'I guess that after going all out on me Verhen is running on fumes.' Quaron thought. 'His aura is barely visible behind that of his artifacts. I'm starting to think that he isn't a Harbinger and not even an Awakened.'
The traitorous Ranger took control of the Skeletal Knights again, getting rid of all the Demons and the soldiers closest to Solus before making his move. Then, he cast a flight spell and bolted at her.
Solus didn't waste mana trying to hit him. She already had to lean on the Sage Staff to stand and had to make every ounce of strength she had left count.
Quaron moved past her while breathing another burst of Origin Flames. Invigoration had given him barely half of his strength back and he couldn't waste mana as well.
Solus had worked with Origin Flames long enough to know that aside from their low speed and short range they had no weak point. To neutralize them she would need to spend as much energy as they contained, but it would leave her drained.
She used Domination again, replacing Quaron's energy signature with her own to take control of the Flames. Yet the Ranger was already back, breathing a new attack.
The two conflicting Flames detonated with Solus in the middle, leaving her no way to avoid taking the full brunt of the blast. She was sent tumbling on the ground while the Scalewalker, the Sage Staff, and even War took fire.
She tried to roll to put out the flames but Quaron returned for the third time and unleashed another burst of Origin Flames.
Solus had plenty of strategies left and several moves she wanted to try. Yet her body was too weak to obey her commands and there was no time to cast a spell with the little mana she had left.
When she saw Quaron returning for the fourth time, with his glaive aimed at her heart she started to panic.
'Blink would just buy me time, a construct would never hold such a blow, and he can move around any wall that I might conjure. What can I do?' Yet there was no answer.
Solus kept her eyes open, racking her brain for any solution that had a ghost of a chance. She found none.
Metal clashed against metal until the weak bent to the strong. The enchanted blade pierced deep into the flesh, sending burning waves of pain throughout Quaron's body.
One of the Demons of the Fallen had pushed the tip of the glaive away, altering its trajectory away from Solus. Then, with a flick of the wrist, it had turned the parry into a lunge, making short work of Quaron's depowered enchanted armor.
It was a life-or-death situation, yet Solus froze for a second in shock.
The Demon had four eyes, a set of horns on its head, and wings on its back, but his face was as human as it was familiar.
"Captain Locrias?" She asked, forgetting to hide her voice from the surprise.
"You took your sweet time conjuring me. I had to follow you for over a month for this moment!" Locrias may have been dead, but that wasn't enough to make his loyalty to the Kingdom falter.
He was a member of the Queen's corps, sworn to protect those kids and the Kingdom from every threat. He didn't care what form he took as long as he could do his job.
Syrook felt Quaron's pain as his own and stopped chasing the Tiamat to take a good look at the battleground. His undead army had lost half of its numbers to the Demons and the mages, but the Skeletal Knights were still winning.
His Harbinger was in a pitiful situation and needed help. If Quaron died, the shock from the loss of the life force that the Black Dragon had infused into him would cripple Syrook's strength for months.
He doubted that Lith would let the opening slip and make Syrook's pain last more than a second, but that was hardly a comforting thought.
"Taking a break mid-fight? Don't mind if I follow your lead." The Tiamat said while taking a deep breath.
"Please, we returned to our peak strength at the beginning of this game of tag, why should I care if you rest?" The Black Dragon could see with Life Vision the world energy entering Lith's body, yet his aura didn't change.
Knowing that no one would be so stupid to waste one use of Invigoration without a good reason, Syrook looked back at the battlefield. Suddenly his Skeletal Knights were being pushed back like chumps.
The Demons grew in strength with each passing second and they were now capable of casting tier five spells of all elements whereas the lesser undead grew weaker and could only use the low tiers of darkness magic.
"How?" He blurted out. "Even though my bloodline ability can rise an unlimited number of undead, I still need to be close to them to feed more energy to them because of the darkness element's limitations.
"How can you just use Invigoration on yours?"
"I guess that my bloodline is better." Lith replied with a mocking laughter that stung at the prideful Dragon, making him crazy with fury just like Lith wanted.
"We'll see who's better!" The tier five Spirit Spell, Primordial Roar, carried Syrook's words and struck at Lith with such strength that it sent him plummeting to the ground like a meteor.
'Fuck me sideways, I had completely forgotten about the Dragon Eyes. I was studying him while he was studying me and learning all of my spells. This wasn't part of the plan!' Also, Lith had no idea how dangerous it was to anger a Dragon.
Rage didn't make them stupid, it simply made them stop underestimating their opponents and go all-out.
Syrook dived to follow his prey, flapping his wings to gain more and more speed until the Tiamat was within breathing range.
Lith countered the Origin Flames with his own and exploited the explosion to put some distance between them again. Unfortunately for him, the Black Dragon's violet flames had won the clash and what was left of them struck his back.
"Do you still believe to be better than me?" Syrook activated his bloodline ability, Dreadwing, to turn the Origin Flames into darkness magic that entered Lith's body.
He was about to neutralize the threat with Domination when the darkness turned back into Origin Flames, burning him from the inside.
"Do you?" Syrook said while Lith screamed in pain and lost control of his flight, crashing against the ground.
"Do you?" The Black Dragon landed on Lith's back with both feet, making his spine pop and the crater that his landing had created deeper.
Syrook kicked the fallen Tiamat with all of his strength, but Lith used the momentum from the first hit to roll away.
"I bet that you are so dirt poor that you don't even have a proper weapon!" Metal gloves made of Adamant appeared over the Black Dragon's hands while he walked towards his still dizzy enemy.
