The Sphinx God suddenly lunges towards me with greater speed than any gryphon I've seen before, so I activate my physical aspect form and create a greatsword of solid light. I quickly avoid his strike by side stepping to the left, while he's recovering from the landing, I rush towards him and swing my blade at his exposed right side. Though my eyes widen as the blade doesn't even cut or burn him on contact which just glides over the fur on his side without so much as a singe.

"Mages! Cast your nullify spell!" I order the human mages.

They quickly raise their staffs as their elements form before releasing the magic shattering all active magic in the area. Fortunately, my aspect form remains active, though it did drain a bit of my magic.

I notice every gryphon here has their barriers shattered, but nothing happened to the Sphinx God.

"That was your plan? To disable our barriers and attack? Hmmm, it may have worked for the enchanted bracers, but I am the source of those enchantments. It won't be removed from me that easily," he replies in a neutral tone.

I narrow my eyes at him and glance to Vortigan who is channelling five elements for an arcane beam into the large bracer with diamonds embedded on his left forearm .

"We shall see," I reply sternly with my dual tone voice.

I take another swing at him to distract him as Vortigan casts his beam into the Sphinx God's back. But he blocks my sword with his left talon and appears to be unaffected by the arcane beam, in fact it seems he's absorbing the magic.

Vortigan's eyes widen as he stops and channels five life elements and casts it, making me confused as to why he would heal him. The beam hits the Sphinx God, instead of healing him like I thought it would, he wails out horridly as arcane magic is purged from his body.

"He's an undead! All mages cast life spells now!" Vortigan orders his mages who aim their staffs at the undead gryphon.

'Undead? Does that mean Grogar is involved in this?' I think to myself.

'That is most likely. Only humans can use arcane magic and Grogar is the only necromancer I know of capable of making an undead this powerful,' Lux replies.

Meanwhile, Discord and our forces are battling other gryphons as they arrive, slowly making his way towards the council of elders who are shocked at the horrific noise their god is letting out as he's barraged by life spells.

The Sphinx God opens his mouth wide as a spray of arcane magic is blasted out over the mages. Vortigan and some others get shields up in time while a good nine mages and twenty foot soldiers bloat grotesquely, screaming in agony before popping like a boil, covering everyone near them in gore.

The Sphinx God takes wing out of the hole blown in the wall, flying away before turning around and starts launching blasts of arcane magic at us. Mages set up wall shield barriers deflecting the bolts while Vortigan casts his air wings spell and takes off after the undead gryphon.

I follow him up while the mages continue to cast life beams towards the Sphinx God, some of them hitting us as well, making me feel more invigorated as I fly at the speed of light behind the undead gryphon. I pull him into a choke hold using my sword, making him struggle and claw at my arms to free himself.

I grunt in pain as my arms start stinging, I notice arcane magic oozing from his talons, if it wasn't for my current form, my skin would have blisters over them already.

Brandishing his large axe, Vortigan reaches us with life elements infused into his weapon. A scowl on his face as he roars angrily, swinging his axe with all his might.

The blade slices through the undead with ease, tearing open his gut and expelling a lot of arcane magic.

I'm forced to let go as the magic is too painful and fly over behind Vortigan who has a barrier shield up to block the miasma of arcane magic pouring out of the Sphinx God.

"Fine work holding him in place! Now let's finish the job!" Vortigan yells at me over the mountain winds.

"I'll try to hold him again! Go for the head this time!" I reply and make my way towards the undead.

I'm with the Captains and Luna in the War-room looking at a map of Equestria while Galaxia, Shella, and Cadence look after the foals.

"Now we just have to figure out where they set up base. It would have been great if Discord found out where when he heard about it, but I suppose at least knowing they're here is better than not knowing," I say to all gathered.

"True, but still would'a been nice to know the exact location," Spitfire says, fiddling with a device that softly beeps every second. "At least Twilight gave us her elven magic signature before discord whisked her away. It has a range of at best five miles," she then says and pockets the device.

"Not very far considering how big Equestria is," Hammer Strike comments with a frown while looking at the map.

"That's why we have ten of them ready. I'll have ten squads scouring Equestria until we find them. Is that anti-portal orb still in Twilight's tower?" Spitfire replies and then asks looking towards Luna.

