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He used his hidden spectral spiders to keep a visual on the battle from multiple angles. He’d even had spiders watching his and Ezda’s backside.

Yes, he had Ezda to his rear, whose presence was powerful. But he’d kept some eyes on watch back there as an extra layer of observational defense.

You could never be too careful as a running-and-gunning wizard with a dooms-day power inside his soul.

Meanwhile, he used Identify while practicing subtlety through his spectral spiders, so that none of the kobolds would feel the trait happening to them during the initial rush of combat. This was something he’d worked on for a while.

He had a good idea of what he was facing the instant they began their onrush and blasting efforts. The rumors about the kobolds being significantly stronger than before bore some truth.

<Kobold, Wolf Dragon Enforcer, Level 63 Dragonized Wrecker, Best Alpha Skill: Draconic Hammer Blow.>

<Kobold, Wolf Dragon Enforcer, Level 62 Dragonized Rusher, Best Alpha Skill: Wolf Dragon Physiology.>

<Kobold, Wolf Dragon Enforcer, Level 62 Dragonized Elementalist, Best Alpha Skill: Howl of the Wolf Dragon Wind.>

<Kobold, Wolf Dragon Enforcer, Level 66 Dragonized Dragoon, Best Alpha Skill: Lesser Dragon-Blessed Spear Mastery.>

<Kobold, Wolf Dragon Enforcer, Level 67 Dragonized Wizard, Best Alpha Skill: Grimoire of Wolf Dragon Magic.>

<Kobold, Wolf Dragon Enforcer, Level 70 Dragonized Assassin, Best Alpha Skill: Dragon Death Blow.>

Immediately, Zarian noted how the strongest of the three dozen kobolds were part of a tribe or group called Wolf Dragon Enforcers. There were six of those.

The others were much weaker and part of the normal Wolf Dragon Idolizers’ tribe, the ones Zarian and his people had crushed during the first sieges of the Mythical Regional Event.

That could only mean Zarian’s people were facing a new element in the delayed event. The wolf dragons had called in new kobolds, and the kobold enforcers looked fiercer and more competent than the kobold idolizers.

Before Zarian could focus on more nuances, he had an onrush of twenty kobold idolizers rushing him.

They were in the low Level 50s and high Level 40s. Their classes seemed of lower quality compared to the enforcers.

Some kobold idolizers were called Wild Burners and used fire-based skills infused with their rusted weapons and gear. Others were more like the wolf dragons, such as the kobolds with the Wolf Chaser class, and could run across the snow with some blurring speed.

The fastest Wolf Chasers led the rest of the advancing pack. The slower ones, such as the Elemental Shamans, cast magical abilities that shot at Zarian’s position.

Wind torrents that could rip away flesh blew apart every branch in its way.

Ice shards grew into javelins that were as long as humans were tall and shot in volleys that could cut down a platoon of men.

The air buzzed, crackled, and clapped with whips of lightning that lashed forward over the heads of the advancing kobolds.

All of it flew at Zarian.

Yet, he didn’t dodge any of the ranged attacks from the kobold idolizers. There was no need. Because as Para cast her spells, she revealed why the Thematic Law/Floridian Mindset was overpowered on her.

Para combined a few of myriad hands and arms into multiple bone-plated shields. She deflected the wind torrents, absorbing their power and sending roaring streams breaking off at an angle into the air.

She combined more of her myriad hands and arms into propeller blades and spun them around at high speeds no matter how much she had to twist her strands around. She chopped through the ice spears and sent their fragments flinging off to the side.

Then she formed up giant hands with rubbery flesh and caught the chained lightning bolts with her bare palms and long fingers. She’d formed long bone spikes, punctured them into the icy ground, and sent the excess lightning magic down into the earth.

This was all while the spectral spiders’ traps were going off as Para finished forming the Quagmire Pit spell.

