[Ouroboros' End]
Darganth sensed the surge of death magic that washed over the battlefield and halted. Hand still outstretched and the half-finished spell flickering between his fingers, he glanced toward the battle below. Seeing the death magic gather around the numerous corpses littering the field, his expression then hardened.
Already familiar with what would follow, Darganth only paid superficial attention to it as the dead of multiple days of fighting rose again. Partially undoing his transformation and no longer limiting himself from using spatial magic, he focused on ending his own fight.
Once he stopped holding back, it took him barely half a second to usurp control over the spell shaping the battlefield. Mixing his mana into the invisible tether that connected the spatial mage and her spell by matching its signature to hers, he then pushed the magical energy flowing from her aside in a show of superior skill and power. Before the smuggler could respond, he was supplying almost all of the mana that sustained the spell, making it as easy as pulling on the tether with a mental tug to surplant her control of it.
Immediately, he set his focus on bringing purpose into the random movements of the spatial distortions. A mental command caused all focus points that emanated from these to halt at once, shortly followed by those stretching space all moving in front of his foes while the others gathered behind them.
With this, it didn't take long for Darganth to reach the two smugglers. To their credit, they were quick to realize the inevitability of this. And yet, when they turned to face him after a quick glance at one another, their eyes shone with determination as they readied themselves to make a last stand, earning them Darganth's respect in their final moments.
Darganth respected this resolve. But such respect wasn't enough to stay his hand, nor did it smother the sting in his pride he felt after having been on the receiving end of what he considered to be his elements. Thus, time magic surged forth with the intent to thoroughly demonstrate that he surpassed both their specialties.
The effect was immediate. Darganth's form blurred as his personal flow of time sped up further than anything the time mage had managed during the fight. Even under the effect of his own magic, the man could only barely start raising his arms by the time Darganth leisurely floated to a stop at his side, clawed hand already only millimeters away from his foe's throat.
Yet instead of striking as the man froze in shock, Darganth pulled back his hand and snapped. At the sound, the spatial mage managed to shake off her surprise. Immediately, her weapons snapped upward and cut toward Darganth, though he was less than impressed with the attempt. Made in pure rage and desperation, no spatial magic rose to aid the strike, making it an easy thing for him to teleport a meter back to dodge.
Then, before she could swing a second time, he raised his hand and fired a blast of raw kinetic energy at he, sending her reeling back half a dozen meters.
"Shouldn't you catch your friend instead?" Darganth asked with a smirk.
For a moment, his opponent looked at him in confusion. When she realized that the time mage wasn't hovering nearby anymore, this turned into panic. Quickly casting a glance downward, she then almost immediately dashed in that direction as she saw her colleague rapidly falling toward the ground.
Above, Darganth let her. Even as he saw her rapidly catch up to the other smuggler, he made no effort to dash after them and just let it happen.
It took about halfway toward the ground for the spatial mage to reach the other smuggler. From far above, Darganth watched as she wound her arms around him, holding him tight before coming to an abrupt stop that saw his legs lurch downward from the sudden shift in speed.
And only then did he act.
"You've fought well, but this is the end. Let Cehlya's realm offer you everything your time among the living didn't." With those whispered words, magic gathered in Darganth's throat before bursting forth as his dragon's breath. The beam cut through the skies as he chased after the two smugglers, descending onto them from above like a column of divine wrath.
The moment Darganth's dragon's breath struck, it was all over. Whether his opponents simply hadn't managed to sense it in time or resigned themselves to their fate, no barriers had risen to stop it. Not that it would've made much difference, as the enchantments on their armor and clothes still flared up to block the attack, only to shatter the moment the combined might of the space and time elements inside the breath attack struck. The smugglers themselves didn't endure any longer than their defenses, their death coming effectively at the same instance the enchantments were shattered as their bodies were erased from existence in a swift and painless manner.
But while his targets had quickly been erased and Darganth had subsequently ended his dragon's breath, its aftershocks swept across the vicinity for seconds longer. Currents of wind rushed toward the area where the beam had annihilated the very air around it while the ground shook around the point where it had struck, with soil collapsing into the tens of meters deep hole left in its wake and dragging dozens of low-ranked soldiers with it.
Amid the disturbance of these aftershocks, Darganth fully undid his transformation. The delay had been purposeful, having felt it appropriate that he end the fight with the two smugglers in at least humanoid guise, even if not the same one he had joined it in.
The shift was swift, though that only added to the chaos his last attack had caused in the vicinity. First, flesh and bones grew from the stump of his still-missing arm, reconstituting it in a fraction of a second and without the mana cost that shifting his transformed body to remove wounds would've incurred. Simultaneously, his entire body grew rapidly while his draconic features became more and more prominent as bones shifted and scales formed across his rapidly darkening skin.
Half a second later, Darganth had returned to his true form and let out a deafening roar. Air rushed downward as he started beating his wings to stay afloat, mixing with the tornado forming around his breath attack's trajectory and sustaining it for a few more seconds before its energy ran out and it faded. In that time, tens of soldiers were picked up by the raging winds, clearing out the area beneath Darganth just in time for him to glide down and gradually descend back toward the battle.
