Chapter 1442: The Dome Refused to Fade

And yet, the number of small eyes around Lunethar continued to grow.

No more large eyes had appeared. Everyone scanned the battlefield, but there were no other targets of comparable size. The one Seraphine had destroyed with her last arrow had most likely been the final large eye.

They didn't pursue Lunethar immediately.

All eyes turned to Queen Elowen and Kaelira.

The freezing field still suppressed the entire area, buying Kaelira enough time to finish her attack. The purple-red energy sphere between her hands continued to expand as she compressed layer after layer of violent power into it. Its surface gradually darkened from purple-red to deep crimson, leaving only a few purple motes drifting within.

Each new surge of power produced a low tremor in the surrounding space.

Kaelira's arms had begun to shake, but she didn't stop. She kept compressing the energy, forcing every leaking ripple back into the sphere. Queen Elowen maintained the freezing field, holding the approaching swarm at a distance.

At last, the sphere stabilized.

Crimson light illuminated Kaelira's face while arcs of purple electricity raced across its surface. The instant its heavily compressed power began to spread, the frozen eyes nearby cracked one after another. Explosions rippled across the battlefield, all the way to Lunethar.

Lunethar finally sensed the danger.

Something began to shift deep inside it. The surface of its head rose and fell slightly as it gathered strength for whatever it intended to do next.

Ethan remained hidden above it, in no hurry to attack.

His body was still dispersed into black particles as he patiently waited for an opening. But when he noticed the small eyes floating around him, a strange thought suddenly occurred to him.

He stared at them for two seconds.

Then he pushed the thought aside.

Lunethar raised both hands and crossed its broad palms in front of its face, completely shielding its enormous head.

The gesture looked like an attempt to block the coming attack, but the flesh behind its hands was already shifting. Destroyed sockets bulged back into existence as blue light gathered inside them. All eight large eyes were quietly regenerating.

Seraphine had already circled around behind it.

She took a deep breath. Primordial Death Energy poured from her palm and formed a gray-white tide that pressed against Lunethar's back. Several arrows made of Light Force appeared beside her, their tips adjusting simultaneously to lock onto its massive head.

The bowstring thrummed.

The light arrows swept past the wave of death energy and converged on Lunethar from different angles.

At the same time, Kaelira raised the crimson sphere she had spent so long charging. Purple arcs jumped across its surface. Any small eye touched by its light immediately developed thin cracks across its shell.

But she didn't launch it yet.

Instead, she raised her other hand.

Several layers of purple-red shields appeared around each of her companions, rising from beneath their feet until they were completely enclosed. Even Andona, who had exhausted her power in the distance, received a shield of her own.

Once Kaelira confirmed everyone was protected, she stepped forward and pushed the sphere away.

A heavy boom drowned out the entire battlefield.

The sphere accelerated as soon as it left her hands, tearing a twisted path through the darkness. Its crimson light illuminated Lunethar's crossed hands—and the wall of eyes that had just formed behind it.

Hundreds of small eyes stood in perfect rows, each separated by exactly the same distance. Threads of blue energy connected them, forming a defensive wall designed specifically to stop Seraphine.

Her arrows struck the wall one after another.

The first pierced an eye, only to be entangled by the energy threads behind it. The second shattered two eyes before blue light surged in from both sides and consumed its remaining power. More eyes immediately filled the gaps, keeping the wall between Seraphine and Lunethar at all times.

Seraphine narrowed her eyes and stopped wasting arrows.

All she could do now was hope Kaelira's energy sphere worked a miracle.

The crimson sphere had already closed in on Lunethar. Violent power radiated from within, freezing every nearby eye in place. Even their pupils could no longer move.

At that moment, Queen Elowen unleashed the full force of her freezing field.

Frost spread outward from inside each small eye, first freezing the flow of energy within them before traveling along the blue threads connecting them. The swarm preparing to intercept the sphere was sealed inside a shell of ice, clearing its path forward.

Catheryn's Umbral Servitors moved from the darkness at the same time.

Black figures swept alongside the sphere, knocking aside every eye that hadn't been frozen. They didn't stop to attack. Their only purpose was to tear a straight path through the swarm.

Seraphine drew her bow once more.

A light arrow shot from her hand and pierced an eye at the center of the wall. She immediately poured Primordial Death Energy into its tail, turning the gold-white shaft gray.

Death spread from the breach in both directions.

One after another, the interconnected eyes lost their light. Gray-white traces crawled along the blue threads until they covered the entire wall. Seraphine didn't stop there. She raised her bow and forced even more Primordial Death Energy forward.

A wall of death took shape behind Lunethar.

Everything it covered first lost its color. Then the eyes and energy threads vanished together. But an instant later, fresh energy surged from Lunethar and restored the missing sections.

Before the repairs could be completed, the remaining Primordial Death Energy flared along the edges and consumed the newly grown tissue.

Destruction.

Regeneration.

Destruction again.

The two forces struggled back and forth, leaving the wall to shift constantly between whole and broken. Every restoration drained Lunethar's energy, while each new spread of death cleared more of the way for Kaelira's sphere.

At last, the crimson sphere reached Lunethar.

Violent power leaked from its surface, dragging everything nearby into its wake. The final eyes blocking its path touched the sphere's outer layer and were instantly shredded into motes of light.

Then Seraphine's gray-white arrow arrived from behind.

Its tip struck the crimson sphere.

The two forces paused for the briefest instant.

Then all the energy Kaelira had compressed inside the sphere erupted.

Boom!

Crimson light swept across the battlefield, erasing every small eye nearby. The shock wave slammed into the shields around the others, bending the purple-red barriers inward as rings of light rippled across their surfaces. Everyone raised their arms to shield their eyes while the blast pushed them backward.

The explosion didn't disperse.

Crimson energy closed around Lunethar, forming an enormous purple-red dome that trapped it along with the eight large eyes still regenerating inside its head. Light Force flashed throughout the dome. Each burst intensified the violent energy raging within.

Seraphine's arrow had clearly done its job.

Wave after wave of force erupted from the dome and battered the shields around the others. Seraphine steadied herself, held the bow of death across her body, and reached behind her with her free hand.

She drew a long, gray-white arrow.

This one was heavier than the others.

No patterns marked its gray-white shaft. Only a single cold gleam ran along its surface. Primordial Death Energy had settled deep within the shaft, while all of its Light Force had gathered at the tip, compressed into a blinding white point.

Seraphine raised her bow.

She aimed through the churning purple-red energy at the center of the dome.

And fired.

The gray-white arrow left the string, pierced the shock waves rolling off the explosion, and shot straight toward the dome. Light Force at the tip pushed the outer energy aside, and Primordial Death Energy followed through the opening.

Inside the dome, Lunethar was being destroyed over and over again.