Chapter 486 - 486: Invasion [52]

Raghul's eyes widened.

The attack was coming from inside the very fumes that were supposed to have stopped Eli.

Raghul reacted immediately.

He raised a mass of energy tendrils between himself and the incoming sonic waves, forcing them to bunch together into a dense barrier that absorbed the brunt of the attack. Even though the sound waves never struck him directly, the vibration still passed through the tendrils and into the surrounding air, leaving his ears ringing and his senses momentarily disoriented.

Raghul instinctively covered one ear with his hand, his expression twisting as the lingering resonance made it difficult to properly judge his surroundings.

"Damn it."

He tightened his grip around his staff and thrust it forward.

Two dark fireballs erupted from its tip, each one swirling violently with compressed energy as they shot toward Eli, their surfaces churning with black flames that seemed to fold inward around a dense core of destructive power.

But the instant the attacks left his staff, Raghul realized his mistake.

His eyes widened.

As if on cue, Eli used [Swap].

"Shit!"

Space shifted.

In the next instant, Raghul found himself standing exactly where Eli had been, while Eli appeared in his previous position, completely untouched.

The two dark fireballs continued along their original trajectory.

Straight toward Raghul.

There was no time to react.

BOOM!

The fireballs collided with him at point-blank range, erupting into an explosion that swallowed his body in dark flames and hurled him off his feet.

Raghul's body spun through the air before crashing hard against the ground, and for once, he had not summoned his tendrils quickly enough to protect himself from the attack.

His own flames burned into his flesh without mercy, black fire crawling across his body as the heat scorched his skin and filled the air with the bitter smell of burning flesh.

Raghul gritted his teeth and immediately dismissed his own flames before they could do any more damage, causing the black fire crawling across his body to vanish as he hit the ground with a hard tumble.

He groaned as he rolled onto his side.

The wound in his chest was already beginning to close, flesh slowly pulling itself together around the edges of the hole, but his regeneration was not nearly as fast as he needed it to be. The repeated attacks were beginning to take their toll, and for the first time, Raghul understood that he could not afford to give Eli even a moment of freedom.

The enemy could come at any time.

He forced himself upright.

His body was still recovering when he suddenly sensed danger.

Raghul's instincts screamed at him.

He immediately summoned his energy tendrils, forcing them to gather around his body in a defensive layer, but he was already too late.

Or rather, it did not matter.

Eli's fist came crashing forward, engulfed in divine flames.

The tendrils twisted together and formed a thick barrier directly in front of Raghul, but the moment Eli's fist connected, the divine fire tore through them as though they were nothing more than tangled threads.

The impact slammed directly into Raghul's chest.

BOOM!

A violent explosion erupted between them, and Raghul was sent flying backward with tremendous force, his body spinning through the air before crashing into the ground once more.

He tumbled several times across the earth.

But this time, instead of continuing to roll helplessly across the ground, Raghul planted one hand against the earth and used the momentum to control his fall, twisting his body and landing smoothly on his feet.

He staggered for a moment. Then he kept moving.

Eli's eyes narrowed in surprise.

He could have sworn his fist had connected directly with Raghul's chest.

There had been no tendril barrier left between them, and the divine flames had struck with enough force to send Raghul flying.

Yet somehow, the bastard was still moving.

Eli stared at him for a moment before pushing the thought to the back of his mind.

Whatever Raghul had done to survive that attack, Eli would figure it out later.

"There is nowhere to run, fool."

Eli raised his hand, and the space around them immediately responded.

A massive wall of warped space erupted from the ground and stretched across the entire domain, expanding from one end to the other until it formed an enormous barrier that cut off every possible route Raghul could use to escape. It was not a physical wall, but a solid boundary in space itself, leaving Raghul with nowhere to retreat without confronting Eli directly.

Eli surged forward.

Divine flames coiled around his fist as he accelerated, the power concentrated around his arm growing denser with every step. He was not interested in dragging the fight out any longer.

He was going to finish this.

But just as Eli closed the distance between them, the ground beneath Raghul suddenly ruptured.

Something emerged from below.

An abominable creature erupted from the earth with such suddenness that Eli barely had time to react. One of its weapons swung upward in a savage arc, forcing Eli to halt his advance and leap backward to avoid the strike.

The weapon passed dangerously close to him.

Eli immediately warped away.

Once. Twice.

He reappeared several meters away, his feet barely touching the ground before his eyes narrowed and locked onto the creature that had interrupted his attack.

It had finally emerged completely.

"Where did that come from?"

Eli's gaze moved over its enormous body.

At first glance, it resembled an orc, but only in the most superficial sense. Its body was far more monstrous, its grey skin stretched tightly over a frame that was unnaturally broad and muscular, while a single eye occupied the center of its face, staring directly at Eli with a cold, unnatural focus.

Multiple arms extended from its body, each one gripping a weapon as though the creature had been made specifically for slaughter.

But what caught Eli's attention most was the aura surrounding it.

Dark purple energy continuously swirled around its body, twisting and churning like smoke caught in a violent current, occasionally gathering around its limbs before dispersing again.

The creature stood between Eli and Raghul.

Before Eli could make another move, two more strange creatures emerged.

The first resembled a humanoid bird, standing upright on two legs with a body covered in layers of feathers that were anything but soft. Each feather was rigid and razor-sharp, overlapping the others like blades of a living suit of armor, while several longer feathers extended from its wings and arms like sharpened weapons.

The second looked more familiar.

A goblin.

But it was no ordinary goblin.

Its limbs were stretched far beyond anything natural, its arms and legs unnaturally long and thin, giving its entire body a slender, distorted appearance. Its fingers hung almost to its knees, and the way it stood made it look less like a living goblin and more like something that had been forcibly reshaped into one.

Eli narrowed his eyes using [Analyze].

Information appeared before him.

They were all level 100.

Eli's gaze moved between the three creatures, his expression becoming more serious as he studied them.

They looked nothing like Raghul's undead.

The undead orcs he had fought earlier had still possessed the obvious characteristics of their former bodies, their corpses being twisted and animated through Raghul's necromantic power.

These creatures were different.

They looked alive. Or at the very least, they were not simply corpses being puppeteered by Raghul.

Were they summons?

Eli wondered.

Raghul stepped forward, a confident smile slowly spreading across his face as the three creatures positioned themselves around him.

"I told you I wouldn't go down so easily."

"That's good," Eli replied, his eyes remaining fixed on the creatures. "I really want to see, to experience suffering. To experience despair. To see why Caius had lost to me and decided to be my soldier instead of doing something as foolish as attacking my home."

Raghul's confident expression immediately faded.

His brows furrowed as he stared at Eli, clearly displeased by the casual way Eli spoke about Caius's defeat, as though the outcome of that battle had already become nothing more than a lesson for anyone foolish enough to challenge him.

Then Caius spoke, activating the skill.

"[Absolute Lock]."