2341 A Queen's Stand (Part 1)

Most of the Forgotten were humans trapped centuries ago by Arthan as the first batch of his students, and they fought in seven-man units with flawless teamwork. Each squad used solely Silverwing's Bastion to defend and combined their tier five spells to attack.

Each one of them had a violet core like Lith and they also received the power boost from the lost academy. Thrud had only thirty Divine Beasts, but they worked in seven-man units as well and used Silverwing's spells on top of their bloodline abilities.

The Golden Griffon empowered both Forgotten and Divine Beasts, making even the elders of the Council not a match for Thrud's Generals.

"Dammit!" Even Xenagrosh was having trouble fighting them.

There were only nine Eldritch-monster hybrids and forming a seven-man unit was the same as reducing their numbers to three. Bytra was acting as Solus' legs, running through the battlefield and dodging stray spells coming from every direction.

Nandi was too busy defending himself to provide the rest of his siblings with world energy which further limited their strength. Usually, the Minotaur-Orc would have had no problem hogging the elemental energy but now he was against two literal titans.

Both the Golden and the White Griffon sucked most of the available world energy to the point that everyone coming close to them could only rely on Spirit Magic.

Bloodline abilities like Origin Flames wouldn't work either, screwing up most of the Eldritches usual tactics.

They had no access to Spirit Magic and without their bloodline abilities, they were just cunning and lethal giant brutes. Yet it didn't matter against an enemy that would keep themselves at a distance and Spirit Blink away the moment the Eldritches approached.

To make matters worse, without Nandi recharging them, it was only a matter of time before the lack of a breathing technique became an insurmountable obstacle.

Thrud's soldiers had no such problems since the Golden Griffon encased them with a thick aura of world energy wherever they went, further tipping the balance in their favor.

'Any idea what to do?' Lith asked Faluel via a mind link.

The two of them fought back-to-back, with the Hydra providing him cover fire with her spells and world energy via the Hands while Lith took care of the physical aspect of the combat.

'None.' Faluel replied while Double Edge saved one of her necks. 'There's me, you, Vastor, and Tista here, but we can't cast Silverwing's spells on our own. Tista is too weak so we lack four and a half people.

'How is Ruin going?'

'I'm weaving it with the Mouth so it's faster than usual, but it still takes time.' Lith focused solely on defense, using every block and parry to conjure more runes while looking for an opportunity to counter.

"We meet again, Verhen!" Xondar the Garuda laughed as his seven-man unit unleashed an Annihilation at Lith, forcing him to Blink away with Faluel.

Alas, the spell was far from wasted. The seven Divine Beasts simply changed their target, blindsiding a unit of Council elders that had counted on Lith's protection while dealing with the Forgotten.

Two Annihilation against one Bastion made short work of the barrier and scattered the elders to the wind. The Awakened managed to save themselves only thanks to their rich battle experience and a Blink kept at the ready.

"Run as much as you want but this time things are going to go differently! No Guardian to help you, no mana geyser for you to cheat, and your army of Demons is useless against true Awakened!"

Lith had already conjured his Golems and as many Demons as he could before the start of the battle, but they were being quickly wiped out. The Demons lacked in equipment and energy compared to the Forgotten who also were constantly boosted.

The Demons, instead, were stuck with the energy they had received at the beginning of the fight and Lith had no time to provide them more.

"Come on! Fight me and let's discover once and for all if Dragons really are the natural snack of Garudas!" Xondar keep taunting Lith who in turn kept focusing on his blade spell.

"What's the matter, Supreme Magus Verhen, are you still mad at me for your girlfriend? Come here and I'll rejoin the two of you forever just like the True Queen promised Phloria."

Lith snarled, clenching his sword hard for a second, but he didn't bite.

"Don't you dare say her name!" Vastor roared as he unleashed his tier five Chaos spell, Howling Hunger.

The blast struck at the Bastion so hard that the seven Divine Beasts were pushed off their course in surprise.

"Phloria was a good kid and you fuckers killed her! I'm going to choke you with your own entrails! Lith, Faluel, Tista, with me!" A black-bright violet aura burst out from the Master's body and Lith finally realized why the Professor had taken an unusual appearance.

His Dominator armor had been shaped to look like a man 1.78 meters (5'10") tall and clad in a golden armor, cloaking even his voice. Vastor didn't want to appear in front of the Royals along with his Eldritches in order to protect his identity as the Master.

'Yet by doing this he is exposing himself to Faluel!' Lith thought. 'She was with us in the barn and knows his real identity.'

The aura of the Master kept growing, far exceeding that of bright violet-cored Awakened. The Hydra, the Tiamat, and the Red Demon only had to conjure a single element to cast Silverwing's Annihilation while Vastor did everything else by himself.

Tista failed to fully control her part, but the Master managed to help her to compensate for that too.

The sudden burst of seven pillars of elemental energy caught Xondar's unit by surprise, pushing the already weakened Bastion to its limits.

Then, Lith unleashed Ruin before they could recover from the impact.

The Bastion shattered and the Divine Beasts cursed their bad luck.  They combined the Spirit Barriers from their armor, the Life Maelstrom the Garuda had infused them with, and the power from the Golden Griffon to survive.

Yet their bodies were now weakened and battered, missing one or more limbs.

At the same time, the members of Vastor's group were already using their respective breathing techniques to recover the lost mana. They would soon be back to the peak of their strength whereas the Divine Beasts were in dire need of food.

Otherwise even once they fully healed, their bodies would lack the strength to fight and hunger would cripple their focus.

"Kigan, it's our time to shine!" Eycos the Garuda said as bolts of silver lightning covered his whole body.

"On it, brother!" The Black Phoenix activated his bloodline ability, Molting Essence, turning into a living mass of Origin Flames as he charged at the crackling Garuda.

The two Divine Beasts were separated only by a few meters, the energy of one seeping into the other. The silver bolts of lightning turned red while the edges of the Origin Flames burned white, slowly merging into one.

The Life Maelstrom and the Origin Flames fused, turning both the Phoenix and the Garuda into a mass of living plasma.