Chapter 1441: Death Riding on Light

Lunethar no longer had the attention to spare for her.

Seraphine kept her bow trained on its main body. The instant it shifted its focus away from any front, she would fire another arrow fused from Light Force and Primordial Death Energy. Kaelira held position on the opposite side, the purple-red energy in her palm growing denser as it tore apart the surrounding air layer by layer.

The four remaining large eyes watched them closely, unwilling to fire without a clear opening.

The lasers were devastating, but the brief pause after each shot created a lethal weakness. If the battle continued like this, Lunethar would eventually be worn down.

But no one intended to settle for a stalemate.

Kaelira hurled her energy sphere at one of the large eyes. It immediately fired, a blue laser piercing the sphere through its center and detonating it early.

Purple-red flames swept across the battlefield, and the deafening explosion signaled the start of the next assault.

Seraphine drew the bow of death. An arrow of light slowly formed against the string, the two opposing forces winding around its shaft. Gray-white ripples spread through the space around the bowstring.

Not far away, Kaelira held her breath. She could clearly sense the power building inside the arrow. She also knew its greatest problem wasn't a lack of force—it was the risk of being cut apart by lasers before it ever reached its target.

Elira entered the battlefield.

The wings of the Divine Sovereign Moth spread fully behind her, scattering colored motes of light with each beat. An enormous image of the Divine Sovereign Moth rose at her back as strange runes lit up one after another across both wings.

The left wing aimed at one large eye and fired a pink beam. The right wing turned in the opposite direction, pinning down another eye with a second beam.

Both pupils swung toward Elira.

She was holding off two targets by herself.

Only Elira would dare try it.

Queen Elowen stood at the rear of the battlefield, icy energy spreading from her fingertips. The temperature plummeted. Frost covered the drifting fragments of energy, and even the trails of moving light seemed to slow.

She fired an ice arrow with one hand and tossed a sphere of icy energy high above Lunethar with the other. Once it reached the space over its head, the sphere spread outward into an ice-blue veil that covered the entire area.

The freezing field descended.

Both time and space began to freeze, slowing everything in motion. Wings of ice formed behind Queen Elowen as she hovered within the cold mist, her gaze following the ice arrow toward Lunethar's head.

Just before the arrow and energy sphere struck, Lunethar split apart along a series of clean lines.

A ring of new sockets turned outward from the openings. Countless small eyes poured from its body and swarmed the group from above, below, and both sides. None contained as much energy as the large eyes, but their sheer numbers filled everyone's vision in an instant.

The freezing field took effect immediately.

Frost clung to the small eyes and forced them to slow. The thin lasers fired by a few of them entered the frozen region and seemed to sink into viscous liquid, their paths becoming clearly visible.

Kaelira moved beside Queen Elowen.

Violent energy spread from her body, purple-red light expanding alongside the ice-blue cold. The nearby eyes slowed under the frost, then cracked apart within Kaelira's energy and burst into showers of blue light.

Her purple-red eyes swept across the swarm as she slowly closed her hand.

An even heavier force was gathering.

In the distance, Seraphine's light arrow had also been blocked.

Lunethar had deliberately sent a large number of small eyes to surround her. Some battered her shield while others filled her line of fire. The relentless impacts kept her bow from holding steady, knocking the fully formed arrowhead off target again and again.

But that also relieved the pressure everywhere else.

The freezing field and Kaelira's violent energy overlapped at the center of the battlefield. Blue-white cold locked the small eyes in place, then purple-red energy surged through the gaps and blew apart entire sections of the swarm.

Meanwhile, Seraphine protected Feylora as they changed positions, using the chaos to search for another angle from which to ambush Lunethar.

No one noticed that Ethan had already reached the space above its head.

His body dissolved into black particles and blended into the surrounding darkness, leaving only the faintest outline. He narrowed his eyes, looking past the flying swarm at the enormous head below.

His target was clear.

Lunethar's head.

At the same time, Andona and Seraphina were also surrounded. The small eyes didn't fire their lasers. Instead, they threw themselves into the paths of incoming attacks and took the hits with their own bodies.

Explosions sounded one after another.

Seraphina shattered one of the eyes in front of her with a swipe of her claw, then turned and swept another group away with her tail. Only three large eyes remained around her, but the prolonged battle had already drained much of her energy.

Even so, she only grew more excited as the fight continued.

Scorching dragonfire swept around her in every direction, and her claws tore apart anything that entered her reach. One small eye had barely attached itself to her scales before she crushed it in her grip. More swarmed her from behind and latched onto her back and wings, only to be burned away in batches by the curling flames.

Andona faced the two remaining large eyes.

She looked down at them as a golden magic circle spread beneath her feet. Rings of runes passed over her body and appeared above and below the two eyes. Just as they prepared to fire, the magic circles contracted toward the center.

Golden light crossed between them.

Both eyes were shredded on the spot. Their unfired lasers detonated inside them, leaving two expanding clouds of blue light.

Andona descended. The moment her feet touched the void, her legs gave out, forcing her to support herself with one hand. That attack had exhausted the last of her energy. Even the wings behind her had dimmed.

She looked up at the dragon still rampaging through the swarm, a small smile appearing on her lips.

"Seraphina really does have energy to spare."

As Andona finished off her targets, everyone noticed Lunethar falter.

Its head tilted to one side, and the cracks across its surface stopped expanding. Before long, however, the cracks began to close again, and its disrupted energy stabilized.

Queen Elowen and Kaelira unleashed their power together.

Ice spread through the void, and violent energy erupted along its surface. Successive explosions echoed through the darkness as entire sections of the swarm were frozen and shattered.

Namyanna seized the opportunity.

Water flooded into the battlefield from every direction, first forming several spiraling streams before merging into a raging wave. The scattered eyes were driven toward the center and compressed into a single mass. Water clung to their surfaces, leaving them no room to separate again.

The cold descended immediately afterward.

The wave froze from the outside in, trapping every gathered eye inside a massive block of ice. They battered the frozen walls from within but could only shake loose a few chips.

The remaining laser above Lunethar's head fired again.

A thick beam of blue light cut through the darkness toward the group below. But the moment it entered the freezing field, it began to slow. Fine ice crystals formed along its edges, revealing a clear path through what had once been an unavoidable attack.

A sharp rush of air came from the side.

Seraphine had finally found another firing position. Her light arrow left the bowstring, skimmed the edge of the freezing field, and flew straight toward Lunethar's head.

A large eye that had just grown from its body moved in front of the arrow.

The arrow of light pierced its pupil. Primordial Death Energy followed, spreading through the eye from within. Before it could fire a laser, gray-white energy consumed it completely.

A muffled rupture sounded.

Primordial Death Energy surged through the eye's connection and into Lunethar's main body. Wherever the gray-white traces passed, the surrounding tissue died.

Lunethar immediately severed the infected section and peeled it away from its head, letting it fall into the darkness.

Only then did the spread of death stop.

"To think you could wield death and light energy to such a degree."

For the first time, Lunethar's voice had lost its composure.

"You truly have surprised me."