"Kill anyone who tries to enter the barrier, and... try to keep the other lordlings alive."
Serafin wanted to shiver at the cold dismissal in Ashton's voice as he dropped back. While Serafin wanted to demand answers, he had more pressing concerns. Like that the dragon was catching up at an alarming pace. The shorter the distance the more the ground shook. Like dozens of small earth shakes. As soon as Ashton was outside the forming barrier, a transparent light blue barrier surrounded the group.
Ashton had swapped places with one of the fifth-tier golems to stall the land dragon. This way the remaining golems could complete the anti-mana barrier, now anything that didn't have his mana signature would not be able enter or leave the barrier alive. Since all the golems now contained pieces of his soul, as long as no one dispelled the illusory enchantment they could pass as himself. For added precaution, they took on his current appearance.
Ashton ordered his substitute to join him, along with the three other golems so they could exercise a little.
The substitute turned the horse around to charge at the land dragon, ignoring the cries of alarm from the lordlings and guards. This golem body was specifically created to absorb mana from outside sources to fuel Ashton and other golems. The advantage was any attacks containing mana would only empower it; the disadvantage was it could not use spells.
The substitute charged the dragon head on, using the crossbow to shoot fourth tier piercing enchanted arrows up both arms of the land dragon. The golem quickly reloaded the four slots of arrows and continue to shoot, the scales were nearly impervious so it aimed from a downward angle. Most of the arrows aimed true, striking between the slightly raised scales. A few bounced off, forcing the golem to reload seven more times before each front leg had more than a dozen protruding arrows spaced up each limb.
The golem was now within twenty feet of the land dragon, using the whip, he locked the tip around the highest anchored arrow, and leapt off the horse. The dragon roared shaking its head and slapping its tail at the horse, which had managed to dodge into the tree line at the last second.
The substitute crashed onto the left leg, snapping his whip it rolled back up as he used the embedded arrows to quickly make his way to the lower neck of the land dragon. Blood had made the arrows slick, but that didn't stop the golem from finding a relatively flat portion of shoulder.
"You'll get me quite the number points," The golem announced then drew a dagger stabbing it between the scales. With a savage twist and jerk under the raised bottom of the scale no unenhanced human could pull off, a scale the size of the golem's chest went flying. Blood gushed forward as a large chunk of flesh had been cut away along with the scale. Without further ado, the substitute kicked away from the land dragon.
As soon as the substitute was no longer on the dragon three ice spears used the fresh opening to pierce the hide past the spell resistant scales into the dragon's shoulder.
The dragon's entire neck to head was frozen solid from the inside this time, as it toppled forward with the unexpected weight. Ashton then used the three other golems to channel two fourth-tier bolts of lightning each into the same opening. With half a dozen bolts of lightning, that should keep the beast down for a least a few moments.
All while Ashton was directing the golems, he prepared a larger fifth tiered spell. Ashton didn't rush even as the dragon lay limply, only twitching slightly. His reserved mana was not limitless, and a single blow from the dragon could crush his current body into meat paste.
The lightning immobilized the land dragon Ashton as the four golems channeled power to target the left eye with a stone spear. While the preparation was swift, channeling still took half a minute, it may as well be a lifetime as the lightning started to dissipate.
Ashton quickly hurled the fifteen-foot stone spear. The collar flashed ever so slightly as the overgrown lizard was able to jerk its head to the side so the spear impaled its right shoulder. The beast thrashed wildly while clawing at its face in an effort to remove the ice so it could breathe. Trees were trample, boulders unearthed, all manner of debris sent flying as it struggled.
Ashton cursed as he and the golems all leapt back and started to follow the lordlings. Ashton also created a fourth-tier earth horse to carry his substitute golem. While the land dragon could heal fast, it had to remove the stone spear first. They also had to find the person controlling the dragon since they were able to forcibly make it move in unnatural directions, evidence by it dodging his stone spear at the risk of nearly breaking its neck.
In a perfect world, that would have been the end and Ashton could have played off how weak the dragon was due to the control... now he had to debate just how willing he was to sacrifice for the empire.
Ashton could afford to let one of the lower tier golems trace the spell controller... but the division in attention could be detrimental to his battle here. Ashton sent out a probe, Lucian and Devlin were on their way... best to let them handle the spell controller. They should arrive in less than ten minutes, so he could spend this time letting his substitute charge them all.
As the lizard shook off the ice and removed the stone spear, the wounds closed rapidly. The scales were a slightly lighter shade than the rest, but that didn't mean they were any weaker. Luckily, it hadn't bothered to remove the small piercing arrows, though many were broken in the struggle.
The substitute again launched itself at the lizard mid fire breath, the flames were absorbed before they could do any major damage to the surrounding forest.
Ashton smirked as two bolts of lightning came from behind the lizard and tried to strike his substitute down. Two men in cloaks were casting spells as they hid behind the land dragon. Ashton let them sneak in one more attack each before his substitute reloaded his crossbow and shot them down. Ashton then aimed a much smaller stone spear into the dragon's left shoulder once again forcing it to a halt as his substitute caught a short sword another golem tossed.
The substitute quickly ran toward the distracted land dragon, once again using the arrows to climb up the large limb. Just as the stone spear was ripped free of its shoulder, the golem stabbed the sword into the wound. Fresh blood now coated half the golem's body and even parts of the mask.
Dragon blood was rich in mana, if the substitute could store mana and charge the other golems to max then Ashton would be able to use a single sixth tier spell. While Ashton had the know-how, he didn't have the raw reserves for such large spells yet. At least not without damaging his seals or channels.
Ashton wasn't looking forward to how much it would hurt to be honest... but this was a sturdy overgrown lizard. Better to end everything with one major spell than waste mana on hoping he could rapid fire attacks faster than it's regeneration.
Ashton continued to let the substitute catch fire breaths and absorb the dragon blood in their red light, green light game. Ashton had the golems create a pit, then when the dragon stepped into it, froze the limb in a mixture of mud and ice. While it was only a delay of a minute or so before the dragon broke free, each minute meant the lordlings were further away, and Lucian was closer.
Serafin was horrified when two groups of nobles tried to join them in the barrier only for the black clad figures to cut down the first group's horses when they ignored the first warning. The second group immediately attacked only to burst into flames when they crossed the barrier.
The stench caused two of the lordlings to immediately vomit as teers ran down their faces.
"Keep moving and live, stop and die." The black figure at the front reminded.
Natasha had burst into teers but didn't dare speak as she bit her lips, the jolting from the galloping horse caused her to bite so hard blood started to trickle. Curtis clutched her from tightly, she didn't know if to comfort her or himself but they kept looking ahead trying to ignore the smell.
To her absolute horror, one of the geldings stumbled, causing the rider to be thrown from the saddle and the horse went down face first. Right before he would have been trampled one of the black clad figures darted in, scooped him up, then threw him onto Serafin's horse.
The guards had just barely managed to avoid the downed horse by leaping over it. As the barrier passed over the horse, it burst into flames. All the remained a moment later was a charred corpse.
"No more horses, you fall, you die." The voices warned as the figure fell back into formation.
Serafin helped drag the older boy up so he could cling to him as they continued to ride. The charred corpse had distracted a few wolves as they stopped to eat, but more wolves took their place. Endlessly leaping at the barrier only to turn into charred corpses. It was clear they were hoping the barrier had a finite amount of uses, after which it would eventually crumble away like before if enough lives were sacrificed.