[Ilnori]
Arriving near Venrie after he teleported, Darganth first got himself an overview of the situation.
Above him, Venrie was still hovering in the air. Raining spells down onto the human mythic ranks while simultaneously using the leaves from her staff to hunt down their accompanying fourth ranks, she cleared the battlefield for her subordinates.
anwhile, opposite of her stood a man Darganth quickly recognized as Duke Ceros Malentus. From what Neandra had told them during their planning, the duke was one of the candidates to be Arkus’s successor.
Furthermore, he was one of the few humans on the entire continent whose power ca close to that of the emperors, making his identity quite obvious from how he reacted to Venrie’s attacks. Wielding a staff in his right and a sword in his left hand, he remained calm and started weaving spells to block hers.
Behind him, far more than the fifty mythic ranks that Venrie had initially uncovered were quickly taking up formation. Fending off the assault of their elven counterparts, they quickly overca the mont of surprise and started to leverage their superior numbers.
Forcing back their opponents even as elven mythic ranks continued to descend from the sky or appear in the trees, the humans soon ford up in a circular, multilayered formation and stabilized the front line.
Around them, their elven opponents still harassed them, not daring to attack with their nurical disadvantage. The humans anwhile didn’t dare expand their formation further, not knowing how far they could go before Ceros could no longer protect them from Venrie’s spells.
Arriving at this situation, Darganth also stayed back at first. Unlike the three fourth ranks he had fought just before, every individual he was now facing had the strength to endanger him even in his true form.
From his estimates, over half of them even surpassed him by so much that the situation was closer to being the exact opposite, with the current him being unlikely to even pose a significant threat to them.
While there might not be clear subdivisions of the mythic rank and the match-up between the combatant's specializations has a greater impact than before, there is still a limit to how large of a power difference this can help overco.
This ant that even with his specialty being both of the only two elents more powerful than the rest and him likely having a higher affinity for them than any one of his opponents has for their strongest elent, he was one of the weaker beings present.
As such having to be careful in the coming fight, he stayed closely behind the elven lines and waited for one of the elves with commanding authority to arrive and coordinate the mythic ranks.
After only half a minute of waiting, Darganth saw not just one but two mbers of the elven council float down from the sky.
Though their responsibility lay in governing internal affairs while the guardian of each forest’s mana tree led the military, with Ilnori’s guardian still in the capital and Venrie busy they seamlessly stepped up to coordinate the present efforts.
Telepathically relaying orders, it took not even a handful of seconds before they were joined in the air over the rest of the formation by ten of the more powerful mythical ranks among the elves. Communicating a more detailed plan with them in only a few short gestures, the two council mbers soon spread out with the others in tow.
Seeing this, the vice-commander of the human mythic ranks realized that they couldn’t remain passive any longer.
Letting aura flow into his sword, he pointed the blade forward and sent a highly focused beam of black energy flying at the airborne elves while shouting, “Stop them!”
Hearing their leader's orders followed by the sight of his attack streaking through the air spurned the human mythic ranks into action.
Imdiately, sixteen mages rose into the air and mobilized their mana. Lighting up the night sky with spells of elental magic that targeted their airborne elven counterparts, they were the first to strike in this second wave of fighting.
In response, the elven mages conjured up barriers or maneuvered around. Enduring the first volley of attacks without a scratch, they responded in kind a mont later, causing the sky to light up with even more spells.
As this was happening, the vice-commander led the other mythic ranks in a charge against the elven lines.
Having conjured up a ten ter tall aura avatar around himself despite the easily hundreds of domains of both allied and enemy aura users that affected the battlefield, he sprinted forward as an unstoppable juggernaut.
Cleaving a gap into the elven formation with a swing of his sword, he battered away an enemy aura user with his free right hand as he started his onslaught. Sending two more elves flying with a kick, he dashed to the side and ramd into the far smaller aura avatar that had just ford next to him.
With him, a majority of the human mythic ranks also ca charging at the elves.
Waiting even as one of the humans got catapulted past him, shortly followed by an elven aura user dashing after the man, Darganth let the fighting spread out first. A few seconds later an elven aura user ca crashing down near him after being blasted away by an explosion, shortly followed by two dueling aura users in whose fight the forr then intervened.
Remaining untouched even amid this chaos, Darganth only set into motion multiple seconds after the fighting had reached him.
Vanishing into the spatial realm when he sensed an attack heading his way, he moved only a few ters inside it before bursting back into the physical realm a few hundred ters away.
Transforming into a rely four ter long version of his true form as he reappeared near where the center of the human formation had been, he narrowed his focus on one of the mages still there. Imdiately dashing forward, he then raised his claw and slashed down at the man.
In response, a thin sphere of water sprung into existence around the man. When Darganth’s claw then struck it a mont later, the shield caused his strike to glide off to the side.
