The darkness element coursing through their bodies exacerbated those feelings, requiring sheer willpower to keep them in check.
What focus they had to employ to control their basal urges, the undead couldn't use it on the task they had at hand.
"Unlike the lesser races, us plant folks cat take any shape we want. My personal guards never left the castle in the first place. Those outside are just body doubles." Leannan's words planted the seed of the doubt in the Draugr's mind.
He had wondered why their battle of wills regarded only the control of the Sapling and the dimensional magic coming from outside Laruel, whereas Leannan didn't seem to care about the inability of her internal allies to Warp.
He would have liked to stop blocking dimensional magic inside of Laruel, which would give him enough focus to overwhelm his opponent.
Yet after falling for two traps, Erlik was afraid of jumping feet first in the third as well.
'Curse you, woman. If I drop the array and you are lying, your army will turn the tides of the battle. If I don't and you're telling the truth, then I'm wasting my limited energy in a fool's errand.' Erlik thought.
'I must believe in my plan. Leannan's Fae can't amount to just a few dozens. This must be another of her deceptions!'
The Draugr roared his challenge and tapped into the Sapling's energy to restore his dwindling mana.
Leannan was flabbergasted seeing that the ancient tree seemed unable to distinguish between its loyal vassal and the invader. The tendrils of wood stopped attacking the undead and turned against the Sovereign's allies.
Leannan did her best to protect the Healers and the Fae, but she only managed to slow the tendrils.
'Fuck me sideways!' Lith thought. 'I knew that plants were psychos, but I only feared they could reach such level. The moment Leannan explained to us that a Sapling is a dying tree, the undead invasion assumed a completely different meaning.
'Erlik isn't forcing the tree any more than Leannan does. His plan has never been to take control over the Sapling, but to cut a deal with it. Erlik needed time not to complete his experiments, but to sway the tree with his bait.
'Eternal life in exchange for unlimited power.'
'Ugh, I really hate you being always right.' Solus said.
Erlik's arms flared up, the bark covering his shoulders opened up and revealed a set of runes identical to the one Leannan was wearing.
"Guess you didn't see this coming." The Draugr said, echoing the words Leannan had used to open their fight.
All the undead were capable of recovering their strength, both physical and magical, simply by feeding. Killing their prey wasn't a necessity, only newborn undead would fail to control their hunger.
Erlik sent some small tendrils of the Sapling to his minions, so that they could feast upon them. It was one of the reasons why the thralls had been discarded. Their sires had no time to feed them in the heat of the battle.
The Draugr could feel the Sapling's disgust at being tainted by the touch of the undead, but he didn't have the luxury of the time to care.
'I can't believe that Great Mage Verhen was right. The World Sapling is half awake and is aiding our enemies. It explains why I failed to trace Erlik and how he acquired partial control over the city.' Leannan thought.
The situation was so dire that she was on the verge of panic.
'The old bastard is seriously considering the idea of betraying its own race. Luckily, runes or not, Erlik doesn't have my experience in handling the Sapling's power and my set pre-dates his own, interfering with his link.
'Also, even though the human's idea sounded ridiculous, I was crazy enough to listen to him.' Leannan nodded for Kalla to take action, and while the battalion of Fae slowed down the small army of undead, the humans revealed to have brought each a huge sack.
They spilled the sacks' content on the floor, covering it with several sets of human and beast bones.
"Arise." At Kalla's command, small wisps of green fire erupted from her body, each one taking place inside one of the corpses and becoming its blood core. The bones assembled themselves in their original shape and a shroud of green flames covered them, leaving only their hands and heads exposed.
The Wights that Kalla had created were lesser undead, yet her research had allowed her to kick things up more than one notch. With a thought Kalla sent them to prey on the enemy undead, catching them by surprise.
Now Erlik's side had lost the advantage of numbers, giving the combined force of humans and Fae the possibility to fight one on one.
"Curse you, traitor!" Gremlik hated Kalla for siding with the humans. He also hated her for being an Awakened, but most of all, he hated her because, despite her semi-undead state, there was no trace of fear or disgust in her allies.
Gremlik remembered all too well how he had accepted becoming an undead to save his glade from being razed to the ground by the humans, only to be banished from the same plant folks he had sacrificed everything to protect.
In a single day, he had lost everything twice, making him the man he was now. Gremlik unleashed the tier Five Spell Raging Sun that he had at the ready while chanting the next one.
Undead were naturally in tune with darkness magic while plant folks were with earth and water magic, which allowed them to use their true magic form. Yet they weren't Awakened, any spell that required one of the other elements they had to learn it like fake mages did.
Raging Sun was a mixture of fire and earth, which generated a powerful explosion that released flames so hot that they could melt stone. Its effects were akin to a volcanic eruption.
Using such a powerful spell was very dangerous since, aside from its caster, the energy released wouldn't distinguish between friends and foes. Yet Gremlik was old enough to know how to exploit the undead natural resistance to most elements.
Fire dealt little damage to them, and since the Grendel's allies were all plants, their bodies rich of water further reduced the effects of the Raging Sun. Even if one of them were to take its full power, they would only sustain minor wounds, whereas Kalla and her human allies had no such luck.
The explosion forced the humans to fly to safety, breaking their formation, while the undead didn't care one bit and pressed their advantage. As for Kalla, she was too focused on controlling her minions to react in time.
Her human body was blown away like a paper doll and slammed against one of the wooden columns that supported the Hallway's ceiling. She coughed out blood while rolling on the ground to smother the flames burning her clothes.
The Sapling trembled in outrage, its body had not been harmed in centuries. The ancient creature's spite for the undead grew once more so it sent a clear message to Erlik through the bond they now shared.
'I've given you the opportunity to prove your value to me. If you vermin keep angering me, I'll reconsider our deal.'
