NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1028: More of them?
Far beyond, on the outer fringes of the Forest of Nature.
Within the gathering place of demonic monsters, on the fifth floor of the Black Tower.
A flicker of void energy distorted the air, and a sinister figure materialized, settling onto a throne of polished obsidian. The chamber was a palace, a sanctum afforded only to a High Priestess of the Cult of Four.
Yilaya, the Witch, leaned back against the throne and, with a lazy wave of her hand, commanded the grand doors to swing open. It was a signal. Only with the gates agape would the lords on the fourth floor know she had returned.
While she waited for her subordinates to assemble, Yilaya produced a grotesque fruit shaped like a human heart. She bit into it without ceremony, its dark juices replenishing the power she had expended, knitting together her wounds.
She had been injured in her duel with the Moon Elf, Isilra, back in Staghelm City. They had traded blows, and both had paid a price. The infuriating thing was that Isilra was one of the elemental sprites; by simply bathing in moonlight, she could regenerate her strength at an alarming rate. In a battle of attrition, the Witch had lost. Or rather, this particular avatar of the Witch had lost.
Still, the injury, combined with the intel Rize had sent, had provided the perfect excuse to retreat to the Black Tower and escape the massive headache that Staghelm City was becoming.
I knew it. Any place that can birth a Moon Elf is never going to be simple. There has to be another powerful demigod hiding in that city. Taking Staghelm would be a nightmare. Even if a Pontiff came in person, it wouldn't be a guaranteed victory. They'd need several.
The Pontiff… Hah. A sneer touched her lips. She had thrown in her lot with the Reaper, but as one of the Survivors, she and the clown were constantly on guard. The Reaper was just a ladder, a means to accelerate their own ascension. A powerful ladder, but an unpredictable one. She and the clown had to tread very, very carefully.
Her own entanglement with the Cult of Four wasn't as deep as the clown's. Below the four Reapers, the Cult's hierarchy consisted of four Archbishops, twelve Pontiffs, and thirty-six High Priests and Priestesses. The clown was one of the twelve Pontiffs. She was merely one of the thirty-six.
It was an organization that dwarfed the Champions Alliance, which was one of the reasons the clown's offer had been so tempting in the first place. And to be fair, joining the Cult had granted them benefits beyond their wildest dreams.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the Mist Wraith lord, Rize, who glided into the palace alone.
"Only you?" Yilaya's voice was laced with amusement. It wasn't a question. "I see. You finally got Hebika killed."
The Mist Wraith let out a dry, rasping chuckle, which was all the confirmation she needed. He was one of her most trusted inner circle; she knew his nature well.
"So, tell me," she said, her tone shifting. "What was so urgent that you had to recall me?"
Rize's initial report had been vague, mentioning only a 'significant change' in the Forest of Nature. He was clever. He knew that if he had given too many details, she might have decided her business elsewhere was more important and ignored his summons. He'd learned that lesson before.
"High Priestess," Rize began, bowing low. "I suspect there is an arch lord hiding within the Forest of Nature."
The Witch said nothing. She shifted on her throne, adopting a languid pose, crossing her legs with a slow, deliberate grace. Propping her chin on her palm, she gazed down at him, her beautiful, unnerving face a canvas of shifting arcane runes. A hint of a smirk played on her lips, her eyes seeming to say, Go on. Dazzle me.
"Otherwise… otherwise a Cyclopes lord as powerful as Hebika would never have fallen so easily," Rize stammered, swallowing hard against a dry throat. He launched into the speech he had meticulously prepared.
"So you've personally scouted the Forest to confirm this?" Yilaya asked, her voice dangerously soft.
She retained the memories of a past life. Even a fool would have learned a thing or two about deception after clawing their way to her level of power. And Yilaya was no fool. Rize's lie was transparent.
"I… dispatched all of our agents, Your Grace. Every single one who entered the forest lost contact." Seeing he'd been caught, Rize switched tactics to brutal honesty, which he knew she sometimes appreciated. "A place that dangerous… I did not dare enter it myself."
"And if…?" she prompted.
"If what?"
"If I had been lost in the forest, Your Grace," he said carefully, "the Black Tower would be left without a commander. There would be no one to keep the demonic monsters in check."
Yilaya's smirk vanished. She withdrew her gaze. "A passable excuse."
Rize slowly let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He'd passed the test.
"An arch lord…" Yilaya murmured to herself, her attention now elsewhere. "Do the Wood Elves even have one left? Could the Tree of Life have awakened from its slumber? Interesting… very interesting…"
She herself had slain the Wood Elf king. The Tree of Life had intervened, but seeing the battle was lost, it had sealed itself away in a hidden dimension. Finding it in a place as ancient and vast as the Forest of Nature was a task as difficult as Ascension itself. It was one of the reasons she'd grown bored and moved on to other fronts.
.....
Godforsaken Land, the Death Spiral Zone.
After Orion and the skeletal dragon combined their might to annihilate two Gnasher Reavers sent as reinforcements, the invading armies had pushed deeper into the hostile territory. The resistance from the Gnasher Race grew fiercer with every step, the enemy numbers swelling.
On the front lines, Gnasher beasts and sand scorpions collided in a frenzy of snapping jaws and tearing claws. The brutal conflict raged not just on the surface, but underground as well, as both sides burrowed and ambushed.
The sheer violence of the fighting disrupted the very air, causing the sandstorms perpetually whipped up by the scorpions to falter and die.
In place of the howling wind, a new sound filled the air: the death-rattle shrieks of Gnashers and scorpions being torn apart. The sound was a razor against the ears, an anthem of agony that fueled the bloodlust on both sides, echoing across the battlefield as if trying to rip the world itself asunder.
If the war between the Gnashers and the sand scorpions was hot-blooded carnage, the battle between the undead armies and the Gnashers was a thing of chilling, clinical horror.
The legions of the undead advanced in absolute silence, no cries of pain escaping them as they were shattered or torn. They were a relentless tide of bone and steel, lances and blades pushing ever forward. Clad in cold bone-plate armor, their eye sockets burning with ethereal ghostfire, they were like demons clawing their way out of the abyss, exterminating the charging Gnashers with pitiless efficiency.
It was a war of attrition, brutal and simple. As the invaders, they formed a single, unstoppable spearhead, grinding forward through sheer force.
As the defenders, the Gnasher Race burst from the earth and down from the ridges, throwing themselves against the combined flood of undead and scorpions.
Periodically, colossal scorpions would erupt from beneath the sand, their massive pincers scything through the Gnasher ranks, clearing out any who broke through the lines.
The sickening crunch of bone and the final screams of the dying were the only sounds that accompanied the silent march of the dead.
Orion watched from above, a remote god of war observing the brutal calculus of the battlefield. The cruelty, the endless loss of life, sparked no emotion in him.
He stood watch for what felt like an eternity before his gaze shifted from the carnage below to the distant horizon.
"More of them?" he murmured.
Two new arch lord auras were approaching at incredible speed.