'My guess is that Night's strength depends on the lack of sunlight. Just like Dawn feeds upon the light element, Night is likely to feed upon darkness.' Solus thought.
'And just like Dawn's undead were immune to sunlight, Night seems to be immune to darkness magic.' Lith completed the phrase for her.
"I'm much better than any woman you'll ever meet, my knowledge surpasses that of any creature you met, and with me, you'll experience intimacy as no one else can offer you.
"We'll become one in mind and body, as the lovers you heard about in legends. We-" Night once again attempted her pitch.
"Been there, done that." Lith cut her short and pointed his finger at the woods. "Now get out of my hair because once my armies get rid of yours, once the air sealing arrays are gone, I'll kick your ass with all the might of the Kingdom at my side."
"What army?" Night turned around, noticing the four tribes of magical beasts coming out of the Trawn woods and exposing her back to Lith who didn't miss the opportunity to backstab her.
War pierced through armor and flesh until its hilt struck the black crystals, yet the Horseman seemed to barely notice the inconvenience.
"Do you really call that bunch of fleabags an army? Magical beasts can barely put up a fight against the undead. You-" Night chocked on her words as War's enchantments attacked her from the inside, ravaging both her flesh and mana core.
Orion didn't lie when he said that those struck by his masterpiece wouldn't live long. Unlike a normal weapon, War had the ability to twist energy on contact, making it possible to turn the very body of its victims against themselves.
The Counterflow ability allowed the blade to infect with its own energy signature any means that a powerful creature might employ to mend their wounds and use them as a weapon.
The Black Night's tried to fly back and escape the angry blade's bite but Lith charged forward, making it impossible for her to pull War out.
"I said armies. Plural." Lith threw Solus's stone gauntlet onto the ground while it held both the black eye of Trouble the Balor and the only tier five Necromancy spell Lith had ever created, Demons of the Fallen.
Neither the undead nor the beasts cared for the small crater the impact created, at least until the ground below their feet started to shake.
Just like she had failed to take into account Lith's meticulous defenses of his home, Night had also overlooked that while Lutia was known as "the Graveyard", Lith's home was known as "the Death's Door".
Over the years, many people had tried to harm his family and all of them had failed. Most of the time, the Verhens didn't even notice the members of the Queen's corps or the magical beasts killing the intruders from the shadows.
Lith's relatives were also unaware that he had left precise instruction to turn the flesh of the assailants into first-class fertilizer and to bury their bones nearby the house with earth magic, leaving no trace of the deed.
The ground split and only the Hush arrays surrounding the area kept the inhuman screams of a few hundreds of skeletons that rose from their grave from breaking the silence of the night.
The Horseman scoffed at the sight of the lowest species of lesser undead and so did her soldiers. At least until black streaks spread over the dirty ivory of the skeletons and an emerald glow replaced the red light of undeath in their eyes.
The black eye of a Balor had the ability to draw and focus the darkness element to the point of turning a lesser undead into a greater if applied to a single corpse. Lith had no use for someone with free will who might refuse his orders, whereas lesser undead were blindly loyal.
Demons of the Fallen used the black eye as a focus to conjure an endless stream of darkness element while splitting the energy between all the skeletons to keep them from achieving sentience.
The eye amplified the effect of the Necromantic spell, allowing the black mana not only to form blood cores, but also to flood the bones with darkness element and turn them into deadly weapons.
The skeletons attacked recklessly, strong of the innate resistance to most elements that they shared with their enemies. Their touch was akin to a tier three darkness spell, making physical contact torture for Night's soldiers.
Spells did little to no harm to the Demons of the Fallen, while physical damage was quickly repaired by the constant flow of necromantic energy. The elder undead had already their hands full facing the beasts and the arrival of reinforcements only made things worse.
Unfortunately for them, the worst had yet to come.
Once the skeletons' bones turned pitch-black, their shadows rose from the ground, acquiring a third dimension. They had white holes where the mouth and the eyes were supposed to be while their faces were twisted in a grimace of wrath.
Instead of attacking their owners like Demons of the Darkness would, the shadows wrapped around the black skeletons, replacing their lost flesh and clothes. The Demons didn't look like the skeletons' original owners so much as people from all the Garlen continent.
Some looked like farmers, others had their appearance resemble a full armor, a few were barbarians wearing nothing but clothes made from animal fur. All of them stared at the enemy with undying rage.
The white of the shadows' eyes mixed with the green light of the undead, giving the Demons emerald irises and white pupils. Both burned so brightly that the newborn army painted the fields nearby the Verhen household an eerie green.
Night had no idea what was going on and no time to analyze the situation with her mystical senses. War's bite kept ravaging her body and Lith gave her no quarter, leaving the control over Demons of the Fallen to Solus while he focused solely on the Horseman.
The undead on the ground didn't fare any better. With the beast armed with darkness infused weapons attacking from the front and the shadow army attacking their back, Night's servants had been caught in a pincer maneuver.
"Don't falter! The shadows' range is just their arm length and the beasts can only use elements that do us little damage. Take the shadows down with your weapons and the beasts with long range spells!" Voia the Banshee said.
She was supposed to become one of Night's Chosen once the battle ended. The Horseman had yet to replace those killed by Balkor and Manohar because sharing her strength with new Chosen would weaken her.
Night's host was barely more than human so she had preferred to keep as much power as she could to herself.
Voia's command was simple, but there were no rookies among those who had taken part in the assault. Her words allowed them to recover from the surprise and the centuries of battle experience did the rest.
They split into two fronts, fighting back-to-back to leave no weak spot in the formation. Both sides of Night's troops cast a volley of spells against their respective enemy to slow their advance and thin their numbers.
