At this hour, lamentations echoed from both flanks—the harrowing cries of the demons and the broken sobs of the demon hunters behind him. Yet, Seraph had no luxury to offer comfort to the living. He understood with cold clarity that while illusory fel was a formidable power, its nascent form harbored a terminal flaw: a restricted reach that spelled certain death if exploited.
The young man ascended above the canopy, retreating through the void whilst leveling his gaze at the fifty Jackblooms. He did not wait for them to weave their next curse; instead, he unleashed his steel.
"STRIKE!!" Seraph commanded his airborne legion.
[SHOO-BOOM!]
The hundred mageia armaments flared with a vibrant, emerald brilliance, shuddering with an almost sentient exultation as they prepared for the cull. They carved through the air with erratic, predatory celerity—ignoring the humans entirely to seek the orange spectral lights lurking within the malevolent gloom.
[SCREEE-RUMBLE!]
The whistle of the blades slicing the firmament sounded like a roar of absolute dominion. Hundreds of razor-sharp green streaks lanced through the nocturnal woods, creating a series of sonic booms and tremors that rattled the very timber.
Though the Darkwood was choked with ancient trees, the diminutive blades navigated the labyrinthine boughs with uncanny precision. They moved like miniature, sentient war-vessels, each possessing its own mageia eye. They tore through the Jackblooms with violent force, the staccato report of exploding pumpkin-heads echoing incessantly through the forest.
The orange flesh of the pumpkin-entities erupted in a chain of visceral detonations. The forest had been transmuted into a macabre village of gourds, with nearly fifty amber heads bobbing and weaving behind the timber in a desperate bid for sanctuary. The airborne blades found their marks with effortless, predatory joy; the wet thud of exploding fruit echoed through the air, a grim rhythm for those watching from the shadows.
The Jackblooms contorted their leering visages in a paroxysm of fury. They would not meet their end in silence. Abruptly, the pack redirected their illusory fel, seizing dominion over the very trees that sheltered them.
The violent whistle of a lash tore through the firmament. Driven by raw instinct, Seraph banked mid-air, a massive bough whistling past his face—missing his brow by a mere hair's breadth.
[Thwack!]
A bone-jarring impact shuddered through his entire frame. His spine was struck with savage force; he knew instantly he had been lashed by a thick branch or some unseen terrestrial whip.
Seraph was sent spiralling through the void, his body spinning out of control as if struck by a falling monolith. The emerald aura enveloping him flickered, struggling to maintain its cohesion. It was a stroke of fortune that his passive aura had mitigated the brunt of the blow; for a low-ranking empowerment, the fact he remained among the living was a testament to the staggering efficacy of his mageia.
A searing, white-hot agony radiated across his back as if his very spine had been shattered. Casting a harried glance over his shoulder, he witnessed dozens of Greatwood trees surging with malevolent life. They had been transmuted into demonic timber, flailing their limbs with senseless violence—in a single heartbeat, they had batted several of his hovering blades out of the sky.
Beneath the canopy of these frenzied trees, the pumpkin-heads drifted. The wood made no attempt to harm the Jackblooms; instead, it guarded them like precious kin. This was the grim truth: these were no sentient Treants, but mere puppets. They were common timber, possessed and manipulated by the sinister power of the Jackblooms' curse.
"This is... ill-fated," Seraph grunted, his voice trembling with a symphony of agony.
The Raffblooms allowed no reprieve. Through the desiccated boughs, the Nightshade assassins moved as a single, coalesced shadow, leaping with predatory grace. Their razor-leaves were levelled at his heart and every vital node with chilling precision. In a heartbeat, nearly seventy dark silhouettes propelled themselves from the branches, converging upon the ensnared human as their solitary mark of execution.
"Flamus Nova!"
The young magis roared, his incantation thundering through the timber.
[Fwoooo—!]
A kinetic ring of fire detonated from his core. Blackened assassin-shrouds were hurled backward, ignited by the searing mageia. Even as they were reduced to ash, the Nightshades remained eerily silent, departing the world in a mute, scorched passing.
Yet, the Flamus Nova lacked its former sanctity. Many had already witnessed the solar-fury of the man before them; they had learned the price of hesitation. By shielding themselves behind common Raffblooms, more than half of the assassins endured the conflagration. With blistering celerity, the survivors lunged—four-bladed leaves poised to skewer their quarry, eyes reflecting a manic, predatory exultation.
"Flamus Multitelus!"
Seraph unleashed the spell with unrestrained violence.
[Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!]
Hundreds of mageia-bolts commenced a relentless barrage around his frame. The staccato report of the volley echoed like the peak of total war. Crimson streaks of power struck the assassins without mercy, piercing their skulls with clinical finality. Their brains exploded into a slurry of murky green viscera, raining down into the toxic sloughs below.
Sensing the collapse of their stratagem, a fraction of the host attempted a harried retreat. The Jackblooms sought to drift stealthily from the theatre of battle, while the remaining Nightshades vanished into the shadows. Yet, reality offered them no such mercy. Against the seventy-odd assassins, the nearly one hundred fiery projectiles still orbiting the young man were more than sufficient to dictate their end.
Seraph paused, withholding the final discharge of his orbiting mageia-bolts. He maintained them in a defensive shroud, a bristling celestial ring poised to retaliate should any remaining Raffbloom dare another lunge. As for the retreating swarm, the young magis directed his airborne legion of blades to continue their aggressive cull.
Throughout the 'Month of Hell', Seraph had endured countless skirmishes against the floral host, refining his lethality across close, mid, and long-range engagement. Upon cold analysis of the carnage, he had discerned a critical vulnerability: the majority of the Blood Floras were utterly inept at defending against close-quarters steel!
The Raffblooms possessed fragile physiologies, ill-suited to withstand the bite of a blade or the impact of a forged armament. True, they were susceptible to the pyre, yet they were not vacuous; having faced his solar-fury repeatedly, they had begun to intuit methods to evade his total incinerations.
However, should Seraph employ close-quarters strikes, he could execute his judgment with such finality that none could slip the noose—particularly when weaving his martial prowess with empowering mageia.
This was the rationale behind his command of the flying knives. Not only did these weapon-manipulation spells demand a negligible toll on his mana, but they also permitted him to layer offensive enchantments upon the steel to heighten their lethality.
"Flamus Enchant!" Seraph incanted, the resonance of the spell causing the very metal to thrum with power.
[Whoom!]
In a heartbeat, a crimson-red aura ignited upon every blade within the tempest. It was as if the souls of the armaments were uttering a collective roar from some distant void—the lingering spirits of their former owners, who had been butchered by the Raffblooms, now rose in a chorus of vengeance. The knives and shortswords darted and weaved with predatory intent, dispersing to strike their foes with incandescent, searing precision.