'Lith, you are the first Abomination hybrid to ever completely merge with their living part. Puppeteers and even the Master's hybrids still have the same problem as these creatures.
'The moment they run out of light energy, the only outcome is to either turn into an Empowered Abomination or disappear. These poor creatures are not Awakened and their mana cores are too weak to survive the process.
'They are nothing more than dogs on a leash that Vareen controls through the corrupted life force. Kill them, but do it quickly before we join their ranks!' Aalejah said.
Lith replied by hurling a stream of Origin Flames against a vulture, making it scream in pain. The mystical fire was the only form of energy aside from darkness that they couldn't feed upon.
The Origin Flames engulfed the agonizing bird, putting it out of its misery in an instant.
'It's kind of ironic for an Abomination hybrid to be equipped with both the best weapons against his own kind. Flames and darkness.' Aalejah thought.
'I'll make sure to tell big sis Xenagrosh if we come out of this alive!' Lith spewed out more Origin Flames while reminding the elf that as long as the mind link was on, they shared the same mind. 'Is there an easy way to get rid of them?'
'No. Otherwise everyone would have their copy of "How to kill an Eldritch". Just be quick because if Vareen focuses on us once he is done with the Hordes, we're dead!' She replied.
Meanwhile, the fungal Awakened were barely keeping the Eldritch Abomination at bay despite their numbers and centuries of experience. The Chaos that comprised Vareen's body turned any physical attack into a source of food and his spells countered theirs with ease.
Not only was Vereen older than most of the Hordes, but thanks to the limitless destructive power of Chaos, even his minions had the means to kill the countless spores that comprised the Awakened's bodies.
If not for their precaution of leaving a part of their bodies hidden somewhere before a fight, half of their population would have already been extinct. Unlike the other kinds of Abominations, only spells infused with willpower could damage an Eldritch.
That was because their bodies were akin to a black hole, absorbing the energy from everything that was in their vicinity, not from just what they touched. Without willpower, the mana and world energy that comprised a spell would be absorbed the moment it would come too close to Vareen.
The focus necessary to keep their own magic from replenishing the Eldritch's energy reserves made the Hordes' spells harder to control and limited their versatility.
"Get out of my way and you'll live. I've got no time to waste with failures!" The Plaguespreader said, knowing that between the Council and Salaark, he was on the clock.
For someone like him who had already reached the peak of the power of his Eldritch form, any further feeding was pointless.
"You must be stopped." The Hordes replied as the remaining five of them merged into a giant cloud of spores.
Their racial affinity allowed the fungi to temporarily make their energy signatures match and become a single being.
In their new form not only did the Hordes achieve a body with superior mass, but also the ability to make their countless mana cores work in unison and conjure spells beyond the limits of what any bright violet-cored creature could.
As the spores piled up and become part of a single massive mana core, the aura of the combined Hordes turned into a bright white. Strong with five minds, the creature weaved a dozen of tier five Spirit Spells at once.
"That's the good stuff!" Inxialot said while moving the surveillance devices so to not miss a single moment of the fight between the black and the white light. "I knew that staying behind was the right thing to do."
Unfortunately for the Hordes, the tidal wave of emerald energy that their collective spells generated crashed against the black mountain conjured by Vareen's defensive spell.
"Overcharging your violet cores was a dumb move. You gained a magical prowess akin to the white core for barely a few seconds whereas I got my black core for millennia. You have no idea how to use your powers." Vareen said while unleashing his tier five Chaos spell, Contagion.
He shot several small blasts of Chaos magic that filled the merged creature with black polka dots. Instead of killing the spores it hit, the Chaos infected them, making them attack the other spores nearby in the hope to quell their sudden hunger.
The Hordes were slowly being turned into Abomination hybrids as the corrupted spores became black, eating at them from the inside. To survive, the five creatures split up and sacrificed part of their bodies to run away.
"There's weakness in numbers boys. Now, where the heck was that safe?" The Eldritch ignored the Hordes and joined his minions in searching the city.
Meanwhile, Lith and the others were in dire straits. Attacking the Abomination hybrids with their weapons dealt only damage to the weapons unless they managed to strike at the still vital parts with surgical precision, making slashes pointless.
War could afford missing its target a few times thanks to the Counterflow ability protecting it from the Chaos, but it still put a heavy strain on its pseudo cores and inflicted upon the blade the closest thing to physical pain it had ever experienced.
Origin Flames weakened but didn't kill the hybrids unless the Chaos had spread to most of their bodies. There were only so many Origin Flames that Lith could use before they destabilized his cracked life force so he had to use them sparely.
'Fighting them head-on is pointless. We need to Blink and hit!' Phloria said while dodging thanks to her Full Guard the tier four Chaos spells, Howling Void, that the hybrid cast non-stop.
Such spells were both incredibly dangerous and nigh-impossible to block, forcing everyone to dodge both the attacks directly aimed at them and those that their companions had avoided.
The group of Awakened could only use darkness magic as a means of offense, yet it was slow whereas Chaos moved faster than a bullet.
Thanks to the mind link, Phloria shared her plan and assigned everyone their respective mark to avoid people striking at the same hybrid or offering an easy target to the other enemies.
The group Blinked as one, appearing behind a different vulture each and blasting them with a tier four darkness spell from point-blank range. The Chaos that ravaged the hybrids instinctively fed upon the light that still comprised the Awakened's spells, turning them into Chaos as well.
The four darkness blasts turned into oversized Howling Voids that decimated the vultures and created an opening for escape.
'Good gods, that was way more effective than I thought!' Phloria said while the others Blinked near her to follow the plan and re-establish the mind link that dimensional magic had broken.
They quickly reached the tunnel that connected the city with the entrance but they found Vareen waiting for them. He had already found the safe that Athung had emptied but instead of angering him, the sight of the thieves made him happy.
Seeing a living Abomination working along with humans was all the proof Vareen needed to believe to have found what he looked for.
