Meera's first thought was to try the same thing she had with Erenyx—fill the area with mists, send her shadow warriors, and attack from the rear. But the whole thing had cost her so much, Mana, that she couldn't afford to do that anymore.
Creating just one of those shadow warriors needed a tenth of her Mana, and right now, she only had a little over half. She needed to make all her shots count. She couldn't waste any Mana but could observe a little while and let Ambush Tactics do the rest.
First things first, she teleported away from Brison and the recuperating Wardens. She teleported to the next group of trees while Brison moved back into the treeline. Meera put her back to the tree and activated her armor's stage 2 effect – Chameleon.
Her armor changed colors to match the tree's bark perfectly. She willed her armor to cover her head and hid her perfectly in sight. She observed the fight and waited for an opportune moment to strike.
Tekton was more winded of the two. He fought Doromar up close. Unlike the last few times she had seen him fight, he didn't fight with his two longswords but with his greatsword—the one he carried on his back. The foot-wide and five-long sword was more like a hunk of iron than a regular great sword.
[Numheia's Vengeance – Level 302]
The way he moved was something out of a storybook. He matched Doromar blow for blow, swinging past him and slashing at his legs, trying to bring him down. No movement was wasted. It almost felt like a dance—a dance of blades and death. He even maneuvered through Zona's arrow like he had trained to avoid them in his dance all his life. It was simply beautiful to watch.
But the Cosmarian would not be brought down so easily. Whenever Tekton came close to delivering a major blow, Doromar evaporated into mists only to reform closer and closer to the other Warden, putting Zona on the backfoot.
Zona ran to create more distance. She had never had to do that before. Usually, her opponents ran from her. Doromar knew she was the weaker link in close combat and was coming for her. Meera could've stepped in now, but then she would have revealed herself and lost her advantage.
Doromar didn't only rely on the queen's mist skills but also used his nefarious necromancer magic. He shot a sickly dark green beam at Zona, who had to jump out of the way.
She wanted to ask Brison about Doromar's skills that took down three Wardens. She remembered her fight with all three of them, and they were no pushovers. It took everything she had to hold them off in the free-for-all.
"Who killed my Erenyx?" Doromar raged. "Bring them to me!"
The ground shook in his roar. From the corner of the fighting, dead bodies disappeared and reappeared in the air over the two Wardens. Tekton and Zona jumped aside. The corpses exploded, raining bones and rotting flesh.
The necromancer took this chance to launch its counterattack. He extended a hand towards Zona, and a spectral version of his hand shot out and gripped Zona by the leg mid-jump. He smashed her into the ground twice before pulling her in towards him. She was dragged on the ground. She fought back, but her movement was sluggish.
Meera wondered if this skill was something like her Vampiric Chains. Once Doromar had a hold of her, Zona screamed as her skin darkened, like it was decaying. Meera had experienced a similar curse from the werewolf.
Tekton was too far away. Meera launched her level 2 chakram using Mirror Wing and cut off Doromar's hand at the wrist.
He gasped, and a scream escaped his throat as he clutched at his bleeding stump. The scream sounded too much like that of Delkoris's mother rather than the Cosmarian controlling her body.
Meera made a mental note to apologize to Delkoris if they managed to free his mother from the necromancer's grasp.
Zona limped away from Doromar. Her decayed leg did not support her weight anymore. This was not good. Meera's instinct was to cut Doromar to pieces now that he was distracted, but then he would jump to another body, and with all the dead and undead around, it would be next to impossible to tie him down.
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"Meera…" Zona groaned. "Take over for me. The curse…" she winced. "It's spreading."
Meera zoomed in on her leg, and it was. The decay had traveled up her pants and down into her shoe. She bobbed a chakram in front of denoting that she understood.
Zona hobbled away towards Brison, keeping an arrow trained on Doromar, who was busy with his own pain. He reached for his severed hand and attached it to his stump, biting his lower lip. Through Mirrorstrike Vision, Meera saw the bone and muscles reattach, and the skin regrew. In a moment, it was like the hand had never been severed.
"Oh no, you don't." Tekton jumped, bringing his massive great sword down in an overhead arc.
Doromar teleported away like the Mistblades used to—turning to mist and reforming elsewhere. He extended a hand to the battlefield, and a dozen more bodies flew to him. Tekton instinctively jumped back, and Meera was ready to protect him with a Mirror Tower Shield if the corpses blew up again.
