2999 Hidden Thorn (Part 1)
Fire Orchids were delicate in appearance but incredibly resilient and capable of thriving in the harsh climate of the Blood Desert. To the nomadic tribes, Fire Orchids were a symbol of strength and hope, just like the Overlord.
Wherever Solus and the others looked, they saw trees, flowers, and fruits from all of Mogar's continents. It didn't matter if they were supposed to grow in a dry or humid climate, if they needed a plain or the rarefied mountain air.
They grew one right beside the other, forming a dreamlike landscape.
Even Lith's paranoia took a rain check, too busy admiring the view to paint nightmare scenarios in his mind and make up imaginary enemies hidden in every shadow.
"I feel like crap saying this but we must burn everything to the ground." Before the rest of the group could beat the Tiamat to a pulp, his array-sensing spell revealed over thirty concentric magical formations surrounding the temple that covered most of the inner garden.
Barriers, elemental-sealing arrays, gravity fields, magma bombs, storm blitzes, every single known powerful magical formation was present and primed to blow in the face of any intruder stupid enough to cross them.
"No, we don't." Xenagrosh beckoned Bytra and shooed everyone else. "After being confined in a small space for all this time, it's finally our moment to shine. Nobody is as good at destroying as an Eldritch, lil bro.
"This is what we were born for. Just stay out of our way or you guys are going to get hurt." She put a Decay bastion in front of the tunnel's exit to emphasize the concept and ensure that she could go all-out without endangering Lith's life.
"I'm ready when you are, Zor." Bytra shapeshifted into her real form, that of a Raiju.
Her appearance was that of a Chinese dragon fused with a warhorse. The resulting creature had pitch-black scales covering her horse body, with large branching horns over her head. She had long whiskers, a thick blood-red mane, yellow eyes, and a long, scaled draconic tail.
Her Bookwyrm armor shapeshifted as well, covering her new body while the Absolution altered its shape to coat the straight horn that came out of her forehead.
"Then let's go, Byt!" Zoreth's body grew over 35 meters (115') tall, turning into a Shadow Dragon with four eyes arranged on the same line, two for each side of her snout.
The Raiju started to run around the borders of the arrays, forming a circle of lightning in her wake. The Shadow Dragon walked forward instead, using the Maw of Bytra to make up for her lack of body casting and preparing her best spells in the time it took her to draw a deep breath.
From inside the temple, Maergron cursed his bad luck and readied his defenses.
"I can deal with the horse, but a Divine Beast is the last thing I needed today." He adjusted the Ears on his head, making sure that the connection with the throne was flawless. "The only silver lining is that from so close there is no longer delay in my perceptions.
"I can see everything they do and react with the speed of thought."
The Redcap activated what was left of his undead army and channeled the world energy into the arrays. The former would attack, the latter would defend, and both would give him the time to cast the spells he needed.
From the safety of his lab, he could use fake and true magic plus body casting to conjure three spells at a time while his enemies would fight for their lives. They could use body casting as well, but only if they had reached the violet.
It was a rare feat and even if they had accomplished it, they would be three times slower than him and forced to make snap decisions while Maergron could take his time and calculate his odds of success before making a move.
Or so he thought, until Xenagrosh's shadow grew longer and reached the opposite side of the magical formations. There, it rose from the ground, taking the form of a second Shadow Dragon.
She hurled a raging stream of Origin Flames the size of an apartment building while her shadow cast her tier five Chaos spells, Flames of Absolution.
The black fire infused with Chaos magic flooded the first layer of the energy dome, eating at the runes that kept the energy barrier solid while also weakening the volley of spells released by the inner layers of arrays.
Flames of Absolution weren't meant to cleanse but to corrupt, yet they were still capable of disrupting the fine mana tuning that high tiered magic and arrays required to reach their maximum potential.
The Origin Flames attacked from the other side, devouring runes and burning the mana that comprised the outermost magical formation and the world energy that fueled the defensive system.
The two-pronged attack spread the barrier's energy thin, opening small fissures in the dome of light that Bytra exploited.
As the Raiju circled around the outermost array and the circuit under her hooves neared completion, her speed increased exponentially. Massive streams of electricity accumulated above and below her, empowering her spells and pushing her forward.
She unleashed her tier five Chaos spell, Locust Swarm, conjuring a black hail comprised of countless little bullets made of Chaos that stuck to the first rune they touched and devoured it.
Pharek was no fool and had placed a darkness-sealing array right after the energy barrier, knowing that a static defense would be easy prey for the element that boasted the highest destructive power and its only weakness was being slow.
The Locust Swarm faded without reaching the next layer, but along with Xenagrosh's attacks, it was enough to bring the first barrier to crumble. The Raiju then used her tier five spell, White Knight.
The fire element focused on the tip of her straight horn, raising the temperature to thousands of degrees. At the same time, the air element created a sack of high pressure while also using the horn to conjure a corona of bolts of lightning.
The final result was a plasma lance that departed from the top of Bytra's head and pierced through the darkness-sealing array and all those behind it until the lance met the air-sealing array.
White Knight lost cohesion on contact, but the plasma was a byproduct of the spell and kept moving forward until the drop in air pressure and temperature destabilized it.
White Knight left deep rifts in the arrays it crossed, burning their runes and destabilizing the delicate balance that allowed them to synergize.
"Two Abominations? No, wait, they are Eldritches!" Maergron's surprise turned into terror as he activated all the defensive systems at once, knowing there was no time for finesse. "How could I miss it? How can the Council associate with them?"
Bytra and Zoreth wore cloaking devices and had hidden their strength while in the tunnels exactly to not spook their target. Being capable of killing your enemy was pointless if you warned him and gave him the time to run away.
The vegetation of the temple parted, revealing the presence of hundreds of plant-undead hybrids.