While Para had practiced her mystical side as an intelligent Parasite Cloak +2, the spectral spiders had learned to make more advanced use of their arcane webbing. Apparently, the arcane webbing wasn’t magical for the sake of catching people and ensnaring targets.

The webbing was a catalyst for the spiders to do magic.

The spiders were little wizards and enchanters!

Zarian wouldn’t have known that if Hannah hadn’t asked to study their webbing.

Once she’d realized the truth, she taught the spectral spiders enchantments. Once that was established, well, the spectral spiders’ potential shot up immensely.

Hence the dozens of landmine webs the spectral spiders buried under a light layer of slow. The fastest kobold idolizers ran over those and blew themselves up.

The thunderous eruptions echoed off the slopes leading into the basin the kobolds had camped in. The booming retorts sounded louder than usual in the winter wonderland landscape.

Screaming kobolds twisted about in the air with mangled legs or everything missing below their hips.

The kobold idolizers hadn’t gotten much smarter even after the seventh landmine blew up. Others kept barreling forward into the arcane minefield.

One of the Wolf Dragon Enforcers, the Dragonized Elementalist, shouted out his skill: “Howl of the Wolf Dragon Wind!”

A powerful and fast wind swept around the battlefield like a running wolf dragon. The wind moved smartly to avoid the kobolds and bulldozed over the snow where the spiders had laid their explosive arcane webbing.

More explosions went off like the loudest Fourth of July, clearing the way for the kobolds idolizers rushing at Zarian.

Except for when they ran into the infernal Quagmire Pit, which Para had laid down ahead of the spider minefield. The kobolds’ advance came to a complete halt then and there.

Para had done a good job of transmigrating the ground at the last second. She caught twelve of them before the others stopped. Then she moved onto the next sequence of the folktale combo.

“Dread Mire Bite,” Para chanted.

As kobolds tried to scramble free of the Quagmire Pit and its infernal flames, an invisible predator rushed up with jaws spread wide. The massive teeth snapped shut.

Flaming ooze of the quagmire, body parts, and streams of crimson rained down on the remaining kobold idolizers that had stopped before the pit. The kobolds screamed and pointed up at the bloody mayhem, many scrambling back in fear.

The Wolf Dragon Enforcers saw enough.

The Dragonized Wrecker, Dragonized Rusher, Dragonized Dragoon, and Dragonized Assassin rushed forward. The Dragonized Elementalist and Dragonized Wizard stayed back.

The kobold enforcers moved faster and with more coordination, but they fell into another of Para’s trap as easily as the kobold idolizers. They placed themselves within range of the next folktale combo spell.

“Dread Mire Bellow,” Para chanted.

The invisible and bloody jaws shifted. They became more corporeal, more tangible and real.

Spots of hell-hardened scales appeared amid the blood and infernal sludge of the pit. The jaws opened again, but not to strip flesh away nor snap apart bones.

Instead, an enormous roar blasted out from the jaws of the great pit predator.

The roar rolled out as both a traumatic noise and a solidified force wave that sent the still-standing kobold idolizers flying back. Blood spewed out from their throats, from their eyes, and from their ears.

The bellow was so powerful some kobold idolizers died outright. A few others tossed and turned, suffering in the torn-up snow.

The kobold enforcers handled the bellow better, but they weren’t free from its effects. They rolled with the shockwave and slowed their approach to deal with the traumatic aftereffects.

Worse yet, at least for the kobolds, the trauma intensified the power of Zarian’s Uncanny Valley Effect trait, which made him shiftier, more monstrous, more frightening to their perception.

Even if they had better training, abilities, and equipment than the usual kobolds, the enforcers became more hesitant to engage him in combat for a little while longer.

The only ones who had a shot were the Dragonized Elementalist and the Dragonized Wizard. But as they prepared their mightiest abilities, Zarian finally finished all the warm-up drills he’d promised to do before using his Twenty Dark Locks Sealing Style for real.

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His heart was hammering.

