A split-second before impact.
The two deities were now just a mere dozen meters away from each other.The black dragon that had its snout pointed to the ground in a nose dive looked straight into the luminescent sea-green eyes of the leviathan with its own luminescent indigo ones.
‘Mimicry - Lich!’
The great beast the dragon had been practically nose-to-nose with vanished. If the eyes of the dragon were not so keen, it would have missed the significantly smaller figure with billowing black robes that the leviathan had transformed into.
The purple eyes narrowed. The dragon was able to connect the dots in its mind to understand that this transformation was a form of ‘running away’. It also perceived the presence of the annoying puppeteer posed to interfere at an ideal time watching their battle from a distance.
For quite a while now, their schemes had been grating on the nerves of the proud dragon. The centuries of knowledge within the adult black dragon allowed it to read the influence on fate from mana to vaguely gauge their combat prowess. Both were beings capable of granting the dragon a grand battle with which it could prove its strength, but both of these beings resorted to schemes in their battle against it. Schemes that insulted the pride of the dragon.
Schemes were for the weak! For beings that the dragon had acknowledged to act in this manner was a source of great uncomfort to it. It was even worse that the two were fighting together against itself, almost as if proclaiming a refusal to grant the dragon an opportunity to prove its strength in straightforward combat. At least, that was how it looked like for the dragon.
How dare they!
‘Demiplane - Sanctuary of the Strong!’
Mana trembled, and a dome formed. The size of it was an area that could have covered an entire city.
It made the isolation barrier around the battle fought by the mages against the archlich look like a mere tennis ball in comparison, but in terms of appearance from the outside, was incredibly similar.
Unlike the isolation barrier though, the world within the barrier was not dyed in red. Instead, the darkness of the night outside was chased away and was filled with the brightness of day. Yet, there was no clear source of light. It was as if light had simply been trapped within the barrier, as if light was banned from 'running away'.
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The trembling mana affected an expansive area outside the barrier, but within, the mana was as calm as it could be.
Noah did not have time to admire or wonder what the bizarre barrier that had manifested itself around him and the dragon was. Though he was in his physically invulnerable lich form, a sense of danger struck him like a thousand pins and needles all over his body as he looked at the dragon that was mere moments away from shattering the ground. He did not hesitate to wonder why, and immediately changed into a versatile form that prioritized agility.
‘Mimicry - Half-Loki: Imp x 1, Vampire x 1, Slime x 1!’
Loki, the Norse god of mischief.
Loki was a form specialized in escape he had devised to revolve around the concept of cloning. By using the ability of the slimes to create ten smaller copies per slime, he could create ten clones of himself. Even if nine bodies were struck down, as long as any one remained, he would live. With each body armed with the small build and agility of the goblin-like imp along with the blood abilities of the vampire, he would become an unkillable cockroach to hunters.
With a Half-Loki form, he sought to maintain the core abilities of Loki while conserving mana.
If physical damage nullification through the lich form was impossible, he would simply tank the damage with clones!
The transformation of Noah from leviathan to lich to Half-Loki happened in just a split second.
Just enough time for the dragon to meteor into the ground.
The spherical barrier that had sprung into existence around them forcefully restrained and reflected the full force of the impact within the barrier. Half of the barrier was underground. This was the reason why the crash of the dragon caused the earth to splinter in the way that it did.
A hundred, no, a thousand, no, a million pieces! The earth broke into eight large slices at first, then those large fragments of earth divided further as cracks appeared all over the shattered land. With the barrier being the size as it was, an average human eye would not be able to see the barrier above them from the center of it. It would look like the earth shattered again and again with just that one impact, as far as their eye could see.
The entire mass of earth, the size of a city, had been reduced to mere boulders and dust. These boulders and various rock-masses did not fall back down as one would expect. Much to Noah's bewilderment, the shattered terrain, under the effects of the barrier that forbade the escape of energy to the outside world, floated. The assortment of land having shattered and splashed when the dragon hit the ground coupled with the rocks that did not lose any height by staying suspended appeared like an asteroid field.
Embroiled within the chaos of the splintering earth, the bodies of Noah had been tossed and thrown around. Some bodies had been crushed, some torn apart.
Of Noah’s ten bodies, a mere four remained.
At the epicenter of the chaos, the proud dragon raised its head, reaching three-quarters of the height of the barrier, and roared. Every molecule of air, rock and dust in the sanctuary trembled under the might of the apex species.
Act III.