Chapter 456 (2/2)

Based on what he had seen, later points in stats did less. But that was still a difference of about 300, at the very least. Which was higher than his Strength actually was. Effectively, treating her as though she was double as strong as him seemed to be the way to handle this. Which meant that a single knife could deal with him, while the other knife struck.

Gritting his teeth, Randidly focused on healing as much as possible as Cyndra rushed towards him again. He threw up a Wall of Thorns, blocking off vision, and a second later, she burst through. But as she did so, she paused briefly on her next step, scanning around.

Randidly, who had activated Twilight Manipulation to hide in the shadows of the arena, grinned, and instantly used about 30% of his Mana to fill the underground with Wall of Thorns. Although this build of Cyndra’s was powerful, it had some glaring weakness. It couldn’t have been Reaction to deal with that high speed, and it turned out that the Creature had skimped on Perception.

Careful.

Lucretia’s warning came just in time, and Randidly doubled up on releasing Aether, because 4 of the Creature’s probes scythed through the air, homing towards him. They didn’t need any sort of perception and shot unerringly towards him. A split second later, Cyndra ripped her way through a wall of thorns and spotted him. Bellowing she launched herself towards him.

Randidly rolled out of the way, hoping that he would be able to stall with both of them aiming for him.

****

Tziech felt like a god of war walking through the monstrous invaders, a wedge of wargs following behind him. His right hand was a hammer, covered in that strange darkness, that insidious numbing frost, crushing the foes in front of it. Everything it touched was broken and destroyed, warped and shattered.

Meanwhile, his left hand was a gentler touch, pushing a blocking weapon a little to the side, pulling an ally just a half inch in the right direction to avoid a killing blow… Tziech felt like an orchestra host, moving through a choreographed waltz, controlling it all. As if in response, a few of the Two-Headed Reavers appeared, breathing that violet fumes, as if their very souls were aflame.

Tziech almost believed that they were, and would have felt pity for them, had they met under different circumstances. As it was…

Energy flared from his left hand, and the greatsword the one swung missed Tziech and slashed sideways, overbalancing the creature. The tip of the sword sank into its partner's toes, setting it to howling in pain. Taking a step forward, Tziech met the third directly with a blow from his right arm, cracking its body, its vital fluids draining away to join the mush of flesh and bodies that now formed the ground upon which they stood.

Sighing, Tziech raised a hand to his forehead and peered forward while the wargs around him finished off the off balance and ill-prepared Reavers.

They had pierced very deeply into enemy lines. It was clear to Tziech that they had penetrated much farther, much faster than they had expected. But to each side, seas of Aether Thralls and Reavers screamed their hatred, preparing to give their lives to take the bright precious energy from this world.

He turned to the wargs behind him. “Head west, cutting through the forces and reinforcing the Spriggit lines. Once those midgets build up some momentum for their mechs, they will be able to cut through these little bugs like wheat.”

The captain nodded, his face stoic. Tziech almost wondered if he was supposed to slip a knife into his ribs on order on Varga, aiming for when he was most ill-prepared for it, paving her way to ascension as the Monster Queen. That would be the sort of move that she considered to be almost polite, to demonstrate that she considered him a real threat.

Nothing showed in the man’s face, however, and when he scanned the horizon, he saw what could only be Varga’s main force, absolutely mopping the floor with several hundred of the enemy, driving them into the drive to snipe and drown them.

“And you sir?” The Captain finally asked, snapping Tziech back to focus.

Grinning, he turned and looked towards the pulsing glow of energy on the horizon. Between him and that conduit, the huge, four-armed Devastator stood, its powerful lower jaw moving as its gaze covered the battlefield. On its legs, it stood at about 10 meters, towering over him. In a strange coincidence, with about a half mile separating them, their eyes met.

Tziech grin was wolfish. “I have a challenger to my seat as king of the monsters. You’ll excuse me to settle this in private.”

With that, he strode forward, carving a path to his opponent.