Syrook slashed the air in front of him and the enchanted gloves, Sunder, boosted his strength to the point of generating wind blades that cut five deep pits into the ground as they approached Lith.
The Warp Gates disappeared in unison and Syrook could finally drop the act. He rushed to the crates, bursting them open with a touch of his hand and letting himself almost be drowned in a wave of gold.
"I can't believe that those morons bought your act." Quaron said while stepping out of a Warp Steps. "A bit of Body Sculpting to fix their looks and a bit of rejuvenation to crank those old bones up can't change the fact that they have just a few years to live."
Syrook sighed deeply as the appearance of the Ranger ruined the moment for him.
"It will only matter if they manage to survive the incoming war." He replied. "For the moment, their foolish dream of youth is just the leash with which I'll keep the nobles in line until they outlive their usefulness.
"At that point, I can claim that they died because of their lack of faith. The good thing about being a god is that you don't have to explain yourself to anyone."
"We've really done it!" Quaron threw a handful of gold in the air, letting it fall on his head akin to rain. "Thrud upheld her part of the bargain."
"Indeed." Syrook dilated his nostrils in annoyance at the sight of the Ranger touching his gold and at the thought of losing half of it.
"Not even youth would have brought those old fools on my side if not for a member of the Royal family supporting my political coup and her subjects in the neighboring regions assuring that they would quickly join the uprisal.
"Too bad that now I have to do my part." Syrook split all the riches he had gained from the Nestrar region in half and took one artifact of each kind to be delivered to the Mad Queen.
She was eager to learn the secrets of Royal Forgemastery and recreate them with true magic before the war really started.
"Aren't you afraid of the Council? They are not going to remain silent once they discover that you Awakened me." Quaron said.
"Those old farts are irrelevant. They are so scared to reveal their existence and so glued on their chairs that when they understand what's happening it will be too late.
"Thrud will help me to take them down right after we get rid of the Royal army. Once that happens, I will have full control of the mana geysers of Nestrar and of all the magical goods they produce. As long as I give the Queen her due, of course."
"That said, why are you here? You were supposed to keep riling up the people and stall for time until the Royals are forced to attack their own subjects." The false god said.
He was certain that the Nestrar region would fall, but the seeds of grudge that were being planted in the key areas of the Kingdom would give Thrud the ground she needed to claim the throne.
She didn't want to reign over a pile of ashes nor to win a civil war just for a weakened Griffon Kingdom to be invaded by its neighboring countries. The Mad Queen had been working behind the scenes to make sure that her subjects would welcome her as a savior instead of fighting her like an invader.
"We are in a bit of trouble." Quaron sat on the throne, drinking from the ruby glass and groping the handmaiden's shapely buttocks. "Instead of attacking Zeska or trying to parlay with the City Lord as you predicted, Verhen challenged me to a duel.
"Even with your gifts, I'm not sure that I can take him. The bastard has a crazy reputation and his body count is flawless."
"How can a body count be flawless?" Syrook's eyes turned into fiery slits brimming with mana and fury at the sight of the Ranger touching his stuff.
"Verhen doesn't have a perfect record. He failed a few missions, but he always survived by walking on the corpses of his enemies. I don't want to join the club so I was thinking that we should just ignore him-"
"There's no we!" A simple wave of the fake god's hand made the Ranger bleed from his eyes, ears, and nostrils as every fiber of his body writhed in agony.
"You don't think, you just follow my orders." Quaron fell from the throne in a seizure, foaming from his mouth.
"I didn't give you those powers as a gift nor because I think of us as equals. I just put you on a different leash compared to those buffoons but a leash nonetheless. Once Thrud conquers the Kingdom and gives me the Nestrar region, I need a human face to rule it.
"I can't bear the stench of your race nor the thought of wasting precious time to take care of bipedal cattle instead of using it to increase my powers. My "gifts" give you strength, but they also allow me to read your mind and control your body.
"Touch what's mine again and you'll discover that the difference between a leash and a noose is paper thin!" Syrook sent a new wave of pain that pinned the Ranger to the ground like a bug in a collection.
"Then tell me what to do, master!" Quaron said, yet the false god kept torturing him until he was certain to have broken the Ranger's mind, body, and spirit for good.
"You are going to face Verhen fair and square. Don't even dare to attempt a dirty trick or to change the terms of the fight." Syrook said after reading from Quaron's memories the message that he had received from Zeska.
"Why?" With his life on the line, Quaron feared death more than pain and found the courage to question his orders.
"Because it doesn't matter if you win or lose. You need to show to my subjects that you are the hero they believe you to be. That you are willing to die for them. If you win, then the King will be forced to break his vow.
"If you lose, I'll show up and kill Verhen along with his army. The sight of their god will strengthen the faith of my followers and with no witnesses left, the Kingdom will believe that Verhen lost to you and they will attack Nestrar. Either way, I win." Syrook said.
"It will be done." The Ranger said, coughing out mouthfuls of blood between words.
"Don't worry, you are still too valuable for me. I won't let you die." Syrook bit his index finger, letting the blood drip into the mouth of his servant still sprawled on the ground.
Quaron's body healed instantly as a new strength flowed through his veins. His muscles swelled and his bone popped under the mana pressure that usually only a violet core could exert.
The Ranger felt an adrenaline rush while looking at himself in the mirror and discovering that not only his strength, but also his looks had improved.
Yet he turned pale the moment he realized that he was no different from those nobles he had mocked just a few minutes earlier.
"Let me guess. You didn't do it to increase my chances of victory but only to make me fit for the role of hero.." Quaron said.
