Lith cut the head of the cleaved ghoul, yet its flesh reattached to its neck and so did the two halves of its body. Ghouls had regenerative abilities on par with trolls, and just like their living 'cousins', healing from their wounds didn't make them weaker, only hungrier.
'How the heck do you kill a ghoul?' Lith thought.
'Either you destroy its heart or you pulverize its body with darkness magic.' Solus replied, hoping to remember it right. Soluspedia was still stuffed with the material about runes and spirit magic, so there was no space for bestiaries.
Lith struck where the heart was supposed to be, but Ruin only hit the ground as the undead was swallowed by the earth as if it was a ghost. Meanwhile, his warning coupled with the failed ambush had given the others enough time to react.
Each one of them had studied the different species of undead back at the White Griffon academy. Friya and Phloria had actually slain a few of them during their respective missions.
Alas, this time they had no clue what they were facing. All of their opponents looked almost the same due to starvation. The undead had decaying grey-green skin and skeletal bodies that emphasized their long clawed fingers.
They seemed to coordinate their actions, but no one in Lith's group could understand a single word they said. Phloria quickly activated Full Guard to foil any other attempt to Blink in her blind spot while Quylla unleashed a stream of lightning from one of her rings.
She was aware that it would buy her a split-second at best, but she needed time to prepare a suitable spell since her close combat abilities were non-existent. The creature bolting toward them was actually a vampire, but he was so emaciated that only his ability to talk made it possible to distinguish him from a mindless zombie.
The vampire, once a noble among his race, took the full force of the spell, but not because he relied on the natural resistance undead had against all elements. He simply couldn't dodge it with the little strength he had left.
The bolt of lightning made him trip and fall, yet the creature turned the motion into a roll, managing to stand up with inhuman grace without ever slowing down. Friya Blinked behind him, stabbing at his heart while one of her rings released a pulse of darkness magic that blew his chest apart.
Darkness magic was the bane of the undead, and the vampire's debilitated state had made him an easy prey for Friya's spell, amplifying its effects.
Meanwhile, since the ghoul kept hiding, Lith struck at two more undead while infusing Ruin with darkness magic. The creatures had spent the last of their energies for the surprise attack, but their plan had failed on all levels.
None of their alleged victims had been paralyzed by fear and Lith could see their bluff for what it was. To Solus's mana sense, their blood cores were almost pitch black, making Lith wonder why they had not succumbed to their hunger and attacked the trees as well.
One of the undead fell to its knees as the darkness Lith had injected inside his blade ravaged the little strength it had left, but Ruin went through the other one without doing so much of a scratch.
The second undead's body dispersed on contact, like a dense cloud of smoke struck by a sudden gust of wind. Lith performed a barrage of quick spells, yet none of them, not even those darkness based, had any effect on the undead.
Its body would just let them through before reassembling itself.
'Please, tell me that you remember what the heck this is.' Lith thought in frustration.
'A Wraith, maybe?' Solus shared with him all she remembered, but it wasn't much. They already had to remember hundreds of spells, true and fake, the people they had met, the lies that they had told, and countless other things.
Remembering every single creature that existed on Mogar was impossible, especially those they had never met before. Usually Soluspedia would cover that subject, but even though their dimensional library had never stopped expanding over time, the number of tomes they had collected grew even faster.
The Wraith kept swinging its claws at its prey, avoiding to use magic to not waste precious food while Lith was forced on the defensive while keeping an eye on the still underground ghoul.
Phloria's Full Guard allowed her to keep up with her enemies' inhuman speed, but barely. Even blocking their attacks with her conjured tower shield took all the energy she had.
'Gods, if it wasn't for my monstrous strength that scared so many of my suitors in the past, the undead would have already overpowered me. Fighting with no potions and defending Quylla at the same time is too much.' She thought.
Luckily for her, the Awakening process that was endangering her life had also removed the biggest impurities in her body and brought them near her core. Ever since she had left her academy, Phloria's physical abilities had slowly improved past human limits thanks to her strict training schedule.
Three sudden gusts of wind pushed the undead away, giving Phloria's almost numb arms the relief they desperately needed.
There was no time to cast big spells, so Quylla's big brain was spinning at top gear to try and find a way to achieve the maximum effect with tier three spells, but unlike Solus, she had to worry about her own life as well as about Phloria's.
'Those damn trees are too high and the sun is too low to just blow away a few treetops and hope to get enough light to kill them. If only darkness and earth magic weren't so slow…'
She was barely able to follow the undead with her eyes and only when Phloria blocked their attacks. The rest of the time it was all a blur, making any spell slower than a bolt of lightning just a waste of mana.
'If only I could understand what the heck they are, I could exploit one of their weaknesses, but these things all look like zombies on drugs!' Working in an academy and with Balkor's threat still lingering over her students, Quylla had thoroughly studied the undead race.
Yet until they used no spell or special ability, she was in Lith's same boat.
"On my mark." Phloria said, drawing both of her sisters' attention.
"Mark!" The moment the two undead charged at her again, she unleashed one of her personal Mage Knight spells, Gravity Blast.
Like Blast Guard, it generated a small flaming sphere that affected everything in her surroundings except for the space within a meter (3.3 feet) from her body. By mixing tier zero gravity magic with it, however, the spell would also lower the weight of all those in its area of effect, sending them flying like leaves.
Normal mages wouldn't develop such spells, since they could just Blink to safety, whereas a Mage Knight's duty was to protect their allies and to create openings for them to attack.
The explosion caused an updraft that lifted the undead from the ground, taking away their mobility. Quylla shot all the darkness spells she had prepared against one of them, leaving the others to Friya.
Unfortunately, the creature just Blinked behind Phloria's back, who only managed to avoid a fatal injury thanks to Full Guard and her Orichalcum armor. Friya activated her rapier's enchantments and went for the kill.