Doromar closed his fist, and the bodies twitched and turned in the air, raining blood down on him, painting him scarlet. Instead of getting out of the way, he reveled in being drenched. Overhead, the bodies shivered, and their bones shot out of the body. The bones floated down and covered Nisaya's whole form in bone armor.
"Meera, I don't know about you, but that is fucking gross," Tekton commented.
I agree. She replied silently, not wanting to give herself away just yet.
More bones popped out of the deceased, leaving most of the bodies a grotesque mess. That was a sight Meera wouldn't easily forget. Some of the bones broke into tinier pieces to form spikes and arranged themselves into a serrated bone sword, which came to rest in Doromar's hand.
Finally, the corpses fell to the ground.
"Now, I will cut you to pieces," Doromar told Tekton. "You and the bitch with the chakrams."
He didn't look Meera's way, so she hoped he didn't know where she was.
Tekton pointed his great sword at Doromar. "Come and meet your death."
They lunged for each other. Their clash of swords sent a shockwave that rattled the branches, making leaves fall. Meera stayed put but kept her chakrams ready if she needed to jump in to save Tekton. But it didn't look like he needed any help.
Every time their swords clashed, shockwaves reverberated through the ground. Thankfully, Meera had picked a solid tree, or she would've been blown away by now.
When Meera fought him, she never had a chance to see his swordsmanship. But what he showed now made her see why he was called the Shadow of Death in the gladiatorial arena.
He moved circles around the Cosmarian and left many cuts on him or would've if not for the bone armor, which protected Doromar like a second skin. But it was obvious that he was getting increasingly frustrated with the Gladiator Warden.
Tekton danced around to Doromar's back, swinging his sword in an uppercut motion, cutting nearly the entirety of his back in half. It took a moment for the bones to mend themselves back together.
Doromar turned while slashing at Tekton's neck. He swayed away out of reach. The Cosmarian gritted his and yelled in frustration.
"Getting tired, are we?" Tekton mocked. "You only need to leave her body, and all your troubles will end. We'll make sure of it."
Doromar growled and snapped his sword like a whip. To Meera and Tekton's surprise, his bone sword extended like a whip. The bones line up one after another to form a thorny whip.
Tekton overcame his surprise lightning-fast and blocked the bone whip with his thick blade. The whip coiled around the sword and, with one strong tug, ripped the blade out of Tekton's hand. Doromar tossed the blade away, grinning.
Tekton looked at his blade, which lay well out of his reach, and back at the necromancer and smiled. "There are a lot of things I can abide, but someone touching my blade is not one of them."
Doromar scoffed. "You talk too much. Your tongue will be the first thing I take when I resurrect you as my pawn."
"I'm too unruly to be your pawn." Tekton charged the necromancer empty-handed.
Doromar laughed, but Tekton jumped and looked like he would knee the Cosmarian in the chest, but he slipped past him. Tekton skidded towards his sword. Doromar's whip cracked, and Tekton rolled forward, but disaster struck.
The bone whip wrapped around Tekton's torso. Meera launched her level 2 chakram right away. But she was too late. Doromar yanked on his whip hard. Tekton screamed as the thorny whip rend his body in streaks of blood, but Tekton would not go down that easily.
He jumped for his sword, caught it by the hilt, rolled around in one fluid motion, and hurled it at the necromancer.
Doromar's eyes widened, and he cracked his whip, but Meera cut it in half with her chakram. Numheia's Vengeance stabbed the Cosmarian in the gut.
Doromar gasped but showed no outward signs of pain. Instead of falling to his knees, he gripped the sword by the hilt and pulled it out. He sneered as he walked to the bleeding Gladiator Warden.
Meera shot another chakram at the possessed queen, but he deflected it with a swing of Tekton's sword.
"I'll deal with you later, coward," he said. "First, I need to take care of a pest."
He stopped before Tekton and raised his sword high. Tekton got on his knees, bleeding profusely, he needed Brison's help immediately. Meera had only one way of stopping Doromar and giving enough time for Brison to recover Tekton.
She stepped away from the tree and stopped the Chameleon effect of her armor.
"Doromar!" She shouted. "Don't you want to face the one who killed your bitch wife?"
His head snapped to her, eyes belched fire, and he charged Meera.
Oh boy, he does not look happy with me.