Supreme Magus

Chapter 3806: Warrior Spirit (Part 1)

The laser-like heat ray produced by the Tower Tier version of Sunshine pierced through the mystical aura of Earthly Vault and melted the black stones below, leaving a meters-deep crater.

["Thanks for the demonstration!"] Ruugat jumped toward the Horseman, using air magic to propel himself forward, but no flying spell could lift something that heavy for more than a second, and Dawn dodged him with ease.

["I’ll fix my mistake as soon as I turn you into crystal scraps."]

["So many words just to say never."] Dawn shrugged as Ruugat fell back to the ground and into a pool of lava.

Hundreds of tier five spells hit his feet and shins from every direction, destabilizing his landing. The lost city had to use his hands to break the fall and not offer his back to the Horseman.

["What in the nine hells is happening?"] From his crouching position, Ruugat took a good look at the scores of soldiers and mages that had surrounded him.

Elven troops released volleys of enchanted arrows thick enough to blot out the sky. The mages from the three great countries stacked multiple gravity arrays on Ruugat’s joints to stop him from getting up.

Blood Witches and Warlocks spread their Blood Maelstrom in the air. The red mist released by the undead increased the destructive power of the arrows and spells that crossed it fivefold.

Awakened troops formed seven-man units and released Silverwing’s Annihilations at the weak areas that Dawn had exposed, carving deep holes into the lost city.

"Do you get it now, old fossil?" Dawn switched to Tyris’ universal language to boost the morale of her allies. "Do you understand why I kept my distance even at the cost of giving you the space to react to my attacks?

"It was all for this moment. To keep your eyes in the air and you from noticing my reinforcements."

Everything the Horseman had done until that point was a diversion. The noise, the light, and the vibrations caused by Lightpillar were a means to overload Ruugat’s surveillance arrays and cover for the arrival of the allied forces.

Gathering intel about his weak spots was just the icing on the cake.

"Damn you!" The stone lids covering Ruugat’s eyes lifted, revealing two massive yellow crystals bigger than anyone believed possible.

The elemental crystals channeled the world energy from the mana geyser and weaved it into one of the lost city’s offensive enchantments, Divine Retribution. Wherever Ruugat looked, lightning followed.

Whenever he spoke, his words turned into air blades the size of hills that crashed into the enemy formation.

"You should really stop underestimating me." Dawn said as the armor of the shield bearers crumbled.

Even the best magical protection wouldn’t have resisted the onslaught, and what the soldiers in the frontline wore barely qualified as scrap metal. Under the armor, however, there was no flesh, only a thick fog that absorbed Divine Retribution until its last drop of energy.

"Mage Slayers? Blood Witches?" Ruugat regained enough of his cool to notice the undead’s presence when it was already too late. "How can they survive the touch of sunlight?"

"The sun is mine to command, old fossil!" Dawn channeled her powers through her steed, Sunrise, revealing the white aura that shielded the undead troops mixed among the living.

"I had forgotten about this trick." The lost city snarled. "But it doesn’t matter. Put together all the ants you want. You can’t take down a Dragon!"

He pushed his Earthly Vault to the extreme, moving the defensive aura outward and condensing it into a solid barrier that blocked even the Annihilations.

"I can go on all day like this!" Ruugat said while mining more Adamant and crystals from the mines by the second. "I can heal from everything you throw at me."

He had only suffered deep wounds from the Annihilations, but his self-repair enchantments fixed the damage at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"I won’t fall for your provocations this time! If I don’t leave the geyser, you have no way to beat me!"

"Maybe. And maybe not." Dawn replied.

Unnoticed by the stone titan like the rest of the foot soldiers that still kept their distance, a single Hati was running toward the frontlines. Upon his passage, his pack members patted his arms and shoulders.

Their hands were drenched in their own blood, leaving prints of their palms and fingers on the running warrior.

The Warg and Hati wanted to howl and cheer for their brother, but they gritted their fangs and remained silent.

The nameless warrior kept sprinting, never looking back, his eyes always fixed on his target. A reverted Orc used her mana crystal to flood him with world energy akin to Invigoration, bringing his body and fallen mana core past their limits.

A Fomor infused him with golden lightning, tripling all his abilities and those he would soon have. A reverted Traughen bestowed upon him her best healing spell so that the warrior would live long enough to perform his duty.

Syrah, the Hati Queen, waited for him at the finishing line with her extended hand.

The Hati grabbed it, and she threw him at the lost city with the cumulative strength of the pack she could muster without hurting herself. Then, she passed that strength onto him, and so did every one of the thousand Warg and Hati assembled there.

It was too much to bear, even for an alpha. The raw energy flooding the Hati warrior would have torn him apart if not for the blessings he had received from his comrades belonging to the other Fallen Races and his sheer willpower.

’One life for many. My future for the future of my pack.’ For one second, the Hati warrior became stronger than any Divine Beast. For a fleeting instant, he weighed so much and so much mana coursed through his mana core that he defied logic.

The Hati warrior put all his life in that instant. He put every ounce of strength and mana he had into a single punch.

A punch that shattered Earthly Vault and left a small fist-shaped mark on Ruugat’s chest.

"What? How?" As the lost city stumbled back from the impact, the aftershock ravaged the nameless warrior’s body.

He knew he had no chance of survival, and he also had no desire to waste his final moment of life. With his last thought, the Hati warrior gave everything he had to his alpha.

He passed on to Syrah the crystal blessing from the orc, the golden lightning from the Fomor, the healing spells from the Traughen, and gave up on the strength of the pack to save it for the battle to come.

The nameless warrior exploded into gory shrapnel, with chunks of his flesh and bone fragments raining upon the soldiers locked shoulder to shoulder on the frontlines. Humans, elves, and undead alike remained stunned after witnessing the First Blood Ritual of the Wargs.

They had been forewarned about it during the earlier briefing, but imagining and experiencing something were worlds apart.

The First Blood Ritual required the weakest member of the pack to sacrifice their life to put the enemy on their back foot. To sacrifice one life to save hundreds, if not thousands of them.