The memories of his long voyage eating worlds, gods, and universes lurked in the back of his head. The apocalyptic monster that dwelled in his soul waited for its chance to break free and devour everything once again.

I won’t let you win again. I will control you.

“Overwhelming Darkness: Twenty Dark Locks Sealing Style Technique,” Zarian chanted, his voice resounding with grand power.

He motioned his hands carefully up to his face and down to his chest, his fingers forming particular arcane signs, every motion specifically crafted, every gesture a part of the sealing style to guide his apocalyptic power.

The atmosphere darkened. The sky darkened. The surrounding forest and demolished battlegrounds in the basin lost whatever white luster it had prior.

“We must stop him!” the Dragonized Assassin shouted.

“For the Wolf Dragons and Evil God The Dragon!” the Dragonized Wrecker roared, breaking free from the traumatic debuff.

A roaring power burst free from the wrecker’s body. It wasn’t Aura Ignition, but it was an ability that gave an almost similar, if subpar, effect.

He was covered in energetic brown embers that buffed him up, straining the oiled scale armor and pelts he wore. He raised his twin maul hammers and moved at breakneck speed to cross the distance to Zarian.

In the meantime, the Dragonized Elementalist finished charging a wind cannon-style blast. The attack came out as a powerful torrent that ripped stone trees from the roots and knocked down stone walls in their way.

Snow split apart from under the torrent’s passing in crashing waves. The wind torrent moved with so much power it even dug a furrow into the ground without touching the earth directly.

Meanwhile, the Dragonized Wizard used a spell that raised the spiritual maws of the wolf dragons themselves, or what looked like them. The maws were massive, easily able to snap up a squad of men with a bite each.

They appeared from each side of Zarian and Para with their large teeth already clamping down, aiming to rip the wizard and his cloak apart. A move like that would’ve caught most dueling wizards blind, since the Dragonized Wizard had cast it from a distance.

Most wizards didn’t have a spell-slinging cloak.

Para chanted, “Void Step,” as she formed spider legs to pluck Zarian out of the danger zone.

The wrinkling air was all that remained of them in their prior position.

The giant wolf dragon maws tore up the top of the slope leading into the basin. The super wind cannon hit with a ground rumbling roar that sheared away nearby trees, stoned walls, hedges, and cobbled steps.

A second after that, the Dragonized Wrecker struck down blindly with another meteoric impact that shook the slope even further and sent more debris and stone blocks tumbling down.

Snow fell in huge dumps from the top of still-standing trees. The impact crater was nearly twenty feet deep and fifty wide.

They had nothing to show for their effort, however.

They hadn’t even harmed Ezda.

The Level 91 Blood Brute stood up from the earthy and soggy rubble. A crimson glow shone through her fur, radiating from under her flesh.

She spat some soggy, cold mud from her mouth, shook like a dog to rid more muck from her fur, then she hopped straight into the air with a powerful lunge.

“Where did he go?!” the Dragonized Wrecker shouted, ignoring Ezda in favor of finding the wizard. “We must kill the source of the Darkrun Apocalypse and claim glory for The Dragon!”

“Wizard, search for him with your magic!” the Dragonized Assassin shouted.

The Dragonized Wizard couldn’t respond. Nor could the Dragonized Elementalist.

Zarian and Para now occupied their spot, both kobold enforcers of the mystical arts gone. Para had eaten them when she’d appeared behind them with Void Step, catching them unaware.

Some of her mouths that were formed on thick, leathery tendrils were still munching on their flesh and bones. Now that Para was more mystical and willful, she could better enjoy the taste of others who were magical or intelligent.

She seemed to have liked the wizard the most. She was still chewing on his brains.

Meanwhile, Zarian continued with his long-as-hell technique. His voice resounded with even more volume. His hand gestures remained slow but purposeful.

The edges of the gauntlets vibrated. Dark light beamed from the gaps. The twenty small cubes inside the vambraces pushed up from their locking mechanisms. There were twenty in all. Ten on each gauntlet.

