He didn’t need to count anymore—their red-glowing eyes, tainted by the Horned-Rat’s Favor, shone like beacons of menace in the distance. It was clear there were far more of them than he had first thought. They pressed closer, the desert sands shifting beneath their movement techniques as they flew through the air toward Sandspire Village.
[Lifestream Aegis] continued to sustain him as he continued to dodge, deflect, and reply with his own hasty attacks in reply. Streams of water mana coursed across his body, instantly mending any small cuts and scrapes he received.
Every time he took a hit, it barely registered before the water energy filled the gaps, healing and reinforcing him. Even when one of the rogue cultivators had slashed across his arm with a somewhat gruesome wound that cut down to the bone, the injury sealed and healed within moments.
Only a small trickle of blood dripped for a brief moment and nary a scar or blemish was left on his skin as if it had never happened.
Beside him, Vaela moved like a force of nature.
Her lance switching from two-handed thrusts to one handed throws in her hands, the air around her sharp scent of burnt air as her lightning-infused lance tore through the oncoming rogues. Each strike, like shimmering blue bolts splitting the sky, came as they rained down on their enemies. Lassim couldn’t help but admire her fighting style.
It was aggressive and embodied a boldness and brashness that felt like it somewhat matched what he wished his own halberd might be able to do.
Perhaps there might be something he could mimic, like her ability to copy her weapon as she launched them with her [Raindown Lances] technique, but he shook his head. There was no time for distraction.
More than just [Lifestream Aegis]’s efforts, the combination between Lassim’s progenitor marks and the technique were working in tandem, converting the ambient mana in the air into divine energy before fueling the technique. It was a constant flow, a torrent of refined power pouring into his core before spreading across his body.
His fatigue seemed distant, his mind still maintaining the same sharpness with each passing minute.
This made him feel powerful. He felt like he could continue fighting for days without tiring. The pressure of battle seemed distant and made him confident in the odds of surviving this attack.
But, the world works differently and Lassim’s joy in his newly created power was short-lived.
After taking out a combined six more hybrid Nevaks cultivators between Vaela and Lassim’s defense, a new presence stirred on the horizon. A chill ran down his spine, not from fear, but from recognition.
Kierlan had arrived.
Far in the distance, but closing fast, Lassim spotted the hunched form of the Nevaks leader. Kierlan’s covered rat figure became clearer as the beast man stepped forward instead of flying for some reason. Yet, he wasn’t the only Nevaks present.
Flanked on both sides and behind, was an army of Nevaks that looked more like standard guardsmen in their plate armor that form fitted to their bodies and claws. The plate helmets even covered their rat faces with shieldings to protect their sensitive ears. If it was any other situation, Lassim might have believed them to be objectively, at least somewhat, cute.
His spirit sense allowed him to see that there were at least seventy-five of them, moving in sync to match at least one step behind Kierlan.
Unlike the rogue cultivators who had been hastily marked with the Horned-Rat’s Favor, these Nevaks appeared to be purebred—family and possibly distant descendents of the legendary Horned-Rat, each bearing the same bestial ferocity in their appearances as their leader. Their fur was matted, their bodies hunched, and their clawed hands gleamed with their innate night elemental control.
As proper beasts, despite being humanoids, they were the same as other beasts and not blessed with their own elemental weapons. They relied strictly on their claws, and Lassim was going to find out just how capable he was against beasts that matched his power level.
Alongside them, the remaining rogue cultivators—thirty-seven now in total—took a moment to fall back and fall in line behind Kierlan. Despite the best efforts of Lassim and Vaela, they hadn’t been killed yet,
As they landed behind him, Kierlan raised his staff, the gnarled piece of wood and his squeaky voice carried over the sands.
"Well, well, well... So the little runaway managed to hold out this long?" His voice, though high-pitched, was laced with cruelty. "Not bad! You even brought us to our future home. What a gracious gift. If you hadn’t run away, I’d have thought you were here to hand it over personally to as thanks to me, your new master.
Unfortunately, you have made a grave mistake in not accepting my own gift. You and the Lightning Sect cannot stand against the might of the Nevaks! The Southern Continent will belong to us!"
His words sent a ripple of fear through the remaining villagers and guards at Sandspire that had watched the battle occur above them high in the sky until this moment, but Lassim and Vaela stood their ground with resolve.
"So you’re Kierlan, eh?" Vaela spat, her voice filled with disdain. "You’re the one that’s been a thorn in my side the past few weeks. Had I known it was a big, stinky old rat, I’d have laid out some mouse traps to greet you."
Kierlan grinned, his sharp yellow teeth bared in a twisted smile. "Your precious outpost, your village, all of this will be considered a tribute from your poor, weak Lightning Sect and will be the foundation for our kingdom. Your heads shall make fine trophies for the brattice over the main gate’s ramparts when we’re done. Oh, and don’t worry about your corpses.
