2505 Gods and Demons (Part 1)



His daughter was, after all, Locrias' pride and joy and no one looked funny at Locrias anymore when he asked Lith to modify his weapon to better suit his hands and fighting style.

The Fomor also fully unfurled his feathered wings, draining the surrounding world energy and neutralizing the spells used by the Demons whereas those of the monsters weren't affected.

"You shouldn't have done that!" Locrias' fury rose, every damage to his prized weapon akin to an attempt to his beloved daughter's life.

His maw became filled with Void Flames that yet failed to rise to their usual intensity due to the Fomor's feathers. The Cursed Fire was still hot enough to thaw the ice and set Locrias' body ablaze.

"Wait!" Trion grabbed Locrias' shoulder, discovering that not only were those flames capable of harming him but also that the former captain of the Queen's Corps was about to evolve into an Abyssal Demon without Lith's help.

'Stop! Remember our orders.' Trion endured the pain in order to pass the message via a mind link.

He couldn't speak out loud without revealing the plan to the enemy nor use a tendril of Spirit Magic since the Void Flames would have burned it like everything else.

Locrias growled, unfolding his wings to their fullest like an angry beast ready to pounce.

'Fine, but if we get to kill him, he's mine.'

"You are lucky that your friend saved you from my trap, but luck is a fickle mistress!" Eryon had no idea what was happening so he just thought that due to their affinity with the Origin Flames, the Demons had somehow sensed his attack.

His red eye flared up, unleashing a burst of bright red mystical flames. The Demons tried and failed to Dominate them and once their spells failed as well, Locrias needed Trion's help again.

His Void Flames alone weren't enough to match the attack but once combined with Trion's, the conflicting different types of fire blew up. The explosion harmed Demons and monsters in the same way, but Eryon's side enjoyed the protection of his blue eye.

"Charge!" The world energy trapped in his wings was channeled inside the monsters who led the charge, flooding their bodies and cores with new vigor akin to a breathing technique.

It also allowed them to cast spells without using their mana and overcome the natural limits of their cores, which made the goblins much more dangerous.

In their reverted state, goblins reached 1.5 meters (5') of height and had bright yellow skin. Their limbs were well-proportionate and the slightly long pointy ears emerging from under their white hair almost resembled those of the elves.

Also, the members of the same tribe shared the same energy signature, granting them the ability to combine their spells and willpower together.

What had brought the ancient, short cousins of the elves to ask for Roghar's help had been the fact that they shared their brethren's low fertility, and their cores were capped at the bright green instead of bright blue.

Unfallen goblins were blessed with perfect bodies with no impurities as well which made it impossible for them to Awaken without blowing up due to the mana flow exceeding the capacity of their diminutive bodies.

Despite that, before their fall the goblin race had been a force to be reckoned with when they acted together.

There was no such thing as a goblin talentless for magic so when a community cast a spell in unison to defend their cities, they could easily surpass a white core.

On the other hand, taken individually they lacked both magical power and physical strength. Their green cores were too weak to practice the higher tiers of magic for a long time, hindering even the progress of their magical research.

The procedure to alter their life force that they had devised before their fall was supposed to alter their bodies so that they could withstand up to the bright cyan core and also to increase their fertility.

Goblins weren't greedy, they just wanted enough mana to conduct experiments for a few hours straight and swell their numbers to make up for their weakness and the casualties of the inevitable conflicts with the other races for the magical resources.

They would research a way to safely Awaken and reach the blue core later, once enough geniuses had been born and there were so many of them that no race could hope to threaten their empire.

Or so they thought until the effects of the Body Sculpting increased their fertility at the expense of their life span and the alteration on their mana cores backfired, bringing them down to orange instead of up.

Weakened in the body and mind, the goblins now lived for too short a time to master the knowledge of their ancestors and their cores were too weak to practice Body Sculpting and fix the damage.

The mutation soon affected the minds and bodies of the new generation that slaughtered the few unfallen goblins left in a fit of hunger and lust.

From that moment, the goblin race had been considered lost even by their elvish cousin. The goblins had become too stupid to learn magic and even if they did, they had no magical power to practice it.

There was no way for them to be restored unless another race was so generous to devote its life to finding a cure for them.

Until now.

There were dozens of goblins in Ne'sra and those fueled by Eryon's wings could overcome the limits of their orange cores, each one of them with the strength equivalent to a cyan core.

A bolt of lightning traveled from one goblin to the other, growing in power until it turned into a thunderstorm. The small creatures poured all the golden lightning that the Fomor had bestowed upon them into the spell and then hurled it at the Demons.

Each goblin controlled a portion of the energy, aiming against the enemies with surgical precision without impeding the advance of their allies. A group of trained reverted goblins was akin to a living array that could select its targets.

All the power of a magical formation and none of its problems.

The various kinds of Demons tried to conjure stone walls to defend themselves but they failed due to the earth element being drained by Eryon's wings.

'Raise your shields!' Trion conjured the black chains that linked all Demons to Lith and between themselves. Unlike a mind link, they were visible, but now there was no need for secrecy.

The Demons answered in unison by conjuring an emerald-veined golden wall of light to break the lightning tide.

The souls conjured by Lith shared their energy signature and could fuse their spells as well but the light element was slower than the bolts of lightning and the whirling storm struck before the hard-light construct could fully form.

The barrier shattered and blue serpents of electricity coursed through the ranks of the Demons, doing them no harm.

'What the?' Varegrave thought after noticing that aside from a sting he felt no pain.

Eryon, instead, knew what was happening.

The yellow eyes of the Demons were lit and their collective willpower had neutralized the goblins' spell, making it their own.