At a wave of his hand, the silver table turned into a giant ring as big as a double door. Mystical energies flowed from the air into the construct as the space inside the ring was filled by a red and black essence that Lith recognized as part of a blood core.
"I don't like it. Why is there no one in here?" Lith asked while using all of his senses to scan the area.
"Because the security level was set so that anyone without my energy signature would die upon entering."
At those words, Lith conjured several barriers as the gems on Solus' arm protector form glowed with mana.
"Relax! I've disabled them." Zolgrish laughed at the Ranger's panic.
"You idiot! Doesn't that mean that every one of those who share your essence could be waiting for us?" Lith rebuked.
"Oh, please. You're simply…" Zolgrish's amusement disappeared as dozens of reverted monsters wielding magical tools appeared from thin air.
"…right. Dammit!" The lich waved his hand again, causing the ring to shapeshift back into a table.
"Not so fast." A deep and melodious voice said.
Two humanoid creatures appeared right next to the device. One was wearing a grey magician's robe, leaving only his head and hands exposed. He was 1.78 meters (5'10") tall, with light brown skin and shoulder-length golden hair.
His pointy ears parted his hair, revealing a slender neck which together with his delicate features gave him a feminine look. Only his pupils, flaming from the red mana coursing within, betrayed his real nature.
On the ring finger of his right hand rested a purple ring made of crystal. Now that Dann'Kah had activated it, it was filled with so much mana that it eclipsed the rest of the lab to Solus's mana sense.
'Whatever it is, it's not just a simple crystal.' Solus tried to make sense of what she was staring at.
'It contains multiple different energy signatures, like it's composed of several living beings compressed together. How could an orc create a cursed object in so little time?'
The answer was that he didn't. Whenever an orc shaman used a powerful mana crystal long enough, they would leave an imprint on it. Their successors, if talented enough, could use such imprints to access part of their ancestors' experience and their most used spells.
Recalling the spells of a single shaman was a hard and complex matter because the further in the past they had lived, the fainter their trace was and the harder it was to find it.
Dann'Kah was different. After recovering the abilities his race possessed before their fall, he had discovered that he was able to activate all of the imprints left by his forefathers. It was the residual mana from the past shamans that Solus had mistaken for life forces.
Dann'Kah was using part of the lich's undead energies to keep them permanently active and have access to tier four and five spells. The residual mana mixed with the undead life force gave those echoes from the past a semblance of life.
Dann'Kah believed he had conjured his ancestors' spirits and that they were guiding him from the netherworld, bestowing their knowledge upon him.
Unfortunately, the truth was that by having so many memories flooding his mind along with centuries of hatred and rage, Dann'Kah was on the verge of madness. He was constantly shaking his head, but not because of the effort from undoing Zolgrish's will.
He was trying to make the voices in his head shut up long enough for him to achieve his goal.
The second creature was bare-chested, wearing only pants. Yozmogh was 2.3 meters (7'7") tall, with pale blue skin and a cascade of long silver hair reaching his waist. He had the body of a Greek god, with muscles that looked like they had been chiseled rather than trained.
He had six eyes on his face and six feathered wings emerging from his back. Each one of the eyes was a different color, based on the element inhabiting it, and so were his wings.
The eyes on the creature's forehead were red and blue, those under his eyebrows were black and white, while those on his cheekbones were brown and yellow. Both Lith and Solus wondered if there was any connection between Balors and Lith's hybrid form.
Aside from lacking a seventh one on the forehead, the Balor's eyes were positioned exactly the same way.
The wings on his back followed the same pattern as the eyes and seemed to be made of pure elemental energies.
"Power down this damn lab or they'll use it against us!" Lith said as he conjured several streams of lightning to disperse the enemies and stop whatever Dann'Kah was doing.
Yozmogh's yellow wing crackled like thunder, and suddenly Lith's spells were drawn to it like the wing was a powerful magnet. The yellow wing stored the energy and purified it from Lith's mana before transferring it to the yellow eye.
"Humans should not fight their gods." Yozmogh said. His voice was quiet and solemn. There was no arrogance nor threat in it, he was only stating what he considered to be the truth.
The dryad-ogres joined their hands, forming a wall of vines that quickly surrounded Lith as several reverted trolls activated the tools in their four hands to strike him down through the openings their companions created for them.
Each troll wielded two golden staves, each with what looked like a ruby the size of an apple on their tops, which emitted jet streams of blue flames.
While Zolgrish and Dann'Kah were engaged in a battle of sheer willpower, Ratpack fled from the scene and hid inside the closest shadow, hoping that no one would notice him.
The lich's blood core was diminished, but his mind was intact. Even though Dann'Kah was several times stronger than him and wielded the same energies, keeping them in check was a constant struggle for the orc.
Zolgrish had no such problem. It was his energy, his lab. They both responded to his thoughts like they were an extension of his body.
"What are you waiting for? Destroy him!" Dann'Kah ordered to his orc-elves. He was well aware that if it weren't for the purple crystal on his finger he would have already been bested.
The mining tools the reverted orcs were equipped with looked like silver rods, about one meter (3,3 feet) long, with topaz embedded along their sides.
They amplified the mana they were imbued with to generate energy blades capable of easily cutting through rock. The orcs had spent countless hours in the mines, slaving away for the lich.
Their mastery with the cutting tools was equaled only by their resentment for him, so as soon as Dann'Kah gave the order, they had the rods in their hands shape their mana into the form of a mace and struck mercilessly at Zolgrish from every side.
After being pulverized by Trouble for months, what such weapons could inflict to the lich was merely discomfort. His pride was almost crushed seeing his creations used against him, seeing his slaves dare to raise their hand against their master.
Almost.
Now that he was so close to the device, which Dann'Kah was so kindly keeping half open, all the energy he would lose due to the wounds inflicted upon him would be absorbed by the ring and returned to him in barely a second.
Countless possibilities appeared in Zolgrish's mind and a cruel smile would have formed on his face if only he had one.
'The situation is much better than I predicted. Mario is unlikely to survive, but hired help is always expendable.' The lich thought.