“Unlock Dark Lock One. The Worm Lurks Buried Deep Under Fabled Myth. One Percent Power Unsealed.”

The Dragonized Rusher was the first to reach him at long last. The trauma from the Dread Mire Bellow was gone. The hesitation was gone.

The rusher had a shifting power that turned the nearly human-size kobold into a scaly beast akin to a wolf dragon, but one the size of a bear. Ferocious jaws that could bite through metal bore down on Zarian’s head.

Para stopped playing wizard and became a brawler.

A bone-plated leather fist the size of a bear’s head smashed into the rusher’s jaw with a hard crack. Para knocked the rusher’s transformed body aside and sent it crashing with ground-rumbling force.

Then she swung around a parasitic bone shield and deflected several death-touched knives aimed at Zarian’s chest, throat, and mouth. The touch of death magic went straight for life energy with no regard to Zarian and Para’s vitality.

Para quivered with anger. She wanted to get to the assassin personally.

She turned her attention to lashing away the transformed rusher as Zarian finished the last piece with a final gesture and phrase.

“Dark bolt.”

The mini cubes inside the vambraces moved up and down rapidly. Once they stopped, and Zarian remained alive with the Overwhelming Darkness still under control, he was finally ready.

Para peeled back her many limbs.

The rusher lunged again with jaws spread wide.

Zarian pointed his palm loosely and shot his first Dark Bolt in four months.

The rusher disappeared into far-flung bits of flesh, bone, and droplets of blood that hadn’t outright disintegrated.

The nearest tree tops turned into fine splinters and water particles rushing into the air in the direction the dark bolt had flown.

The nearest snow blew away in rushing waves that blinded the other kobold enforcers while clearing the ground surrounding Zarian.

The noise and confusion for the kobold enforcers were nearly too much for them. They hadn’t even comprehended the death of their comrade.

Zarian had plenty of time to prepare his next move, which was much faster than the initial sequence.

He still had to make some hand gestures while chanting, “One Percent Power Unsealed. Nodachi.”

The little cubes on the gauntlets moved up and down again to fulfill his order. Then Zarian formed his familiar nodachi, a seven-foot blade of curved darkness.

He hadn’t grown any taller. But fighting like a mundane human worked best for mundane humans.

Fighting like a Level 72 Madness Wizard with a Parasite Cloak +2 worked best for him, hence the outrageously long sword.

Zarian launched at the remaining three kobolds with a powerful jump, leaving a crater beneath him.

His cloak flapped like thunder, shifting into many forms, all horrifying or dangerous. She still kept hold of his grimoires, ready to cast any spell from their pages.

The Wolf Dragon Enforcers did the dumbest thing when they saw him falling through the cover of snow. They faced him head on.

Zarian chopped his nodachi down on the Dragonized Wrecker. He split through both maul hammers. He split the metal helmet on the furry and scaly head of the kobold.

He carved straight through like cutting air and exited out the groin between the legs. Then the nodachi slammed into the ground with an eruptive force that sent the Dragonized Assassin and Dragonized Dragoon flying off their feet.

“Bloody Lifesteal,” Para chanted, wasting no time to whip her bone-tipped tendrils toward the assassin.

The kobold was slick, tumbling away quickly with supernatural grace, but the Madness Wizard was slicker. Or, more importantly, his summonings were.

The classical arcane webbing appeared behind the assassin and slowed his escape. A group of nearby spectral spiders danced in celebration of their cleverly placed trap.

Para’s tendrils caught the assassin. Her bone hooks and quills dug deep into the flesh, refusing to let go. The crimson glow and magic of Bloody Lifesteal went into effect.

The kobold enforcer shouted in desperation and hacked at the tendrils with his death-dealing knives. He couldn’t cut through fast enough.

Para drained his life through his blood, negating most of his death magic. More importantly, Zarian had the Divine Revival Charm nestled in his soul, so the death magic was even less effective on him.

