The sensation was nothing like when Lilith teleported him. It was also nothing like slipping through with shadow stride.
Damon’s stomach lurched as reality twisted. The world reford in a single blink, and he found himself holding Lazarak in one arm and Matia by the hand.
They stood in a deep, suffocating corner of the castle. The air was thick and stale, heavy with rot. Hundreds of stillborn cramd the halls, their malford bodies writhing and twitching.
Above them drifted hundreds of discarnate souls, floating like pale, hollow ghosts, their wails trembling through the stone.
As soon as the trio appeared, the stillborn turned toward them. Infantile screams tore through the corridor as they charged.
Matia reacted instantly. Frost surged from her wings and exploded into rows of icy spikes that tore through the first wave.
Blood froze midair. More stillborn replaced the fallen and slamd themselves against the ice, clawing and pounding to break through.
Damon stayed unnervingly calm despite the chaos pressing against them from every side. He glanced at Lazarak.
"Think you teleported us to the wrong place."
Lazarak did not look up. His hands moved rapidly through hand seals, his movents tense and slightly uneven.
"I know. I am weaker like this. I cannot use my full power, and this magic is different from what I rember. My attributes are restricted."
The explanation did not inspire confidence, though Matia was buying them ti. She pushed her mana outward, repairing the cracking ice, then flinging blades of frost outward where the walls bulged. Each burst of ice tore apart clusters of stillborn.
Damon could not help but admire it. He had underestimated frost magic. In tight spaces, it was devastating.
But Matia had already been fighting for hours. Her aura flickered. Her breathing grew tight.
"Lazarak." Damon called out sharply as the ice wall shuddered under a barrage of mixed attributes. Flas roared, lightning cracked, tal magic thickened the walls of the charging infants.
Matia’s arms trembled as she reinforced the barrier.
Lazarak finished his final seal. He opened his hands. "Let us go."
The ice shattered behind them. A massive, ugly infant with a skull-like face pushed its bleeding head through the gap.
Damon did not hesitate. He lunged forward, grabbed Matia around the waist, and yanked her toward him. Despite the weight of her armor, she felt light in his arms, like catching a feather mid-fall.
Darkness unfurled from Lazarak’s hand and swallowed them whole.
The world twisted again, the air warping like wet cloth. Damon’s vision blurred, then snapped back into focus.
They stood in another chamber, larger than the last, more crowded than before. Thousands of stillborn filled the room. Thousands more waited in branching tunnels. It was like diving deeper into the throat of a beast.
Lazarak pointed toward a narrow passage before the stillborn could react.
"Run. The mother of stillbirths is through there."
Damon gritted his teeth and sprinted. The ground shook as giantsized infants hurtled after them, their bodies moving with grotesque speed.
He spread the wings of the mirror seraph. Their cold shine cut through the dust-filled air.
’If only I were in my real body.’
He imagined flas erupting and burning everything with the immolating flas of Ashborn.
But this body was all he had. Powerful, but limited.
One stillborn used tal magic to harden itself, coating its body in steel. Flas roared around its limbs. Wind magic surged beneath it, propelling it upward like a missile. It launched itself straight at Damon.
The combination startled him. Steel for armor and strength. Fire for offense. Wind for movent. A terrifying synergy.
’So this is the potential of having multiple attributes.’
He could not dodge. Not in ti.
He kicked off the ground, leaping over several stillborn, and raised his sword. Mana surged down the blade. The weapon shone like polished glass, its edge reflecting the howling light.
"Ahhhrrggg..." Damon shouted, forcing strength through his arms.
His sword t steel.
The impact cracked the air. Sparks scread across his skin and flas splattered his clothes. Damon’s strength carried the blade through the creature’s skull. The monster split in half, falling behind him in a shower of molten tal and burning fragnts.
But Damon lost control of his descent. His wings chipped against the collision, their glass edges shattering slightly. He plumted directly toward a swarm of reaching hands and gnashing jaws.
A pillar of ice erupted from the side, spearing upward. Damon hit it, pushed off with practiced instinct, and launched himself back into the air.
He looked toward Matia. She tore her fist through a discarnate soul, dissipating it. Three hundred stillborn rushed her from all sides, and she moved through them like a winter sprite given form.
"Thanks for the save," he called out as he shot toward the dark passage.
Matia nodded, raised her foot, and summoned a sheet of ice beneath her. A frozen slide ford instantly. She skated along it like a phantom, slicing through stillborn by the dozens.
Damon lifted his hand, gathering mana. He had saved every scrap he could. This body did not have the reserves he was used to. But he needed a path cleared.
"Lazarak. Hurry. You two get into the passage."
Lazarak ran ahead, putting stillborn to sleep with every gesture. Each creature dropped as if their consciousness had been stolen. Dark tentacles ford behind him, capturing the ones still awake. Chains of darkness wrapped tightly around flailing limbs.
Matia reached the tunnel first. She turned and released a frigid blast. The frost swept down the corridor like a living storm, freezing every stillborn inside and shattering them into glittering snow.
Her breathing was ragged. She stood ready, wings trembling slightly, waiting for Damon.
Damon flew above the battlefield, his expression cold. The stillborn surged beneath him in countless numbers.
"Magical arsenal."
Blades ford in the air around him. Mirrors shaped into swords, their reflective surfaces glinting with lethal light. Hundreds of them plunged downward, piercing the horde in a rain of killing swords.
Screams ripped across the chamber.
Damon dived into the tunnel.
To face the mother of stillbirths.
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