We will split them apart into portions as treats to the hungry guards behind me."
There was a squeaking that came from the Nevaks that sounded like enthusiastic chuckles after Kierlan’s speech.
Without another word, Kierlan pointed his raised staff downwards, and the army of Nevaks surged forward. The desert sands kicked up in a swirling storm as the beastmen charged, their claws gleaming with shadowy night-element energy, their eyes filled with the bloodlust of a feral horde.
Lassim felt the pressure increase as they drew closer. "Vaela, we’re going to need something bigger… I’ll give it a shot for a while, but if they break through…" he muttered, gripping his halberd tighter.
Vaela gave a single nod. "I’ll be there to handle it. Thanks for bringing such a fun fight to my doorstep. Though… It’s a shame we have to put the villagers and workers at risk."
Drawing on the amount of divine energy still filtering into him through his progenitor marks and his large divine mana reserves, Lassim raised his halberd high above his head, channeling all his strength to create the largest version of his strongest defensive technique yet.
"[Grand Aegis]!"
The sky’s water mana around him in the air, including the storm cloud pouring rain from above, trembled as the dragon’s soul fragment surged to the forefront of his power, the ice dragon Aegrasian’s essence emerged from the dragon statue in his inner world into the real world.
A massive dome of shimmering ice began to form around him and Vaela, expanding rapidly until it encased the entire village below. The icy barrier stood solid, its surface reflecting the lightning bolts’ flashes in the cloud above. Its walls thick with layer upon layer of impenetrable frost.
The villages immediately felt the cooling of the desert heat, which gave a nice relief despite the tense situation.
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The dome was raised just in time with the efforts of Marinelle, Aegrasian, and Lassim as the Nevaks and rogue cultivators crashed into the barrier. But their claws and weapons were unable to penetrate the shield that was the[Grand Aegis] technique.
Each time their shadow-infused attacks struck, the ice reformed almost instantly, frost creeping back over any cracks as if the barrier were alive. His fundamental change in understanding the water element improved its ability to maintain its shape much more easily than in the past.
But even as it held strong, Lassim could feel the strain on his mana pool. Maintaining a barrier of this size, while also fending off attacks from roughly 100 Spirit Transcendent, Ascension and Transformation stage cultivators, was no small feat. His mana reserves were vast, and constantly refilling passively, compared to similar level Spirit Warriors, but even they had their limits.
Kierlan watched from a distance, his beady red eyes narrowing as he assessed the situation. "Impressive," he squeaked, "but not enough to stop me."
With a flick of his staff, Kierlan directed a massive sheet of night elemental energy that transformed as it flew through the sky into gigantic claws of pure darkness that slashed at the ice dome. Each strike sent ripples of darkness across the surface.
Lassim grit his teeth as the strain of holding the barrier became more intense.
"Don’t give up! You got this!" Vaela shouted, her lance crackling with lightning as she summoned a storm of electric lances outside the dome before launching them at the attacking Nevaks and rogue hybrids. Her attacks struck true against the armored guard Nevaks, felling several of the beastmen at the front lines with no space to back up, but more took their places, their numbers a bit overwhelming.
Lassim focused on maintaining the [Grand Aegis], but he knew it wouldn’t be enough to keep them safe indefinitely. The Nevaks were relentless, their night element-infused attacks battering the ice barrier from every angle.
Thankfully, his elemental companions, Zaphy and Mari, were doing their best to support him. Zaphy energetically launched lightning bolt attacks by controlling them to come from the storm cloud above and Mari created ice spikes that shot out from the dome’s surface to impale the oncoming enemies’ claws.
Even Aegrasian’s soul fragment was doing its best aiding him, the dragon’s soul occasionally forming into just a dragon’s head that emerged from the dome before launching a [Ice Breath] that froze several of the rogues in place from the top of the dome.
But it wasn’t enough.
Kierlan himself stepped ever closer forward, keeping his staff raised high as he channeled that massive amount of night element of the attacking rat’s claws into something else.
"Let’s see how your precious ice holds up against this!" he sneered, his voice carrying over the battlefield.
The claws turned into dark tendrils of shadowy energy returned to him and coiled around his staff, growing it larger and more menacing with each passing second.
Then, with a sweeping motion, Kierlan unleashed a devastating wave of night element, aimed directly at the heart of Lassim’s [Grand Aegis].
The wave of darkness looked like a gigantic horn that crashed into the ice dome, sending shockwaves through the barrier.
For the first time, Lassim felt the ice give way slightly under the force of the attack. Cracks spread across the surface, the frost struggling to repair itself as the dark energy from the horn seeped into the barrier and its cracks.