Lucky.
And on the ground-no, above it too, for their towering forms dwarfed the forest canopy-two colossal figures rose, each more than twenty ters tall. Their very presence dragged the air into silence and cast shadows that swallowed the battlefield.
Beginning.
Lily.
Michael's two undead Titans.
Imdiately, Lucky's wings spread wide, scales shimring beneath the night sky. His eyes-wolfish yet draconic-burned with a light that felt older than the forest itself. Then, for the first ti since his advancent, he released it.
[Skill Activated: Intimidation]
A terrible aura rolled outward.
It did not explode like fire or sweep like wind. It pressed. A suffocating, invisible weight that ground against every soul in range. The monsters froze again, their frenzy choking into silence. Their bodies trembled as though the forest itself had collapsed upon them. Breathing turned ragged. Eyes of the weaker beasts went wide with primal fear and darted left and right, their instincts screaming to flee. But it was obvious this state wouldn't last for long.
At least on the surface, Lucky's level was not so far removed from the other Rank 3 beasts that they would remain frozen forever. Given enough ti, they would shake off the fear clawing at their souls, and surge back into frenzy.
Yet a pause was all that was needed.
The other undead did not waste it.
The two Titans-Beginning and Lily-moved first.
Rank 3 monsters weren't small-each one towered over n like moving fortresses of claw and scale. But beside Beginning and Lily, their fras looked like children hurling stones at giants. The Titans dwarfed them, their sheer bulk blotting out the moonlight as their massive legs crashed down.
CRACK!
The stomp didn't just shatter the ground. It rolled outward in a quake that sent monsters staggering, limbs buckling beneath the force. A dozen beasts closest to the impact howled, bones snapping, hides split open as the shockwaves rippled through flesh and law alike. So were crushed outright, their bodies bursting into gore against the cratered earth. Others reeled back, maid but alive.
Beginning didn't hesitate. His colossal arm swept sideways, a strike wide enough to flatten boulders. It connected with a charging Rank 3 beast-snapping its spine with a single blow and sending its corpse tumbling through three more behind it.
Lily followed, her fists hamring down in a brutal rhythm that turned the battlefield into a war drum. Each strike gouged trenches into the ground and sent geysers of soil and shattered trees into the air. Two more beasts were caught beneath her blows, their skulls crumpling like wet clay.
Blood sprayed. Bones cracked. The Titans were not graceful; they were calamities given form.
Prince seized the mont. His vines writhed out like spears, latching onto the wounded Rank 3s Lily had floored. The Soul Shatter Howl ripped free again, staggering their spirits, before the writhing roots dragged their twitching bodies into his grasp. In the sa instant, Nether Claim ignited-their souls torn screaming into shadows that fused with his fra.
Gale's eyes flashed, his severing wind answering Prince's montum. He targeted the monsters Beginning had injured, blades of absolute
air slicing through their exposed wounds. Flesh parted cleanly, blood spraying in arcs as bodies collapsed under his rciless precision. Lucky descended at last, his wings folding in tight arcs of shadowed brilliance as his jaws parted.
A green-black glow built in his throat, and the air warped with the sickly promise of venomous fla.
But before he could release it-
"Stop!"
Prince's voice, sharp and guttural, tore across the battlefield like a
lash.
Lucky's glow flickered. For a heartbeat, his wolf-draconic eyes wavered, confusion and instinct clashing. Then sothing clicked. His
gaze darted to the do.
Master.
Poison fire would scorch everything. Allies, enemies-it didn't matter. And in this storm, friendly fire was not allowed.
The glow died in his throat with a crackling hiss, replaced instead by a roar so deep it rattled the stars above. His wings flared again, and the poison fla he had been about to spew turned inward, transmuted
into pure elental fury.
Lucky dived.
Instead of a venomous breath, he exhaled a torrent of crushing fire.
The fire was no longer tainted with venom. It was pure, raw destruction-flas so hot the air warped and snapped around them.
Lucky roared out in a sweeping arc, a dragon's breath given form, and slamd into the forest floor.
The blast carved a swath through the battlefield. Dozens of trees ignited at once, and the Rank 3 monsters caught within the torrent were hurled back, their scales and hides blackening under the
onslaught. The fire wasn't poison, but it didn't need to be-it carried Lucky's weight, his law, his will.
The first rank of beasts shrieked in agony as the inferno engulfed them, wings reduced to brittle fras of ash, fur burning away in
streaks of black smoke.
But they didn't fall alone.
Prince and Gale moved in imdiately, exploiting the devastation. Vines, sharper and faster now with the shadows he had bound, lashed through scorched beasts, piercing them like skewers. Their bodies convulsed as Nether Claim activated once more, their souls ripped into fragnts before their corpses even hit the ground.
At the sa ti, Gale's severing winds bent the blaze itself, weaving through the burning smoke like invisible guillotines. His blades carved deeper wounds into the staggering monsters, splitting their armor-like scales where the fire had already weakened them. The Titans did not wait either. Beginning barreled forward, each step quaking the battlefield. His colossal arm swung down, and a beast the size of a boulder was smashed flat against the earth, its body sinking into the crater as blood sprayed upward. Lily's fists thundered beside him, every strike breaking bones and caving bodies as though she
were crushing clay dolls.
The five undead moved like a single organism.
The first clash ended in slaughter-not of the undead, but of the Rank
3 monsters.
Dozens had surrounded the do. Now, in the wake of that first exchange, at least ten corpses lay broken, charred, or dismbered across the forest floor. Their blood hissed in Lucky's flas, their
souls screaming as Prince devoured them into shadows. The horde, once boiling with frenzy, staggered back. But it was far from over.
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