Having a shared mind, the mycetes had no qualms sacrificing part of their bodies to take down their enemies.
By infusing themselves with darkness magic, they turned each spore into a living weapon capable of eroding physical and magical barriers alike. Invigoration allowed them to recover the lost mana and by sacrificing their exhausted members, they even reset its effects.
The newborns had fresh bodies that could use the breathing technique to its fullest.
"Thank the gods you are here." Athung said while treating the members of the expedition that, after being hit once, had been turned into mushrooms fields and were now fighting for their lives.
The Horde first had invaded their windpipe, making it impossible for them to use their breathing techniques and stopping the circulation of darkness magic that would otherwise destroy the invaders.
"We'll buy you some time." Trevan said to Aalejah. "Explain to them what to do, but be quick. I don't know how long we can hold out."
"I'll take point and open the way." Lith said while fixing Solus's Monocle in his eye socket with a gesture that reminded her of Lark.
"How, exactly?" Trevan said. "No offense, but the spores form a wall so thick that we can't see through it. Even though I'm mostly comprised of darkness element, I don't have the mass to hold against such a powerful enemy for more than a few seconds."
"Mass is the keyword." Lith said while shapeshifting into his Voidfeather Dragon form instead of the Abomination like everyone expected.
Sure, that form gave him mood swings and had yet to reveal any extra powers, but that was what he needed. Fear and battle frenzy made his blood boil, covering his massive body with a thick layer of Origin Flames.
In theory, he could do the same in his Tiamat form, but he still lacked the control or lack thereof to let his emotion flow unbridled and keep the Origin Flames from hurting himself and Solus as well.
The Voidfeather Dragon, instead, with its unstable psyche and without the interference of the other life forces, was easily riled up. Lith jumped out of a window so as to not damage the building as he used air and Spirit Magic to turn himself into a flaming meteor.
The impact against his body squashed the spores that comprised the Hordes like insects against the windshield of a speeding car, opening a hole in the living wave that sieged the Awakened fortress.
Those stupid enough to try and infect Lith discovered the hard way that the flames that flowed in his veins instead of blood burned much hotter than those covering his scales, scorching the spores to death.
His charge gave the defenders a few seconds of respite and created an opening that the undead exploited to jump amid the enemy lines. They unleashed their best darkness-based spells, killing thousands of spores in the blink of an eye.
It would have been a great result if there weren't millions of them.
Lith never stopped moving and circled around the building while hurling a jet-stream of Origin Flames from above, setting the Hordes ablaze. The fire not only weakened the fungi faster than their breathing technique could recover their strength, but it also kept them from casting spells.
To amplify each other's magical power, the Hordes needed to assemble their violet cores closely, but doing that also meant to spread and fan the flames.
'Shit, breathing Origin Flames while covering myself in them is quickly draining my strength. How long can I keep up like this, Solus?' In that form, Lith lacked the mental focus necessary to estimate his condition.
He needed sheer willpower just to not fall into a blood frenzy whenever he clashed with the enemy.
'Less than a minute. Remember that not even Abyssal Gaze can stabilize your life force once it gets compromised by the abuse of Origin Flames and you can't afford to collapse in the middle of a fight.' She replied.
Inxialot's management of the test had been so poor that Lith now believed that the mission was real. Too many people had risked dying too many times and no one had intervened to help them.
Meanwhile, after using a mind link to teach Athung the spell that Quylla had developed to treat the spores' infections, Phloria activated the tier five Battle Mage spell, God of Darkness.
A full armor made of shadows fused with her Featherwalker armor while the darkness element condensed into four spheres the size of a gym ball that orbited around her like planets with their sun.
The spheres would allow Phloria to replicate the effects of all the darkness magic spells she knew up to tier three without the need to cast them.
Unlike Lith, after becoming an Awakened, Phloria only needed to convert her old skills into true magic before having the time to learn some new ones. She had no Domination, Origin Flames, or even Light Mastery to practice, leaving a single woman a lot of free time.
She had spent it by learning from Faluel's library the spells that would cover for her weak points and for the gaps in Lith's magical specializations. She had also tried mastering arrays, but aside from the basics, they gave her a massive headache.
The God of Darkness spell was meant to charge at the enemy lines without having blind spots, but she used it to cover the other Awakened instead. This way, they could focus solely on the offensive while Phloria got rid of the incoming attacks.
"We could really use one of those huge ass arrays of yours." She said to Athung.
"On it. Just make sure that no one interrupts me." Athung replied after finishing to treat the injured enough so that they could do the rest by themselves. "This is a tricky one."
She opened her arms, making appear between them a dimensional, a gravity, and a darkness array. Athung had to weave them while also making sure that their runes wouldn't cancel or hinder each other.
While the Council admired her mastery in weaving the three mystical circles into a single array, one of the Hordes understood what was about to happen and unleashed their personal tier five Spirit Magic spell, Choking Wind.
The hexa-elemental spell was comprised of magic particles so thin that they bypassed the barriers surrounding the fortress by mixing themselves with the air currents that the arrays let in in order for the Awakened to breathe.
Thanks to Life Vision, Phloria didn't miss the otherwise hidden spell and stood in front of Athung to intercept it. She recalled the spheres and the armor conjured by the God of Darkness spell, compressing them both inside her Adamant shield.
The mass of darkness magic weakened Choking Wind while the Adamant took the brunt of the damage, yet it wasn't enough. Phloria clenched her teeth as the sheer pressure of the Spirit Spell pushed her back.
Despite Fusion Magic boosting her body and the multiple layers of Adamant covering her, she felt the bones in her arm cracking. Before Choking Wind could sweep her away and hit Athung or just send Phloria crashing against her companion, she Blinked them both out of harm's way.
Unfortunately for them, the Horde was an Awakened as well and they could see the Blinks' exit points with Life Vision.
