to the Lupe?”
“The Lupe were outliers, and their cause was warped by that madman at their helm,” the lizardman growled back. His claws glowed red and blue as he prepared to strike out. “There is no Declan Lupe within the Drakes, nor is there a Fallen Morning to manipulate us. We are strong and we are here for the Book”.
Peter twisted his hand and a thin black line shot out of his fingertips. He flicked his wrist, and the beam of light cut through the air, splitting everything in its path. The Drake ducked below the beam in the blink of an eye and dashed towards Peter, his claws glittering with the red and blue energies that imbued them. Like a spear the claw pressed forward, ceaselessly aiming for Peter’s heart. Peter shot both his legs out in front of him and his body fell to the ground, but in the process the black beam of light sputtered to a stop. The arcane pictographs began fading, but Peter quickly ran through a series of hand gestures and they regained some of their energy and began flowing around his body like a miasmic wind.
At the same time as the Drake and Peter fought, the giant skeleton and colossal dragon were at loggerheads. While the two smaller figures were fighting with finesse, their giant avatars were simply beating each other senseless. The skeleton would claw off some of the dragon’s scales and in return the dragon would bite into the skeleton’s bones, leaving cracks and bite marks. Each swing was imbued with frightful power, and the impacs alone could kill a Heaven ranker where they stood.
“Honestly, I’m surprised that the Mephisto would defend another clan. Aren’t they trying to get hold of another book just as hard as we are?”
“I’m doing this as a favour to the War Immortal. He’s helping me, and so I have to help him”. Peter smirked as the Drake heard Laurence’s epitaph dropped into their conversation. He growled and the spikes that ran down his back stood on end. “Well aren’t you the bearer of bad news?” Breathing in, his chest swelled up to double its size. One side gave off a blue hue, while the other glowed red. This same colouration was reflected upon his colossal dragon avatar’s chest. Both sides were ignited and resplendent with colour, which made Peter frown in concern. In response he brought his palms to his chest and began chanting quickly in a language that grated against the ears of all those that heard it. The pictographs that swam around his body began picking up speed before sliding towards his hands, and rotating around his fingertips. He watched as the Drake bunched his lips together and bent his head back and thrust out his palm in an attempt to stop whatever the Drake was intending to do, but before Peter’s strike could even travel half of the way towards his opponent the Drake shot a jet of purple flame into the air. The jet combined with the flame produced by the colossal dragon and the resultant explosion lit up the sky in that same purple hue.
Peter’s palm landed upon the Drake’s chest and he attempted to follow up with a second strike, but the Drake flew further back than he was expecting and his hand landed upon empty air. The Drake man coughed out a mouthful of blood as his body hit the ground tens of meters away. Stumbling slightly as he stood up, the Drake gave a bloody-toothed grin and struck the backs of his scaled arms together. The air seemed to spark and both his clawed hands caught fire. As he raised his hand to point at Peter, blood continued to seep out of his mouth but that did not stop him from laughing.
“You’re a dead man walking”.
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