Chapter - 1732

- Once And Future (Part 4)
The emerald beam vaporized a male Fomor and then moved onto Typhos. He was the strongest in the group, but even he was no match for the collective might that the Tyrant had stolen from the other three Fomors.

"I'm sorry, Straga." He said while grabbing the only female left.

She was still doing her best to protect him with her elemental pillars when Typhos put her in front of Breakdown and used her as a meat shield.

Straga died instantly, but after killing two Fomors the attack was weakened and Typhos' betrayal had bought him enough time to recover his focus. He drained the surrounding area of world energy and used that power to dissipate the remnants of the Spirit Spell.

"That was a cowardly move, bro." The Tyrant's maw curled up in disgust, exposing a row of fangs as he aimed one hammer at Typhos' heart and the other at his head.

"It takes one to know one, traitor." The Fomor conjured a sword in his right hand and a shield in the left.

They were both made of ice, earth, and covered by golden sparks that proved Typhos had an elementary understanding of Light Mastery. The shield cracked under the Adamant hammer but managed to deflect the hit before it did too much damage and so did the sword.

"Your equipment is crap, dude. It's common courtesy to leave spoils to the victor." Morok viciously alternated his strikes, breaking the constructs faster than the Fomor could reform them.

"There's no point wasting artifacts on a dead man. Besides, I don't need them." Typhos' red eye burned bright a split second before it released a burst of bright red mystical flames.

The Tyrant was too close to dodge and the eye on his chest had already split back into six to counter any element that the Fomor could use. Yet the flames ignored his fire Domination and Morok took the blast square on his chest.

The impact sent him flying as even his equipment burned and made him lose the edge that the surprise attack had given him.

At the same time, Protector and Lith faced Thrud's soldiers while Nalrond and Friya were against the undead.

The noise had alerted them of the danger and they were far enough to not be affected by the sonic blast. When the assailants appeared from behind the corner, the creatures had the time to react.

One of the evolved trolls, a female Traughen, jumped at Lith with two of her hands releasing heat rays at his head while the other two aimed at his heart, brimming with darkness magic.

She used the remaining set of arms to conjure and compress stones into a dense armor to make up for her lack of equipment.

She had chosen Lith as her target because Protector wielded his enchanted mace, Boros, while the other human was unarmed and much easier prey.

Lith tilted his head so as to place it right in between the tier three Light Mastery spells. His left hand deflected the darkness-infused hands while the right pierced through the conjured armor, punching a hole in the middle of the Traughen's bosom.

It was just a straight punch not fueled by mana, yet it crushed her heart, lung, and sent her crashing against her companion.

"Don't be fooled by his size and leave him to me!" Protheus had gauged the opponent's real mass from the sound of the impact but his allies weren't as bright.

The evolved Warg fell into the frenzy typical of his species and ignored the order. When the creature attempted to bite Lith's conveniently exposed neck, he grabbed the Warg's head and ripped it off the shoulders along with part of the spine.

'Solus, analysis.' Lith tried and failed to retrieve the collar that exploded the second its wearer died.

'The geyser still blinds me, but I managed to collect a bit of data with Abyssal Gaze while you touched those creatures.' She replied. 'My guess was right. Their cores are no longer fallen and they even evolved to the equivalent of Emperor Beasts.

'Yet they are no Awakened. No matter what their bloodline abilities are, they are no match for a deep violet-cored Divine Beast like you at close quarters combat.'

Protheus shapeshifted into the Bahamut form as he charged against the enemy. His body grew so big that it blocked the corridor and tackled Lith with so much strength that it sent him flying.

'You where saying?' His thought oozed sarcasm as the impact squeezed the air out of his lungs and dug a new short tunnel in the rock wall.

'I was talking about the monsters, not the Doppelganger.' Solus said with a shrug. 'The guy is a regular yellow cored Awakened with a mass similar to yours. I don't know what a Doppelganger can do, but I can tell you that his fusion magic and body refining sucks.'