"Verily. Tis still in her tower and functional, why?" she replies confused.

"When we find the base, we should bring it with us to prevent them from using portals to get away and take anypony they may already have," Spitfire explains with a grin.

I raise my brow as I look toward her. "Hmmm, that's a good idea. This means they'll have no choice but to fight or surrender," I say and look back to the map. "If I had to guess where they might be, it would be here." I point towards the Everfree Forest.

"Why there?" Bright Mind asks me.

"Elves prefer woodland areas, and with how powerful elven magic and archers can be, the beasts and dangers of the Everfree wouldn't hinder them much," I reply with a scratch to my chin. Hmm, seems I have a bit of stubble growing now, wonder if I should grow a beard like Vortigan’s?

"Hmmmmm... I'll take a team there myself," Spitfire says narrowing her eyes at the forest on the map. "If we find any traces of elven magic there, we'll return asap for backup."

"Alright, nothing I can do for now so I'll be in the training room practising my magic some more," I say and make my way towards the exit.

"I'll join you. I need to practice with the life element some more myself," Shining calls out to me and makes his way over beside me.

"Sure, I could help you a bit in how to manage mana flow," I reply and we both head out as Luna finalises the scouting parties with Spitfire.

"So, how are you and Silk Sheets been doing lately?" I ask him as we walk.

He chuckles and shakes his head. "Oh pretty well actually. My parents adore her and my mother is already demanding grandfoals..." he replies with a smile.

"I see. Are you going to give in to the demand next heat season?" I ask with a shit eating grin.

"I don't know... Silk is certainly thinking about it," he says and sighs as he rubs the bridge of his nose.

"Well, whatever you decide, we'll help you through it. Gods know how much sleep we lose when one cries and triggers the others," I tell him with a light chuckle.

"I know, Twilight was like that when she was a foal... constantly crying when she was alone in her room, though the moment my parents moved her crib into theirs, she slept like an angel," he replies and laughs.

I smile at that as we reach the training room and enter.

"Right then, show me what you can do so far," I tell Shining as we stand in the middle of the room.

I glance at Celestia and Vortigan and see they have that well in hand, so I return my gaze to the huddled elders backing away towards the corner of the room.

"Now then gents, do you have any last words before we end your lives?" I ask them as I swing my mace around in circles from the strap on the bottom.

"How dare mere prey attack us! We shall make sure your race will be put in their place once the Sphinx God ends your lives!" the eldest looking gryphon says in anger.

I look at him with a bored expression as I hold out my right hand and place my index finger and thumb near each other. I then pull back and with a pop, his beak comes off with no evidence of a mouth or nose in its place.

He starts panicking when he realises he can't breath. With no way to breath, he makes no sound as he claws at his own face in a gory attempt to make a breathing hole. I toss the beak aside as he continues to flail.

"The next one who spouts malarkey like that, will have their head shoved up another's posterior," I tell them and frown behind my helmet's visor. "Now then!" I start in a cheerier tone. "Here's what's going to happen. Unless you change your ways and hunt only instinctual wildlife for food, I will have to kill all of you and we'll have to lay down some ground rules for the others, failure to follow these rules will result in a very harsh punishment!" I tell them and toss my mace up into the air.

"You have no right to force us to do anything!" another male responds.

I slowly turn my head towards him, making him flinch. "And you had no right killing Equestrians or any other sapient race, but you did it anyway. It always comes back to who has the bigger stick in the end, and we just so happen to bring a tree trunk sized stick with us this time," I reply as a loud explosion detonates outside. One of the female elders looks up confused as she noticed my mace didn't come back down.

I smirk as her eyes widen and my mace comes back down, now three times longer and with a larger spiked ball on the end. I catch it and hold it with both hands and walk up towards them.

"So what's it gonna be? Play nice with others, or I'mma have'ta smack ya," I tell them as another explosion goes off and the God wannabe comes crashing through the wall in a cut up mess.

The gryphons stare in shock at the condition he's in which only makes me smirk. Though that smirk fades as Celestia floats down through the hole no longer in her Aspect form and bleeding from cuts in several areas. Her skin has some blisters all over her and her left ear has a slight cut in it.

Vortigan looks just as bad but he's casting healing beams at himself and Celestia, slowly healing their wounds and purging arcane magic from their bodies.

