Chapter 396: Sneak Attack

"What kind of things are these?"

Sneaking near Kairos, Sinuoli felt a chill looking at the motley crew of monsters and freaks surrounding it. Perhaps because common Tzeentchian Daemons were ill-suited for the heavy responsibility of acting as meat shields to protect a mage, the Tzeentchian Herald was surrounded by strange things.

Two or three Tzeentchian Champions led a large number of Tzeentchian cultists, mutated to the point where they could barely be recognized as human; a few Chaos Spawn, having lost their humanity from enduring too many blessings, wandered nearby; and there was a Soul Grinder, half-daemon and half-machine, resembling a giant crab.

When a daemon's physical body is destroyed, it can confess its true name to the Linghun Duanlu. This act completes a dark pact, binding the daemon's fragmented existence to a powerful shell of dimensional metal.

"It's time to abandon martial honor! Dealing with an old comrade who doesn't know how many thousands of years old he is requires a sneak attack!"

Sinuoli squeezed between the piston-driven, booming legs of the Soul Grinder, getting almost right next to Kairos. He raised his Warhammer, holding his breath and focusing his mind to unleash his strongest strike.

"Who! Who is sabotaging our plan!"

Just as Sinuoli was about to swing his hammer, the right head of Kairos suddenly shrieked.

"No one is allowed to!"

With a flourish of the Staff of Tomorrow, a massive dark entity with a purple outline appeared above Kairos's head; the strongest spells that mortal users of the purple evil sun of Zeres—the Wind of Metal—could use were mere child's play to it.

"Can it actually see me? Why is it firing anti-aircraft artillery into the sky?"

The moment Kairos raised its hand, Sinuoli immediately performed a rolling dodge; lying on the ground and looking up at the expanding ball of energy, he muttered to himself.

No one or magical entity could understand the way Kairos perceived the world; its right head suddenly saw that the Changyuan, which had been burning in flames, had returned to Ninghe, but it did not know what had caused such a variable.

In this situation, the Lord of Change guessed that the potential attack came from the sky—whether it was the Storm Dragon Miaoying or the Fateweaver Zhaluoke, anyone with the ability and motive to stop it would choose to break through its guard's defenses from the air.

"Can't worry about that now, opportunity knocks!"

He swung the Warhammer with all his might, a movement he had performed countless times and knew by heart, but the flying hammerhead carried a trace of something it had never possessed before—the essence of the Storm.

"Crack! Crack!"

Although it was at point-blank range, this charged strike failed to make Kairos's fragile body collapse; instead, it produced a crisp sound akin to shattering glass.

"A magic shield? And it's a passive-trigger type! This is bad!"

The thing that made Sinuoli exclaim had a straightforward name in the Warp—Magic Shield; the powerful god of magic knew her followers were physically fragile, so she bestowed upon them this type of shield that could rapidly recharge while out of combat.

"Immortal Envoy, he, the enemy is on your left!"

A fanatic wearing a strange mask screamed to warn Kairos.

"By the Old Ones! How can they still use language to warn? Doesn't that count as cheating!"

"Whoosh!"

As the premier Lord of Change under Tzeentch, Kairos's combat experience was incomparably rich; it pushed its left claw horizontally, and a massive amount of Tzeentchian Warpfire appeared out of thin air, swirling in mid-air to form a Storm of Magic that expanded and pushed outward.

"Aha! These Tzeentchian cultists can't see through the invisibility of the Mortal Bulwark; it's just judging my position based on the trajectory of my hammer!"

Sinuoli quickly changed his position after his first strike failed, looking for Kairos's weakness while waiting for the Storm Hammer to cool down. This Storm of Magic wasn't sweeping along the ground but was primarily attacking the mid-air, which made him breathe a sigh of relief.

"Bang!"

Another hammer swing was unleashed, and the already fragile Magic Shield shattered upon impact; sensing this, Kairos folded its wings to barely protect its torso.

】

"On the right, this time it's on the right!"

"Whoosh!"

"Whoosh, whoosh!"

This time, unlike the sudden sneak attack from before, the elite troops around Kairos were focused on the movements around them; the moment Sinuoli's location was exposed, they moved before Kairos could even strike.

The Soul Grinder threw the long-condensed, deep-blue Magic Spear in its hand, followed by a large web of Chaos Lightning. Floating behind Kairos was a group of Fire Daemons, slightly taller than Humans, with lower bodies that looked like they were wearing mushroom skirts.

Their bodies were covered in maws full of fangs, and their hands had mutated into a pair of pincers; they were considered relatively high-ranking Daemons. The group that attacked Sinuoli had golden crests growing on their heads, clearly having received no small amount of Tzeentch's favor.

"Petty tricks, what can you do to me!"

The Dwarf smiled slightly, his armor flashing with a dim light; aside from the Magic Spear that had veered far off course, the attacks of the other lackeys could no longer cause him any harm.

"Stay put, you!"

Kairos flapped its wings and rose to its full height, yanking hard on the staff in its right claw; this terrifying magical treasure, famous throughout the Warp, instantly erupted with horrifying energy.

"Ultimate Alchemy! How can it still cast spells?"

Watching the golden specks falling like hail, Sinuoli exclaimed. The purple evil sun in the sky had not yet dissipated, and the Chaos Rift remained stable; maintaining these two high-intensity mana outputs was already shocking, yet Kairos still had the spare capacity to use this ultimate spell of the Wind of Metal!

"Storm accompany me!"

The Dwarf dared not be slow, driving his meager Storm Authority to use the air currents to increase his speed. If it were an ordinary Archmage barely releasing alchemy, he could have tanked it with his high magic resistance in Stone Form, but the same spell in Kairos's hands was of a completely different magnitude.

"Cough, cough! Has that rat who snuck the attack turned into a statue?"

Kairos had borrowed some mana from its future self via the Staff of Tomorrow; this strange art that transcended the rules was a great burden on it as well. Since it could not see the results of its own actions, it could only ask its subordinates in a hoarse voice.

"This, this, reporting to the Immortal Envoy, this humble one's wisdom eyes have not been opened, I cannot see clearly!"

"Trash! You are all trash!"

The Lord of Change vented its anger; it could not even count how many times it had felt this sense of powerlessness, like a blind cat catching a mouse, over the endless years. Aside from its subordinates and enemies, did its anger also point toward *that one*? Even it dared not know.

"Labile, get back here!"

Kairos called out the true name of the subordinate Daemon overseeing the front line; the Zhendan generals on the city walls could see its predicament clearly, so how could they easily let this Labile return to reinforce it?

Accompanied by the "clank, clank" sound of footsteps, another Terracotta Sentinel pulled itself out of the tide of Daemons to attack the hideous bird-monster. When it tried to flap its wings to ascend, the firearms on the city walls and the weapons mounted on the flying machines wove a barrage of fire to suppress it.