While the battlefield above devolved into carnage, another clash unfolded at the edge of the chaos.
The gray-robed man drifted backward through the air, hands clasped behind his back, his posture relaxed to the point of mockery. The violence around him did not seem to concern him in the slightest. His dark eyes followed the movents of the battlefield with idle curiosity, as if he were watching a distant storm.
However, this was only what he showed on the surface. Internally, he was in shock. It was not even the ferocity of the three races that surprised him, but the capability of the young necromancer and his undead.
Now that he was seeing it face to face, he could sowhat understand Brian's feelings.
This was soone he himself would not dare to confront if they were at full power, so what hope would anyone weaker than him have?
To avoid any further surprises, the gray-robed figure wanted to get rid of Michael as soon as possible. If before his desire to do so had stemd from annoyance at the youth ruining his plan, now it was out of necessity.
It was easy to judge a necromancer's strength, and Michael was clearly one of the abnormal ones. Even Rank Three necromancers did not possess this level of power. He was obviously different, or he had a secret. Either way, this person was a threat.
Opposite the gray-robed figure stood the elven representative.
Her feet hovered in midair, long hair flowing behind her as mana gathered around her slender form. Her expression remained calm, but the air around her was anything but.
Below them, several undead and mbers of the three races
surrounded Michael as they either protected him or tried to stabilize
his condition.
The gray-robed man watched the carnage below for a few more seconds before exhaling softly.
"This is becoming troubleso," he said calmly. "We should do this the easy way."
His gaze shifted past the elven representative and locked onto Michael below, bloodied, shaking, yet still kneeling upright at the center of the storm.
"Hand the boy over," he continued. "End this farce, and the rest of you may yet live."
The elf did not answer imdiately.
Her eyes followed his gaze to Michael, to the undead throwing themselves into certain destruction, to the races bleeding and dying simply to buy him ti.
It was not that elves were indifferent to those outside their race, but the current situation was different. It involved them as well.
The elven representative looked back at the gray-robed man.
"Is that a threat?" she asked calmly.
The gray-robed man smiled.
The elf's expression did not change.
Mana gathered around her.
Wood grew where nothing had been, pale at first, then darkening as if decades passed in a heartbeat.
The gray-robed man's smile lingered.
"Call it whatever you like," he said. "A warning, perhaps. I am giving
you a chance to be sensible."
The elven representative responded after a brief silence.
Her hands lifted, fingers spreading as if she were grasping the air itself. The mana around her thickened, then turned verdant, and the
space between her palms rippled like water.
The gray-robed man's smile did not vanish, but it tightened.
The elf's voice was quiet.
"Bloom."
The world answered.
A crown of branches exploded into existence above her head. Leaves ford, then sharpened, each one thin as paper and bright with a green edge that looked almost tallic. They spun in a widening halo, then shot forward in a storm.
A thousand leaf blades.
The gray-robed man's robe fluttered.
He lifted a hand and drew a line through the air, slow and effortless.
The line beca a boundary.
Everything that crossed it aged.
The leaf blades hit the invisible boundary and turned gray in an instant. Their green edges dulled. Their structure collapsed. They crumbled into dust that drifted downward like dead pollen.
The elf's eyes narrowed.
She shifted her hands again.
The dust did not fall.
It stopped.
Then it reversed.
The dead particles vibrated, and a low hum filled the air as she forced
life back into what his law had emptied. The dust thickened into seeds. The seeds split into sprouts. The sprouts beca whips of vine
that lashed forward in synchronized strikes.
The gray-robed man's expression finally changed.
He stepped sideways, his body blurring slightly, and the vines that should have hit him struck only pale air.
A second later, his voice sounded behind her.
"Elegant," he murmured.
The elf did not turn her head.
A root burst from the air beside her cheek like a guard dog snapping
at a throat. The gray-robed man leaned back an inch, and the root missed him by a breath, slicing a strand of his hair.
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