Chapter 640: Sacrifices

When Omilaena and her allies finally hit the city, she had to admit that it felt good. Yes, there were casualties, and yes, this was the beginning of the end, but...

Finally. Fucking finally.

Jonijix and his invaders had made almost no allies in their hedonistic rush, so there were few to stand in her way. A few Savage Creed followers, but Omilaena flashed past them with a speed phase, leaving them to her allies. She wanted to finally get her hands on those damn invaders.

One of them turned, gaping at her like they all did. A fool who thought he was invincible because he had been born on a higher phase, who had strutted around protected by the promise of slaughter. Well, they had started that slaughter now and they were going to reap it.

Omilaena's needles hit his eyes first, ensuring that he would never ogle her again. She could have spent longer torturing him, but he was just a distraction, so she cut his throat and let him drop. On his way down she stomped his spine, just to make sure, as she marched forward. As she moved past his body she reached a broad street, partially empty as Jonijix tried to slaughter everyone in range.

"You!" Jonijix snarled and unleashed a wave of water at her, but Omilaena easily spun over the top of it and then breathed out a cloud of poison, fully phased.

It clearly shocked Jonijix, but his raw power gave him unfair speed. He summoned a sphere of water around himself, which was a trick she hadn't seen before. On her way down she hurled a few needles, but they bounced off the rapidly spinning sphere. Okay, she had him locked in place, surrounded by a cloud of poison on all sides, so that was a start.

"I'll kill everyone else," Jonijix shouted within his sphere, "but not you! You... when I get my hands on you..."

She ignored the usual babble and focused on how she was going to finally kill him. Given his raw power, plunging into that water would be a mistake. With her new Physique she could probably survive it, but Jonijix was free to throw 100% of himself into this fight, whereas she needed to keep going and end the war.

"Men, get her! Pin her down!" Jonijix wasn't bluffing, he was shouting to the group of invaders that rushed down an alleyway into the street.

Omilaena was not bluffing either: seconds later, the Windlord swept in like a meteor. Even with all of them fully phased, the Windlord was shockingly fast, dancing around the attackers with blades flying. The strikes didn't kill immediately, but in seconds the invaders were covered in shallow cuts. After so long ignoring attacks, they cried out in pain and fell back.

Jonijix stared in shock, and that was when Omilaena hurled her next needle: one forged of pure ice qi. It plunged into his shield of water and froze its way through - he only barely jerked aside and it still cut through his shoulder. The watery sphere wobbled and almost collapsed as Jonijix clutched his injury and stared at her in horror.

"Forget about trying to capture me," Omilaena told him, flipping more needles into her hands. "You'd better focus on surviving."

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..

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Bonto stared as the waves of attackers rushed toward the Acidarium. He had fought against the incursion, seen monsters thicker than this, but the fact that all these attackers were humans shocked him. Even though he had known it was a possibility, even working with the new resistance, he hadn't been prepared for this.

Everything could fall apart at this last stage. The resistance had made plans, hiding Krainuun and other leaders in the Acidarium with contingency plans. But the sudden explosion of violence left them with no time for a normal evacuation, so they were locked into the most defensible building. Unfortunately, the outer walls of the Acidarium had already fallen, leaving them with one corridor and a secured room.

"Are you okay?" Tori stood nearby, watching him nervously, and he realized it must have shown on his face.

"No problem at all!" Bonto forced a grin and waved toward the door. "How are we doing this, though? Can we afford to hold back?"

"I don't-" Tori never got to finish her sentence, because at that moment the doors burst open. They'd reinforced them with crystals, but their opponents had crystalliers too, and the invaders couldn't be stopped, so they knew it was only a matter of time.

Attackers flooded in - Birtaegali and other mercenaries who had sided with the invaders. When they attacked, Bonto realized that there was really no question - Krainuun and the other administrators were still hiding in the innermost chamber behind him. The invaders were trying to tear out the new heart of Krysal, and Bonto refused to allow that to happen.

After so long together, he and Tori fought as a perfect pair, dropping their opponents easily. Even when more piled in, they easily held their own, though some of the enemy started slipping past them to the second doorway. Their only hope was to hold them off before they invaders could realize, so that was a disaster, but Bonto was pinned down...

The doors burst open and Maggle leapt out, dropping the men running at him. "Hold the line!" he called. "Don't let them kill the leaders!"

With Maggle joining them, they had an easier time holding the corridor. Ahead, it looked like there was some sort of disruption, and Bonto expected to see the invaders themselves... to his surprise, Nirka sprinted in and then skidded to a halt beside them.

"They're coming." She bent down, catching her breath. "But first... they brought..."

