Chapter 501: Deaths Embrace (1/2)
The Lich King was clearly hit by a psychic attack, but he still seemed very much in control of the shield. And while the barrier had dimmed by a certain degree it wasn't to the point that a swing or two would break it.
”I guess we have no choice,” Kenzie muttered as drones started appearing above her in rapid succession, each of them independently dodging any errant attack that came too close.
This was the first time Zac had seen his sister control more than one or two of them, and his eyes widened when he saw that she had summoned almost a hundred of them and had them coordinate with perfect precision as they charged up a beam. Something like this would no doubt demand great control even if she was assisted by Jeeves.
If he had a tenth of this skill when controlling his Dao Fragments, then he would be nigh-unstoppable.
The brand of the eye remained on the barrier no matter what the Lich King tried, but he obviously wasn't dismayed to see the appearance of the drones. Zac’s brows rose when he saw the arrays on the wall light up as an uncountable number of the same balls floated out to create a second barrier.
They were similar to ones those that had poured out of the Beacons earlier, but Zac' felt some disgust when he noticed there seemed to be screaming faces inside the balls. They only appeared for a second before they were replaced by churning mists, making Zac wonder if his eyes were playing a trick with him.
“These are the souls of your people,” the white-clad general laughed to the Lich King's side. “Are you ready to sacrifice them to break our shield? They can still enter the Wheel of Samsara, but not if you destroy them like this.”
Zac froze as his eyes widened. Those things were really the souls of former Earthlings? Were the Unholy Beacons of the Undead Empire actually powered by souls? Kenzie paled at the words, but Zac put a hand on her shoulder.
”Keep going, I'll deal with these things. Destroying the balls is the best thing we can do for them. Imagine being trapped by these lunatics forever,” Zac said as Cosmic Energy surged to the fractal close to his heart. ”Besides, there's no way that E-Grade people are strong enough to affect the afterlife.”
Zac at least hoped that was the case.
There was no time to lose. He felt that these things would impede and weaken the strike of the drones, ruining their best option to break inside the fortress. He needed to do something about it, but a couple of [Chop]'s wouldn't be enough. It was a bit of a shame to bring out his big guns early, but it was time to activate [Deforestation].
Zac figured that at least only one of his swings would be wasted on these floating spheres, and his arm grew taut as a huge surge of Cosmic Energy entered the skill fractal. This time he didn’t feel any pain or pressure at all, and he immediately swung his axe as he imbued the [Axe of Felling] with his Fragment of the Bodhi.
It wasn’t as powerful as his Fragment of the Axe, but that was against normal targets. He wanted to purify these souls and release them to the afterlife if there was such a thing. The Fragment of the Bodhi was no doubt his best chance for accomplishing that.
A green ripple of destruction shot forward, and a deafening wail made Zac stumble for a second. It was the innumerable souls getting cut apart, causing a massive backlash to rush back at Zac. If this had been before, then his soul might have actually cracked like during the climb, but now he only felt a splitting headache as he started running forward.
The way was paved, and Kenzie seized the opportunity to follow through on her end. Heat blared down on Zac as dozens of beams of pure energy passed above him before they tore into the weakened shield, right on top of the blue eye. Cracks immediately spread across the whole barrier as multiple fractals on the wall broke.
The wound quickly started to close though, but a massive torrent of shadows followed the blast, and they wriggled inside the cracks in an instant. A few of the shadows stayed inside the cracks, reminiscent of the scars on Zac’s own soul, whereas others continued through the cracks and shot toward the Lich King.
Ogras was obviously not trying to kill him, but rather to divert his attention by forcing him to deal with an attack while controlling the Array. The desiccated Lich was unfortunately a powerful E-Grade warrior, and a swing of his staff was all that was needed to disperse the dozens of shadowy spears.
However, the small delay was all Zac needed as his second swing of [Deforestation] was already in full force, and the [Infernal Axe] unleashed a rampant wave of flames at the weakened barrier. This time he did utilize the Fragment of the Axe, and the splintered shield was quickly cut to ribbons before the wave continued forward into the physical wall.
The flames climbed up the pitch-black fortification, utterly destroying the remaining fractals and ornamental details before it reached the crest of the wall. A large number of the elite soldiers of the Undead Empire were instantly incinerated, but the Lich King quickly prepared a response. An enormous avatar appeared in the sky, a chained-down corpse that spewed an unending stream of green bile from his mouth.
The putrid liquid fell onto the flames of Zac’s attack, and a rapid shockwave of noxious gasses shot down in Zac's direction as the green bile was vaporized by the wave of flames. Zac also sensed that his skill was quenched in one move, though it was slightly expended already from breaking the barrier and destroying half the wall.
The cloud rapidly closed in on him and Zac’s hairs stood on end as he realized just how potent the toxin was. There was no way that his sister or even Ogras would survive taking a single breath of that stuff.
“Back away!” Zac shouted and was relieved to see Kenzie flashing away to rejoin the others, but he didn’t follow his own advice.
The Fragment of the Coffin churned through his body, and he thanked the gods for his recent boost to his Vitality as he rushed through the broken barrier before the Lich King had time to repair it. Even then, he felt extremely weakened for a few seconds, but his heart suddenly thumped with increased vigor.
It was the [Void Heart] that had activated once more, and Zac's heart beat with enough force to cause some ripples in the noxious fumes around him. Of course, it was nothing like the massive effect of the man in the vision, but the poisonous vapors right next to him slowly seeped into his pores and were absorbed into his heart. Zac couldn't worry whether this was a good or a bad thing right now though, as he was in the middle of a battle.
His vision was completely obscured by the extremely dense poison, but he could still spot Death-Attuned hotspots when activating [Cosmic Gaze]. However, he noticed something odd when he looked around. The general stood like a beacon of power on top of the wall walk, but the Lich King standing next to her was barely contained a third of her power.
Had he somehow swapped his real self with a clone the moment Zac lost vision of his target due to the toxic fumes? And where was the original? Zac had planned on taking them all out in one move by unleashing the third swing now that the barrier had been breached, but it looked like that idea was out the window.
It felt a bit of a waste, but he couldn’t keep the [Axe of Desolation] on the back-burner for too long. If he didn't use the swing within a minute or activated another skill, then the skill would reset and enter its cooldown period. The last thing he was lacking at the moment was Cosmic Energy reserves, so not using the attack with this many targets in front of him would be a huge waste.