The formed creature towered 10 meters above the battlefield, in his hands he had a sword made of blood, giving off glare in the sun, somewhat resembling a huge ruby.
His body appeared to be clad in full-bodied red armor, and there was no helmet. The creature was faceless, with a red crown on its head. Massive angel wings hung from his back. An atmosphere of holiness and horror emanated from him.
The God of War raised the sword a few meters up, then forcefully released it with the tip down, splitting the earth and causing a short earthquake.
"Retreat!" shouted Shindler.
At the same moment, all the cultists, except the giant, pulled out stones from their pockets, which they quickly crushed. Teleportation stones. They originally planned to summon the entity, but not control it, and instead leave all the worries to the Baroness and the Abbot.
The God of War roared as the last cultist fled the battlefield, after which the semblance of blood vessels detached from his body, heading towards each retreating Defender.
At the same moment, fire and lava balls flew at the giant from all sides at a distance of up to 400 meters, trying to vaporize him, but he flew up with great force and speed, spraying his blood all over the perimeter.
Reinforcements have arrived after all. Skell and the team ran as fast as they could away from the blood giant, using wind magic to accelerate. They understood that even the strongest of them, Shindler, a fifth–level magician in three paths, would only be able to delay the God of War a little.
***
Right now, it seems to me that either Skell hid something from me, or something was hidden from him. For this creature cannot fit into the system of six levels in any way. He's obviously stronger.
I wouldn't risk coming into direct confrontation with this pile of blood in my current state.
However, he is alone. My teammates have a whole army of strong mages. They can win if they develop effective tactics.
For now, I will only watch the distant scene from Gwan's position, since he himself can't do anything yet.
At some point, a beetle made of human skin the size of Gwan's head flew up to us. And with him came Veronica, completely unharmed.
It split into two parts, each of which crawled onto the damaged shoulders through the sleeves, enveloping and repairing them.
"Great," Gwan said, getting up from his seat.
"Hi," Veronica nodded. "Our teammates need help, are you ready?"
"I don't know, my reserves are running out," Gwan shook his head. "Besides, Noctua..."
Suddenly, new Shindler beetles appeared on the horizon, heading towards the fallen Noctua.
It's a pity that I lost control of the parasite. She may be captured and they find out something about me, after which I will have to start hiding.
"I'll help you," the girl said, placing her left palm over his heart.
After that, even I felt a surge of strange and strong energy that filled Gwanrom's body.
"What was that?" the man asked.
"One of my secrets," she replied. "We don't have time right now, let's go."
Gwanrom nodded, wisely refusing further inquiries for the duration of the battle.
***
I once again assumed the form of an 8-meter humanoid centipede, trying to resist the red giant. This time I was supported by my direct subordinates.
Justus is a mage of ice, snow and cold of the fifth level. With his arrival, the battlefield turned significantly colder. Flakes of snow fell from the sky, an ice hurricane raged, attacking the God of War.
Ahar is a fifth level mage of light and fire. Instead of changing the landscape, he focused on pinpoint attacks on the giant, vaporizing parts of its body.
Max and Skell also took an active part in the battle. All mages except Shin and the God of War used hovering to improve mobility.
The red giant flapped its wings, causing a powerful wave, but it was blocked by Justus's ice storm.
Ahar created fire snakes that flew at the enemy with unpredictable trajectories. He couldn't dodge many of them, shrinking in size, though not much.
I created a large-sized bone sword, bringing it down on the opponent, forcing him to defend himself. At some point, more and more of these swords appeared in my hands, which did not allow the giant to fully defend himself.
The blood that he was losing, he could call back at any moment, but his recovery could not keep up with our onslaught.
"Blood Call!" the giant shouted, even though he had no mouth.
All the blood that had been spilled, no matter if it belonged to him or someone else, went in his direction, completely restoring his body.
He came at me with renewed force, as if my blows had ceased to make any sense to him. He chopped me up with one powerful blow, severed half of my upper body.
