Chapter 1037: Phantasmal Echo
"Of course," Orion continued, his voice devoid of warmth, "I will not force the Wood Elves to stay. With a great battle imminent, you are free to leave The Stillness. We will not hold you against your will."
This was, unmistakably, a test.
As more Wood Elf refugees had been rescued, dissenting voices had begun to emerge. The proof was right here in the room. Of the four representatives—Aerin, Xylia, Angel, and the newcomer, Lyra—the reactions were starkly different.
Aerin and Xylia’s expressions were grim, but their resolve was unshaken. Angel looked lost, her gaze darting to Xylia for guidance like a rudderless ship in a storm. But Lyra was a different story. The moment Orion mentioned the coming demonic horde, a thick, suffocating dread washed over her face. Her eyes shifted nervously; she was already planning her escape.
"But remember this," Orion added, his gaze sweeping over them, his voice dropping to a cold, hard edge. "Once you walk out of The Stillness, you can never return. Traitors do not deserve peace."
He let the threat hang in the air.
"As of now, all Plague-thralls, Shield Warriors, and Wood Elves are recalled to defend the camp. We are preparing for a siege. Anyone who disobeys this command will be considered a deserter, and I will cast them out myself."
Issuing such a harsh ultimatum right before a battle was a surefire way to undermine morale. But Orion knew it was only the Wood Elves’ morale at risk. Tangere and Caesar hadn’t come here to hide; they were invaders, here for the spoils of war. A good fight was what they had signed up for.
After a long, tense silence, Aerin was the first to speak. "My lord, the Wood Elf race will follow you. We will not betray you." She had made her choice. Her time in the camp had not been fruitless; she had personally gathered a following of two or three hundred elves. Even if Xylia, Angel, and Lyra left with the majority, she could form her own branch and preserve a fragment of her people’s legacy.
Her decision was built on an unshakable faith in Orion’s power. In the absolute worst-case scenario, if The Stillness were to fall, she believed Orion had the means to escape with her and her followers to another world. They would lose everything, becoming utterly dependent on him with no power to negotiate, but it was still better than total extinction.
"My lord," Xylia said, her voice firm, "I will not abandon you, nor will I leave The Stillness."
"My lord, me too!" Angel added immediately. Where Xylia went, she followed. Her captain was the only leader she trusted.
"I... I will too," Lyra finally stammered. Her voice was a bare whisper, her expression a mask of indecision. The words sounded as if they had been forced from her lips.
"Very well. Plans change," Orion said, dismissing them with a wave. "Go and prepare for battle."
He didn’t really care about their pledges. The only Wood Elves he would trust were the ones still standing inside the camp after the siege was over. Right now, words were cheap. The real test was yet to come.
In the Godforsaken Land, the carnage was unrelenting. For the Gnasher Race, this was their territory, their home. To defend it, to uphold their faith and repel invaders, was a sacred duty for which they would gladly give their lives. Even as the tide of the undead armies swelled, they did not yield a single step.
Conversely, the combined invasion of the sand scorpions and undead armies was the absolute expression of Orion’s and Arthas’s will. The enemy fought to defend their home; they fought to expand their own. It was a clash of irreconcilable beliefs, two colossal beasts of ideology tearing at each other on the field of battle.
And high above, the masters of those beasts were locked in their own life-or-death struggle.
SLASH! CRUNCH! BOOM!
Claws and weapons hammered into the Deathly Soul-Reaper. Matriarch Jynara had once again found her relentless tempo of destruction. Under the endless barrage, its body exploded for a second time, dissolving into nothing.
Jynara whipped her head around, her senses scouring the area for any sign of him. Sure enough, just outside her Voidlock, the Deathly Soul-Reaper coalesced back into existence.
"What is that ability?!" she roared in frustration. "I refuse to believe you can’t be killed!"
She teleported again, lunging at him, but this time Orion was faster, slipping away from her grasp before the trap could be sprung.
"To kill me," Orion’s voice taunted, "you’ll need more than that."
He was actively trying to provoke her, to force her to reveal any other trump cards she might be hiding. The truth was, Matriarch Jynara was an invincible existence among arch lords. Without playing his own trump cards, the Deathly Soul-Reaper was no match for her. Only Orion’s true self, descending upon this realm, could slay a broodmother of her caliber with ease.
The card he had just played was called Phantasmal Echo. It was an ability derived from the third eye of a Silver-Eyed Being. During the invasion of the Dusk Continent in the Emerald Dream Realm, Orion had acquired two of their eyes, each with a unique power.
One was Phantasmal Echo, an ability to perceive and project oneself through higher dimensions, using reflections from parallel timelines to negate a fatal blow. It was like a dream, an illusion. The "Deathly Soul-Reaper" that Jynara had just destroyed was nothing more than a phantom echo.
The other eye’s ability was Chronostasis, a powerful technique that could drastically slow the flow of time in a targeted area.
Before descending into the Godforsaken Land, Orion had installed both eyes into the Deathly Soul-Reaper. This avatar, now immensely powerful, was armed with two of his most potent abilities. Arthas had warned him this invasion would be a meat grinder. Orion had suspected that a standard arch-lord-peak avatar wouldn’t be enough.
Now, it seemed his foresight was paying off.
SKREEEEEEE!
Jynara unleashed another soul-shattering howl and attacked again. She truly had no idea how he was surviving. Unable to comprehend what was happening, she could only fall back on the one strategy she knew could grievously wound him. The feeling of his body breaking under her fists had been real, after all.
She clung to a single belief: if he truly had a method of resurrection, it had to have a limit. If she just kept killing him, over and over again, eventually, this bizarre and powerful enemy would have to stay dead.