Return of the Fallen Volume 9 Chapter 36
As Zephris moved like a raging storm, his Azirian army moved as well. They were outnumbered several times over yet his Azirian’s held no trace of fear. Like mindless beasts, they attacked without concern or care. The experts fought back and at first, these experts were shocked at how weak the Azirian’s were. Each one was around the third or fourth stage while these experts were all at the 4th stage or higher.
Their attacks tore through Zephris’s army with relative ease. They all relished in such an easy slaughter. With a punch or a kick, they could destroy these bodies like paper. It did not matter whether it was one or a dozen Azirian’s, they could not defend against such attacks. These experts thought at the current rate, they could destroy the strange weak army Zephris had created in little time but they soon found out how wrong they were.
The moment these Azirian’s began to fall out of the air in defeat, something strange occurred. The damage was healed in a near-instant. Broken limbs, dismembered parts, gaping wounds that clearly should have been fatal. All of these death blows were regenerating before everyone’s eyes.
The Azirian’s that had just fallen toward the ground one moment, the very next they had recovered fully and taken back to the skies. Again they rushed toward their enemies without an ounce of fear nor emotion.
“De…DESTROY THEM!”
Once more attack after attack was unleashed, this time however the attacks came with powerful magic. Ice that could freeze the lakes and rivers, flames that could scorch the world and turn metal into rivers of molten liquid, wind, and lightning, they began to hold nothing back. Once more, the Azirian’s took these fatal attacks head on. To the horror of many of these experts, even after they had destroyed nearly entire bodies of their enemies, once again they’re enemies recovered.
The Azirian’s came flooding forth and swarmed experts one after another. Even if the Azirian’s were outnumbered, they did move as if they were. Several of them, even while being attacked on all sides, they would gather in clumps and groups and specifically target individuals one at a time.
Sometimes they would attempt to kill these experts other times they would vomit up mouthfuls of purplish-black blood. This blood, once it entered the body, it was basically over. If one could not remove the blood immediately, the Azirian blood would drill directly into the brain and gain control. The enemy would then began to spasm and morph as the blood changed them from the inside out.
Like this, a few experts became Azirian’s right then and there, shocking the others.
“DON’T LET THEIR BLOOD GET INTO YOUR BODY. IT TURNS YOU INTO ONE OF THEM!”
A shout rang out across the battlefield relaying this vital information. Those that were stronger immediately surrounded themselves with a barrier made from aura while the weaker ones erected barriers made from magic.
At the same time, more experts noticed some of the Azirian’s dying and grasped the flaw.
“THE HEADS! CRUSH THE HEADS AND THEY STOP COMING BACK!”
Once this got out, things quickly changed. The heads were the first target and the Azirian army began to fall like flies.
(Damn, to think they grasped it so quickly. Fine, they wish to push me, then I shall push back.)
Zephris willed his power forth and sunk it into the magic crown atop his head. The Azirian’s dropping like flies began to clump together once more, this time en masse. Hundreds of thousands of Azirian’s swarmed around each other like a hive of insects. The very next moment, their bodies began to fuse together. A disgusting deformed abomination standing well over a thousand feet tall took form.
Thousands of heads, arms, legs, torsos, and so on formed together to make a truly ugly monster. This fused Azirian swung a huge hand downward. Its speed wasn’t reduced in the slightest and had actually improved. Fighting in this large barrier that some of the experts had formed around the city and art of the sky, the space was already limited. With this monster taking up even more space, it left little room to move and doge.
Several hundred experts could not move out of the way in time and even though they had barriers up along with countering using their fiercest attacks and magic, the sheer force of the fused Azirian was far too devastating.
*WHAM*
Barriers cracked and shattered, several dozen experts were reduced to mangled corpses. If that wasn’t enough, the moment they were battered and broken and could not fight back, more Azirian blood went flying and instantly entered their weakened bodies.
More Azirian’s were created and then absorbed into the fused giant monster.
The weak army of ants was no longer an ant army but instead a true threat to them. Many rushed forth anyway. Their pride not allowing them to see what was directly in front of their eyes. They destroyed hundreds of heads at once but found these heads simply regenerated like the first time. These fools quickly realized that whatever weakness the Azirian had, wherever it was inside this giant, it was entirely different or maybe even preemptively moving.
As Zephris continued to tear through enemy after enemy, he chuckled inwardly.
(You can’t simply destroy a head or two. My army is now more. As long as a single head remains intact, the other heads can be regenerated fully. Without destroying every head at once, what they are doing is pointless. Not only that, my Azirian will never run out of energy with energy nearby. As long as I live, and their heads remain, they shall remain indefinitely.)
Several of the experts that had just attacked now understood that they couldn’t simply destroy the heads and needed a new method but unfortunately for them, they had gotten far too close.
Thousands of arms stretched out in all directions like tentacles and grabbed these expert’s barriers and all before pulling them directly into the giant body. These experts fired off every magic they possibly could. Fire, ice, lightning, etc but the fused monster simply recovered nearly instantly. At the same time, the inside of the Azirian’s body wrapped around the barriers and squeezed with insane strength.
The strength of this giant exceeded them and within a few seconds, these experts, barriers, and all were crushed turned, and absorbed into the body.
The more these experts were absorbed, the more unique Azirian’s that were created. As soon as these unique ones were created, Zephris’s crown atop his head continued to activate automatically. The souls inside of the unique Azirian’s split. One half remained in the Azirian while the other half entered Zephris crown, before entering him and fusing with his own soul, causing his powers to grow incrementally every single second.
Zephris couldn’t help but smile as he could feel his power growing more and more. Even if it was only a small amount, he was still getting stronger. His magic was growing and his body was enhancing in every way imaginable.
This only motivated Zehpris and he began to go harder and faster. At the same time outside of the barrier, the mysterious woman eyed the device Zephris wore.
“Was that the tool you spoke of?”
Torzz noded.
“Yes, Zephris kept me captive on his wrist for far too many years. I have seen the birth of that tool. From its inception all the way till yesterday. From everything that I gathered while being his prisoner, he was still a ways off from completing it but looking at it now, it’s actually working.”
The woman’s eyes focused on the crown atop Zephris’s head. As she observed it closely she could see every inscription every chain of the ancient language embedded and carved in the crown. As soon as she looked at it, she could see spotted something.
“Interesting. There’s some type of filter written on the crown.”
“Yes, Zephris spoke out loud about it a few times, apparently it’s for the soul fragments he absorbs. After their initial split from the unique Azirian’s, the fragments that enter the crown are filtered of consciousness or something before the fragment is then fused directly to his soul. That bastard was able to capture me back then but now I have to watch his strength grow and grow. If things continue like this, he may even catch up to your strength.”
The mysterious woman fell silent for a moment before shaking her head.
“This mortal shall never reach my heights. The reason being is that I shall not let him. If that crown filters the consciousness from the soul fragments before he absorbs them, what do you think will happen if that filter is disabled?”
Torzz thought for a second before it came to him.
“If thousands of fragments with a different conscious than your own fuse directly with your soul, would that not drive one mad?”
The woman smiled demonically.
“Hmm, let’s test that shall we.”
The woman raised a single finger and the power of space and light gathered at the tip of her finger before a beam of golden and purple light shot forward. It made it about 20 feet or so before vanishing. It then reappeared and struck a tiny symbol on the side of Zephris’s crown. The movement was so small and seemingly so insignificant that in the heat of battle Zephris barely noticed it. He felt something was off but couldn’t quite pinpoint it until he looked into the distance and saw the woman chuckling and smiling.
He then felt something on the side of his crown. A tiny symbol had been changed ever so slightly.
(This is?)
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