The sudden turn of events would have reversed the trap, turning Lith into the prey if he hadn't positioned himself in front of another junction, just to be safe. The moment he understood he was on the losing side of the battle, Lith gave his Death Zone one last push and rolled around a corner to safety.
'What the heck? They were both tier four spells, but I'm the one with a blue core. How could I possibly lose the confrontation?' Lith's question was rhetorical, since the bestiary provided no answers to that impossible situation.
Yet Solus knew better.
'His cyan core is indeed weaker. The problem lies in the support the green core inside his eyes provide.'
'If a green core could do that much, together we would be invincible!' Lith griped.
'Let me finish, dummy! Unlike a normal mana core, the ones in his eyes are able to draw the world energy and use it to empower his pillar-like spells to no end. It wasn't a blue core versus a cyan plus a green one, it was you versus Mogar.'
'Let me get this straight. Thanks to his eyes a Balor can basically use Invigoration non stop even while attacking?' Things were starting to make sense, and thanks to that Lith could adapt his strategy.
'Yes and no. Like Invigoration, the eye provides a constant flow of world energy and also puts stress on the user. After using a pillar, the creature closes the corresponding eye. Unlike your breathing technique, it didn't heal him nor replenish his mana.'
Even a half blind Solus was worth several Balor's eyes in boosting Lith's understanding and battle prowess.
Lith Blinked away the moment Life Vision showed him Trou'Bleskamuz was around the corner. The Balor blocked the corridor with his massive body as his blue eye emitted a pillar which turned air into rock solid ice at its passage.
The attack had a double purpose. If Lith was still there, he would have been frozen solid into an easy prey. If he had Warped away as Trou'Bleskamuz expected, by sealing the corridor the Balor was forcing the Ranger into a head on fight that he couldn't possibly win.
Lith appeared in the middle of his second Death Zone. The mana thread which linked him with his spell gave him its exact position.
'You're right! He wiped out only one Death Zone, which means he can't use his eyes as often as I use my spells.' Lith used Invigoration to fill the remaining darkness cloud with endless mana as it moved inexorably toward its prey.
Trou'Bleskamuz cursed both the Ranger's shrewdness and his own stupidity in a language that sounded like a choir of tormented souls. Lith had no access to the corridor anymore, but neither did he.
The Balor flew away, trying to buy as much time as he could. Unfortunately, the only passage remaining led to a dead end and even though darkness magic was slow, it only took Death Zone a couple of seconds to reach the cornered creature.
Trou'Bleskamuz used sheer willpower to force his black eye open, fighting the excruciating pain that moving the eyelid caused him. If Solus's mana sense worked properly, she would have seen that after conjuring the second pillar, the green core had turned grey.
Balors didn't really have four mana cores, just one like every other natural being. What she had mistaken for extra mana cores were just masses of world energy that a Balor would refine into his own mana and store it ready to be used.
Balors' eyes had an effect similar to Invigoration, allowing them to draw the single elements which composed the world energy. Drawing so much and so fast came at a price.
Tears of blood streamed down Trou'Bleskamuz's chin as the raw world energy he was forcing to flow through his eye damaged his whole body. The pain was unbearable, but he knew that it would be fleeting, whereas death was permanent.
\"I haven't lived this long just to die like this!\" He roared.
The two spells clashed again, but this time Lith boosted his own with a steady flow of mana until the last second before taking cover. At first, his precaution seemed to be unnecessary.
As soon as Lith's Death Zone started to fade, Trou'Bleskamuz closed his eye with an agonizing scream. Its pupil was almost completely white and a small pool of blood had formed under the Balor's feet.
His breath was ragged from the effort of forcing so much world energy through his already exhausted focus and of withstanding the pain that such a desperate move involved.
Yet Trou'Bleskamuz didn't wait for the enemy's next move and sought to regain the initiative. A suit of ice covered his upper body as he launched himself forward as fast as a freight train.
'My flaming eye is almost out of mana. If that scum forces me to use it a third time, I'll be as good as blind. Awakened or not, he cannot cast spells if I manage to corner him.' He thought.
Lith was waiting for him with his arms extended, drawing in the air mystical lines that were taking the shape of a small array. Trou'Bleskamuz recognized its runes and rushed at breakneck speed to interrupt the casting.
'Fire and water are all he has left. The best combo he can achieve with them would allow him to cook pasta, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.' Lith inwardly grinned at his enemy falling for his third trap in a row.
The forbidden array he had apparently almost completed was just a hologram. Lith couldn't afford to waste so much mana on a single enemy who was likely to respawn like in a badly balanced ARPG.
When a Gate suddenly opened in front of Trou'Bleskamuz, he was going too fast to change his direction in time. With only wings propelling him forward and no air magic, the faster he moved, the less precision of movement he had.
The Balor crashed against one of the most massive among the cell doors, triggering its defence mechanisms which unleashed a series of spells against their aggressor. Unfortunately, Lith wasn't aware that after decades of imprisonment Trou'Bleskamuz knew them like the back of his hand.
The owner of the lab not only lacked imagination in decorating his own house but also in forgemastering. All the doors were imbued with the same base set of spells plus a few specifically designed against the prisoner they were meant to hold.
The Balor managed to avoid most of the damage and move away from the door before the most powerful ones could activate. Even on foot, the creature was as fast as a cheetah, reaching the Ranger in the blink of an eye.
Lith could've Warped away, but between the confined space and the Balor's speed, his exit point was bound to be easily predictable. With the closest junction still sealed by the ice, he could only Blink inside the dead end the Balor had just escaped from or move back in an almost straight line.
The former option was beyond idiotic, while the latter would buy him a second at best.
