[Bonus chapter for 500 golden tickets :)]
King Acacia rushed through the skies. He had been forced to leave his wife before, mostly because of her insistence. If he had to divert his own power away to protect her from the harsh conditions, he would slow down drastically. As such, this really was the only choice.
It would take him hours to reach Earth and he didn't know how much of an impact he could have after being gone so long, but he had to try it!
**
Arena City had fallen into complete chaos. The red crystal organisms latched onto any lifeforms that dared to get close, and it seemed as though the Ragnors were the only ones with counters to this.
The original Ipsum formation had targeted the dead because they knew that those without will couldn't resist the pull of the red crystals. As such, it would take next to no energy at all to implant them.
However, as soon as that initial implant occurred, the red crystals would automatically have something to feed off of and grow stronger, which would allow them to gain enough power to start effecting living beings. This was why the Ipsums had waited until enough people had died from battle first. If too few had, and the Pakal managed to quarantine them or directly kill them off, none of this would have worked!
The ten Ipsum elders who had stirred all of this chaos were nowhere to be found. After activating such a savage formation, they were completely drained. If they used any more power, their own red crystal will would begin to devour even them. This let all one needed to know about how savage this artificial will was.
The Pakals were completely helpless. As body cultivators, they honed their battle prowess. Hardly any of them had counters to such a thing.
Unsurprisingly, the Ipsums were created as a unit perfectly tailored to countering the Pakals in war. Because of their robust bloodlines, they were the perfect targets for such a hungry will and were obviously the preferred targets.
It was a losing battle. The more powerful one's bloodline, the more fuel the red crystals would have to devour you. You would need exponential increases in will mastery and power in order to hold it off. And even then, it would be for but a moment!
However, in this war, the Pakals were not alone. Although the Belmonts were incapacitated because a large majority of them had remained in the Belmont Holy Land as a precaution, the Pakals still had the Elves. The only problem was that due to the alliances that Loki had formed, many of the elves were occupied and couldn't be organized quickly. Nor did the armies have the same communication measures Dyon's armies did.
Because of this, it took much too long for the Elves to see the spreading epidemic, leaving time for the red crystals to grow stronger and stronger. They even showed signs of wanting to combine into larger and larger entities! The sea of red on the battle field was growing larger and larger, and yet it wasn't blood at all!
Grand elder Cormyth's voice boomed over the battle field, "Aedre, Sigebryht, Ingram!"
The elves of those three families immediately realized that something big was happening. It was very rare for Grand elders to give out battle instructions and calling out three families at once was even rarer, but it was clear that this was needed.
There were very few capable of ordering the Elves in mass, but luckily the Elves had three grand elders who were capable of holding such authority. Their King and Queen were gone, and their eldest stateman, Grand elder Deryth was fighting with the other celestials, this left military decisions up to Grand Elder Cormyth and Kroak.
Grand Elder Cormyth had been the first to notice the problem among the Elvin highest officials and he automatically commanded for the most apt responders.
The Aedre were water will specialists. The Ingrams were light will specialists. And the Sigebryht were Seal specialists. Although Grand elder Cormyth had no way of knowing if this would be effective against the plague he was witnessing, he knew that the healing and control abilities of these main families far surpassed that of any other family and had to be relied upon.
As a poison master, how could he not tell just how potent this red crystal will was? In fact, describing it as a poison was probably the most appropriate comparison.
The three main families made their move, breaking away from their battle as best as they could.
Swarms of sub family members rushed in to take their place. There was no question that the elves were undermanned. They were already a race with a low birth rate, so this was to be expected. Despite the fact they had the most families under their rule as a God Clan, they were still among the smallest in number. But, that didn't stop them from still being among the most powerful.
Endless red seals appeared in the air as numerous grey skinned Sigebryhts flew into the air above the chaos.
Their eyes flashed as beads of sweat poured from them, attempting to configure their seals to properly stop the flow of this odd will. However… Their manifestations were completely incapable of doing so!
In order to seal something away, unless you had access to The Seal itself, you needed a level of understanding just what you were sealing. This hurdle can be jumped over by having more sealers active to share the burden, or by having a stronger seal legacy that could make up for your deficiencies. But, this will was something they had simply never seen before!
Unlike the instance at the gate where the essence gathering Sigebryhts sealed away the death qi, this red crystal will wasn't tempered to a level that was capable of being withstood. The death qi at Lotus Tower was meant to be part of a game for mere essence gathering experts. As such, it was comparatively easier to seal as compared to true death qi. But this situation wasn't so friendly…
The red crystals wanted to devour everything…
