'What the f.u.c.k?' Lith and the Firstborn Vampire thought in unison but for entirely different reasons.
The former because Solus's words made no sense and the latter because his own magical formations refused to obey his commands.
Arrays were just permanent spells with no personality or will of their own, yet Vladion could feel their spite being thrown in his face as they defied him over and over.
'Did someone use Forbidden Magic to turn my own city into a cursed object?' He thought as a cold shiver ran down his spine. If the field of arrays had really come to life, there was no telling the damage they might cause.
The group only had to follow the echo of the desperate screams to discover that the Second Life Academy had been attacked. It was the place where recently turned undead learned how to feed on their victims without killing them.
Even White Ladies could spare a child's life after learning how to control both their hunger and the flow of life force.
'This doesn't make any sense. I reinforced the protections of the Academy so much that they are on par with those of the city borders.' Yet nothing had stopped the intruders from blasting a hole through its thick walls and arrays.
The elders in charge of teaching were heavily wounded and most of them would have been already dead if not for their powerful blood cores that granted them uncanny regenerating abilities.
Vladion didn't have the time to stop and inspect the battlefield, but between his enhanced senses and rich battle experience, the Firstborn gained a rough understanding of the threat at hand.
Without the arrays blocking them, by the time Vladion reached the rear guard of the invaders, they had already crossed the city borders and they were throwing the newborn undead through huge dimensional corridors.
'More nonsense! If the dimensional sealing array surrounding the city is down as well, why didn't they open the Warp Gates in front of the Academy and wasted time coming here? Also, how can mere humans have inflicted such grisly wounds to my elders?' He thought.
Even from a great distance, Vladion could clearly see the humanoid figures manhandling the hostages as if they were ragdolls even though some of the undead weighed over 100 kilos.
The answer to all of his questions struck at the Firstborn like a fist to the gut and physically hit him much harder than that. The moment the kidnappers saw him, they cast the tier four dimensional spell, Collapsed Space.
Along with the big dimensional tunnels for the escape, the group had set up several dimensional fissures the size of a pinhole that created a path from the Gates to the city.
They were so small compared to the energy that radiated from the mass of bodies and spells in front of Vladion that his Life Vision had failed to notice the minuscule tears through the space around the city.
Collapsed Space was true to its name, causing the dimensional spells to implode on themselves and then explode outwards with energy comparable to several tier five spells unleashed at the same time.
Using dimensional magic in the middle of a Collapsed Space was akin to add more tier five spells to the incoming volley, hence suicidal. On top of that, Collapsed Space made it impossible even for the best dimensional mage to track the kidnappers' escape point.
'Dammit, that's why!' Vladion screamed in pain as the dimensional magic ripped his flesh apart along with the space it occupied, requiring the full strength of his full red blood core to keep the wounds from becoming fatal.
'They took their time coming here in order to set up a trap and cover their tracks. They couldn't do it inside the city because they failed to deactivate the Dimensional Stability array.'
The explosion that ravaged his body disappeared into thin air the moment it reached the city borders, where a magical formation kept the space stable to prevent cave-ins.
"That was a good move, but not good enough!" Vladion snarled. Unless his head was chopped off or his heart destroyed, any other wound would take but a second to heal, making Vladion just hungry and angry.
He punched one of the men wearing heavily enchanted gear that had stayed behind to trigger the trap. Vladion's fist carried the speed and energy of a freight train, yet the man with blonde greasy hair stopped it with ease.
"A beast?" Vladion was flabbergasted. Now that he was close enough, his nose picked up the scent of an Emperor Beast, just like his hand could feel that the body in front of him actually weighed more than a ton.
"And not of the cute and cuddly kind, motherf.u.c.ker!" The blonde man had a coarse voice that grew deeper as his hands turned into twin snake heads at the end of long serpentine necks.
They swallowed Vladion's arms up to the shoulders and then bit with all of their strength. If not for his Adamant armor, the fangs the size of a longsword would have plunged into his flesh and released their powerful acid.
The blonde man had disappeared, his slender body replaced by that of a massive three-headed Hydra that stood over 20 meters (65'7") tall. The other members of the group shapeshifted as well and prepared to fight.
A woman turned into a Roc, a lesser Phoenix, while another man took the shape of a Sphinx, a lesser Griffon, and the last member of the group, turned herself into a Harpy, a lesser Garuda.
They couldn't escape because the Spatial Collapse blocked dimensional magic and unless they took care of the witnesses, running away would only mean leading the enemy back to their hideout.
Lith, Nyka, and Scarlett had escaped the trap thanks to their outstanding mystical senses. Solus had noticed the dimensional fissures with mana sense and had Lith take a roundabout route, making him arrive second.
The Eyes of Menadion, instead, not only had warned the Scorpicore of the fissures, but it had also provided her with a list of potential threats while it analyzed both the enemies and their equipment.
Alas, unlike what happened between Lith and Solus, there was no mind link between the Eyes and their master, forcing Scarlett to take her time to read the information that the artifact brought to her attention.
'They are all non-Awakened Emperor Beasts from a lesser bloodline.' Scarlett and Solus thought in unison. 'Their mana cores are bright blue with tinges of violet and their physical strength is off the charts.
'They are not on the level of an Awakened but way stronger than they should be. Their equipment is troublesome as well.'
While Solus continued her analysis, Scarlet was forced to put the Eyes away to keep them from being damaged.
"An old fart, a cat, a hatchling, and a leech? This should be easy." The Hydra knew who Vladion was, yet the bliss that coursed through his veins made him fearless.
