When the first group of Undead walked close to where the Misfits set up their perimeter. With enough time to prepare, Keily hurriedly laid down multiple crude magic formations on the ground that exploded violently when the Undead walked over them, resulting in a flashy firework. The fire being released from the traps rampaged on, without dissipating, burning brightly.
"Now I get why they were good even though they were unstable formations!" Raufon laughed beside him, standing atop a building, sinking his transformed claws into the roof, tearing off a big chunk of it with a roar, and throwing it down at the stragglers, squashing multiple.
"Yeah!" Keily replied, wiping his mouth after drinking a mana potion and summoning electricity from his fingers that jumped in wide arcs between the buildings, zapping the Undead, immobilizing them briefly as they struggled to escape the fire.
"How much more zapping can you do?"
"A few… I just started learning it! Why?"
"Can you immobilize them? I am better at fighting up close!" Raufon asked, and Keily nodded after a brief thought. "Good!" His friend grinned, transforming fully, and his new artifact glimmered around his wrist, changing and enveloping Raufon in metallic armor from head to toe. He looked like he was dipped into a vat of steel, encased in its contents wholly. "Let's do this!" he jumped down, shaking the streets themselves before rushing into the fire and the Undead, bashing them apart with his bare hands.
"Here goes nothing!" Keily gulped, jumping from roof to roof with surprising agility, sending bolts of lightning down from above, signaling out Undead bodies, preventing them from moving or attacking so Raufon had an easy job eliminating them.
At another point, Aurora and Sion had no time to watch what was happening on Keily's end as Undead poured into their vision. While Sion was standing atop a building, raining down shot after shot, hitting the Undead, Aurora was down on the ground, holding a black saber made out of her own mana and slicing against those that were hit by Sion. Their teamwork was seamless and looked like a choreographed dance they practiced for years.
Sion's beam-like bullets flew past Aurora's body, a hair's width away before nailing an Undead through his eyesocket, staggering it. Before it could regain its balance or correct its movement, Aurora was upon its body and, with two slashes, severed it into four parts before moving on to the next.
"They are weak…" She thought, having experience in fighting against them. These ones were moving slowly, reacting late, and less focused than she was used to. Something she was thrilled to see. "The only problem…" She looked away for a brief moment, dodging a clawing strike from one of the Undead before cutting him into two halves, "Are their numbers…"
"That is a lot…." Simbad said, standing a few dozen meters away, next to Koadriana, watching a sea of bodies constantly coming through the barrier at the edge of the Core Region.
"Yeah…" Koa nodded, biting her lips. "If there were a big body of water around, I could wash them away… but…."
"We also have the numbers!" Arrived Ceiline, jumping up from the ground, landing with a loud thud, panting slightly.
"Ready?" Simbad asked, and she nodded while clapping, activating her spell.
The next moment, atop multiple dozen buildings green light flashed, and the next moment, the streets were bombarded with numerous spells from above, displaying all of the magical elements.
"Extraordinary…" Simbad smiled, watching the multitude of peashooters appearing, angrily spewing spells from their round mouths, attacking the flooding horde without stopping.
"They are more useful than we thought!" Koa said, amazed by what they saw.
"Thank you!" Ceiline chuckled happily, proud of her invention and happy that she brought a lot in her holding bag.
"Let's go!" Simbad said, flashing forward, leaving behind only one sentence. "Time to kill some Undead!"
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"A lot are coming through," Rose said, watching towards the distance, and after a little bit of focus, her eyes acted like magnifiers, zooming in on the bright flashes of mana. She could see how Keily or Aurora danced around the Undead or how Simbad used a strong area-of-effect spell, turning a group of Undead into ashes with only a blinding flash of light.
"How are they holding up?" Lia asked, looking up at the already leaning structure as they looked like ants below it.
"They are… killing the monsters!" She said with excitement, first to see something like this, and she now looked at them like heroes. When she turned around to face Lia and Rinzen, her face turned pale as she tilted her head backward.
"What?" Rinzen and Lia asked immediately, following her gaze but only seeing the black, cracked sky.
"They are gathering… The monsters are gathering… I can see them appearing!" She cried, her legs starting to shake.
"You… see them?" Lia whispered, her brain working in overdrive. "Are they people?"
"Y-yes… but… their light is… different. It feels… wrong. They are the monsters... inside the big monster!"
"Take her!" Lia looked at Rinzen, who furrowed her brows. "Start retreating with the others!"
"And you?" She stood there, unmoving.
"I-"
But then thunder came, silencing her. Looking up, they could see greenish energy gather behind a black veil, growing stronger and stronger. All the towers around them started buzzing and lit up, even the broken one they had been working on until now. It was clearly affecting it as it was flickering, trembling, and shaking uncontrollably. Watching the surreal scenery, Lia could swear she also noticed a figure for a brief flash before the greenish lightning broke through the sky of the sub-realm. The thunder they always heard was the sound of the weak firmament breaking and the lightning bolts aiming towards the towers, using them as conduits to enhance their powers and jump into the dragon's body without obstruction or resistance that such a mighty corpse provided even after its death.
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Rinzen acted without thinking, holding up the weak Rose, shielding her to run into cover. Lia followed suit, looking at the tower that was now creaking, letting out the sound of an injured beast. Then they heard a death scream that was of multiple voices mixed into one. The tower then flickered and, with an almighty explosion, blasted apart, throwing Rinzen and Lia far away and crashing them into a pile of rubble.
"...!" Lia, ignoring the pain, turned onto her back, watching as the massive structure buckled under its weight, finally coming down, falling straight towards the corpse of the stirring dragon. "It won't be enough!" She jumped up, running forward to Rinzen's horror.
