Rise of the Forbidden Luna

Chapter 36: The Phantom Collision

The freezing mountain air shattered into millions of icy fragments as the first wave of the undying army crawled directly out of the black, smoking trenches.

I stood paralyzed for a fraction of a second, the blinding blizzard whipping my hair across my face as my eyes locked onto the horrifying spectacle. These weren't regular Werewolf warriors. Hundreds of skeletal, phantom silhouettes clad in ancient, rusted iron armor were rising from the snow, their empty eye sockets burning with a terrifying, ethereal blue flame. They held massive, jagged broadswords that caught the bruised crimson tint of the fractured sky. The heavy, suffocating scent of dust and pure death flooded my lungs, making my inner wolf howl in absolute, instinctual terror inside my mind.

"Form the line!" Beta Thomas roared, his deep voice cutting through the roaring mountain storm as he drew his massive broadsword. "Shield the King's perimeter! Drive these abominations back into the abyss!"

A vanguard of fifty heavily armed royal Lycan warriors instantly lunged forward, their massive, muscular frames throwing up heavy sheets of snow as they clashed with the front line of the undead.

A loud, sickening screech of iron against iron echoed through the valley. The royal guards swung their sharpened silver blades with supernatural, crushing strength, slicing directly through the torsos of the phantom warriors. But my breath caught completely in my throat as a wave of pure horror struck the field. The silver blades passed straight through the skeletal frames like smoke, leaving the phantoms completely unharmed. The rusted broadsword of a lead phantom swung back with lethal precision, slicing deeply through a royal guard's shoulder shield and sending him crashing into the bloody mud with a choked scream.

Ordinary steel and standard silver were completely useless against the Land of the Dead. They had no solid flesh to tear, and no living blood to spill.

"They are phantoms!" Thomas shouted in pure desperation, his own blade passing uselessly through an attacker as he parried a heavy blow. "Our weapons aren't killing them! They are slipping right through the mist!"

Panic instantly seized the command line as the undead army began to aggressively flank our positions, pressing the royal soldiers back into the narrow mountain pass. My mind frantically spun into a chaotic vortex of tactical calculations, utilizing my sharp logic and the ancient lineage memories my mother had just unlocked inside the Limbo domain. Diana’s words violently screamed inside my brain–the Eye of Aethelgard was powered by dark, malicious witchcraft.

It was a spell of pure spiritual manipulation. If regular physical weapons couldn't touch them, it meant the phantoms could only be killed by channeling a higher spiritual frequency, pure Alpha magic or ancient lineage blood, directly into the metal.

Stepping directly into the path of a towering phantom warrior who was raising his rusted blade to split a fallen royal soldier in half, I lunged forward. Before the phantom could swing, I sharply slid the sharp edge of my silver blade directly across the palm of my left hand.

A sharp spike of pain flared through my skin as my hot, ancient lineage blood welled up, completely coating the silver steel in a thick, glowing crimson layer.

With a fierce, explosive battle cry, I dodged beneath the phantom’s heavy, slow sweep, utilizing my martial arts training to pivot sharply onto my heels. I drove the blood-coated silver blade straight into the center of the phantom's chest.

The exact millisecond my blood-slicked metal made contact, a violent, blinding shockwave of white-hot liquid exploded through the alcove. The phantom warrior let out a deafening shriek as its entire skeletal frame instantly disintegrated into a cloud of black ash, its blue eye-flames snuffed out permanently.

"It's the blood!" I screamed fiercely to the front line, my voice carrying an absolute command over the roaring blizzard. "Coat your weapons in your own Alpha blood! Channel your spirit into the steel and aim for their chest! It's the only way to kill them.

A deafening, monstrous roar tore through the sky, a sound so primeval and packed with absolute, bloodthirsty protective madness that the entire mountain valley violently jetted a wave of heat.

Ethan had witnessed the entire confrontation. Seeing me slice my own palm and throw myself into the jaws of an undead legion drove his territorial instincts completely insane. His gold-flecked eyes turned pitching, void-like black with pure unadulterated fury as his towering frame expanded, his unchained giant Lycan form fully taking over.

He dashed across the muddy field with supernatural, terrifying speed, his massive claws glowing with a suffocating, white-hot aura of pure Alpha energy.

Ethan crashed into the center of the phantom vanguard like a demonic god of destruction. Channeling his blood directly into his claws, he swiped through the air, tearing three phantom warriors to absolute dust with a single, brutal blow. He was an unchained hurricane of violence, snapping spectral bones, crushing armor, and completely turning the battlefield trenches into a glorious, phantom-shredding m******e to shield my space. The real war for my family's survival had officially begun under a rain of ash, and Ethan was ready to tear the mountain down to the bedrock to keep me breathing.