Bonto wasn't sure what sort of weapon the invaders would use and looked out nervously toward the courts beyond the entrance. To his surprise, the people rushing in were normal Krysali, ex-slaves of average power, weeping and crying.

"Don't attack!" one of them called.

"They made us!" sobbed another. "They'll kill our families unless..."

These were just ordinary people, being thrown at them by the invaders. Were they such cowards, or did they fear attack by the elites? Bonto had no idea if any elites were coming, so he had absolutely no idea what to do when the slaves rushed his position, fearing for their lives.

Tori acted first, smarter than he was: she formed a thin steel rope with weights on the ends, then hurled it at the legs of the slaves. It tangled some, who fell and sent more tumbling over them. The others, looking behind them desperately, tried to move around the pile.

By that point Bonto had caught up, forming lines of crystals to trip them up. Not as easy as weapons, but the flexibility was what made crystal cultivation so great. Tori gave him an appreciative nod and they worked together so well that Maggle and Nirka almost had nothing to do.

Maggle retreated to the inner chamber, then stuck his head back out. "It's going to be close. You'd better get back here."

"No, the invaders are close." Nirka set herself to fight, but Maggle grabbed her and pulled her back into the innermost chamber.

Almost all of the citizens had been knocked to the ground, forming an obstacle of their own. Problem was, the invaders might cut their way straight through those bodies. Tori glanced toward Bonto, uncertain, and he waved her away.

"Go," he said. "I'll clean them up."

"But the invaders..." Her eyes flickered to the doorway.

"You want them to walk through everybody here? Let me move them out of the way, I'll be right behind you."

She nodded and retreated with the others, and he had no idea if she believed him. Bonto wasn't sure if he believed himself. None of this was his area of expertise, and the one thing he was good at was going to be useless once the invaders showed up. All he could really do was buy time while having no idea whether it was enough.

First he used his old Manalance abilities, blowing a hole in the wall of the corridor. Then he formed a crystal ramp from the ground and pushed all of the innocent attackers out of the way, because he really didn't want them getting killed. Once the corridor was clear, he formed the biggest, strongest barrier of crystals he could over the entrance. As soon as it was done, he built up a second layer, a thinner one, across the center of the corridor.

Before he got to the third, the invaders arrived. They only had to swing their swords once and his barrier shattered instantly. Bonto winced as he felt his qi crystals fall apart, but he forced himself to keep working, finishing the third barrier and moving on to the fourth. Not that any of them would stop the invaders, but through the crystal he could see them, pausing and cursing each time they encountered a new barrier.

By relentlessly recreating the barriers, Bonto held them back, longer than anyone would have predicted. It finally ended when one of them charged forward, smashing through barrier after barrier. With that insane speed they had, the man had thrust his sword through Bonto's chest before he even knew what had happened.

Strange... everything had been so fast, then as he crumpled to the ground it all seemed so slow. The attacker stood over him with a sneer as the others moved in to smash the inner doors.

"Are you an idiot?" the invader asked. "You bought them minutes, at most. You threw away your life for nothing."

Bonto tried to speak, but there was blood in his mouth. As he swallowed it, he heard the others break down the door... and shout in surprise. When the attack began, Krainuun and the others had been evacuating via a portal, but powering it for each person was slow and laborious. The resistance hadn't been sure whether there would be enough time, but the invaders cursed in the empty room.

"Hah," Bonto said with his last breaths. "Joke's on you..."

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..

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Flames met dust, both equally dark and malevolent, and Kai hurtled backward as the power erupted. He narrowly escaped the fell breath and left a line of burns across the Abhorroid's surface, but it wasn't enough. All across its body, the damaged flesh was twisting and distorting as new eyes and jaws emerged.

He had already been burned by several beams, but he fought on, throwing himself against the monster over and over. Behind him, the people of Hantron City were still evacuating in panic, and the Abhorroid had refused to be lured further away. If he let up, it would float onward and thousands would die in its shadow.

The worst of it was that after setting off all the other invaders, Fodajix had managed to overcome the gray power and retreat from the battle. A foolish part of Kai hoped that the other invaders wouldn't actually begin a slaughter, but he couldn't count on that. The die had been cast and everyone was now engaged in a fight for their lives, not at the time or place they'd chosen.

All Kai could do was hold back the Abhorroid... and he needed to do so much more. The plan only worked if he defeated it, and even if he could do that, the elites were counting on him to kill Fodajix. They might be swinging into action around the continent, but unless they could take down the strongest invaders, this battle was nothing but buying a little more time.

Well, if buying time was all he could do, Kai would buy time. He forgot about the people behind him, reached deep into the Savage Heart, and gave over to his instincts.