The short moment Yozmogh needed to deactivate his elemental beams allowed Lith to feel with his body the change caused by the Balor in the world energy and react accordingly.
He took flight again and activated a second Stormnado which sent Yozmogh crashing against the wall.
'I stand corrected, this guy is less dangerous than a shaman's crystal. He can't deplete the world energy of a specific element, only alter its balance. I can still use all elements as long as I compensate for the disturbance.' Lith thought.
His enthusiasm was short lived. Yozmogh kicked the wall with all of his strength, turning into a living bullet. Lith managed to dodge and put some distance between them, but another barrage of beams aimed to his heart forced him to slow down enough for the Balor to catch up with him.
A fist the size of a bowling ball struck at his chest while he was in mid air, crushing his ribs and squeezing the air out of his lungs as he was sent flying.
'This cannot be.' Lith thought. 'Not even the idiot in dragon form hit me so hard. How is…' He almost choked on his question when he noticed that the Skinwalker Armor was now of the same plain grey color it had before being imprinted with his mana.
Yozmogh caught up with him again, ready to strike, but Lith intercepted his fist with the Gatekeeper sword. The blade infused with darkness, fire, and air magic made short work of the Balor's fingers until it hit the silver sphere and went dead.
Without its enchantments, the Gatekeeper couldn't resist the impact, and a cobweb of cracks spread from the point of impact to all of its surface. Lith had barely the time to store it inside his pocket dimension that Yozmogh's right hand closed around Solus's arm protector.
'Fuck, I know that spell! That's' Clean Slate!' Lith thought. It was a tier four Forgemaster spell, which generated a combined pulse of light and darkness magic. It temporarily short circuited the imprint on any magical item, making it useless.
Lith had learned it after becoming a Spellbreaker, but he had never bothered to convert it into true magic because of its harsh limitations. It required physical contact, hence it was useless in battle.
Any enemy he could touch, Lith could kill. Death too would remove any imprint and he could inflict it from distance. Clean Slate was also ineffective against booby traps and barriers.
The two effects combined meant that any explosive device would blow up in his face and that he couldn't use it to open shielded doors like those of Zolgrish's lab.
The arm protector didn't budge, but Lith's shoulder wasn't so lucky. Yozmogh dislocated it with the same ease as if he was breaking a twig and kept pulling. The pain was enough to make an adult man faint, but Lith had already shut down his receptors.
A second flash from the silver sphere and the arm protector went as limp as Lith's arm, allowing the Balor to take it away.
"Impressive. I would've never thought there was something Zolgrish's magic couldn't steal."
Lith replied by stopping his attempt to fly away. Air magic supported the Balor's wings, making him faster than he ever could. While they were fighting in mid air, Lith grabbed Yozmogh's silver air with his good arm and struck at his nose with a knee.
Blood and teeth scattered throughout the room as Lith used the energy that his tier four spell, Vampiric Touch, stole from Yozmogh to fix his injured arm. Lith followed up by extending his leg like a spring and kicking the Balor's chin like a horse.
Yozmogh crashed against a library, but he never stopped smiling.
"It's over, human." He said showing Lith his perfectly healed right hand and light wing.
"We can do this all day and the result would be the same. You can fight, but you cannot win."
Lith sneered, using the time the Balor was wasting trying to crush his spirit to use Invigoration and recover his strength.
"Foolish mortal!" Through his white eye, Yozmogh could check Lith's condition with the same accuracy as a diagnostic spell. He spread his six wings, sucking the world energy and returning to his peak condition.
"You only have two choices. Teach me the secret of Awakening or die. Why do you think you're still alive?"
"Because you're weak. Not for a lack of trying." Usually, Lith wouldn't speak to the daily madman, but by breaking his imprint on Solus, Yozmogh had managed to accomplish something that many before him had attempted and failed to do.
He had made Lith angry.
"Stop wasting my time with your yapping and give my artifact back to me."
Yozmogh laughed and pressed the protector against his right arm. The artifact grew in size until it fit like a glove.
"The lich is a thief and a liar. He trapped you just like he trapped us. You had no chance to begin with. Soon Dann'Kah will be back. Soon my minions will revive. You couldn't defeat me even with all of your precious artifacts.
"What do you think you can do now that you've got nothing and are alone?"
"No." Lith shook his head while emitting a strong deep blue aura which infused him with all the elements.
"Not alone." As Lith bolted forward, Solus's arm protector shrunk again, using spirit magic to boost her own strength and crush Yozmogh's arm in the process. At the same time, she unleashed both her most powerful spells against her helpless enemy.
Clean Slate could break any normal imprint, but not the bond between her and Lith. Only specific artifacts, like Nalear's box, were capable of such a feat. Otherwise destroying cursed objects like the Black Star wouldn't have been so difficult.
Solus had a will of her own, so she could restore Lith's imprint the moment is was jammed. Clean Slate was like getting slapped to her. It was painful, but far from enough to make her lose consciousness.
Still, both Lith and her could feel their bond was being threatened, their mind slipping out of synch, even though for just a split second. It triggered the trauma Nalear had inflicted them when she had forcefully separated them.
Solus injected her tier four Death Zone and tier five Spirit of Decay directly inside the Balor's body to vent out her rage, spreading them like a disease that made her victim rot from the inside.
Physical contact made darkness magic capable of achieving its maximum potential, even more so now that Solus had the inside of the arm protector turn into countless thorns that pierced Yozmogh's flesh until they cut his bones.
The two darkness spells coursed through Yozmogh, draining his vitality like he had been gutted and making him fall to his knees. He activated his black wing to stop or at least weaken them while his white eye mended the damage.
It was bound to work since Solus's green mana core couldn't resist for long to the raw strength Yozmogh possessed. As long as his light wing was undamaged, it would provide his white eye endless mana.
When the infinite clashed with the finite, the outcome was written in stone.
That was why Lith's first move was to pierce the white eye with his extended fingers while releasing electricity from his fingertips.