"This is surprising," the Sphinx God says weakly as he stumbles onto his feet. "It would appear I will need to accelerate my plans..." he says in a serious tone and then smirks.

Arcane magic starts building at an alarming rate in his chest and my eyes widen. "EVACUATE! HE'S GOING TO BLOW!" I yell and rush over to Celestia and Vortigan. They don't get a say in as I grab them by the arms and fly out of the hole in the wall.

The soldiers and guards with us hightail it out of the room, leaving shield barriers behind to block the doorway. The Sphinx God laughs maniacally as he bloats and after a good few more seconds, detonates. Arcane energy floods the area and the elders scream as they start to decay and fall dead. What worries me though is that they don't stay dead and slowly shamble back on their rotted paws.

The magic doesn't just stop there though as it pours out like a mist from the holes in the walls, flowing down the mountain like a plague ridden waterfall.

I frown as Discord releases us and we take flight under our own power. "We need to get everyone away from here now. That mist is a miasma that turns the living into undead," I warn them both and the sounds of battle below stops before turning into screams of fear as the miasma continues down, and its picking up speed.

"I'll fly to the ship and have it head down to recover our forces, you two find my farther and try to slow the miasma as best as you can," Celestia tells us and I nod along with Discord.

She takes off towards the ship while Discord and I head down the mountain to find Solaris. Gryphons flee from the mountain carrying their young or possessions and ignoring our forces while our mages are using shield barriers and stone walls to divert the miasma away from them. The foot soldiers and other combatants are holding off undead gryphons and some of our soldiers who were unfortunately turned by the miasma.

We find Solaris directing troops and gathering rescued prisoners together. We land beside him and he turns to us with a frown.

"What is going on?" he asks as an undead gryphon dives down at us.

He uses his telekinesis to grab the undead mid flight and slam it into the ground before beheading it with his large blade.

"The Sphinx God was an undead made by Grogar we believe. He self-destructed to create this miasma, I think he intended to do this later to convert the gryphons into undead for his army," I reply and head over to the mages and help reinforce their barriers with my own.

"Such perversion of life, even the gryphons do not deserve this," Solaris says and looks around. "Where is my daughter?" he asks with worry.

"She has returned to the Nightingale to bring it here so we can evacuate," Discord says and uses his magic to create trenches to divert the flow of the miasma.

"Alright, We'll get everyone on board when she arrives and make our way back to Equestria! While this isn't how we hoped things would turn out, at least we hopefully won't be bothered by them for a long while," Solaris says as he uses his magic to burn gryphon corpses to ash.

It doesn't take long for the airship to fly over and pull up beside the cliff-face.

"Bring everyone on board!" I hear Celestia call out as a gangplank is extended across.

The trench is doing its job of keeping the miasma away while everyone evacuates onto the ship and through the portal set up on the deck.

After a few minutes, everyone is through and the portal is closed as we take off back to Equestria. We watch as the mountain is covered in blackish red arcane miasma, the screams of gryphons still there or fleeing fading the further we get from it.

Celestia sighs as she shakes her head. "Our next focus will have to be finding Grogar once we've dealt with these elf invaders," she says in a tired tone, now fully healed of her blisters and cuts.

"And I must return to Elysium. I will see what I can get out of Elune as elves require the coordinates of a location to make a portal near it, and she is the only elf I know of that went through the portal," I reply and stretch my limbs.

"Yes, Twilight has told me how elven portal magic functions, but she also told me she can make a portal to a location where she can see through a looking glass like the old elven one we have, it just takes time to pinpoint the location she wants to go to. It's how she located my parents to bring them back," Celestia tells me with a frown.

With a frown I huff. "I see... I will still keep an ear out for any news or communications coming from Vaylen," I reply and head into the main cabin to rest.

I can't help but laugh as Shining is frowning while his hands are both encased in shield barriers and he can't cancel them.

"This isn't funny! Why can't I cancel them!" he asks me in frustration.

"Because you didn't cast them correctly! It'll just take thirty minutes to an hour to wear off," I reply. "I did warn you this could happen, but noooo~, you just had to try casting shield elements without proper study first," I then say teasingly.

He just sighs and goes to sit at the bar corner and sips on a straw in his drink.

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