Chapter 33
Lilith leaped from the Bone Dragon, and Ossuary Colossus formed around her in midair — massive black bones sheathing her body, catching the firelight as she fell. She hit the ground like a thunderclap, bone spikes erupting from the impact point and driving the nearest Orcs back.
The Wood Elves knew exactly who she was. The Orcs did not. They stared at the enormous undead thing that had dropped into the middle of their battlefield — for about a heartbeat. Then they charged, roaring.
Lilith swept her gaze across them. The real threats, the orcs at the peak of Veteran Rank, were already tied up by Elowen's guards; what came at her now barely warranted attention.
Bone spikes ripped through the front ranks.
Deathfire spread along the ground behind them, and the colossal form of Waltz of Ashes swept through the charge, shearing apart everything in its arc. The attackers were dead within seconds.
She didn't slow down. Her target was the Portal.
More Orcs moved to block the route. She snapped her fingers, and the Gargoyles circling overhead folded their wings and plunged.
Where the Wood Elves fought almost entirely at range, Gargoyles were built for the press of bodies.
Most Orc weapons couldn't do more than scratch their stone hides, and even where a blow shattered something, the broken stone knit itself back together in moments.
They crashed into the Orc lines claws-first and started tearing.
The pressure on the Wood Elf squad eased at once, and the fight around the Portal began to even out.
Then a larger Orc stepped into Lilith's path.
Double-bladed battle-ax. Blood-red totems covering his body. The aura of a peak Veteran rolling off him in waves — and every one of Elowen's guards engaged elsewhere. This one was hers.
"I knew this wouldn't be easy."
The Orc roared and charged, his ax coming down hard enough to split the air.
Sheathed in Ossuary Colossus, Lilith refused to give ground; she raised Waltz of Ashes and met the blow head-on.
Scythe against ax. Sparks exploded between them, force from the collision rippling out across the clearing — and the Orc did not move a single step.
Damn. The strongest enemy she'd ever faced, then, and not one she could afford to take lightly. Ossuary Colossus wouldn't hold forever. This needed to end fast.
She blurred out from under a series of heavy swings and raised her left hand. Bone Magic answered — dozens of spikes bursting up to force him backward while Soulfrost Chains shot in and coiled around his arms and legs. The freezing power spread through his body.
It barely slowed him. Red energy erupted beneath his skin, and one violent wrench shattered the chains outright. She followed with Bone Dragon Breath, then Spectral Dragon Breath. Neither put him down.
So that was her ceiling. Against a berserk Orc at the peak of Veteran Rank, Lilith could hold her ground — she just couldn't kill him quickly. He was wounded now, but she'd burned through most of her mana getting there, and the Colossus was minutes from collapse.
"Then I'll force my way through."
Lilith drove Waltz of Ashes into the ground.
A pale wave rolled out across the battlefield, and every corpse it touched lit up inside a gray magic circle.
Undead power flooded the fallen — Wood Elves and Orcs alike — and Gargoyles began tearing themselves free of the bodies, one after another, eyes igniting red.
They hurled themselves skyward and dived straight back down onto the living Orcs.
Every corpse in the clearing, another Gargoyle. The battlefield tipped from chaos into something worse.
"Hold him down!"
At her command, every nearby Gargoyle swarmed the peak Veteran.
He destroyed one with each swing of the ax — and it didn't matter, because there were more than two hundred of them, diving from every direction with zero regard for their own survival, burying him beneath claws and wings and stone.
Even killing them one by one, he'd need minutes to fight clear.
Minutes were all she wanted.
Lilith activated an ability inherited from Varkhul.
Sealed Ascendance.
Every other ability locked away. Ossuary Colossus dissolved; the Deathfire around her guttered out. In exchange, her physical attributes surged to their absolute limit — a versatile battle mage traded in for a pure assassin.
The green gateway flared. War cries rolled out from inside it, and Orc reinforcements began pouring into the clearing.
Lilith's face hardened. Now?
A chain rattled through the air — a throwing ax whipping toward her on a long metal leash.
She twisted aside and let the blade hiss past inches from her body.
So the reinforcements weren't common stock, either: several Veterans emerged from the Portal, each radiating considerable power, and instinct took them straight to the strongest presence on the field.
Her.
"A whole pack of lunatics."
The Veteran Orcs ignored the Wood Elves, ignored the Gargoyles, and charged her directly. Nothing for it but to fight. She glanced back once at the peak Veteran — still buried, and likely to stay that way a little longer.
"Long enough."
Lilith vanished. She reappeared in front of a Tier 4 Veteran Orc with Waltz of Ashes already falling. He got his weapon up to block; the scythe sheared through it without slowing and kept going, straight through his waist. His body hit the ground in two pieces.
One strike. One dead Veteran.
She was already picking out the next Orcs she could put down quickly — and as the first corpse landed, undead power was gathering around it. A few more dead Veterans, raised and turned, and the reinforcements would have no way left to stop her.
...
Deep within the forest, the Shaman felt it: a sudden concentration of death energy, spreading from the direction of the Portal.
His expression changed. "Undead?" He glanced back toward the clearing, then rounded on Elowen.
"You brought undead into this war? Have you lost your minds?"
He hurled one last bolt of lightning at her, broke off the duel entirely, and raced back toward the Portal.
He understood the danger perfectly. On a battlefield strewn with corpses, undead could change everything.