Reeling back with his other claw, Darganth was just about to send his fist crashing into the mage’s spell when he sensed one of the other mages aim at him even amid the chaos his arrival had caused.
Moving toward his right with a burst of speed, Darganth moved out of the man’s line of sight by moving behind the other mage’s shield. Using it to fully obscure the smaller form he had chosen for exactly such purposes, he threw off his attacker's aim before pouncing on him.
Crossing the tens of ters separating them in a single step thanks to spatial aura, Darganth then thrust his claw forward. Tearing through the man’s form, his strike didn’t encounter any resistance as his target turned his body into a cloud of green smoke.
Not stopping despite this, Dargnath reared up and swiped his wings through the man’s transford form.
Tearing apart most of the man’s body with this strike, Darganth waited for a mont until his form started to regenerate before following this up with a swipe of his claws. Scattering the newly ford parts of the mage’s gaseous form with this, he continuously forced him to expend mana to regenerate.
Even as seven more mages aid at him while he was focusing on this opponent, Darganth didn’t interrupt his attack even once. Having sensed that his target was a newly promoted mythic rank or at least one still toward the lowest end of power, he knew that it wouldn’t take long for the man’s mana to run out in this situation.
As such, he simply endured what few spells the rest of the mages could fire at him in that ti.
After just a few short monts of this, Darganth felt the mage’s mana pool run dry. At that point, he ceased his relentless attacks before dashing to the side right as his opponent was forced back into a physical form when the last drop of his mana ran out. Still missing an arm and large chunks of his torso after not having had enough energy to regenerate them, he imdiately started coughing up blood and collapsed on the ground.
Leaving the man to die from the wounds, Darganth was in the midst of rushing toward the next enemy when a sudden beam of light ca crashing into him from above.
Tumbling to the side as the impact threw him off his feet, Darganth dug his claws into the ground as he rolled over and slid to a halt.
Raising his head, he hesitated to pounce back toward his original target when he saw the mangled corpse of one of the elven mages lying where he had been standing just before. Looking up in response, he spotted the clash happening there just in ti.
Spinning around, he pushed off the ground and jumped away right as a massive bluish-white beam of energy ca crashing into the human mythic rank flying above.
Punching through the already exhausted man’s barrier without losing a noticeable amount of energy, the beam instantly turned his entire body into one solid mass of ice. Still continuing downward after this, it then struck the ground a fraction of a second later.
With this impact, an icy explosion erupted around it. Freezing even the air and forming a rapidly expanding glacier, the spell transford the surrounding battlefield as it froze over the ground and showered the surroundings with shards of ice.
With his instincts screaming at him, Darganth gave up on running from the icy doom behind him. Surrounding himself with a green ti aura, he dug his legs into the ground just before the ice sheet reached him.
Leaping into the air while turning around, he barely dodged over the ice boulder that ca sliding his way. Weaving to the side imdiately after as a sharp, cone-shaped stake of ice was pushed his way, he then hurriedly pushed himself higher when he saw the wall of ice that headed his way.
Only managing to bring most of his body over this edge, Darganth ca crashing onto the icy surface after his hind legs got caught on the glacier wall. Left disorientated by the impact after it drove the air out of his lungs, he slid across the ice uncontrollably.
Crashing into one of the ice stalagmites that were rapidly forming atop the massive structure, he shattered it on impact and created hundreds of ice shards that ca raining down on him.
Growling as dozens of them punctured through the scales on his back and the upper side of his wings, he let the bubbling rage overco him.
Reeling up with a loud roar, he searched for any enemies while charging a breath attack using both the space and ti elents.
Quickly finding one of the human mages he had fought trying to fight back against the ice slowly creeping up his legs, with a dead elven mage a few dozen ters further, he didn’t hesitate and unleashed the gathered energy.
Moving his head up as he fired the twin-colored beam of silver and green across the glacier, Darganth tore his attack across the glacier on its way to the mage.
Punching through tens of ters of ice wherever it passed, the destructive mix of the two elents that made up his breath cut a path of destruction across the glacier as it headed for the mage.
Reaching the man shortly after he had managed to conjure up a shield around himself, Darganth’s breath attack sent sparks flying as it crashed into it.
Pouring every last bit of focus into maintaining the spell, the mage watched with fearful eyes as his shield started to fade under the pressure. Within monts of the initial impact, cracks started forming across its surface, soon followed by the first few bursts of energy seeping through as parts of his spell were banished into the spatial realm.
Rapidly expanding, it only took fractions of a second before these openings to burst open the shield in a blinding flash of light.
As Darganth kept raising his head, the breath attack then tore across the human a short mont later, completely erasing him from existence.
Not stopping his motion imdiately after this, Darganth was greeted by the sight of a line of destruction that stretched across hundreds of ters when he ended his breath a second later.
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