On the way, he swept his gaze across the battlefield to watch the results of Melidra and Cehlya's spell. Smugglers and the town's forces alike had risen all across the front. Crumbled corpses stirred as shambling zombies, with everyone from the mightiest mythic rank to the mana-less foot soldiers being returned as largely equally weak zombies under the control of either woman.
The few exceptions were mythic ranks the two of them deemed useful enough to spend more power on raising so that they retained more of the strength they had in life. However, across the entire front there were at most a dozen such instances, making their impact pale in comparison to the tens of thousands of common soldiers that rose with them.
Panic spread quickly in the face of such a sight. Soldiers jumped back in fright as corpses to their feet suddenly moved, stabbing after them with swords and spears in a blind panic that tore apart formations. Others froze in fear and horror as clearly familiar faces scrambled back onto their feet, their eyes wide open and their hands trembling while they watched their friends rise as undead.
Necromancy was rarely well liked among the general populace of a society, no matter its general view of magic. Even more so than other branches, it was viewed as unnatural and dangerous by mana-less people. Furthermore, unlike most other types of magic, even some mana users had such thoughts about necromancy.
However, unlike the humanoids, the ogres had no such troubles. Whereas around them, formations scattered, they kept on fighting with the same fervor as they had before. Furthermore, their elites also set into motion. While some rushed toward the smugglers' mythic ranks, others slammed into the enemy lines right as the confusion the undead were causing reached its peak, catching the soldiers completely unprepared and tearing through their ranks.
Chief among this second group, Darganth noticed, was the dragon-ogre. Wielding a scythe that was massive even for its enormous form, it tore through entire swaths of soldiers with each swing. Mana users
Usually, this would quickly draw attention from the ritual mages and spell engines, but these were having their own problems. Not only did the undead rise amid the formations, but they also rose on the empty patches of land where the battle had at one point been. In areas where the smugglers had been especially effective, these areas overlapped with the positions to which these sources of heavy firepower had advanced, resulting in them being suddenly surrounded by zombies.
But while their sudden emergence initially hit both armies equally, it didn't take long for the town's forces to realize that the zombies were ignoring them. Even as weapons struck lifeless flesh, the undead among their ranks moved with a single focus, which was to reach the smuggler's forces.
Hesitantly, soldiers stopped swinging their weapons as the realization spread. Yet they also didn't lower them. Instead, they watched with expressions that ranged from disbelief and caution to still open fear or hate as zombie after zombie shambled past them and threw itself into the smuggler's formations.
For their part, the smugglers' foot soldiers were having an even worse time. Unlike how it was for the town's forces, the undead that rose amid their formation immediately started lashing out with whatever they could, whether that was with the weapon the person had wielded when they had died or simply teeth and fingernails.
Even the mythic ranks weren't entirely free of these troubles. Aside from being swamped by hundreds of foes that didn't fear their status and simply threw themselves against them, they also had to contend with the few stronger undead. While weaker than they had been in life, they could endure far more punishment than living beings, making both a significant drain on the smugglers' mana reserves whenever they were caught in a position they couldn't flee from.
By the time Darganth started circling just a few hundred meters above the fighting, this, combined with the ogre tribes reinforcements, had turned the tide of battle. Leading them was the chief, his enormous form set ablaze as he practically toyed with two aura users that tried to stop his charge.
The first one's sword barely scratched the ogre's skin as he drove his weapon forward with all his might. Such a strike, with his entire body weight behind it, left him unbalanced, making him unable to react when the chief then swung the fire construct that served as a replacement for one of his arms. The punch connected with all the physical impact a limb of flesh and blood would've had, sending the smuggler sprawling onto the ground with a blistering burn mark on the side of his face.
A moment later, the other aura user jumped in from behind, slightly stepping to the side to dodge his colleague's falling form before reeling back his spear for a strike. But before he could thrust it forward, the ogre chief's other arm shot out. The flames burning across his arm rushed into his palm with the motion, sending a concentrated beam flying into the attacker's chest before he even reached his target.
However, even the damage this inflicted on the smugglers' forces paled in comparison to what followed just moments after. Before Darganth could actively involve himself in the attack, an oppressive wave of mana washed across the battlefield, its appearance striking fear into the smugglers as its pressure fell onto them.
Luckily for them, relief came soon. A flash of silver deep within the smuggler lines was all the warning Darganth got before a second presence spread across the area. As the mana emanating from it spread, it contested the pressure the smugglers had been facing. It only did so barely, with constant fluctuations as the first mana wave repeatedly drove back the energy coming from the new arrival, but it did largely keep the smugglers protected.
Still, Darganth wasn't worried. Already sensing the approaching presences behind him, he dove forward at the perfect moment to fall into formation when Neandra soared past above him a moment later.
Gliding through the gap in the enemy formation that opened ahead of her, Darganth trailed after her as she headed toward the mage contesting her mana pressure. The moment the first mythic rank gathered enough courage to face her, he overtook Neandra with a burst of speed and intercepted him, leaving her free to face the smuggler group's leader while Darganth and the rest of the group held off any other smugglers.