NOVEL NEXT Chapter 285: One Final Gambit
Thalion stood tall, his breath shallow as he watched Ankhet conjure a ghostly, tormented face in the palm of his hand. A spectral visage twisted in pain, its mouth open in a silent scream. Thalion knew with grim certainty. He wasn't ready to withstand that kind of attack. His bloodline skill wasn't an option right now. He had enough mana to activate it, yes, but to do so would leave him drained and vulnerable, surrounded by phantoms.
No time left.
Thalion locked eyes with the oncoming specters and activated Crimson Gaze. The world warped as the ability took hold—the ghosts slowed, their form distorting, growing more translucent. His Title confirmed it: the entities were weakened. But it wouldn't be enough. Sensing his desperation, the Sanguis Impera reacted instinctively, sprouting a dense thicket of crimson vines in front of him. A jungle of blood-drenched flora surged from the stone floor, bracing for impact.
Thalion conjured a mana barrier of his own, its blue shimmer violently clashing with the scarlet hues of the Impera's defenses. Tendrils of blood swirled around him, thickening until they formed a hardened cocoon. Not a second too soon. Ankhet clenched his hand and an explosion thundered through the chamber, ripping through the forest, tearing down the barrier, and launching Thalion into the wall.
This time, the impact didn't crush him as it had before. Gritting his teeth, he staggered upright, already eyeing the next threat. The ghosts crept closer, their ethereal forms slow but inevitable. Worse still, Ankhet raised a second soul, another tortured face writhing in his extended hand. The sorcerer looked ragged. His left arm and leg twitched erratically, moving out of sync with his will. He hovered inches above the floor, a broken marionette held up by invisible strings. His head jerked to the side, if someone was slapping him repeatedly across the cheek.
He was losing control, but those explosive spirits were still deadly.
Thalion gave the advancing ghosts another dose of Crimson Gaze, buying the Sanguis Impera a few precious seconds to raise fresh defenses. Blood coalesced and thickened again, vines reinforcing each other like desperate scaffolding. Then, a second explosion rocked the chamber. The blast flung Thalion back into the wall. Again.
He sprang to his feet, coughing, muscles aching but functional. He was almost getting used to the abuse. Maybe he should've listened to that dwarf in the Golden Palace. The one who preached the art of skin-hardening by hammer. That lesson would've come in handy now.
He looked up in time to see Ankhet summoning a third soul. The ghosts were too close. He wouldn't survive another blast. Instinct overruled thought. Thalion shifted forms in a blink, becoming the Tidecaller Serpent, and instantly fired Aqua Lance. A roaring jet of water struck Ankhet square in the chest. Black blood sprayed high into the air as the sorcerer was hurled backward, the protection around him shattered.
The spirit slipped from Ankhet's grasp and detonated on contact with the floor. But this explosion was different. There was no blast wave, no black lightning—only a translucent shockwave that rippled silently outward. The ghostly figures vanished like mist. Thalion immediately returned to human form—his most resilient for soul damage and recovery.
His breathing steadied. The Sanguis Impera assisted him and together, they could weather the next assault. Or so he hoped.
He let his Fear Aura unfurl like a rising tide. It wouldn't block the soul-based attack, but maybe it would dull its edge. Crimson Gaze was useless here—there were no eyes to meet in this kind of attack. The shockwave hit.
Thalion's vision spun. The world fragmented. Huge portions of his soulbody evaporated in an instant. Only the core and a few vital threads connecting his limbs and head remained—just enough for rudimentary motion. Fascinating, in a grim way, that the physical body could still function with the soul so damaged. But the pain... that was something else entirely. Soul damage was a unique agony, like a migraine being drilled directly into your bones, like teeth shattered without anesthetic.
The Sanguis Impera reeled but stood firm. Thalion, barely able to move, forced his eyes toward Ankhet. The sorcerer sat slumped against a stone pillar, blood pooling beneath him. His head continued to twitch until it stopped. Then his eyes blazed a bright, unnatural yellow.
