Lith unfolded his wings and used air, fire, and water fusion to boost them while Spirit Magic conjured an air current that no array could stop.
He moved so fast that only the glittering moonbeams that reflected on the Adamant of his Scalewalker armor betrayed his arrival.
Even though Lith flew close to the speed of sound, light was still faster.
“What the heck?” One of the Kingdom’s Lost Magi managed to say before a being made of shadows, fire, and pure rage struck at him with a screaming blade whose edges spun akin to a chainsaw.
Quylla’s death affected War as much as Lith. Orion’s feelings that still lingered inside the blade grieved no less than its master and just like him, War knew only one way to express its fury.
By making the death of Lith’s enemies but the final step of a long journey made of agony and despair.
“Deirus!” Lith repeated obsessively even though the man in front of him wasn’t Yurial’s father.
Tiennon Zavra was a man in his late forties, about 1.80 meters (5’11”) tall, with blonde hair and ice-blue eyes. His face was covered in freckles and scars that he refused to heal, to never forget his hatred for the Griffon Kingdom.
He belonged to Balkor’s generation and was the second Lost Magus, also known as the god of murder. Losing both Zavra and Balkor due to their short-sighted policy regarding the academies had led the previous Royal couple to abdicate the throne.
Unlike regular mages, Zavra had learned how to combine together different spells of different tiers, assembling them to alter their effects, power, and range. It was how he had managed to hit with such accuracy a target over 600 meters (2,000 feet) away.
Spells didn’t go that far and even the few mages capable of doing it would have had their attack lose most of its power. In Zavra’s case, instead, one kilometer or point-blank range was the same.
He had developed that magic to kill his enemies from a safe distance while having plenty of time to escape in case someone noticed him.
Or so Zavra thought until War bit deeply into the Adamant staff that he used to focus and amplify his magic.
“Nice try, kid, but not nice enough!” Zavra pushed Lith back with inhuman strength before the angry blade could cut Wail, his staff, asunder. “Close combat or distance makes no difference. You’ll die like all the other dogs of the Kingdom!”
Actually, the Lost Magus was no idiot and had no desire to fight.
His strong suit was attacking helpless opponents, making them experience the despair that he had felt when the people who had scarred his face and murdered his family had suffered no consequence for their actions.
His goal was to goad Lith into a frenzy and escape as soon as he could. Valeron was known for its tight security and every second spent fighting was a second too long.
‘How the fuck did he find me from that distance and how did he move so fast? The air sealing arrays are supposed to keep people from both flying and warping inside the city.’ Zavra thought.
He was unaware that Lith’s seven eyes had nothing human and that to a Phoenix like to a Tiamat, the sight was how they found their prey.
Lith hurled a jet-stream of Origin Flames while also lunging at the Lost Magus’s head. The emerald light of Domination engulfed War, protecting it from the destructive effects of his fiery breath.
Zavra showed his middle finger, but not as a taunt. He simply needed to activate the power of his ring and conjure a sudden burst of fire all around himself. The explosion ate at the Flames and produced a shockwave that sent Lith flying, leaving him open to the Magus’ next attack.
Wail emitted a highly focused beam of ice magic that moved faster than a bullet and split evenly into seven smaller streams aimed at Lith’s eyes, turning his enhanced sight into a weakness.
Zavra’s unique magic allowed him to use a tier five spell as a framework for another, weaving the second spell on top of the first. The final result could go from a quadra elemental spell to a still two-elemental spell that combined the properties of several completely different spells.
It was how he could keep the long-distance efficacy and focused power of earth magic with the intense heat and explosive effects of fire magic that Zavra had used to kill Quylla.
Such effects were too different for a single spell to achieve them all at the same time, but by combining two or more of them, Zavra’s arsenal was nigh-limitless.
Lith’s blue eye blazed in the night, incapable of overriding the powerful will infused in the spells, yet Domination still managed to dispel them by consuming as much mana as Zavra did to weave them together.
“What?” The Lost Magus had no idea what Domination or Spirit Magic was. Each one of Lith’s impossible skills would have left a lesser mage paralyzed in shock.
“Are you some kind of Demon out of a fairy tale?” Zavra said, almost guessing the truth.
Lith roared again as War clashed against Wail, producing a shockwave that would have made the ceiling of the building where the Magus has set up his ambush crumble if not for the powerful barriers protecting the city.
The longer and heavier staff deflected the angry blade even though Zavra wielded it with only one hand, using the other to punch at Lith’s throat with the same strength that had allowed him to foil the Tiamat’s attacks time and time again.
Tiennon Zavra had given up on many things to pursue his revenge, including his humanity. Tired of fighting a lonely battle without allies nor a haven, the moment the war against the invading undead from Jiera had started, he had joined the Undead Courts.
His bright violet core had quickly reached its blood core equivalent and undeath had given him many gifts. Gifts that had multiplied after the Lost Magus had accepted to become one of Night’s Chosen.
The crystal prism that now beat in Zavra’s chest allowed the Horseman to share his abilities as a Blood Warlock, while to him it gave immunity to darkness magic and the same abilities of his fellow Chosen.
On top of his bloodline skills, Zavra now also had the strength of a Draugr, the regenerative abilities of a Ghoul, and the piercing shriek of a Banshee. None of them used mana, making them immune to the arrays that protected Valeron.
Lith’s left fist intercepted the Lost Magus’s right, shattering the undead’s bones and ripping through his flesh up to the elbow.
“What?” Zavra sounded like a broken record, yet he had no other way to express how confused and surprised he felt.
His dodge and counter routine would have worked on Lith, if he hadn’t seen it used with much greater mastery by Jakra back in Lightkeep. Compared to the Emerald Dragon’s surgical strikes and centuries of experience, the god of murder looked clumsy and amateurish.
To make matters worse, the base body of the Blood Warlock was that of a human whereas Lith was a Tiamat. Under his human skin lay a body mass of several tons that along with his inhuman speed gave to each of his fists the energy of a speeding train.
