"Now that we are finally alone, I can properly introduce myself, little man." The silvery voice turned manly and Night became Orpal. "I don't expect you to recognize my face, but I know you've heard of Lith's brother."
"Of course I know Aran. What does he have to do with all this?" The Mad Professor was glad for that chat.
To face a Horseman by himself he needed a plan and he could use some time to figure out one.
"I meant his oldest brother!" Orpal snarled.
"The one who committed suicide? How can you be alive, Trenton? I performed the autopsy myself in respect for Lith's family." Manohar furrowed his brows in growing confusion.
"Trion! His name was Trion and he wasn't the eldest!
I'm talking about me, Orpal Verhen." Rage made his eyes flare up with a red light that the god of healing recognized as undeath, yet there was something off about it.
"Never heard the name and I've known Lith for years. You are making that up." Manohar said as he conjured his most powerful tier five Light Mastery spell, Supernovas.
From his fight with Dawn, the god of healing had learned to always go all out instead of starting out small like he used to do against people he considered small fries.
Meteors made of light and fire appeared all around them, each one as big as a house. Together, they formed a sphere that prevented Orpal from escaping. They were solid so he couldn't fly through them and he couldn't Blink away because his vision was blocked.
On top of that, every single one of the meteors was powerful enough to blow up a castle.
"I remember this spell." Orpal shrugged. "You used this very same spell against a previous host. It failed then and it will fail now. You are nothing without Balkor!"
He pumped as much mana as he could inside the Black Rose armor and engulfed himself with a thick layer of darkness.
"You aren't the only one who learned a few tricks in the meantime." Manohar replied as the world around them burst with shockwaves and heat akin to the surface of the sun.
'He's as insane as the rumors say.' Orpal thought. 'Not only is he trying a spell that he knows to be useless, but even if the hot air doesn't burn his lungs, the explosions will rip him to shreds. Even the caster of a spell isn't immune to its indirect effects!'
Yet while the flames and the hard-light shards battered his body, dragging the Dead King around like a leaf in a storm, Manohar stood still.
'Oh shit!' Orpal understood what was happening only when it was too late.
At the last second, the god of healing had turned the Supernova behind him into darkness, using it to get out of the encirclement and protect himself from harm. The Mad Professor may have been true to his name, but not stupid.
'It's just like Balkor said back then. Light and darkness were never meant to be used separately. If only Mother didn't split me from Dawn, I would be capable of doing everything that Manohar can!' Night thought, her fury reinforcing Orpal's.
'Great, so not only do you not know how to use Domination like Balkor, you don't even know how to switch light and darkness?' He asked.
'They are both tough subjects and I've never put much effort into my studies.' She admitted.
'Neither did I. You focus on learning from Manohar while I take care of killing him. Tonight, we're going to bury our shameful past.' Orpal roared as he channeled his mana through the mystical metal of his equipment, boosting his power by several folds.
The light fought against the darkness for a few seconds before being slowly consumed.
"I can't believe it!" Manohar was flabbergasted. "You recognized my spell, you saw my new ability, and you fell for it anyway. Now I get why I don't understand a word you say. I don't speak stupids!"
Supernovas turned into his darkness counterpart, Black Hole. The new spell ate at Orpal's barrier, forcing him to focus on each dark mass and split the sphere of energy surrounding him into smaller, more dense fragments in order to survive the onslaught.
The Dead King gritted his teeth with effort, pushing the ability of Night's crystal to control the darkness element to its utmost limit. It took him but a second to suppress Black Hole as well, but it came with a price.
Splitting his barrier also meant leaving parts of his body unprotected, parts that the god of healing attacked all at the same time with his best Spirit Spell, the tier three Cutting Edge.
His wand conjured several blue constructs comprised of all six elements shaped as scalpels whose blades were actually comprised of minuscule drills that spun at high speed like a buzzsaw.
Manohar had them slip through the openings in the barrier and attack both the crystal bulging out of Orpal's chest and his joints.
The Dead King screamed in pain as every part hit by Cutting Edge emitted blue sparks and the scalpels slowly pierced through their marks, including the crystal.
Before the spell could damage the core of Night's true body, Orpal had the barrier detonate on himself. The conflagration wasn't enough to block Black Hole, but it swallowed the conjured scalpels that lost the connection with their caster and faded.
"You truly are amazing, Manohar. I would have never thought that any other man but my brother would have forced me to reveal my Divine Beast form!" The Dead King's laughter sounded like a cough but his new appearance aroused the god of healing's interest.
Orpal's face was now completely black and his hair had disappeared. His features were still that of a human, but the blackness of his skin made it hard to distinguish anything but his eyes and mouth that were completely white.
His arms had become thicker and his hands ended with small claws. His legs had become reverse-jointed and a pair of membranous black wings came out of his back. Two small horns protruded from his forehead, pointing at the sky while three flames floated above his head, akin to an incomplete crown.
They were black, yellow, and blue.
"Behold the power of the Dead King! Behold the power of Vurdalak the Father of-" Several sets of golden hands surrounded him, squashing him with a clap like a bug and cutting him short.
The moment one pair of hands opened, another clapped in an eternal cycle.
"Enough! I've waited too long for this, training day in and day out. I won't be denied again!" True to their name, Black Rose and Thorn combined with Night's crystal to produce a spell shaped like a rose whose stem was full of thorns that shattered the constructs.
Manohar wasn't impressed by anything that Orpal did or said, but he had to admit that the ego of the Dead King was on par with his own. Also, his resilience was turning out to be a problem.
The god of healing had gone all out from the beginning, using his best tier five spells and even a Spirit Spell.. For a fake mage incapable of stimulating their mana cores it meant to deplete it one go.
