Chapter 183: A Hundred-Meter Giant

Even as Osmund joked about the delivery, he quietly ordered hundreds of flying troops to surround Cassian.

Tobren suddenly lifted his head.

"Tervain! There’s food everywhere. And the Dragons aren’t even the tastiest thing here."

He pointed at Cassian.

"He is."

Food everywhere?

Osmund’s expression changed as he understood.

The air rippled. The Dawnwing corps emerged from concealment, and Crystal Twelve shifted out of Dragon form beside Nine.

"Crystal Storm!"

"Angel’s Sword!"

"Sacred Strike!"

"Holy Flame!"

Explosions rolled through the Black Banner formation.

Cassian had nothing to discuss with these butchers. His people attacked at once. Liora, Celia, the Stormlance, and the Eclipse Praetorians leaped from Nine’s back and joined the battle.

Osmund and the Lords around him stared.

"Dawnwings? That many?"

"Damn it! They must be Level fifty-five! Where did Cassian find so much Battle Essence?"

The raids of the past few days had earned him more than three billion. He had spent part of it raising every remaining Dawnwing Vanguard to Level 50.

The Dawnwings were only the beginning. Before long, the veterans discovered that the corps which had shocked them was the weakest part of the force attacking them.

Liora avoided Blizzard. A spell that covered so much ground might kill one of the Lords Cassian wanted alive.

Instead, dozens of wind blades flashed from her staff.

Spiritbinders fell in halves. So did the Dreadplate Warriors, whose toughness was supposed to be their greatest strength.

Celia’s sword attacks were harder still to withstand.

Sword Intent multiplied their cutting and penetration by 3.2. Even a simple Severing Arc carried power far beyond the technique itself.

She sent sword light through the enemy ranks almost casually. A Sword Saint had to answer with a full-strength Quickdraw Slash just to hold one of those attacks back.

Osmund’s eyes reddened as he watched the troops he had been so proud of being cut apart.

"Lord Morvane! Do something!"

Tobren needed no encouragement.

"Eat them," he muttered, staring at the Dawnwings. "Eat them. They’re all mine."

His body began to swell.

Five meters. Ten. Thirty. Fifty.

He did not stop until he stood a hundred meters tall.

Deep-purple skin covered the giant’s mountainous body. Lords on both sides of the fighting stared up at him.

Brigid darted past his back. Her sword opened a black, ten-meter wound across it.

For a creature that size, the cut scarcely mattered. It was already closing. ℯ

Tobren looked too fat to move quickly. He was not.

Each stride carried him dozens of meters. The ground shook beneath his feet as he rushed toward Cassian, his voice rolling for tens of kilometers.

"You taste best! Become part of me!"

Spirit food was Cassian’s daily fare, and he had consumed plenty of Life Essence as well. To Tobren’s senses, he was a delicacy beyond anything else on the field.

"Flesh Mountain?"

Even Cassian drew a sharp breath.

"How can a Level-55 Spiritbound Lord be this strong? A permanent pact shouldn’t be enough."

A thought occurred to him.

"An Evil God’s will?"

Osmund burst out laughing.

"Flesh Mountain! Lord Morvane can summon that form freely now!"

His delight grew as he watched the enormous figure charge.

"Soon he’ll become a Divine Servant of Gluttony. How many years has it been since the Morvane family produced one? With him beside us, we can take those Crown Marches as soon as we return to Sector 663!"

The founder of the Spiritbound path had made a pact with the Evil Spirits of the Spirit Realm. The Morvane family and six other Black Banner families had taken it further by forming permanent contracts with Evil Gods.

They ceased to be entirely human in the process. For that much power, they considered it a fair price.

Osmund could not have been more pleased that he had brought Tobren. His earlier regret had vanished.

"Level fifty-five, but that form puts him above ten thousand stars. Perhaps even fifteen thousand!"

He shouted across the field.

"Cassian, you ignorant bumpkin! Do you even know what ten thousand stars means? You’ll find out today!"

In his excitement, he failed to notice that the Dawnwings were making no attempt to stop Tobren.

They were opening a path for him.

Cassian’s surprise had passed. He watched the Flesh Mountain approach to within a few hundred meters, then spoke quietly.

"Celia. Your Combat Rating?"

"About twenty-two thousand stars with your Gold Battle Name," she said with a smile. "Twenty-eight thousand Physique."

Cassian pointed at Osmund.

"He called me a bumpkin."

"Give me a moment, Lord. I’ll answer him for you."

Her figure flashed forward, placing her between Cassian and the giant.

Tobren blinked, then swung a huge hand at her.

"Move! I want to eat the one behind you first!"

His palm stirred a storm across hundreds of meters.

Celia raised her sword and caught the blow.

The impact thundered across the field. Her blade held steady. Pain shot through Tobren’s palm, as though he had struck a wall of solid crystal.

Before he could recover, the full pressure of Celia’s strength swept over him.

"You should thank my Lord for his mercy."

"Severing Arc."

Nine arcs of sword light, each a hundred meters long, cut through the air.

Tobren’s body shuddered. Disbelief filled his eyes.

Then his limbs fell away, and the vast body crashed to the ground like a collapsed pile of blocks. He rolled and howled, alive but unable to rise.

For a moment, the battlefield fell silent.

Even the Dawnwings stared.

Aurelia cut down a Swordmaster and looked toward Celia with envy.

"It must feel good to overwhelm an enemy with sheer attributes. Every one of those arcs was at least as strong as my Skyblade Descent."

Attributes were not the whole of it. Celia’s work in the Hall, aided by time acceleration, had brought Severing Arc to Greater Perfection.

A simple technique trained to that level was formidable enough. In her hands, it had cut the giant apart.

Osmund’s smile froze.

He rubbed his eyes.

"How? How can a newcomer have someone that strong? Is she a Mythic Hero?"

Faced with an enemy he could not defeat, he made the same choice as the Lords Cassian had already met.

He ran.

The few surviving Sword Saints closed around him. They made it barely a kilometer before Sigrid caught him and knocked him unconscious.

Tobren shrank back to human size. His limbs were gone, yet he still kept crying that he was hungry. That was how deeply the Evil God’s influence had taken hold.

The noise irritated Cassian. He had Liora cast Mental Prison on the captured Lords.

Rhea looked puzzled.

"Only three detachments left. We could deal with them easily. Why keep these Lords alive?"

"Three detachments?" Cassian shook his head. "The killing has only just begun."

The Mindseal Tower had gone too long without fresh guests.