‘I guess that after going all out on me Verhen is running on fumes.’ Quaron thought. ‘His aura is barely visible behind that of his artifacts. I’m starting to think that he isn’t a Harbinger and not even an Awakened.’
The traitorous Ranger took control of the Skeletal Knights again, getting rid of all the Demons and the soldiers closest to Solus before making his move. Then, he cast a flight spell and bolted at her.
Solus didn’t waste mana trying to hit him. She already had to lean on the Sage Staff to stand and had to make every ounce of strength she had left count.
Quaron moved past her while breathing another burst of Origin Flames. Invigoration had given him barely half of his strength back and he couldn’t waste mana as well.
Solus had worked with Origin Flames long enough to know that aside from their low speed and short range they had no weak point. To neutralize them she would need to spend as much energy as they contained, but it would leave her drained.
She used Domination again, replacing Quaron’s energy signature with her own to take control of the Flames. Yet the Ranger was already back, breathing a new attack.
The two conflicting Flames detonated with Solus in the middle, leaving her no way to avoid taking the full brunt of the blast. She was sent tumbling on the ground while the Scalewalker, the Sage Staff, and even War took fire.
She tried to roll to put out the flames but Quaron returned for the third time and unleashed another burst of Origin Flames.
Solus had plenty of strategies left and several moves she wanted to try. Yet her body was too weak to obey her commands and there was no time to cast a spell with the little mana she had left.
When she saw Quaron returning for the fourth time, with his glaive aimed at her heart she started to panic.
‘Blink would just buy me time, a construct would never hold such a blow, and he can move around any wall that I might conjure. What can I do?’ Yet there was no answer.
Solus kept her eyes open, racking her brain for any solution that had a ghost of a chance. She found none.
Metal clashed against metal until the weak bent to the strong. The enchanted blade pierced deep into the flesh, sending burning waves of pain throughout Quaron’s body.
One of the Demons of the Fallen had pushed the tip of the glaive away, altering its trajectory away from Solus. Then, with a flick of the wrist, it had turned the parry into a lunge, making short work of Quaron’s depowered enchanted armor.
It was a life-or-death situation, yet Solus froze for a second in shock.
The Demon had four eyes, a set of horns on its head, and wings on its back, but his face was as human as it was familiar.
“Captain Locrias?” She asked, forgetting to hide her voice from the surprise.
“You took your sweet time conjuring me. I had to follow you for over a month for this moment!” Locrias may have been dead, but that wasn’t enough to make his loyalty to the Kingdom falter.
He was a member of the Queen’s corps, sworn to protect those kids and the Kingdom from every threat. He didn’t care what form he took as long as he could do his job.
Syrook felt Quaron’s pain as his own and stopped chasing the Tiamat to take a good look at the battleground. His undead army had lost half of its numbers to the Demons and the mages, but the Skeletal Knights were still winning.
His Harbinger was in a pitiful situation and needed help. If Quaron died, the shock from the loss of the life force that the Black Dragon had infused into him would cripple Syrook’s strength for months.
He doubted that Lith would let the opening slip and make Syrook’s pain last more than a second, but that was hardly a comforting thought.
“Taking a break mid-fight? Don’t mind if I follow your lead.” The Tiamat said while taking a deep breath.
“Please, we returned to our peak strength at the beginning of this game of tag, why should I care if you rest?” The Black Dragon could see with Life Vision the world energy entering Lith’s body, yet his aura didn’t change.
Knowing that no one would be so stupid to waste one use of Invigoration without a good reason, Syrook looked back at the battlefield. Suddenly his Skeletal Knights were being pushed back like chumps.
The Demons grew in strength with each passing second and they were now capable of casting tier five spells of all elements whereas the lesser undead grew weaker and could only use the low tiers of darkness magic.
“How?” He blurted out. “Even though my bloodline ability can rise an unlimited number of undead, I still need to be close to them to feed more energy to them because of the darkness element’s limitations.
“How can you just use Invigoration on yours?”
“I guess that my bloodline is better.” Lith replied with a mocking laughter that stung at the prideful Dragon, making him crazy with fury just like Lith wanted.
“We’ll see who’s better!” The tier five Spirit Spell, Primordial Roar, carried Syrook’s words and struck at Lith with such strength that it sent him plummeting to the ground like a meteor.
‘Fuck me sideways, I had completely forgotten about the Dragon Eyes. I was studying him while he was studying me and learning all of my spells. This wasn’t part of the plan!’ Also, Lith had no idea how dangerous it was to anger a Dragon.
Rage didn’t make them stupid, it simply made them stop underestimating their opponents and go all-out.
Syrook dived to follow his prey, flapping his wings to gain more and more speed until the Tiamat was within breathing range.
Lith countered the Origin Flames with his own and exploited the explosion to put some distance between them again. Unfortunately for him, the Black Dragon’s violet flames had won the clash and what was left of them struck his back.
“Do you still believe to be better than me?” Syrook activated his bloodline ability, Dreadwing, to turn the Origin Flames into darkness magic that entered Lith’s body.
He was about to neutralize the threat with Domination when the darkness turned back into Origin Flames, burning him from the inside.
“Do you?” Syrook said while Lith screamed in pain and lost control of his flight, crashing against the ground.
“Do you?” The Black Dragon landed on Lith’s back with both feet, making his spine pop and the crater that his landing had created deeper.
Syrook kicked the fallen Tiamat with all of his strength, but Lith used the momentum from the first hit to roll away.
“I bet that you are so dirt poor that you don’t even have a proper weapon!” Metal gloves made of Adamant appeared over the Black Dragon’s hands while he walked towards his still dizzy enemy.
Syrook slashed the air in front of him and the enchanted gloves, Sunder, boosted his strength to the point of generating wind blades that cut five deep pits into the ground as they approached Lith.
