The Bone Dragon also sensed that something was not right with this situation. They weren't even trying to defeat it, but all the residents of this world understood how powerful it was.
The bone dragon had never been a living thing, it was a form of Nightmare Elemental, created entirely of the energy of this world, and the bone dust of fallen creatures. That was how the original Dragons in the other Planes had formed as well, purely of elemental energy and an aspect of the world that was overflowing and needed an outlet to help balance them, usually during the creation of the world.
It had formed much later than that, when the Lower Planes had lost their first war with the Upper Planes, and their army's bones had been shipped back, but it had also survived much longer, though it had been shattered countless times since then.
Right now, its power was sealed to a mere fraction of its potential, but soon it would be free again. It could feel it. This creature known as a Magi would find a way to break the constraints on its power, and remove it from the confinements of the chamber of failures, where it resided with the skeletons of failed commanders.
Each of the Skeletons in the army marching for the portal was once a proud and mighty Commander of the Armies of the Lower Planes. But all had fallen in battle against the Upper Planes, and had been sent to the Bone Dragon to suffer in shfor eternity, unable to be reborn into a new body to try again.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtThat status was fuelling their rage right now, and the creeping sense of joy that the skeletons were feeling as they destroyed everything in their path on the way to the portal.
It was a forbidden emotion, one that shouldn't be possible for them. But Wolfe had bound them to the Underworld with Unholy Magic, and the Underworld was a place between Planes, where all things were possible, and the rules of the universe were in flux.
So, the joy of the mortal planes was leaking through to the skeletons, and it was the joy of slaughter. Not a simple desire for suffering, or enjoyment of the suffering of others, but true joy. If they were capable, the skeletons would be laughing and cheering now, as they saw the last of the Trolls fall before them, and then the region fell empty, while a sense of sinister power seeped into everything.
"That's witch magic. Horrible and corrupted, but witch magic." Cassie whispered as she felt the power begin to seep into the area.
The skeletons were unperturbed. They had felt this before, and scould use it before they becwhat they were now. The lower planes didn't have mortal life, just Devils, Demons and Daemons, each more vile and despicable than the last, so the witches of the Lower Planes were equally perverse, dealing in emotion and dreams, not life and nature.
Then the next wave began. Like the others, There were the misshapen and unfathomable creatures that Wolfe's bond with the Bone Dragon identified as Yugoloth, but there was something else, similar to the Demons, but warped by living so far down in the Lower Planes.
The leader of the group looked like it might have once been a Wrathbringer, ten metres tall, mightily muscled with large wings on its back. But now, the armour that decorated it and the chains that adorned it were part of its body, not separate decorations.
Wolfe could see how the chains shook and pulled toward them, eager for combat. But the overall feeling that he got from the creature's movements was hatred, rage and frustration.
It had to be restricted to Rank Five, the sas him.
"I will take on the leader, the rest of you deal with the horde." Wolfe ordered.
It was going to take screativity to kill something that durable with restricted power. If anything, it might be a fight to a stalemate if neither of them could gather enough power.
If that creature was descended from a Wrathbringer, it would be overjoyed with that scenario. An eternal fight was their perfect happiness scenario. But Wolfe got the feeling that such an emotion might be beyond this creature's comprehension.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmThe two leaders faced off with each other, and then the Demon took to the air.
"Can a puny creature such as yourself even think to face a Pit Daemon?" The creature asked in the common tongue, but with its words slightly garbled, as if unfamiliar with actually speaking whole sentences.
"Does your overlord even think you can provide proper entertainment for a Magi Saint? Or do you think he sent you here for comedy relief?" Wolfe retorted.
The creature roared, as Wolfe would have expected of a Wrathbringer, and charged at Wolfe, swinging its massive bone axe.
The bones sang with power, but it was muted from what Wolfe could tell that it should be, and when his gravity barrier appeared in front of it, the axe stopped mid-swing and just hung there while the Pit Demon roared in frustration.
Then Wolfe combined Gravity, Lightning and Earth Magic to fire metallic slugs at it, as though fired from a Rail Gun, propelled by the bolt of lightning.
The strike left a growing welt on the flesh of the Daemon, and its enraged roars silenced as it began to hack wildly at Wolfe's barrier.
But with both of them limited to Rank Five, it didn't have the power to get through that advance barrier, Wolfe's mana regeneration was too fast.
They could both feel the watchers revelling in their suffering, drinking in the rage and frustration to becmore powerful. It was a foreign feeling to Wolfe, but the power flowing away from the battle definitely had ssort of emotion attached to it. It wasn't harming the combatants, and it wasn't coming from them, but around them.
This was how they fed, Wolfe realized. Theyneeded rage and frustration, as much as he needed water and food.