"No offence, Your Majesty, but how can you be so sure this is the right place?" Ufyl asked.
"Because I just got reports of the Kingdom's army stopping in front of Bima." Thrud replied.
"You mean surrounding Bima."
"You heard me. This time they aren't even pretending to siege it. Move your asses and get down. I'm sending reinforcements right now, but Bima is just a medium-sized city of secondary importance so it has no Warp Gate." The Mad Queen said.
The two Divine Beasts cursed their bad luck and obeyed her orders.
Lith had escaped their range of detection so they had no idea where he was or what he was doing. That changed the moment Thrud hung up the call.
They were about to fly down when a blazing meteor fell down the sky.
A meteor the size of a Divine Beast.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtLith had reached the limit of Mogar's atmosphere before taking a dive down, adding gravitational acceleration to his own. He had infused his body with the power of the elements and each flap of his wings produced a boom of thunder.
At the same time, he had created a wind blade in front of him to reduce air friction and generate a slipstream effect that further increased his speed. Gravity fusion added the final touch, increasing his weight tenfold and everything that came with it.
Even though he used the air blade as a shield, at his speed the air friction was still enough to set the air around him ablaze and heat the black Voidwalker armor he wore to the point of painting it red.
Lith's descending trajectory was diagonal to have the time to both garner more speed and correct his course as he came closer to the ground. He could have hit Bima from above, but that would have been pointless.
The arrays would have immediately closed and the civilian casualties would have been uncountable. He would have found himself surrounded and the army would still be locked out.
It was the reason he was slowly steering up, using the air currents under his wings and bursts of heat rays from his hands and feet to turn his descent from a nosedive to an almost horizontal path by the time he reached the city's level.
The Royal army was deployed at a safe distance from Bima, on either side of the main road leading to the city gates. The moment they saw the black meteor closing in in a trail of fire, they raised their energy shields and braced for impact.
Lith emitted jet-bursts of light and fire from his limbs to further accelerate in the final stretch as the tower coated him in a second layer of armor, doubling his weight.
Even without a mana geyser, Solus could still assume her tower form, but it came at the cost of her energy. On top of that, it would just be a stone building since her weak core didn't have the power to support the tower's enchantments.
It was the reason Lith had rested for so long on the mana geyser outside Phogia and departed only at the last minute. This way, Solus had the time to recover and overcharge both her mana and power core.
Thanks to that and by squeezing out the world energy stored in the Mine and Crucible, the tower would be fully operational for a handful of seconds. Which was all the time Lith needed.
He had chosen Bima as his third target not only because of its strategic importance but also because it lacked a mana geyser. Without it, the defensive arrays had to be fueled by crystals spread throughout the city blocks.
Crystals that, once depleted, had to be replaced with new ones while they recharged. Yet, if all of them became exhausted at the same time, there would be no time to substitute them and the arrays would disappear until a new power source was provided.
The impact between the tower-armored Tiamat and the city gates of Bima produced a shockwave that killed everything in five hundred meters (1,640') radius. The city walls quaked and cracked as the guards stationed on the battlements were sent flying.
Even shapeshifted Emperor Beast couldn't hold the sudden blast and fell down. The only difference was that they survived. The Orichalcum-studded solid wood doors of the city were ripped off their hinges and turned into deadly projectiles.
They went in different directions, bouncing several times before stopping and destroying everything they touched on their passage. Some houses just lost a wall, some a floor, others were completely crushed.
Hundreds of lives were lost just because of the opening salvo while the Royal army had yet to set a single step inside Bima.
The arrays consumed all their power to cancel Lith's speed and neutralize the shockwave that would have otherwise turned the outer rim of the city into a flaming crater.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmThe allied forces took it as their cue and orderly marched toward the open gates, the paved road below them a red carpet welcoming them.
Meanwhile, Lith had released Trouble and Raptor on impact, so that they would carry his kinetic energy and burst through the open doors like Adamant bullets. The Golems had aimed for the still-stunned guards, conjuring the Demons as they killed Thrud's Awakened before they could recover.
'Fuck! There's no time to lose, let's Warp!' Ufyl and Xoola opened a dimensional corridor in front of Lith and another behind him, to catch him in a pincer attack.
He had taken a huge blow as well and was supposed to be shaken, if not even under the effects of a severe concussion. As long as they didn't give him the time to use Invigoration, he was easy prey.
The Tiamat was still rolling his way through the houses to break his fall when the two Divine Beasts charged at him from opposite directions. Xoola had no time for spells so she infused herself with Mana Body, becoming impervious to physical and magical attacks.
Ufyl, instead, kept his seven pairs of Dragon Eyes on Lith to anticipate his moves as he opened his seven mouths to unleash a burst of Origin Flames from each one of them.
Lith's right hand caught the Fenrir by the throat, lifting her in the air before slamming her against the ground and using her to cushion his fall. His left hand opened, releasing seven spells at the same time down Ufyl's throats.
'We weigh the same and I have Mana Body. How can he be this strong?' Xoola thought as her neck snapped from the sheer pressure of Lith's grip.
With no healing spells and no way to use Invigoration, her body was recalled to the Golden Griffon before her eyes dulled. As for Ufyl, all of his heads exploded in unison, and his long necks turned into blazing torches by the very Origin Flames they carried.
'Moron.' Lith thought. 'Bloodline abilities can hurt even the one who conjures them. Using Flames from so up close was a terrible mistake. Alas, it won't be his last.'
The Seven Headed Dragon disappeared as well while his core was still intact and his heart beating.