Chapter 54
By the time White Hart realized something was wrong, it was already too late.
At first, she couldn't see where she had gone wrong. Sending hundreds of Units to overwhelm a single Lord should have been the obvious play.
Lilith wasted no time showing her otherwise.
At White Hart's command, the Beastkin Alliance's army surged forward like a living tide—beastfolk, humanoid soldiers, and a scattering of other Unit types across wildly different Ranks, yet moving with the coordination of a force drilled through countless battles.
Lilith stood at the heart of the charge, Waltz of Ashes spinning in one hand. She slammed the blade's heavy spine into the floor, and a ring of jagged bone erupted around her.
The spikes raced outward in every direction, turning the arena into a forest of death. The front ranks had no time to slow before the bone punched through armor, flesh, and organ alike.
Wet impacts rolled across the battlefield. Blood misted the air, and screams rose from every side. In the space of a single breath, more than a hundred Units lay dead.
White Hart still couldn't fathom Thorne's sudden confidence.
Any Veteran-ranked Lord could slaughter weak Units by the score. Those soldiers had never been meant to bring Lilith down on their own. They were expendable—bodies to drain her mana, hem in her movement, and open a window for the Lords to strike.
So far, everything was going according to plan.
Despite the unease coiling in her chest, White Hart didn't hesitate. She joined the other three Lords and readied another assault.
Then the battlefield changed.
As the last bone spikes settled, pale energy rippled out from Lilith and washed over the freshly fallen corpses. Runic circles bloomed beneath the bodies, and thick Death-Essence Mana rose from them in visible waves.
"What is that?"
The power radiating off the dead unnerved every member of the Beastkin Alliance—but the true horror came a heartbeat later.
The corpses began to convulse.
Flesh rotted and sloughed away at impossible speed, baring bloodstained bones that twisted, split apart, and knit themselves back together.
Skeleton Warriors rose with bone blades in hand.
Skeleton Archers formed with bows slung across their backs.
Specters drifted into the air beside shambling Zombies.
More than half a dozen breeds of undead took shape within seconds.
The Death-Essence Mana pouring off them spread until the entire arena seemed to drown beneath a tide of death.
Every one of those corpses had been made by Lilith's own attack—which meant the Recruit Trait of Waltz of Ashes could trigger on all of them.
One hundred corpses became two hundred undead.
In seconds, Lilith had conjured an army to rival what remained of the Beastkin Alliance's forces.
"Undead..." White Hart whispered, horror spreading across her face. "She commands the undead."
This unknown Lord's power had already blown past everything White Hart had prepared for. For the first time, she wondered whether the Beastkin Alliance stood any chance at all.
But retreat solved nothing.
Their leader had ordered them to destroy the Three Blades Alliance, and all five of them had been dragged into this dungeon without warning. They hadn't found an exit. They didn't even know where the surrounding archways led.
Where could they possibly run?
Lilith finally turned toward them, her expression easy.
"Now let's see who's trapped with whom."
She moved again—but instead of going for the Beastkin Alliance's Lords, she plunged straight into their army and began cutting down Units at her leisure.
Every death was another soldier waiting to be raised.
If they let her keep going, the undead would only multiply.
"Damn it." White Hart had never faced an enemy this infuriating. "Stop her!"
Hyena, Elderwood, and Muskox charged as one, trying to punch through the swelling undead formation and reach Lilith directly.
They quickly learned just how badly they had misread the situation.
Lilith didn't so much as glance at them. She snapped her fingers, and the two hundred newly risen undead surged forward, splitting the three Lords apart and encircling each of them.
Hyena roared and ripped several Skeleton Warriors apart with his claws, but the shattered bones writhed across the floor, pulled themselves back together, and stood again.
Elderwood swept his massive vines through the horde, crushing a dozen undead with every stroke. There were simply too many. Each time he cleared a path, more flooded into the gap.
Muskox trusted his armor and bulled through the formation, trying to carve an escape route. The Specters ignored his defenses entirely, slipping through layer after layer of protection to leech away his mind and stamina.
Within moments, the three Lords had been cut off from one another and forced into separate battles.