The hand of the Bahamut turned into the head of a Nidhogg and spat a river of acid. Lith infused himself with the power of the elements and escaped from the tunnel before the first drop reached its entrance.

'The guy is smart and has been trained in combat. His charge was actually a setup for the breath attack. Anyone slower than me would have remained stuck long enough to be drowned in Nidhogg's saliva.' Lith thought as the tunnel behind him grow larger due to the acid dissolving the rocks for meters before losing its potency.

Protector felt really awkward fighting against the evolved Warg. Not only did their elemental affinities match, but their hybrid forms were almost identical. The only difference lay in the color of their fur, flaming red for Protector and pure white for the Warg.

The creature tried to intercept Boros by grabbing its handle before the mace completed its descending arc, but Faluel's enchantments covered it at well. The moment the evolved Warg touched it, his hand was cut clean as if Boros' handle was a blade.

Yet the wound healed almost instantly and the Warg's speed increased tenfold. The creature managed to sidestep the blow when it was millimeters away from his head, suffering nothing but a scratch.

Protector froze in surprise for a split second, yet it was enough for the Warg to unleash several low tiered spells at the same time from point-blank range. Ice darts froze Protector's joints while darkness bullets sapped his vitality and an air blade aimed at his neck.

The armor blocked everything but the darkness bullets, leaving the Skoll short on breath and with a thin red line on his throat.

"Don't underestimate me, brother. I'm not a dumb Warg anymore. I'm Selkar of the Hati tribe!" The creature exploited the debilitating effects of darkness magic to push his advantage.

Protector could feel from the weight behind each blow that Selkar's true form was much bigger as well.

'How could he cast so many spells while in close combat? Only a violet-cored Awakened can do that and he's no Awakened at all. On top of that, his hand wasn't supposed to heal nor his speed to surpass mine.

'Sure, Wargs can share their wounds, but even if Hatis can do the same, Lith killed the only other member of his pack in the mine.. This must be the effect of their bloodline ability' The Skoll thought while using darkness fusion to cleanse his body.

Chapter 1733: Perfect Cores (part 1)
Protector had no idea that the Hatis' bloodline abilities had a much greater range than the Wargs' nor that they didn't involve solely their bodies but also their minds.

The members of the Hati tribe had started the weave spells the moment they had perceived the death of their companion and were sending them to Selkar along with their physical prowess thanks to the bloodline ability, Hunting Pack.

Without it boosting the Hati's speed and regeneration, the first swing of Boros would have crushed Selkar's head right after cutting his hand.

"If you really are not a monster anymore, how can you betray your brethren and serve a human like a mere dog? Where is your pride as an Emperor Beast?" Protector released a volley of stone darts that dug deep into the Hati's flesh, pushing him away.

"Do you think we have a choice? We are tired of being hunted. Of being hungry and powerless! While those like you abandoned us, the Queen gave us hope and turned us into a new race.

"We are Elder Beasts now and we won't stop until we've got our revenge. If we have to become her pets, so be it!" Selkar said with a snarl.

His fury was great, but Protector's bright blue core made him stronger than an entire tribe of yellow cored Hatis. On top of that, no matter how many spells they sent Selkar, they would consume his mana and burden solely his body.

Selkar couldn't cast them recklessly so he waited for an opening, but the Skoll gave him and quickly pushed the Hati on his back foot with his superior battle experience.

The moment earth magic gave Protector the space to swing his mace again, Boros struck at Selkar's head. The Hati had yet to recover his footing so he raised his crossed arms to intercept the blow.

The mace mercilessly crushed his hands and wrists before smashing his skull. Once again, the wounds instantly passed unto several of Selkar's pack members, allowing him to survive.

"Well said, brother." The remaining evolved troll, Arko, unleashed six tier three Light Mastery spells from her hands in the form of heat rays. "We have been discarded by our respective races as failures but now we have the opportunity to replace them."

