“What’s wrong with you idiots?” Lekha roared in outrage as she assumed her Chiropteran form again. “We are now stronger than any other child of the Blood Mother has ever been, yet you’ve been cornered by two mere flesh bags!”
“That’s not a nice thing to say to someone you’ve just met.” Friya Blinked away to escape the two undead charging at her while Nalrond tackled the third.
The Ghoul bit and clawed to escape from his grip, but the Adamant didn’t budge.
Cursing his bad luck, the Ghoul took the mana blade he used for mining from his pocket and stabbed at the Rezar’s neck. The pure mana cut through the enchanted metal and pierced the scales underneath, but it was too short to reach the flesh.
Nalrond felt a painful sting, but nothing more.
“Thanks for the reminder.” Nalrond said as four metal wings popped out of his back and Sunder fused his claws into a blade over one meter (3 feet) long.
From such a close distance there was no way to dodge. The wings cut off the Ghoul’s legs and arms while the two blades hacked and slashed at the helpless torso. Syrook had been a Black Dragon, naturally attuned with air and darkness, and so was his weapon.
Sunder’s black blades shredded the Ghoul until Nalrond found the heart hidden in the tight and turned it into ashes. Even the Harmonizer couldn’t recreate a vital organ from scratch so the rest of the body quickly followed.
The Chiropteran and the Dullahan chasing Friya were infused with all the elements and even though they weren’t Awakened, their physical prowess was evenly matched.
By fixing the imbalance in the blood core, the Harmonizer had bestowed upon Baba Yaga’s children the abilities of an Awakened violet core.
They could now weave spells of all elements with their bodies and use all kinds of fusion magic. The Chiropteran could move in every direction, walking on the walls and ceiling of the cave with the same ease as if it was the floor.
Lekha’s every move generated bits of darkness mixed with small spheres of lightning that relentlessly followed the human like a swarm of angry wasps. The moment the spell reached Friya, darkness would sap her strength while the spheres would cause her muscular spasms, making her easy prey.
The second undead chasing her was a Dullahan, an undead born from the corpse of someone who had been unjustly decapitated. Even in death, their head was still severed from the rest of the body.
The Dullahan threw his head against the ceiling, making it bounce to Friya’s blind spot before firing bolts of darkness from his mouth and eyes.
The human managed to survive only thanks to Full Guard and Blink, but she failed to move on to the offense. The Chiropteran kept chasing her relentlessly along with the magical swarm and there was more.
Dullahans were an oddity, even for the undead. Even though their head and body were doomed to never be attached again, they could never be kept apart. One could instantly Blink near the other, making their movements unpredictable.
More often the head would Blink to the body to dodge an attack, but the opposite was possible as well.
Friya had to be constantly wary of the possibility of the head conjuring the body and grabbing her before she managed to Blink. If that happened, her dimensional magic would become useless.
To make matters worse, the magical community had yet to discover what the weak point of a Dullahan was.
Friya had to look out for the hulking figure stalking her, for the black and yellow swarm that filled more space of the cave with each passing second, and of the Dullahan’s tricks.
The smaller undead cast his spells from the body and the head at the same time, making it as dangerous as two different opponents. Air blades cut through the defensive barrier of the Featherwalker armor, opening several deep wounds on her body.
The Dullahan surprised Friya by generating an electric arc between his parts while she was right in between them, trying to anticipate the trajectory of the head. The tier three spell caused her a seizure that made her lose her focus and with it all the spells she had at the ready.
The Chiropteran jumped at her again, but this time Friya couldn’t Blink away. The humongous hand slammed Friya against the ground while the long claws pierced through her flesh.
“You made me work quite an appetite, flesh bag.” The Chiropteran opened her maw, bringing it to Friya’s neck.
“My treat, then.” She shoved Thundercrash in the opened mouth, using Spirit Magic to pull the trigger from a safe distance.
The mana tendril had the Railgun’s barrel point downward before firing the shot. The bullet made the Chiropeteran’s chest explode like a balloon and the recoil did the rest. Friya had aimed Thundercrash so that without anyone holding it still, the railgun would become the second projectile.
The artifact hit the Dullahan’s head, stunning it and sending it towards its body.
This way it didn’t matter who retrieved who, they would be in the same spot. Friya then recalled Dreadnought to her right hand, unleashing a river of darkness magic while the magic holding rings on her left did the same.
The Dullahan had yet to understand what had hit him when the rain of spells turned him into dust.
Nalrond stared at her in amazement, not knowing if he would have ever had the skill or the guts to perform such a dangerous move.
“Please, marry me.” He blurted out.
“Rejected. Let’s start with a date and see how it goes.” She replied while using Lifestream to heal her wounds and regain her strength.
“I didn’t mean- I-” Nalrond kept stuttering, incapable of accepting either making a fool out of himself or Friya actually agreeing to go out with him.
“No time for poetry, pretty boy. We have work to do.” The moment she was fit to fight again, she turned around and rushed towards her friends without waiting for a reply.
“You’ll pay for the death of my brethren, traitor!” In the middle corridor, Morok was literally against a wall.
Typhos had used his wings to conjure all the world energy from their surroundings, using it to cast tier four and five spells non-stop without triggering the mana crystals or spending his own mana.
The Tyrant had tried to counter the wings with Domination, but it was a game that two could play. The Fomor had six eyes as well and their ability to control the elements matched Morok’s.
The only silver lining of the situation was that Typhos couldn’t use spells with a big area of effect so Morok could still dodge.
Yet each one of the spells was so compressed that it easily pierced through his armor and weapons alike. Morok had blocked the first one by crossing his twin battle hammers, Grimnir, and now they both had a hole in their Adamant heads.
To make matters worse, due to the lack of world energy, the Tyrant could resort solely to Spirit Magic.
‘I’ll never win like this. I must get close to him and exploit the gap in our equipment.’ Morok thought while Spirit Blinking at Typhos’ back and hitting him with both hammers.
