NOVGO.NET Chapter 740: Smell of Death [3]
Chapter 740: Smell of Death [3]
His eyes widened by a fraction.
Even the draconic figure’s casual expression shifted.
Below them, the ground was filled with Rank Three creatures.
They stood shoulder to shoulder across the battlefield, packed in dense clusters like a prepared army. Many were undead, and they numbered over two hundred.
They also came in many strange shapes, as the two suns even saw some massive beastlike forms, including one with a huge body and a trunk for a nose.
When combined with the surviving experts and the Rank Three creatures that had already been present before, the number rose to something obscene.
More than three hundred Rank Three creatures.
All of them looking up.
All of them staring at the three figures in the sky.
The bronze-skinned Amazari’s gaze swept across the mass slowly, disbelief written plainly across his face.
It was not only the two suns who were in disbelief.
The experts below were as well.
Earlier, when the mist spread, those hovering above could only see the surface shift. The environment below had changed, but not enough to blind those standing within it.
They could still see each other.
They could still speak.
And that was why, when Michael moved, every gaze turned to him in the same instant.
Confusion came first.
Then fear swallowed the confusion whole as multiple undead began appearing around Michael.
And they were all Rank Three.
The Khar’veth leader’s eyes widened slightly as he tried to process what he was seeing.
Since when did Rank Three become so cheap?
The Virellion leader’s crystalline wings trembled, emotions and thoughts breaking through her calm exterior.
When the number crossed one hundred, the battlefield fell into a silence that was almost nauseating.
And Michael, the Rank Two youth, stood at the center of everyone’s attention.
The elven representative remained still, her face composed. But inside her, she was filled with stimulation.
All her earlier doubts shattered without sound.
Holy child?
This question no longer mattered.
If someone stood before her now and tried to claim this youth was not a holy child, she would view them the same way she would view a liar trying to sell sand in a desert.
A fool.
Or worse, someone trying to take her for a fool.
The bronze-skinned Amazari stared down at the battlefield.
At first, it was just disbelief.
Then his gaze sharpened.
He looked past the mass of Rank Three undead, past the experts, past the scattered corpses and broken land, and locked onto the one detail that mattered.
Michael.
The youth stood there like a core, and everything else revolved around him.
Literally.
The bronze-skinned man could see it.
A thin, invisible web of connection stretching from Michael’s presence to every undead on the field. It was subtle, but it existed, and to someone at his level, subtlety was not concealment. It was simply another layer waiting to be peeled back.
His expression twitched.
Then it broke.
The calm that had defined him since his arrival shattered like glass.
His aura surged.
The mana around him convulsed as if struck by a hammer.
The battlefield below groaned beneath the sudden increase in pressure. Several wounded experts coughed blood on the spot. Even some Rank Three beings staggered, forced to brace themselves to remain standing.
The draconic figure beside him narrowed his crimson eyes, but did not move.
The gray-robed man’s smile faded by a fraction, interest replacing mockery.
The bronze-skinned Amazari’s voice erupted across the battlefield, sharp and cold.
"So this is what it is."
His eyes burned as he looked down at them all.
His gaze swept across the gathered races, and then he laughed with contempt.
"Amazing."
His tone rose.
"I offer you mercy."
"I offer you a path to live."
"And you repay my kindness by thinking my restraint is weakness?"
His face twisted, fury spilling out openly now.
"You became brave because I did not crush you immediately?"
He pointed downward, his arm cutting through the air with absolute certainty.
"Against me?"
His voice thundered.
"Me?"
The last word echoed across the surrounding area like a slap to the laws themselves.
A heavy silence followed, but it was not the silence of submission. The people below realized at the same moment that there would be no negotiation.
The bronze-skinned Amazari’s gaze snapped back to Michael.
His anger concentrated.
Then he smiled.
A thin, vicious line.
"You."
The word landed like a verdict.
"You are the root."
He lifted his hand.
The air around his palm compressed into a razor-thin line of force so dense that the space around it distorted. It was as if the atmosphere itself had been folded and sharpened into a weapon.
His voice dropped, calm returning in the most terrifying way.
"Since you want to pretend you can stand against me..."
His eyes narrowed.
"...we will begin with you."
He pointed directly at Michael.
And the world screamed.
A concentrated beam of air shot downward.
The air split.
Space rippled.
The beam tore toward Michael like an executioner’s blade.
For a heartbeat, Michael’s mind went blank.
Death.
The same cold taste he had felt earlier crawled up his spine, squeezing his heart.
Then something moved.
The bond between him and his undead flared like a wire pulled tight.
The Rank Three undead closest to him reacted before anyone else could even inhale.
Several bodies surged forward at once, throwing themselves into the path of the beam without hesitation.
A wall of flesh.
Bone.
Armor.
The beam struck.
BOOM.
The impact detonated.
The ground beneath them cracked in a spiderweb pattern, exploding outward in a ring of shattered stone. A shockwave rolled across the battlefield, flinging debris into the air like rain.
The first undead was cut cleanly in half.
The second was bisected.
The third was torn apart so violently that fragments of bone and dark armor sprayed like shrapnel.
But the beam slowed.
Just slightly.
And in that tiny window, Michael vanished from where he stood.
A blur of motion as he forced his body into a desperate evasive step, his coat snapping, his hair whipping back, his eyes wide and focused.
The beam carved past him.
It did not miss by much.
It sliced a deep trench into the earth behind him, the cut so smooth it looked unnatural, as if the ground had been peeled open.
For a moment, the battlefield froze.
The bronze-skinned Amazari lowered his hand slowly.
His expression was still twisted with anger, but now something else flickered in his eyes.
Pleasure.
He looked down at Michael again.
His voice carried, cold and absolute.
"Run again."
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"I want to see how many of your toys can die before you finally understand what obedience means."