White Hart's stomach knotted. If she wanted to turn this around, she had to take Lilith down now.
She vanished in a flash of crimson lightning and reappeared at Lilith's side, electric power gathering along the shattered stumps of her antlers before lancing toward Lilith's face.
Lilith swayed aside, the strike missing by inches. Waltz of Ashes swept back in answer, loosing a black arc of Deathfire that collided with the lightning and flooded the arena with blinding light.
They traded more than a dozen blows in a handful of seconds.
With every clash, White Hart's confidence crumbled a little further.
The speed she had always counted on meant nothing here. Every killing strike missed by the narrowest margin, while Lilith's counters drove her back again and again.
Even when crimson lightning did land, a layer of gray-white Undead Magic soaked up the force before it could do any real damage.
Worse still was the creeping sense that Lilith wasn't even focused on their duel.
She fought as if White Hart were little more than a distraction. Between exchanges, she still found openings to kill nearby Units and add their bodies to her growing army.
I can't let this go on.
White Hart unleashed every last trace of her crimson lightning in a single violent burst, forcing Lilith back just long enough to break away.
A scream tore across the arena.
White Hart whipped toward the sound.
A dark figure had appeared behind Muskox without warning. The Black Knight wore heavy black armor and carried a bone blade that gleamed with cold light.
The weapon had already run Muskox through from behind, its point jutting from his chest.
Dark blood sheeted down the blade.
Muskox stared at the fatal wound, eyes wide with disbelief. A broken sound escaped his throat before his enormous body crashed to the ground.
The aura rolling off the Black Knight was unmistakably Veteran-ranked.
White Hart's gaze snapped to the spot where Bat had fallen.
His corpse was gone.
She can raise Veterans too?
The newly summoned Black Knight had kept Bat's Rank—and looked even deadlier than he had in life.
And now Muskox was dead as well.
Soon there would be another Veteran-ranked undead in Lilith's ranks.
A chill crawled up White Hart's spine.
At last, she understood.
They had never been Lilith's opponents.
The army, the endless resurrections, the seemingly careless attacks—every piece of it belonged to a battle Lilith had controlled from the very first move. The Beastkin Alliance had walked in believing themselves the hunters, only to discover they were the prey.
"White Hart!"
Hyena's scream rang out, followed by the sound of tearing flesh.
Bone blades had pierced his body from several directions at once. He stayed upright only because the weapons pinned him in place, and whether he still drew breath was impossible to tell.
Elderwood, too, teetered on the edge of defeat. Undead swarmed over his massive frame, ripping away the vines that shielded his core and exposing the vulnerable trunk beneath.
White Hart's last hope collapsed.
She did not want to die here.
Lilith seemed to lose interest in dragging things out.
Her body blurred, and she appeared before Elderwood. Waltz of Ashes traced a smooth arc through the air, shearing his towering form clean through the middle.
Lilith turned with the motion and materialized beside Hyena. One clean stroke ended him before he could struggle free.
Only then did she look at White Hart.
That single glance shattered what remained of White Hart's courage.
She turned and sprinted for one of the black archways at the arena's edge.
Lilith's voice followed her.
"Think you can get away?"
White Hart didn't look back. She couldn't bear to imagine how close Lilith might be.
All she knew was that she had to survive.
The moment she crossed the threshold, she risked a glance over her shoulder.
Lilith hadn't pursued her.
She stood in the arena, idly examining the ancient book Thorne had given her, as if the battle were already yesterday's news.
Relief flooded through White Hart, and she vanished into the darkness beyond the gate.
Lilith watched the archway for a moment, then smiled.
"Keep running. You can test the path for me."
Letting her go wasn't mercy, and it certainly wasn't carelessness.
Wherever White Hart fled, she was still moving across Lilith's board.
Either the dungeon would finish her, or Lilith would collect the debt herself, at a time of her own choosing.
One way or another, the last Lord of the Beastkin Alliance would not leave this place alive.
The Beastkin Alliance had no idea what waited deeper in the dungeon.
The native factions gathered ahead were far more dangerous than any Lord White Hart had ever faced.