Blood began to flow out of the resulting injuries, strengthening the enemy.
Fireballs flew from various directions from the forest at the giant, destroying the remains of my body and dealing damage to the Blood Emperor.
The vessels came out of his body again, quickly heading towards my allies.
Justus lowered the temperature around him, freezing these appendages, then delivering an ice storm to the giant, which partially covered him with frost.
Max and Ahar, on the contrary, raised the temperature by burning the vessels, after which they began firing fire shells at the enemy.
Skell, who had taken the form of a 6 meter tall bone giant, pointed his hand towards the enemy, from which dozens if not hundreds of bone spears erupted.
They tore off bloody pieces from the God of War, which, nevertheless, gradually returned back. Only the fire worked really well.
The Blood Emperor, despite his apparent dominance, has already irrevocably decreased by a third. I was the only one among us who couldn't fight temporarily.
However, a new centipede began to emerge from the severed piece of my upper body, ready to continue the battle.
***
"That's enough..." I croaked. "Leave me alone!"
Alec was trying to get out again, causing me incredible pain. The parasite that had once tried to kill me hung from my leg as if dead.
My stomach hurt very much, which is why I curled up, struggling with a rebellious soul.
***
After infusing that strange power into me, Veronica and I got closer to the battle.
There was not the whole army that we had seen before, but this was due to the fact that, most likely, most of the archers and warriors possessed magic at a weak level, and the mages themselves were mostly at the third level, less often at the fourth and one fifth, and only two were, besides Shin, on the fifth level, controlling two or more paths at once.
Justus and Ahar, who have already been introduced to us, along with Skell and Max, confronted the blood angel.
One half of Shindler's body burned and hardly moved, while the other crawled to the side, restoring its former appearance of a giant centipede.
The power that Veronica gave me was really powerful. Weaker than soul energy, but stronger than ordinary magic. I would really like to know where she got such power from, but now was clearly not the time.
I flew towards the battle using my powers, slowing down or temporarily stopping the enemy, preventing him from dodging or attacking. I was unable to lift or stop him completely due to the strong magical resistance of the target. I could only get in the way a little bit.
But even this turned out to be effective, as Max, Ahar and the distant mages were able to inflict serious damage on him.
"Blood Absorption!" the giant shouted.
Suddenly, I felt really bad. It's like my body has turned into a sponge, from which all the liquid is about to start flowing out.
I looked at my hand. It was completely red. My vision was covered with a red veil, and blood began to flow from the pores all over my body, hovering in the direction of the giant in a thin trickle.
The same situation happened to everyone within a radius of 150-200 meters from the blood giant.
***
The giant stopped for a while, concentrating on breaking through the magical defenses of the opponents. It was the only way he could keep pumping the life juices out of them.
But at some point, a hail of fire poured down on him from all sides again, which caused him to dodge, interrupting his own spell.
The opponents returned to normal, ruptured capillaries, enlarged pores and other injuries that plagued them, of course, hindered them, but not so much as to give them a categorical advantage over them.
The main enemies, whom the God of War could not harm with anything but physical force, were two fire mages. But the newly arrived opponent, a telekinetic one, somehow interfered with the red giant every time he launched an attack.
And now, when the God of War transformed his weapon from blood sword into a whip, to increase the attack range, he tried to knock down two enemies, but suddenly his movements stopped, which is why the fire mages were able to strike him with their fire projectiles again.
This time, these shells exploded, temporarily stripping the God of War of his form. At that moment, Justus hit him with an ice storm, and Shindler's burning body suddenly came to life and pounced on the giant, hugging his legs.
The Blood Emperor finally lost his shape, turning into a puddle only to move to a safer place, but fire projectiles from those mages he could not reach flew at him.
In the form of a puddle, he was unable to dodge effectively, which caused a significant part of him to evaporate.
He tried to return to his former form, but Justus threw an ice storm at him again, which slowed down his transformation. This allowed the two fire mages to strike quickly, which finally caused the God of War to lose control of the ritual blood. They won.