"Are you alright?" Protector now stood in front of the pantry, but behind the protection of the newly reford arrays.
Charging against so many opponents alone was suicidal. The situation got worse by the second as the Upyrs recovered from the shock and assud a battle formation.
"Yes." Jadon was as pale as a ghost as he held the shivering figure of his sister in his arms. The Count was terrified of the humanoid wolf, but Ryman had stopped the Upyrs, so he couldn’t be an enemy. "Who are you and where’s Lith?"
"I’m a friend of Lith’s, and he’s outside." Protector nodded at the south wall, from which the booming sounds of the fight echoed. "He’s been delayed. I’m-"
"Protector the Skoll." Kazam finished the phrase before Protector could use an alias. "A small-ti ally of Verhen. You are supposed to have a bright blue core. How did you get the violet?"
Orpal’s information was outdated. Ryman rarely took part in battles due to his lack of progress, and Orpal had no idea that the Skoll and Ryman were the sa person, so he had given no importance to him.
"That doesn’t matter." Protector replied, trying to buy ti. "What matters is that you are a Drake. You are a son of Leegaain. How can you join ln Narchat when the Hydras are working on a thod to turn all Lesser Dragons into Divine Beasts?"
"Please!" Kazan sneered. "The Hydras are working on making themselves Divine Beasts. If and when they share their research with the Drakes, we’d have to work on it ourselves. Why wait centuries when I can be a Divine Beast now?
"Because I am a Divine Beast, mutt." The Drake’s aura was deep violet, but the power he exuded was beyond that of any Emperor Beast.
’I forgot that the Hydras are keeping their research and collaboration with the other Lesser Divine Beasts a secret.’ Ryman inwardly cursed. ’Even if I tell them the truth, the Upyrs won’t believe and the Hydras will kill .’
"Get out of the way and we won’t kill you." Kazan said.
"Go away, and Lith won’t kill you." Protector replied. "He’s coming here and you know it."
"So what?" Tarn shrugged. "Once the arrays are gone, we can Warp out of here, and he has no way of following us."
The Upyrs had kept shifting their position the whole ti, forming an arrow tip battle formation centered around the Drake. The mont everyone was ready, they had nothing to talk about anymore.
"So do us a favor and die!" Kazam said as he attacked.
Protector took a deep breath, and the world seed to slow down as his body made the necessary changes to adjust to his top speed. There was no point in being quick if all he saw was a blur and all he heard was the sound of his own steps.
In the ti that it took the Upyrs to make their first step, Protector’s eyes asured the anteroom in front of the pantry. He located the areas where the protective arrays of the mansion were still functional and thick enough to offer him temporary asylum.
By the second step, his gaze moved to the Upyrs, using Life Vision to assess their original races of origin and accessing the Monocle’s database to learn about the Upyrs’ physical abilities.
’Well, this sucks.’ The vast majority of the Upyrs were Fae or plant folk, while the rest were Emperor Beasts.
Undead couldn’t take Orpal’s blood except as a regular al, and humans were too weak to be useful in the Dead King’s plans.
At the enemy’s third step, Protector leaned forward. He tensed the muscles of his legs like springs and relaxed those of his arms for a more flexible grip on his maces.
He had one side of Boros beco compact and dull, while the other ford a thick, curved ax-like blade.
A battle mace was great against living and undead, but terrible against plant folk. With no bones to break or organs to rupture, the best a mace could do was push them aside.
The weapons finished shapeshifting into his desired form by the ti the Upyrs had covered half the distance separating them from the Skoll. Only then did Protector spring forward.
He was already very fast right after becoming an Emperor Beast.
After reaching the bright blue, he had beco so fast that other Awakened with the sa core failed to follow his movents with their eyes and believed he could Blink without leaving traces.
Now, he had achieved the violet core, and most of his opponents had only recently learned the secret of the deep violet. A handful of Upyrs had a violet core as well, but while their breakthrough was recent, Protector was close to the bright violet.
He bolted from one shielded corner of the room to another, ricocheting off the walls in an unpredictable pattern.
The enemy had no idea where the Skoll would move next, not only because even Full Guard alerted them of his presence only after he was already gone, but also because Protector himself didn’t know.
Throwing himself at the enemy formation was too dangerous.
One mistake or an enemy’s lucky shot, and he would be surrounded in one second and killed the next. So, Protector moved at the edges of the arrow tip formation, harrying the Upyrs from the sides.
He struck with either side of his maces, cutting Fae and smashing Emperor Beasts. He delivered several blows in the blink of an eye, and even though none of them were lethal, their combined effect neutralized the Upyrs’ teamwork.
Once cut, the Fae left those beside them exposed, while the Emperor Beasts struck by Ryman crashed into their neighbors, akin to a bowling ball thrown at pins.
On top of that, Protector focused his strength in a single step every second, briefly surpassing the speed of sound.
He lacked the skill and control to also attack during that step, but he did not need to. The sonic boom deafened the Upyrs and scattered the fragnts of the Fae through the room, making it harder for them to regenerate.
There was no soil or plants to feed upon. The Fae had to retrieve and reattach every single part cut by Boros or grow it anew.
’Luckily for , Keyla and Jadon are inside the only place where the defensive arrays still work. Otherwise, I would have ended up killing them.’ Protector briefly checked on them with the Monocle before resuming his attack.
’The good news is that I don’t have to win, only stall for ti. I’m also much faster than the Upyrs and have all the room for manoeuvre I need. The bad news is everything else.’ He inwardly cursed.
His attacks only caused the Divine Beast minor discomfort. The injured were moved inside the formation, and their positions taken by healthy mbers.
With each passing second, the Upyrs gained a better understanding of Protector’s strategy. The enemy had the advantage of numbers and raw mass.
To make matters worse, the longer the fight went on, the more likely the Upyrs were to get lucky and hit Protector. Even if he survived the blow, it would take away his speed.
It would take away his best weapon and the only thing keeping him alive.
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