NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1025: Gnasher Race
As Orion's peripheral vision caught the skeletal dragon clashing with the second enemy, he saw something impossible. The Gnasher Reaver he had just decapitated, its head and body still tumbling through the air, suddenly snapped back together. The flesh where the cut should have been writhed and sealed in an instant.
A spike of alarm shot through Orion. The Deathly Soul-Reaper's scythe swung down in a vicious arc, just in time to intercept two enormous, tooth-like spears that erupted from the ground.
Orion narrowed his eyes, staring at the fully reformed enemy, which now twisted and swelled into a hulking Gnasher Behemoth.
Of course. A bizarre race is going to have bizarre abilities.
"Bones!" Orion called out—their signal to switch targets.
In the next instant, he teleported behind the other Gnasher Reaver. A flurry of scythe phantoms trailed his movement as he bisected the creature at the waist while it was still latched onto the skeletal dragon's tail.
But it wasn't over. The Reaver's upper half erupted in a shower of blood that spattered across the dragon, the corrosive fluid sizzling against its ancient bones. Orion immediately fell back. The Reaver's severed torso released the dragon, brandishing its massive blade as it lunged after him, its mandibles clicking and grinding as if charging up some kind of ultimate attack.
Seizing the opening, the skeletal dragon, Bones, finally crashed into the Gnasher Behemoth. The fight escalated into a frenzy of snapping teeth and tearing claws, the air filled with the cacophony of cracking bone and whistling wind.
"Sever!"
On the other side of the melee, Orion unleashed the full arch lord peak power of his Deathly Soul-Reaper avatar. As the bisected Reaver charged, his avatar simply vanished, cloaking itself in its Phantom Veil. A moment later, a massive scythe phantom materialized behind the Gnasher, cleaving its upper body in two from top to bottom. Before that phantom even faded, more appeared, slicing and dicing the creature from every conceivable angle. Within a single breath, the Gnasher Reaver's life force was utterly extinguished.
Only when its presence was completely gone from his senses did the Deathly Soul-Reaper reappear. It hovered in the air, looking down. Orion found it strange that the arch lord hadn't manifested a body of faith, but this was a battlefield, and there was no time to ponder it. The skeletal dragon was still locked in combat with the behemoth.
The Soul-Reaper teleported again, reappearing on the back of the Gnasher Behemoth. The jagged scythe plunged down without hesitation, and Orion's avatar became a blur, running the length of the monster's spine. A phantom of the scythe trailed behind, neatly slicing the behemoth in half.
Bones seized the opportunity, its great claws sinking into the two halves of the beast and tearing it completely asunder. A moment later, a plume of white bonefire erupted from the dragon's talons. The still-struggling pieces of the behemoth met the flames and shriveled like deflating balloons. In seconds, all its flesh was incinerated, leaving only a pile of blackened bones. The skeletal dragon then began weaving the larger pieces of the skeleton into its own body, seamlessly replacing the bones that had been damaged in the fight.
The Deathly Soul-Reaper landed lightly on the dragon's head. Bones let out a cold, triumphant roar and surveyed the war raging across the Death Spiral Zone. The battle between the elites had been brutally fast and decisive, a testament to the perfect, unspoken coordination between Orion and his mount.
From the undead tower, Arthas's lich avatar, still channeling energy into the summoning formation, withdrew its attention from the battle. It was thoroughly satisfied. He had specifically advised Orion to use the Deathly Soul-Reaper avatar because his intel suggested its near-immunity to physical attacks would be a hard counter to the Gnasher Race. From what he had just seen—their terrifying bite, rapid regeneration, corrosive blood, and beast transformations—he had made the right call. And this was only the beginning.
Deep within the Gnasher Race Nest.
Before a strange, humanoid statue, Matriarch Jynara and her Mandible Guard had watched the entire battle unfold through a scrying ritual.
"The skeletal dragon possesses immense physical power," Jynara said, her voice a low, analytical hum. "Its aura and breath carry a negative energy, a corrupting effect. And that final white flame… even I felt a tremor of unease. I suspect it contains a sliver of fundamental power."
This was the Gnasher way. The Reavers were the vanguard, the sacrificial scouts sent to probe the enemy's strengths and expose their ultimate abilities. Only after the Matriarch and her Guard had analyzed the enemy's tactics and formulated a perfect counter-strategy would they themselves take the field to deliver the killing blow.
"The other entity utilized teleportation, spatial severing, and some minor soul-based abilities," one of the guards added, speaking for all four of them. The spatial severing, they had concluded, was an innate property of its scythe.
"Matriarch, the enemy surely has other cards to play. We have two recommendations," the guard continued. "First: we send the remaining two Gnasher Reavers to continue probing. They will likely be killed, and our overall strength will be diminished. The results are not guaranteed."
"Second: we emerge from the Nest now. We join with the Reavers and encircle the enemy. This course of action places you at significant personal risk, Matriarch."
Jynara was silent. She was unsettled. The raw, arch lord peak power of the Soul-Reaper and its brutally efficient combat style made it an unpredictable variable.
"Continue the probing," she finally commanded after a long pause. "I have begun awakening the ancestor. His arrival will take time."
Jynara was no fool. An invasion force led by only two arch lords would never be so brazen. There had to be at least one demigod backing this assault.
Based on all her past experience, the true war would only begin when her own demigod ancestor arrived to face theirs. To risk herself now against these two powerful but ultimately disposable champions would be a gamble worthy of a Reaver, not a Queen.