Vladion was one of the oldest undead on Mogar and his full red blood core made him even stronger than a violet-cored Elder Dragon.
His body was comprised of both darkness and life force, each one playing a different role. The former was constantly draining the Hydra’s strength through their physical contact thanks to Vampiric Touch, a skill that Lith had recreated years back as a student.
The latter, instead, was so dense that it turned the Firstborn’s body into an unmovable object. If not for the Adamant armor Vladion wore, the Hydra’s fangs would have shattered against his skin.
The Vampire snarled as he grabbed the Hydra’s heads from inside their throats and ripped them off their necks with a single fluid movement. The strength gap coupled with the prolonged exposure to Vampiric Touch had made the Hydra easy prey.
Severed from the main body, the serpentine necks withered into dust in a split second while blood gushed from the neck stumps, painting the cave red. The Hydra blinked in pain and missed the moment when Vladion flickered his fingers, releasing the Crescent Moon spell.
A wind blade filled to the brim with darkness cut the remaining head and the sturdy body that supported it asunder, not giving the Emperor Beast the time to move a muscle. The entropic energies made the flesh rot and the organs fail, killing the Hydra on the spot.
In the meantime, the Harpy had stabilized Life Maelstrom again and had pushed Lith back on the defense. Unlike Origin Flames, Maelstrom was stored inside the body and needed world energy only to recharge.
Solus’s Hands form only hindered the Harpy’s ability to refill with world energy the mana organ that produced the Maelstrom and had no effect on the silver lightning that she had already stored in her body.
Unlike the Sphinx who had just consumed more than half his reserve on a single spell, the Harpy preferred to use Life Maelstrom akin to fusion magic. It consumed little energy and boosted her equipment as well, turning her into an unstoppable force.
Lith’s violet Origin Flames ate at her body, her equipment, and even at the silver energy that empowered her. Yet the Harpy only needed a burst of Life Maelstrom equivalent to the energy that the Flames carried to nullify them in an instant.
After that, with nothing hindering the Harpy anymore, she started her counterattack. Having four armed prehensile limbs allowed her to alternate slashes and lunges from every direction.
She could freely attack from above and below at the same time whereas Lith only had one blade. On top of that, War was now chipped, and blocking the endless onslaught of attacks covered the angry blade with cracks, making it wail in agony.
‘Fuck me sideways! I’m not going to let War end up like the Gatekeeper!’ Lith put the blade on his back while unleashing from his right hand a pillar of black flames.
His tier five holding ring condensed the Final Sunset into a powerful blast that deflected the incoming sword and burned the hand wielding it. The Harpy pulled the limb back while exploiting the momentum of Lith’s spell for a crescent slash from below.
Yet Lith’s ring had two charges so he only had to consume the remaining Final Sunset to shot a second pillar from his left hand to deflect the blade wielded by the hind leg while the first pillar kept chasing the enemy.
The Harpy consumed a bit more Life Maelstrom to enhance her armor and withstand the attack while her remaining limbs cut the Wyrmling down.
‘She clearly has no training with this power. Her movements are too wide, leaving a lot of openings.’ Lith thought as he intercepted the other attacks by emitting two more spells from his feet.
He had more than one tier five holding ring and the second stored two tier five Battle Mage spells, Frost Gale. Water magic made the temperature plummet while air magic focused the cold wave and drained the heat from the victim.
The Harpy screamed in pain as half of her body burned and the other half froze. She gritted her teeth, using Life Maelstrom to become even faster than Lith’s Awakened body.
She turned into a blur as she dodged four spells at once and closed the distance between them in a split second. The upper blades formed a cross aimed at Lith’s neck while the lower scimitars lunged at his femoral arteries.
The Harpy moved quickly, but she was still no match for the speed of light. A wall-shaped hard-light construct appeared out of thin air in front of her, interrupting her attack while her face slammed against it.
Then, a tier four Light Mastery spell created a pillar of light and heat that struck her at point-blank range, sending the Harpy crashing against the ground. The impact squeezed the air out of her lungs and made her lose the grip on her weapons.
‘Nice, plan. Too bad you’re fighting two against one.’ Lith hurled another jet-stream of Origin Flames the moment Solus’s spells faded.
The Harpy bounced on the ground, using more Life Maelstrom to shield herself from the Flames and using her four limbs to intercept War before it pierced through her heart.
Solus needed time to weave new spells and keeping the world energy under control drained her focus. Both opponents had ran out of spells, so it was now a stalemate where the sheer might that Life Maelstrom bestowed upon the Harpy faced the abilities of Lith’s quasi-violet core.
Nyka was having a hard time facing the Roc. Even though her blood core was empowered by Awakened blood, even that of Scarlett, and her equipment outmatched that of her opponent, she sorely lacked real battle experience.
Her body was on par with the Roc’s and she had no problem moving nimbly in the air, yet her attacks were too straightforward, making them easy to read. That said, the Roc didn’t fare much better.
Her only weapons were her talons and beak, but any attempt to get close enough to the vampire to use them was met by Nyka’s mace, Thunder. It was one of the artifacts that Scarlett had liberated during her travels.
Its head was bigger than Nyka’s and it weighed over 20 kilograms (44 pounds), yet the vampire held it with one hand. Enchanted armor could do very little against blunt objects, making each successful hit almost lethal.
‘If not for the regenerative abilities of my Phoenix’s blood I would have died already!’ The Roc thought while she unleashed a wave of Origin flames with a flap of her wings.
Nyka called upon the mana and life force stored inside her blood core, consuming part of her essence to conjure Life Aura. It was a skill that allowed a vampire to turn their physical strength into a defensive wall.
Life Aura intercepted the Origin Flames, leaving Nyka weakened but unscathed. The Roc was so flabbergasted that she reacted too slowly to the incoming mace, taking a huge blow to her pride and to her ribs at the same time.
“Wow, you really are a moron.” Scarlett said from the safety of her Spirit Barrier as the Eyes of Menadion analyzed her opponent.
