| The Shears of Atropos made a sickening thud as they embedded themselves in the meaty flesh of Thaltos' target's abdomen and sucked the energy out of the man.
Thaltos grinned darkly and his eyes flashed with bloodlust as he allowed the emaciated body to slide down and off the Shears to flop on the ground at his feet. His look of complete satisfaction was replaced with a fleeting tinge of pain that faded into rage as he felt a vertical slash draw itself across his back. One of his hair tentacles was severed at the end, and it squirmed on the ground like a beheaded snake as Thaltos roared with anger and spun on his attacker.
The warrior was drawing back his sword for another strike when he discovered one of the Shears of Atropos had found a new nesting place in his throat, and he gurgled his death cries as his body withered and shriveled as his electrical energy poured into the blade of the weapon.
Thaltos jerked the Shear out, nearly decapitating the corpse as it crumpled to the ground, and a spark of static energy danced out from the weapon and across his back, cauterizing the wound to prevent much blood loss.
Thaltos turned to see Balthizar stumbling slightly, obviously wounded. Another of the enemies that seemed in limitless supply had launched himself into the air and was about to bring his broadsword down onto Balthizar's head, and Thaltos snarled.
He triggered the better part of the energy remaining in the Shears and funneled it into himself, focusing it in an area just behind his eyes.
Ghostly crimson energy blasted out from his eyes in a transparent, yet solid and cohesive beam that jetted across the distance between him and Balthizar's attacker, hitting the airborne enemy fully in the chest and continuing to pass through to hit some of the trees behind him.
The attacker was instantly converted into magical Gorgon stone, as were the treetops that received the splashover of the beam. The suddenly much denser and heavier enemy plummeted to the ground and shattered on impact, chunks of himself flying everywhere to minorly wound several nearby enemies. Further back, the sudden weight of the treetops that were also frozen caused the remaining living wood to crack under the strain, and stone latticework of the upper leaves collapsed onto three enemies emerging from the treeline.
The Shears nearly spent, and Balthizar's life spared, Thaltos paused only for a moment to nod at Balthizar, then turned to the remaining enemies to begin replenishing the power supply within the Shears. |