The Master released his grip on the Grendel's wrist, stepping forward with his right foot while delivering a body blow with his left fist. The Grendel's side burst open like a balloon, the sheer force of the impact sent him flying like a rag doll.
"What the fuck?" Quomar the Vampire said in shock.
Undead had no Life Vision so they had no way to have an exact measure of the strength of their opponent. They relied on their predatory instinct to gauge their enemies and right now, their instinct was warning them.
"How can a human be this strong? I can feel that his mana is off the chart but his mass is unchanged!" He said, and he was wrong.
Vastor had evolved and was no longer a human. The green pillar had nurtured his body during the change, providing him with the nutrients he needed to achieve a mass similar to that of an Emperor Beast.
An Emperor Beast with two cores now partially fused together that released an energy greater than the sum of the single parts.
The bits of the Grendel reassembled themselves while the mana and life force inside of him tried to neutralize the Chaos and failed. The undead burst into black flames that reached his heart and core, turning him into a pile of ashes.
The undead that had kept themselves at a safe distance, targeting the Dominator armor and the Yggdrasill staff while their most powerful members dealt with the old Professor, unleashed a new volley of darkness-based spells.
Their goal was to buy the advanced team time to regroup and recover while also putting pressure on the Master. He could either dodge and let the armor suffer another series of blasts or waste mana to protect the kids.
Either way, the undead would come one step closer to their goal.
Davross was sturdy and could repair itself quickly but with every cycle, it lost durability. Even with its elemental crystals fueling the Dominator armor, it cost the artifact a great deal neutralizing so many tier five spells without letting the kids suffer any harm.
If Vastor took the spells himself, instead, the strain would keep him from using his breathing technique and make him easier prey for the surviving assassins.
Alas, they had no idea how evolved humans worked and failed to grasp the significance of the Master's now-black eye.
As Vastor inhaled, Mogar seemed to slow down. His eye differentiated between the various spells even if they partially overlapped and showed him the focus points where the willpower of their casters was stored.
nulli'I see. This works no differently from arrays.' As a Highmaster, he had plenty of experience dealing with magical formations.
During the past decades, he had no mystical sense like Life Vision so Vastor had developed such keen mana perception that he needed no spell to determine the position of a spell's focus points.
nulli'If I break the power nodes, the spells will collapse but what if I inject my mana and willpower?' With a wave of his hand, he replaced the energy signature of the undead with his own, turning a deadly swarm into a pack of loyal dogs.
The spells phased through the Master and dodged the children. The undead died with a smile on their face, without even the time to understand what had happened.
"Now it's only you and me, scum." Vastor tuned to the three remaining assassins. "Do your worst." n).1n
The Wendigo focused all of his cold aura into his hands, dealing a double palm strike against the Master who didn't even bother defending himself. The Chiropteran lunged at Vastor's heart from behind, filling his claws with spells ready to explode from inside his target's body.
As for Dervalos, he charged both himself and his equipment with Blood Maelstrom before lunging forward with his enchanted spear, Nailbiter.
The Wendigo bounced back, falling butt-first on the ground while the Chiropteran landed with the grace of a bag of bricks over one meter away from Vastor. Nailbiter reached the Master, but its point just pressed against his skin without dealing any damage.
"How does it feel?" Vastor asked as the shocked men around him panted heavily while looking at their pink, trembling hands. "How does it feel being alive after so long?"
Both the Wendigo and the Vampire were back into their human form, covered in sweat as fear turned their hearts into frenzied drums. The Blood Warlock felt the weight of his equipment crushing him, the red bolts fading away.
Undead knew the importance of mass in a fight so they wore heavy equipment suited for much bigger beings. Over time, their natural strength would exceed that of Emperor Beast so they didn't even need to use weight reduction enchantments.
To make matters worse, the energy signature of a blood core was slightly different from that of a mana core. The transformation had jammed the bond between artifacts and owners and the worst part was that the three men couldn't imprint their equipment again.
The artifacts still bore their undead energy signature and their masters were literally alive. With their owner still present and a steady supply of energy, the original imprint remained.
The problem was that the enchanted items failed to recognize their masters and treated them as thieves. It would take just a few minutes for the power cores to adapt to the slight change in the energy signature but none of the former undead believed to have more than a few seconds left.
"How does it feel to be just a human?" A simple backhand slap knocked several teeth off Quomar's mouth, crushed his nose, and twisted his neck enough to break it.
Unfortunately for him, the Master also imbued a healing spell in his hand so that the damage wouldn't be deadly.
"Is it still funny taking on people who can't fight back?" Vastor grabbed the wrist of Phresia the Grendel again, performing a precise series of strikes that shattered every bone from the fingers to the shoulder socket.
Phresia thought it was the worst pain he had ever felt but only until Vastor grabbed the other arm and evened them out.
"Come on, have a good laugh like you did before." The Master spread a frozen aura of his own, letting Resnian the Wendigo experience the same deathly cold that had accompanied his first demise and that of all of his victims.
Resnian's fingers and toes froze and fell off, hot blood pouring out of the stump. The warm life essence dispelled the cold and the numbed limbs experienced the pain of the mutilation.
Vastor kept hitting and healing them, the Chaos destroying as quickly as the Decay healed so that no wound, no matter how deadly, could finish his victims off.
Tezka stared in pride and amazement as the Master deepened his control over his newfound abilities. Decay made grass and flowers sprout from the nutritious blood drops fertilizing the soil, growing them quickly.
The moment the plants reached maturity, Chaos seeped inside of them as well, restoring the elemental balance without a single leaf withering.
"I hope you appreciate my gift." Vastor said. "This is the tier four spell, Full-Course Meal, of my late friend Krishna Manohar."