The clearing in Petal Village turned into a scene of terror the moment Lisa fired. The split-second of hesitation that the name "Halon" caused in the trio of Players was enough to seal their fate.
Lisa, propelled by her Level 12 Spectral Step, became a trail of black and white light that closed the distance between her and the scouts in the blink of an eye.
Stig, the group’s support who maintained the [Synergy Link], didn’t even have time to raise his staff before Lisa had already sunk her claws, wrapped in white [Spiritual Fire], directly into his chest, while Lohan activated the [Mark of Rupture] at the exact moment of impact.
The result was devastating. The crimson mark glowed, and Lisa’s piercing damage instantly doubled, completely ignoring Stig’s armor and vaporizing his chest, sending organs and burnt flesh flying everywhere.
"STIG!" Brant shouted, but his voice was drowned out by the hissing sound of Lohan’s Magic Weaving at that very moment.
Lohan gave Brant no chance to react.
He fired the biological threads that attached themselves to the man’s joints, initiating the passive drain of Mana and Biomass.
As Brant struggled to break free, Lisa spun on her axis and delivered an explosive kick powered by the vitality Lohan was injecting into her.
Brant’s body was hurled against a tree with such force that the plates of his armor shattered like glass while a red liquid seeped through the cracks.
Varkas, the Lizardman who had once prided himself on his Rare Race, was paralyzed by terror.
He saw the "psychopath" Halon smile with white gelatinous teeth as his companions were swept away like trash.
He tried to use the Staff of Blood Desolation to summon one last barrier, but Lohan used Vacuum Detonation the very next instant, catching Varkas off guard and pulling the staff directly into Lisa’s jaws.
"I hope you know how to play without relying on your ’incredible’ rare race, buddy." Lohan’s voice echoed coldly in the Lizardman’s mind. "After all, your friends will still have their Classes, but what about you? What will be left?"
Before the man could process what had been said to him, Lisa leaped upon him, and the fire on her paws shifted from white to a pure golden hue.
Each kick left trails of plasma on the Lizardman’s "rare" scales, which melted like wax under the legendary heat, bringing agonizing pain.
In less than two minutes, the elite trio that considered itself invincible was reduced to smoking carcasses, with Lohan already extending clones toward the corpses to begin Digestion and extract their Evolutions through the Predator title.
xXx
While the massacre of the Players was taking place on the outskirts, the center of the village was witnessing an equally shocking spectacle.
The other fairies, hidden among the petals of the giant flowers and the roots of the Mother Flower, watched Pip and Elle with wide eyes.
The two fairies, now encased in the black, rigid masses of Lohan’s Obsidian Exoskeleton, moved like small flying demons.
Pip dived among the Metal Lizards, using his wings to decapitate the reptiles, while Lohan’s living armor made him immune to the flames of the Fire Lizards.
Elle, hovering like a shadowy sentinel, provided an even better vantage point for Lohan to coordinate his clones while positioning herself close enough for Lohan to shoot webs to control the battlefield, yet still far enough away to avoid injury.
Unlike Pip, who had wings as hard as metal, Elle’s wings were still as fragile as flower petals, and if Lohan were to cover her wings, she would no longer be able to fly.
However, the prejudice of the surviving fairies ran as deep as the roots of the trees.
"Look... Pip and Elle have become monsters!" A fairy whispered in disgust, pointing at the black mass covering the former gardeners. "They’re using the power of that blue Slime... what an ugly, repulsive thing! How can they defile the beauty of Mythlorien with such impurity?"
"They should have come sooner!" Another fairy screamed with irrational rage, ignoring the fact that Pip had been expelled by them. "If Pip is so strong now, why did he let our brothers die first? He’s just flaunting that impure strength to humiliate us!"
Fury and prejudice began to spread among the survivors, with many turning their eyes away from their salvation to focus on the "ugliness" of Lohan’s power, the very power the siblings were using to save their lives.
It was then that a deep voice, heavy with Mana, silenced the murmur.
Basil, the Elder and Chief of Petal Village, struck his ancient wooden staff against the ground, sending a shockwave that silenced the fairies. Unlike the other fairies, he looked at Pip and Elle with a mixture of sadness and deep respect.
"SHUT UP, FOOLS!" Basil roared, his High-Level authority making the fairies’ wings tremble. "You speak of ugliness and impurity while these children are bathed in the blood of the invaders so that you may breathe! You dare to ask why they didn’t come sooner?!"
Basil pointed his staff at Peoni and Pecan, who were prostrate on the ground, and then swept the staff toward all the fairies standing there, hypocritically complaining to them."Pip was driven out of this village by you yourselves! You called him a burden and said his strength was unwanted.
Don’t you see that if he hadn’t found those new companions, he’d be dead by now, and we’d be nothing but ashes under the feet of humans and lizards?! If Pip had been here to protect us from the start, many wouldn’t have died, but it was YOU who cast him into the shadows!"
The silence that followed was heavy.
The fairies who had previously shouted with arrogance and prejudice now bowed their heads, the blush of shame rising across their tiny faces.
But even though they realized the contradiction in their own words and the ingratitude they had shown, they still couldn’t accept that those hideous creatures, though powerful, were just like them.
Pip paused for a second in midair, sensing the shift in the village’s atmosphere. He heard Basil’s words and felt a weight lift from his shoulders.
He was no longer the burden of Petal Village; now he was a General of Astralis Requiem.
Being able to fight in a battle like this was like a dream come true for him, and feeling the power that Halon’s Clone provided made his determination to continue on this path even stronger, so that one day he could wield that power on his own, without even needing Halon’s help to resist this swarm of lizards.
Lohan, through one of his clones near Basil, vibrated with satisfaction.
Even if these fairies didn’t fully accept Pip and Elle’s change, realizing that at least their Leader had a more open mind was enough.
Lisa walked calmly to the center of the village, with Lohan resuming his form as a neon-blue sphere and settling on her back while his clones still devoured the corpses of the three Players.
The glow of the Holy Light began to emanate from Lohan, purifying the air of smoke and the smell of death, leaving only the fragrance of the flowers that were beginning to bloom again in his presence.