Morok's six eyes shone at the same time, sucking in Rhona's swords and his allies' spells. The foreign mana was refined through Dominance, turning its original energy signature into that of the Tyrant.
"No, you don't!" The Balor knew what was about to happen and darted to kill Morok before it was too late.
Yet Quylla didn't miss the opportunity, conjuring her tier four spell, Lightning Vise. The ground erupted into tendrils that grabbed Rhona while also conducting a stream of bolts of lightning directly under her skin.
Darkness fusion stopped the pain, not the muscular spasms.
The shock broke her focus and dispelled the quasi-array formed by Heat Wave. Without its empowering effects, Lightning Vise bought Morok a couple of seconds before Rhona broke free of Quylla's spell, but they were enough.
Once the massive mana flow reached his core, Morok fused the six elements together and added a spark of his life force. Then, he had the six eyes converge on his chest, forming the Tyrannical Eye..
A massive pillar of emerald green energy burst out of the Eye, hitting Rhona and the few monsters that had just arrived to help her, killing them all at once. Morok collapsed on the ground in exhaustion and so did Protector as his collapsed lung slowly choked him.
Quylla would have liked to help either of them, but now that Rhona was gone, the ice in Nalrond's wounds had started to melt. Without the frost layer working as a plug, he was now suffering from massive internal bleeding.
"Protector, Nalrond, use your breathing techniques and give me a hand!" She said while putting most of the blood back where it belonged and treating the vital organs first.
Nalrond's wounds wouldn't have been lethal if she wasn't that exhausted. If Quylla didn't share with him enough of her vitality, the strain from healing would kill him, but if she gave him too much, she would die as well.
Between fighting tooth and nail and casting powerful spells non-stop, Quylla was running on fumes. The only thing she could do was to keep Nalrond stable while the others recovered.
Morok and Protector needed but a few deep breaths to go back to their peak condition. After that, they used their respective breathing techniques on one of their comrades, bringing them back to full health.
"Gods, I envy you Awakened so much. I had to study for years and to practice even longer just to learn how to keep someone alive in desperate conditions whereas you just need to breathe. That's cheating if I ever saw one." She said.
"It is." Protector replied while sniffing the air around them to make sure that there were no more enemies around, waiting in ambush for them.
"I've got only good news. No one is coming here so I guess we have killed all the warriors. All that is left to do is to explore the caves, understand what the heck was going on, and where the monsters got those collars."
"Agreed." Morok nodded. "Before that, I'm going to call Ajatar. This mission was supposed to be just a way for me to rest a bit and spend some time with you guys, not a death trap." He said while looking at Quylla.
"What do you mean?" She used her renewed energy to hasten the regeneration of the broken Bloodbind, making all the scattered fragments of the chains return to their original place.
"Usually, I don't need help to clear monster tribes. Even if they manage to evolve into something dangerous, I just call Ajatar and we deal with them together." He replied. "This time, however, we needed to split.
"There is another crisis that's way beyond my abilities. It requires my master's presence so I needed you guys as a backup in the case something went wrong. Also, I wanted to give Quylla to put into practice what she has learned so far while also spending a bit of time together. Many birds with one stone."
The Tyrant blushed a bit, bringing a smile to her face.
"Are you telling me that we were supposed to be just third wheels?" Nalrond asked while wolfing down enough food for two people.
"That was the idea." Morok called Ajatar, who picked up immediately.
"We are still eating to regain our energies. No new enemy has appeared after several minutes so it's safe to assume that even if there are still monsters around, they are not warriors." The Tyrant said after finishing his report.
"I agree." Ajatar said while showing his apprentice a Harmonizer. "I found some of these things as well, but no Balor. I'm searching the place to find any clue about the identity of the person who crafted the collars and I want you to do the same.
"Be careful and don't hesitate to get out of there or to call for my help if anything else happens. Ajatar out."
Everyone ate food and drank tonics, waiting for them to take full effect before moving forward.
"That went much better than I thought." Morok sighed in relief. "I expected Ajatar to eat my face for blowing up a crystal mine."
"He's probably more worried about what would have happened if you didn't." Protector replied. "There's no telling what those creatures would have become if they kept growing their resources."
"Meaning?" Quylla didn't see any harm in monsters growing mana crystals or mining enchanted metals.
Even in their reverted forms, the members of the fallen races were incapable of Forgemastering anything. The collars might give them back their sanity, but their bloodline legacy had been lost for millennia and they would have to start creating a new one from scratch.
"Sorry. I tend to forget that due to the scarcity of the magical resources and to how well protected they are, most people have no idea how dangerous monsters can become." Protector replied.
"You see, they don't look for mana geysers just to bathe in world energy, but also to collect any natural treasure that they can find. Magical metals are just natural alloys tempered in world energy, just like crystals are a physical manifestation of Mogar's essence.
"Monsters can't use either of them as we do, but they can feed upon magical resources and absorb the world energy stored inside of them. It allows them to alter their life forces even without Body Sculpting and the effects are always unpredictable."
"It's amazing." Nalrond said, wondering if he could do the same. "Monsters absorb the crystalized world energy to refine their bodies and cores just like Awakened."
"Yeah, too bad that they have faulty cores and crippled life forces." Morok looked at the Rezar as if he was insane for showing such enthusiasm. "Maybe it's me, but I think that if forcing their evolution once brought them down, doing it again can only make things worse."
The group started exploring the nearby tunnels without splitting up, opting for a slower but safer approach in case there were still enemies capable of fighting. They found several more metal rings, each one with a small blood-red crystal growing at its center.
"I wonder how many of these things they have planted around and if the gemstones can keep growing without the Balors." Morok said.