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A voice—not his—echoed through the chamber.
"Listen, mortal. It won't be long now..." it began, the words unnatural in Ankhet's mouth, deep and ancient.
But the speech cut off as Ankhet thrashed violently, flinging his arm to the side in rebellion. He was resisting, fighting something buried inside, something clawing its way to the surface. One eye flickered back to orange.
He was taking his body back, piece by painful piece.
Black blood seeped from Ankhet's lips, thick and sluggish, and the wound in his chest gaped open like a cracked wellspring. Best yet, it wasn't healing. The flesh around it pulsed faintly, but no regenerative magic mended the damage. That was the most important part, he was deteriorating.
Thalion, unfortunately, was in no position to take advantage. Though he could still move—barely—there was no chance he could sprint across the chamber and strike the killing blow. His reserves, both physical and magical, were dangerously low. Not that it would've made a difference. His soul, the conduit through which all power flowed was fractured.
Even with a full tank of mana, it was like trying to empty it through a straw that had been pinched shut.
The Sanguis Impera didn't fare much better. Its movements were sluggish, its spells sporadic. It attempted to strike Ankhet with a bloodthorn, but the conjured spear collapsed before reaching halfway. Still, Thalion wasn't without hope. He remembered something—Lucan's torpedoes, slow but persistent magical constructs, preloaded in his spatial ring.
Fumbling slightly, Thalion summoned one. The torpedo, half a meter long and glinting with soft arcane light, hovered twenty centimeters above the ground. Once activated, it began drifting forward with eerie patience, inching toward Ankhet like a predator with infinite time. Meanwhile, Thalion turned inward, focusing entirely on repairing his ravaged soul. He began weaving delicate spirit veins, trying to reconnect the broken strands before the next massiv explosion.
Ankhet didn't seem to notice the torpedo at first. His head jerked left and right in erratic spasms, as if invisible hands tugged on strings he could no longer control. He was trapped in a fight within his own body—possessed or fractured, Thalion couldn't tell. The Sanguis Impera had already begun reinforcing a dome of thorned vines around them, preparing for the blast. It wasn't pretty, but it would be something.
As the torpedo drifted closer, Ankhet finally took notice. His eyebrows lifted in confusion, then mild amusement, as though mocking the tiny, crawling device. The smirk on his face practically said, "What kind of pathetic toy is this?" That was fine with Thalion. Every second Ankhet underestimated it was another meter closer to detonation.
Despite his agony, Ankhet still had that arrogance. Thalion could only assume the man had a soul-splitting headache, a punctured lung, and likely a voice whispering madness into his mind. At six meters, the sorcerer's expression shifted. Realization dawned. Panic followed. He mustered enough willpower to conjure a translucent blade and hurled it at the torpedo.
It passed right through.
The blade faded harmlessly into the floor, the torpedo continuing its crawl.
"Damn, he's more messed up than I thought," Thalion chuckled silently. Ankhet's face twisted in confusion, unable to comprehend why his attack had no effect. That was the thing about his mental magic—it ignored matter, bypassed defenses, bypassed almost everything besides the soul.
When it came to something as simple as an exploding projectile, it was useless.
Frustrated, Ankhet lashed out, firing jagged bolts of black lightning at the torpedo. The first two missed, the arcs of darkness hitting the floor beside. Then Ankhet inhaled deeply, steadying himself. Both of his eyes flared orange. His trembling limbs slowed. His posture straightened, if shakily.
He forced himself upright, his stance unsteady, more like a newborn gazelle than a battle-hardened sorcerer. With a triumphant smile, he extended a trembling finger toward the torpedo, now just twenty meters away and locked eyes with Thalion. Behind a growing wall of thorned vines, Thalion watched him, bloodied but not defeated.
"At last," Ankhet said, voice strained but victorious, "Victory will be mine."
He unleashed a final, feeble arc of black lightning, aimed directly at the crawling bomb which was a lot closer to him than Thalion at this point.