"What are you doing?!" She shouted, holding the crying Rose to herself.
"Killing a dragon!" Lia answered coldly, feeling her senses briefly reconnect to No-Space as the sky was still cracked open by the aftermath of the lightning bolts. With that, she teleported without thinking about it, reappearing on the falling building's side, crashing down onto the dragon along with it.
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On the top of the ziggurat, Senaita's meditating body shuddered but remained to lie on the stone altar without waking up. Around her, four of her disciples suddenly cried out, screaming from the top of their throats before exploding into pure energy, leaving nothing behind, just a thick mist-like cloud. The others around them were just as shaken, on the verge of being ejected from their meditative state but remained still, guided by their master's soul, taking control of the situation. Senaita didn't know what was happening, but there was no time to wonder about it. Their fusion with the dragon's body was disturbed. If she lost her concentration, they would all be dead… dead in a way from where there was no chance to come back, ever again. Her disciples? Mattered no more. Three others quickly turned transparent and then into a soup of energy, being drawn into the altar and feeding Senaita so she could remain in control… to remain whole.
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While running, Lia wasn't thinking about anything else, only what was before her. When the building landed with a resounding crash on the dragon's body, she teleported once more, appearing straight on its head, just in time to stab her sword, covered in blue flames, into its body. When the tip of the blade touched the scales, she felt a powerful physical force trying to repel her hand. If not for being prepared for something like this, it would have flung the sword out of her grip outright. Pressing against it with intensely burning, blue flames, she froze the scales, breaking them up and letting her blade pass through, lodging into the dead body.
With a change of her grip, she summoned her second sword, repeating it and feeling her leg leaving the 'ground' as the dragon flew up with a roar of pain and frustration. What Lia didn't see was the green eyes of the monster, glittering with intelligence as Senaita's mind was fully awake and in control.
"What the hell is going on?!" She roared, but what came out of the dragon's mouth was only a growl, echoing far and wide while Lia was hanging off her back without her realizing.
Shaking off the heavy rubble, still feeling like iron spikes were being inserted into her brain, she flew up, surveying the grounds before her. She couldn't believe it… one of the towers was destroyed. It was originally a formation for this ancient sect's headquarters, something that gathered all the energy in one place to make it easier for its people to grow stronger. They now used it to make the transition of their souls into the dragon much easier… but now it backfired.
Looking up, she saw the cracks in the sky mending, resealing the sub-realm as a whole once more. She had to guide the body back into Meriath so that when her time expired, her soul would more easily transit back into No-Space, and from there, she could return home without issues. The problem was that multiple of her disciples had died just now, and the dragon's energy was not enough to cause real damage once outside. This was turning out to be a disaster…
"What… Who…” She asked herself before letting out a painful roar.
Lia was sliding down on her back with her swords in hand, ignoring the whistling wind as she hacked at the base of the dragon's left wing.
"Come on!" She shouted, giving it her all, and when one of her blades cut into it, her blue flames found their way into the dragon's dead body. Their cold fire spread like a killer virus, freezing the bones and the thin skin on the wing, turning it brittle, coming apart at once.
For Senaita, it was like her soul was being frozen and cut off, bringing extreme pain along with it. She tried to shake off whatever was causing it without success. She started to panic now. The pain was something she did not experience for thousands of years, already forgetting what it felt like to be injured. The coldness spread through her soul, inhabiting the whole body of the dragon, and could be alleviated by only consuming more of her disciples, further weakening the dragon's powers and her time to act or move.
"Come ooooon!" Lia bellowed wildly, and with an almighty pull, she started to slide.
It was as if Azurat's body simply gave up and let her slice through it like a hot knife going into butter. A moment later, she was falling off its back, the whole giant wing severed from its base. Lia barely had time to transform one of her swords into that of a whip and lasso it around the dragon's tail while riding the other as a surfboard, trailing behind it.
The moment Azurat's body lost its ability to fly, it spun uncontrollably and plummeted toward the ground. Senaita barely registered what had happened because the pain was so intense she felt like simply abandoning the dragon's body just to escape it. She was helplessly flailing, trying to stabilize her now enormous body but without any success, and she crash-landed in the outer region, dragging the 'surfing' Lia behind her.
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The Misfits were fighting back the Undead horde, slowly retreating as their numbers were looking… endless. That was when they heard the thunder, the loud crash, and couldn't help but look back, watching one of the towers collapse. A moment later, they saw the dragon rise to the sky and couldn't help but notice a little speck on its back, with a flash of blue as Lia used her swords.
"Is that…" Sion asked, gobsmacked while Aurora was shaking, looking upwards.
"That is… Boss… isn't it?" Keily also gawked, forgetting his exhaustion, standing back to back with Raufon.
"I guess…"
"After her!" Rinzen arrived, surprisingly agitated, carrying Rose on her back. "She is on the dragon!"
It seemed that the painful cries of the monster also had an effect on the horde itself. They turned around, following it, ignoring the Misfits at once. Nobody had to be told twice; the group simply downed some potions and were on their way, hurrying under the giant dragon.
Now that one of the towers had fallen, the energy surrounding the Core Region was also gone, no longer obstructing them. Passing over, they overtook the Undead horde with ease, being the first to see the wing of Azurat being sliced off, crashing into multiple buildings, destroying them. At the same time, the monster landed as a spinning meteor in the Outer Region, releasing another long, painful cry.
"Damn it!" Sion cursed, unable to wipe off the weird smile plastered around his face. "Lia just can't do it simply, can she?"
"If she survives this, I'll kill her myself!" Aurora signed hastily, picking up speed and leading the group from the front.