Chapter 337: Lords Vs Sovereign
Luna dove backwards as the spiked mace swung towards her, the shear pressure that the deadly ball of spiky steal emitted was enough to cause her hair to stand up straight and a shiver to run down her spine.
Yet the pressure was not the worst aspect of the human generals weapon, no that would be how the gravity wielded utilised it.
Whilst he did most definitely increase the weight of the mace, to the point that even getting touched by the weapon was a deadly affair. But the head of the mace in fact acted as a localised gravity well, consistently pulling everything around it towards it.
That effect may be relatively weak when compared the the other effects the man before them showcased, it was a scary combination, particularly for rapid evasion focused fighters like Luna who focused on narrowly avoiding attacks to get in a counter.
That style of combat became infinitely more challenging when your body would be naturally attracted towards the object you were attempting to avoid.
It had very nearly caught Luna off guard, if it hadn’t been for Violet instantly summoning a void shield, along with the winged rabbit slamming into the man’s arm holding the mace. Luna could very well have been put out of the battle entirely in a single go.
The wind attuned lion continued to battle from range, not wanting to get in close to the deadly warrior. Instead it focused on supporting Luna and the rabbit by boosting their speed and attempting to delay the strikes of the general.
Still that lion was a relatively low leveled Lord and its assistance was quite limited. The panther had already been taken out of the battle and whilst the rabbit was incredibly helpful in this battle it simply lacked the firepower needed to deal any true damage to the sovereign.
That left Luna and Violet to be the only ones capable of truly posing any kind of threat to the shielded warrior.
Whilst Luna was attacking near constantly, her ice blades were being rapidly destroyed one after another by the intense gravitational field that surrounded the man. Violet on the other hand was being continually denied any chance to even strike the man as he religiously utilised his shield to block nearly every one of her attacks.
Getting frustrated at being made so useless in the battle Violet began forming runes. They had served her well in recent times and she had truly come to appreciate the versatility of them.
And whilst she did t know exactly what effect she wanted to head towards she did have several basic functions that she could easily put up in place to hopefully aid her allies.
The first set of runes were simple void spears, they only activated when the human got within range, that added another angle that the man was forced to defend against. He seemed inordinately opposed to allow even a single void attack to touch his body or armour directly.
Still he was intelligent, as such would lash out at these runes the moment he got within range, his gravity crushing the void in space with the might of his domain.
Still that was only the initial set.
Soon chains began to form, lashing out to try and bind him down. Yet when they latched onto a leg or arm the shear strength of the human caused the void links to shatter into pieces. Still that added a moment of delay to the man’s movements and attacks, helping her allies just that little touch more.
All the while Luna was continually landing glancing blows against the shield or the mace that would move deceptively fast to intercept her attacks. Similarly she was regularly using void steps and forming new illusions to land one or maybe two attacks at a time.
Whilst these attacks did very little to no damage, that was never their intention, they only had a single goal, that being to build up enough stacks of her chain strike skill to allow her to begin dealing any significant form of damage.
It was a deadly dance, Luna’s movements being continually refined as ice continually formed and shattered all around her. She would phase through illusions, her body would shift in unnatural seeming manners. Each movement carefully calculated to grant her the greatest possibility of landing a strike and avoiding a retaliatory strike of her own.
Whilst the sovereign for now was still undoubtedly dominating the fight, the now 4 Beast Lords only able to avoid death by a hairs breath at any given time. He was alone in this battle, whilst the Beasts were not.
And this battle was attracting a lot of attention.
The first to arrive as reinforcements was none other than Vithrax and Olivia.
The shy human girl entering the battle by leaping off the back of her bonded familiar and slamming her wooden shield covered in thorny vines down atop the generals rapidly raised shield. That opening allowing for Luna and the rabbit to land blows against the man’s chest and side, whilst they only scratched the armour it was one of the best attacks that Luna had gotten in so far.
Then a roaring inferno engulfed the general the moment that Olivia and the others had backed off, curtesy of the red dragon.
Not that Vithrax’s flames truly dealt any significant damage. What they did do was provide an opening for Violet to summon a vast array of runes around the general, each one firing out a singular void spear from a dozen different directions, each one striking the man the moment the flames died out.
Yet the gravity around the sovereign suddenly surged in strength as he flaired his domain to its limits. The spears of nothingness being stopped in place a scant few inches away from him. Then with a decisive swing of his shield the two dozen void spears were broken into pieces.
Then Vithrax shrank his size to be more like a large wolf, enabling him to filter in and out of the battle without his grand size becoming too wasn’t of a target or blocking their allies.
Olivia stepped forwards, powerful vines wrapping around her limbs and shield as she planted herself before the man. The sovereign retaliated, his mace swinging down with mountain shaking force to impact her shield.
Yet despite what Violet initially though would happen, Olivia did not move back from the impact. She strained and nearly buckled, yet she held, refusing to be pushed back or ignored.
That allowed Luna to dart in from the back, unleashing a flurry of attacks as a miniature sun formed in the air a short distance away before shotting off rapid beams of intense fire. Vithrax himself circled around the fight, darting back and forth to land the odd blow, his tail and claws glowing bright orange with intense fire covering them.
Yet they were not the last Besst Lord to join the fight.
More appeared, one after the other.
First a worm of some kind burst from the ground, its mandibles latching onto the humans leg for a brief moment allowing several attacks to strike, before it rapidly retreated underground once again when the mace descended towards it.
Then came badger, with thick rock armour covering its already sturdy hide. It joined Olivia as a front liner, working to keep the attention of the human sovereign away from its more destructive allies.
Then a snake came wit vicious poison magic, then a deer with glowing golden antlers. Powerful healing magic shooting out to heal and restore those injured lords, finally bringing the wounded shadow panther back into the fight.
Each Lord that joined the desperate battle provided just a little more relief to the Lords, meanwhile the sovereign was begining to look a touch frantic as more and more powerful beast joined in on the fight.
Alone he would be able to instantly kill any beast arrayed against him, even violet and Luna would stand no chance against a powerful tier 5 being alone. Yet together, together that might actually have a chance to eke out a victory.
All the whilst Violet was steadily building a runic array specifically tailored to the gravity wielding warrior opposing the assembled beasts.
This array borrowed some concepts from her pseudo domain, yet focused them towards a singular target instead of being an all encompassing effect.
Its function was simple yet hopefully brutally effective.
Similar to how her Void Zone effectively inverted reality within itself, Violet now intended to invert the effects of gravity upon the general.
She didn’t know quite how this would work, particularly when the gravity was a function of the man’s domain, as such it was reinforced with the tier 5’s will and intent.
Still, one thing that Violet was more than sure of was that, whatever the effect may be. It would undoubtedly confused the man for some time if everything went to plan.
When the array was almost done she sent out a rapid telepathic message to the assembled Beast Lords, informing them of the basics of her plan.
Then with a stroke of reality being distorted with the void, the last of the runes was drawn. Then with a flash of purple nothingness the array came into effect.