Traughen were even more naturally gifted for light magic than Trolls, but the art of conjuring constructs was lost to them. It would take them years if not decades to learn how to create hard-light again.

Protector easily dodged the spells, yet Arko smiled. The ray of light turned into darkness the moment they reached their real targets, reanimating the corpses of the fallen as undead.

"Arise, my pets!" Traughen were natural with both elements and capable of switching freely between them.

The dead Hati, the other Traughen, and all of the dead Fomor stood up again, surrounding Protector from every side. Selkar's muzzle twisted in a grimace of disgust at the sight of the Necromancy spell.

Even Elder Beasts considered it an abomination that defiled the bodies of their fallen comrades and spoiled the meat of their prey. Yet Selkar preferred a dishonorable victory to an honorable death.

Now that they were eight against one, victory was at hand.

As for Friya and Nalrond, the fight against the undead had taken an unexpected turn. The Harmonizer at their neck fixed the imbalance in their blood cores, making the undead not only immune to sunlight but also allowing them to use all elements like true mages.

It also boosted their natural regenerative abilities to the extent that even striking at their weak points wasn't enough to kill them. A severed head reattached itself just like any other limb and a punctured heart regenerated the moment that the sword or the claw piercing it was pulled out.

'Damaging their bodies is a waste of time. We have to completely destroy them!' Friya said via a mind link.

'Easier said than done.' Nalrond replied with a grunt while pushing away a Ghoul whose skin shone like metal due to some kind of extreme version of earth fusion. 'We can't use powerful spells and if we let them get close, they'll tear us to shreds!'

'Use your equipment and everything will be fine. In a place like this, brains are more important than brawns.' Friya executed a thrust that her opponent dodged easily, yet Dreadnought reached its mark theless.

The tip of the sword plunged into a small dimensional rift and came out from the Grendel's back. The darkness infused blade hit the Harmonizer at her neck, damaging it enough to disrupt the flow of world energy.

The mana core of the massive hairy creature went back to its normal, defective status and the Grendel fell instantly asleep. Two more quick thrusts of Dreadnought destroyed the heart and the head of the helpless undead the moment he reverted into his human form.

'Right. I had forgotten about that.' Nalrond looked at his claws covered by a thick layer of compressed Adamant and at the glistening silver that coated the scales of his Rezar body.

He wasn't used to having magical equipment and up to that point, had fought as if his body was all he had.

He slashed at the White Lady in front of him and the enchanted gloves, Sunder, produced five air blades, one for each of his claws. The undead hurled a river of water to stop the spell or at least to lessen its power.

She could have easily dodged it, but as Friya had said, in such a confined space the spell would have either hit one of her companions or one of the crystals they had yet to mine.

Losing a crystal wasn't a big deal, but being struck by a powerful explosion from the back and shielding their enemies with their own bodies would have been fatal. The air blades cut through the raging river of the White Lady, yet she didn't dodge.

At the last second, her body burst into a wave that smothered what strength the spell had left without her taking any damage. Upon their death, White Ladies would become one with the river where they had drowned themselves along with their children.

They were capable of storing massive amounts of water, yet the more they used for their attacks, the dryer their physical body would become, making it highly flammable.

Thanks to the Harmonizer, the White Lady could now turn herself into liquid and retain her consciousness by spreading it via water fusion. In that new form, she was nigh-invulnerable.

Alas, just like Nalrond wasn't used to his new equipment, she wasn't used to wearing a Harmonizer.

The metal collar stayed behind, taking the full hit. White Ladies had no trouble staying awake during the day, but without the Harmonizer the hunger was back, and with it her natural weakness to fire.

As her body forcibly reformed, she conjured a wave that crashed against the Rezar in the attempt to drown him and suck his life. Nalrond had the Scalewalker armor seal all of its pores, nullifying the attack.

The moment she regained her physical form, he needed but a tier three lightning spell to set her ablaze.