The energy stored inside them was consumed to instantly conjure the spells while also extending their area of effect to the area encircled by the feathers. The black ones combined with the blue feathers to form the tier five spell, Ice Coffin.
A swarm of black crystal daggers filled the air, each one of them enveloped in a frost aura so cold that it started to snow. It wasn't their razor-sharp edge nor the darkness energy they carried to make them lethal so much as their ability to stick to their target.
Dodging them all was impossible and once one of the daggers hit, the frost aura would fuse the ice crystal to its victim's flesh. The cold would suck away the heat just like the darkness imbued within ate at the life force, leaving the target of the spell no way out.
As for the red feathers, they turned into the tier three spell, Searing Wave, that was focused on the trolls. The members of that fallen race were naturally weak to fire due to their accelerated metabolism that required to stock fats in the form of highly flammable oils inside their bodies.
Prismatic Wind was a bloodline ability so even orc shamans and Fomors were powerless against it. There was no elemental flow that they could read and there was no fixed spell inside of them until Tista set them off.
To confirm her theory, she kept flapping her wings and releasing more feathers until none was left.
'Good gods! I can instantly cast spells, spread them around, and even delay their activation as long as I want!' She thought in surprise.
'Yeah, too bad that you can't cast arrays this way.' Valia nodded. 'Since we are at it, how am I supposed to call you? Redder Demon? Bigger Red Demon?'
'Don't even joke about that! If anyone hears you, I'll end up with an even lamer name.' Tista replied with a telepathic snort. 'Now get off me, there's something I want to try.'
As soon as Valia left, Tista took a deep breath and activated Ethereal Aegis. Yet instead of using Origin Flames, she activated her black eye and synergized it with her wings to turn her whole body into a living mass of Void Flames.
She was back being a black, flaming demon straight out of the legends of the various monster tribes. Suddenly, the spells harmlessly phased through her whereas her touch and that of her claws was even more deadly than before.
Each slash of Sunder carried the black flames around and they didn't go out unless their victim died or their energy was neutralized by the combined effects of light and water magic.
'It works! Ethereal Aegis still drains my strength like crazy but the mind-numbing euphoria is gone. I can not only feel how much life force I've consumed but also stop my bloodline ability without the need of external help.'
She turned the Aegis on and off, just to make sure.
Between Protector's blazing blue form wreaking havoc with its newfound might and Tista's colossal form stomping the monsters by the dozens with each step she took, Lith decided that it was time to move to phase two of his plan.
He took the kids' gloves off and War out of its bloody sheath. The spark of Chaos of his Abomination form spread through the Adamant of the blade, painting it black and twisting its edge into barbed metal that looked like a row of fangs.
"Foolish child, there's no hope left! The more of you we consume, the stronger we get. There's nothing you can do to stop us anymore." Lith slashed downward with his blade and Syrah deflected the blow with the back of her Adamant gloves while also channeling the collective power of the 300 wargs supporting her.
The impact still broke her hand which she passed onto another warg, but she now had an opening to the crowned demon's throat. Or so she thought until his wings shapeshifted into a new set of arms.
The left hand stopped her in her tracks with a quick jab to her nose that would have caved her skull if not for the sacrifice of another member of her pack. The right hand exploited her surprise to deliver a mean hook that shattered her teeth, jaw, and skull.
With nothing standing in War's trajectory anymore, the black blade pierced through the Queen's shoulder and pinned her to the ground. Then, following Lith's orders, War used its Counterflow and World Mirror abilities to access the warg's hive mind and force Syrah to share her pain with the pack.
Every single warg and Hati inside Zelex fell to the ground, holding their right shoulder in agony. There was no wound that light magic could heal since the pang came through their own bloodline ability.
Syrah tried to use darkness fusion but War stopped the elemental flow, forcing her to feel its metal teeth as they bit into her flesh.
The Warlord dived to the rescue, but a bolt of Spirit Magic-infused darkness magic mimicked Chaos Magic's speed and escaped Ryla's black eye's control. Plague Storm hammered at her body, making her fall right beside her Queen.
The Warsage, instead, used her mana crystal to conjure the world energy into a tidal wave but the Hands of Menadion jammed her control. A heat ray burned her palms, forcing Br'ey to drop the crystal and dispelling the core boost effect that she had bestowed upon her allies.
"I've eaten plenty of trolls, remember?" The crowned demon said with a laughter as he conjured three hard-light different weapons, one for each of his free three hands. "Unlike you, I never forget anything. Your so-called secret arts are parlor tricks to me!"
Following his lead, the Demons of the Darkness also conjured a hard-light weapon each. Locrias and Valia did it respectively for Protector and Tista since unlike the Demons, they didn't share any of his knowledge.
'Fuck me sideways!' Tista thought while staring at the construct with Life Vision first and then by flooding each of her seven eyes with a different element like the Voidfeather Dragon had taught Lith.
This way, the six eyes filtered the unnecessary mana, leaving the light element pure and concentrated. Yet Tista couldn't make heads or tails of the spell nor did she understand how to turn holograms into hard-light constructs.
'I guess I haven't gotten Dragon Eyes either. This sucks!'
The sight of the lost art of Light Mastery stolen and mastered by the demons was a humiliation even worse than death for the trolls and the Traughen. They fell to their knees, sobbing in despair.
"There's nothing shameful in failure, at least for you." Lith chuckled, bringing his face millimeters away from Syrah's. "Your species failed to evolve and turned into bloodthirsty monsters.
"Compared to that, your defeat today is a small thing. At least you fought with honor, driven by desperation instead of greed like your ancestors. Don't worry about your son.
"As soon as I'm done with you, I'll personally find him and kill him."
"You monster! Xagra is just a child!" Syrah struggled with all of her strength, but with Lith weighing on her and with the rest of her pack writhing in agony instead of sending her strength, there was nothing a single Hati could do.
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