Still, Para didn’t like it and made it known. She sucked the assassin dry and added to Zarian’s life energy.

As Para finished the assassin, Zarian faced the dragoon. He was the last of the enforcers. There were still some kobold idolizers, but they were heavily incapacitated after the Dread Mire Bellow.

Most kobolds would’ve attempted to run. But the dragoon, who was an inch taller than even Zarian, held his ground and spun around his bronze spear.

The weapon gleamed brightly under the wintery light. It had a metallic polish that was certainly magical. It was probably a highly enchanted weapon.

Zarian figured it was rare in quality for sure.

“Nice spear,” Zarian said.

The Dragonized Dragoon snarled. “I will kill you with my Treasured Bronze Spear. Your death will be in honor of the wolf dragons and Evil God The Dragon!”

“You do know killing me will unleash another Darkrun Apocalypse?” Zarian asked.

The kobold enforcer hesitated. Then he snarled again. “You lie?! If that was true, then you wouldn’t risk your life in a fight. Unless you’re hiding the truth of your power!”

“Risking it is part of me controlling it. Then again, I bet there are cults who want another Darkrun Apocalypse. The types who enjoy the tragedy of it all. My wife’s one of those types, unfortunately.”

Zarian didn’t know why he was explaining all this to an enemy. But it was interesting to get the kobold’s perspective.

The kobold enforcer was just another pawn thrown into a game he didn’t know had very breakable boundaries.

Could the scaly and furry guy think beyond his day-to-day dogma in this situation?

For a second, it seemed like the kobold was trying to think about what Zarian had said. Zarian recognized sparks of critical thinking in the Dragonized Dragoon’s eyes.

Then those sparks went away like snuffed embers. The enforcer buckled down and pointed his long bronze spear at Zarian with more deadly intent.

The dragoon seemed to hone his focus and prepare to strike with his alpha skill and his blessed bronze spear. He’d probably spent years training with the spear while Zarian was mostly out of practice with his giant sword fighting techniques.

The Madness Wizard threw his whole sword to the floor at the dragoon’s feet. The dense sword hit with massive force and erupted.

The ground exploded apart. The nearest trees ripped free from their roots and flung into the air. A thunderous roar resounded for miles and miles across the winter wonderland.

Most of the blast was focused forward and away from Zarian. He stood mostly unaffected except for having to ride out the aftershocks.

Once everything settled down, Zarian found the kobold enforcer scrambling free from some rubble with both of his legs gone. The enforcer looked like he’d gotten chewed up and spat out by his own wolf dragons. He had done a decent job moving at the last second to avoid the full deadliness of the explosion.

“You do have a point. I can’t take as many risks as I used to,” Zarian said. “I have to keep living. I must win against my Overwhelming Darkness for myself and for everyone else. So … I’m going to fight dirtier, meaner, and more ruthlessly than ever before, while not trying to cheat too much.”

The kobold enforcer coughed up blood before looking into the sky. “Father of wolf dragons. Father of all dragons! Hear my plea! Awaken from your slumber! Take us to your treasured horde by claw or fang. And eat the one who holds the power of the Darkrun Apocalypse. Take the power for yourself, Evil God The Dragon!”

Zarian waited to see if Evil God The Dragon would respond or do anything.

Nothing happened.

Zarian continued the execution with hand gestures and a chant: “One Percent Power Unsealed. Dark Bead.”

The mini cubes moved up and down in another enchanted sequence in response to his request. Then Zarian had a tiny bead of darkness in his gauntlet-clad palm. He aimed and shot it through the kobold’s head.

The skull, neck, and upper torso disintegrated. The impact tossed up a ton of rock, stone, dirt, and snow. Then the forest became still again after the explosive echoes faded away.

Para whipped out some tendrils and killed the weakling kobolds that remained.

The battle ended with that, a total victory and some notifications.

More importantly, Zarian hadn’t failed outright.

His Twenty Dark Locks Sealing Style worked. At least for now.