Chapter 950 Meeting The Projection
The Projected Skullius paid closer attention to the Maqi fleet, if it could even be called that. As underwhelming as the prospect of 1,000 men pitted against 15,000 seemed, he had to admit that Maqi's sudden halt caused unfathomable tension to brew. Perhaps it was because everyone knew that Maqi didn't stop because they were afraid. If anything, it would be because they were very confident in themselves and were letting their enemies marinate in the pool of uncertainty that came with having that knowledge.
Skullius saw the Sif leading the 15,000 over the glinting ice platform show steady signs of breaking under the pressure. She was likely contemplating which of the two ideas in her mind to execute; whether to attack or to wait for the attack to come.
Skullius was amused.
"They've kept up the reputation. Even without showing themselves, everyone knows who they are dealing with. Well, in any case... there is no correct choice here. Whatever they do won't stop Maqi from doing what they want to do," he said before floating a little lower.
He then looked behind him, following a wide path within a great forest that came several tens of meters after the clear coast.
Benyn and his force of 100,000 were on the way, only about a minute or so from arriving.
'Well, that might change things a little bit...' Skullius thought before returning his focus to the silent tension.
Right then, something odd happened.
Skullius saw darkness bubbling up close to him; the pure sort of darkness he had only ever seen a handful of times with Crude Vision. It trembled and rippled before creating a bird shape, much like that of a particularly large crow which stretched out its large wings and revealed a set of crimson eyes.
'What is this?' Skullius frowned and moved away.
It was creature of darkness... but no, it actually had a texture of its own, something akin to stone. Strange.
As Skullius turned vigilant, unwilling to fully bet on his intangibility in this form, something even stranger happened.
The odd bird opened its beak and a flood of darkness exploded out of it, burying its whole and threatening to do the same to Skullius!
The Projected Luman zoomed out of the way, avoiding the darkness' approach swiftly, but after fleeing ten meters away, he found that the flooding black didn't make an effort to pursue him. Instead, it began to gather around to create an odd, warping vortex that attained a tinge of ash grey within its centre.
'Is this what was stealing away the people from the Auroras? No. That one was different...' Skullius thought without losing his focus on the thing before him. Damn it, there were too many applications of darkness happening at once around Opungale.
A moment later, something emerged from the vortex before him, which Skullius immediately realised was like some kind of portal.
It was a long and large arm that ended in a rugged and freshly charred hand, as though dipped in fire, which clawed at the nothingness, as though to use it as leverage to pull on. The hand gripped the darkness from the vortex, and in the next moment, a terrible, spiked armour that looked as though it were forged out of amalgamations of frightening beasts, their remains molten over it, showed, followed by a set of great, twisted ebony horns and face of shiny grey.
Ashema emerged, and his right glowing crimson eye pierced the Projected Luman with a look of interest.
He grinned as the darkness he emerged from dissipated along with the crow which conjured it.
Skullius focused his vision on the odd creature.
What in the world was this? And why was it grinning and looking at him lustfully?
Despite how hideous it looked, though, Skullius had seen worse, and his focus was more on its intention. It didn't appear where he was by accident, that was for sure.
'Is it here with the Maqian army? Hmm... no way,' Skullius thought with certainty. Then what?
The creature didn't show signs of hostility despite its unappealing expression. And above that, Skullius saw it open its mouth and speak.
Its voice was grating and shiver-inducing, worse yet... he couldn't understand a word of it.
"What?" Skullius said quizzically after the incomprehensible words came and went.
The creature looked pleasantly surprised for some reason, as though his confusion was what it had expected to see. And then...
"What... are you?"
This time, Skullius heard it speak in the Known Language.
He frowned. Was it using some kind of communication skill? It seemed so.
"What's it to you?" Skullius asked.
Ashema grinned even more deeply.
"Well, I am in-"
BOOOOOOM!
A sudden conflagration of fat, green flames interrupted Ashema, glowing bright and releasing an absurd pressure that shoved him hundreds of meters away at stunning speed!
The forestry nearby was erased casually, beaten into dust or burnt into it by the ferocity.
Skullius, who remained in place, unfettered, turned to the coast and he was shocked by the look of the bulbous catastrophe that rocked the world from where the 15,000 strong had stood; an explosion that looked like hundreds of conjoined large, green balloons growing outward while incinerating everything in sight without any resistance whatsoever.
Even without with the touch of the flame, the blazing shock-waves they released ground the land, nature and the beginning of the towering barrier around Opungale with relative ease!
A fading trail of green from the leading ship in the formation over the oceans revealed that, in the tense confrontation... the Sif's vanguard had been had. They had waited for an attack, and when it came, it devoured them all in an instant.
Skullius grinned, completely forgetting the unlikely guest who had just showed up moments ago.
'And just like that...' he thought as he withdrew further away from the coast to hide.
When the vicious flames began to subside, Skullius saw, amid the harshly molten land and ungodly crater, the barrier's shattered face attempting to heal itself but to no avail. Remnants of the green flames stuck to the torn edges were preventing it from happening.
The Maqian fleet then began their advance, and while adopting a quicker pace, they reached the shore within seconds.
Soon, they began disembarking; men and women sculpted and chiselled consistently, on their bodies only hides that hid their midsections and plump chests, nothing else. They held all sorts of weapons, except swords, and their bodies exuded terrifying pressures. Even Masters felt incredibly threatening, and that wasn't even accounting for the forty-one Incandescent Stagers within the group, not to mention...
'That old hag...' Skullius narrowed his eyes on the old woman who had just disembarked.
She...she was trouble.
He could tell at once.
She was followed from behind by a bold-looking young man who twisted his neck this way and that and then faced a certain group among the disembarked who looked out of place.
It was roughly a hundred combatants who wore slender, lustreless steel armour, held tall shields and wielded odd-looking staves that looked like they were made out of smooth porcelain, with different kinds of gems over them.
Skullius reeled.
Those weren't forces from Maqi.
Those were probably from Emeradis!
'They are their allies in this...?' Skullius thought, puzzled.
Even more had begun to brew in his head when suddenly... the old hag among the assembling soldiers shot her eyes in his direction!
...!!!
'Damn it!' Skullius cursed.
He would have been confident in his ability to flee... if he hadn't already seen that monstrous hag stretch her hand in his direction and gain a steady, unseen grip over him!
He was captured!
He couldn't move!
Skullius grunted. His only option was to return to his body, but he didn't know if that was going to be easy. Even if he was successful...
...!
Right then, Skullius felt another vicious grip on his Projected form.
It squeezed and pulled him away from the sight of the old woman whose face grew ugly with suspicion.
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