The angry blade screamed in pain, forced to redirect part of its energy to repair the dent.
Unlike cracks, deformations in the metal would alter the position of the mystical runes engraved on their surface and compromise the stability of every spell imbued in an artifact with potentially disastrous consequences.
Lith was still shocked by the inexplicable turn of events when the huge barbarian holding the shield attacked him with the jagged ax in his other hand.
The blow came down harder than Lith had ever experienced. Not even Thrud’s Divine Beasts had been this strong which like the rest of the fight made no sense to him.
‘What the fuck is going on? I can see with Life Vision that this guy is actually a shapeshifted Emperor Beast, but even though his bright violet core is more powerful than my violet, I should still beat him in raw strength.’
Lith had conjured the Eyes of Menadion from the tower but aside from a headache, he hadn’t gotten much.
The only thing he had noticed with them was that the Eyes considered the jagged ax, the shield, and the barbarian Emperor Beast as three different subjects, each requiring a separate scan.
‘Screw this. I have the mass advantage and the tower. I can do this.’ The Tiamat weaved Nova Eclipse from his body, but only a weakened tier five Final Eclipse came out.
Flabbergasted, he tried to conjure a new wave of Demons as a distraction, yet so few of them appeared and so weak that Stargazer ignored them.
It was then that Lith noticed it.
The closer he got to Solus, the more the energy flow reversed, draining his mana and life force to feed them to her. Menadion’s failsafe to keep her daughter alive was doing its work yet also sabotaging Lith’s efforts to rescue his other half.
‘Forget Tower Spells, I can’t even use Call of the Void anymore!’ Even though Lith had just joined the fight, his breath was already ragged. ‘Solus is so weak that our bond has turned into a handicap.
‘For the first time since we bonded, our sum is weaker than the single parts. If I don’t get her to safety, we’ll both die.’
The pressure from the fight coupled with the tower sucking Lith’s vitality by the second was putting such a heavy strain on his cracked life force that Lith could sense the wounds opening without the need for a diagnostic spell.
Alas, Knightfall didn’t care for the reason his opponent’s strength dwindled, he just exploited the phenomenon with a smile.
The Tiamat deflected the following attacks of the ax but he failed to find an opportunity to counter. The shield seemed to be magnetized to War and always found its way to intercept the blade whenever Lith moved to the offensive.
The dent had yet to self-repair and Lith was afraid that if his blades suffered too much damage while their enchantments were turned off, they would break. Double Edge was nothing that he could easily reforge after recycling the materials with Salaark’s Creation Magic but War was unique.
Not even Orion was certain of how he had managed to give the angry blade its semi-sentience and even if he did, creating another blade would also give it a different personality. If the blade broke, the metal could be reforged but War as Lith knew it would die.
“What’s the matter, son? You are supposed to have destroyed three lost cities. How can you struggle so much against puny artifacts like us?” Stargazer mocked Lith after moving her host behind him to join Knightfall’s attack.
‘Because I ambushed them whereas this time you ambushed me, that’s how!’ Lith inwardly cursed them all. ‘Against the Black Star, I had sealed most of its powers and Treius was a moron.
‘Against Kolga I had the help of the whole Jiera Council while against the Golden Griffon not only did I have both the Council and the Royals on my side but also the frigging destruction spell.
‘I never overpowered a cursed object. I always struck after identifying its weak points. Just like you bastards did to me. Night told you about my abilities whereas aside from Windfell, I had no idea I would also fight two more unknown living legacies.’
“Dive down!” Tista yelled from behind him before unleashing a burst of Void Flames from her mouth and another of Blight Flames from her wings.
Stargazer’s host failed to dodge the surprise attack and the Blight Flames burned both the human’s body and the vines that kept it together. Stargazer shrieked in fury as she had to consume even more energy to keep her host from turning into a rotting corpse.
Knightfall didn’t have the time to conjure a Switch on its surface and couldn’t risk his host or ax being struck. It had taken him decades to find a weapon that powerful and centuries to train his host.
Losing either was out of the question and with both Stargazer’s and Windfell’s hosts so heavily injured, he preferred to keep his own safe. The Void Flames struck the Davross of the shield, and the spark of Chaos corrupted the mana and metal while the Origin Flames burned at everything.
Knightfall drew power from his elemental crystals and circulated it through the shield to put the flames down. Yet even after their disappearance, he could feel a sting in the blackened part of the metal.
Cursed objects had no nerves nor receptors and could experience no pain but that feeling came close, angering Knightfall to no end.
“Two against two? Alright then!” He said with a cruel laugh, knowing that his new opponent was no match for him.
Knightfall’s host was a bright violet-cored Emperor Beast weighing several tons whereas the Red Demon was a bright blue-cored humanoid hybrid. On top of that, thanks to the bond between a cursed object and its host, their powers stacked.
What Lith had failed to consider was that, unlike him and Solus, there was no partnership between the shield and the barbarian. There was no conflict in will or argument in the course of action to take.
The braindead Emperor Beast was just a tool in the hands of an expert master that had long since learned how to tap into its true potential. Knightfall could use the barbarian’s body as his own, achieving the prowess of a being with the combined might of a bright violet core and a power core.
Every cursed object was empowered by its host in a similar way to Blade Tier spells. Each one of them could cast their own spells with true magic plus those conjured by their host’s mind and body, achieving triple casting even in melee combat.
It was the reason Dawn was having so many problems against Windfell. Her host’s body was incapable of body casting and due to their conflicting wills, their respective mana wouldn’t overlap either.
“Tista, no! Run!” Lith screamed at the top of his lungs and she didn’t make him say twice, bolting away as soon as Knightfall came too close for comfort.
‘Smart girl.’ Lith inwardly sighed in relief after understanding his sister’s ploy.
She had intervened in order to break him free from the encirclement and weaken his enemies.
