Lith had the Sentries following the caravans within the tower's area of effect, but his efforts were fruitless. The guards hired by the merchants were capable of dealing with most the common criminals and the presence of two Rangers in the area was well known.
The smart professionals preferred to take a rain check and look for less dangerous jobs.
During the following days, Lith checked the inventories of all the disappeared caravans, but there was no apparent connection between them. Following the bandits dumb enough to show their faces to their hideouts proved to be useless as well.
They knew nothing about Rangers or vampires, they were just trying to make easy money by selling the stolen goods and asking ransoms for the hostages.
Lith spent daytime practicing Accumulation and Origin Flames while during the night he would search for Acala and his captors. The only silver lining of the situation was that Solus had translated Huryole's book up to the rings and that they already had all the necessary materials to craft them.
"It's time to practice Runesmithing! I'll engrave the runes on some scrap rings to get accustomed to the technique before attempting the real deal. The purified Orichalcum from the ingot is barely enough for a couple of tries so I can't afford mistakes." Lith said.
"Good idea. Luckily, the materials are not too uncommon. Most of them can be easily bought on regular channels while we'll have to rely on the army for restocking once we run out of them. Now, I've narrowed our selection to a couple of rings that…"
Suddenly their consciousness was pulled by the Mirror Hall, where one of the Sentries was reporting unusual activity.
"Now of all moments?" Lith blurted out with frustration.
"I mean, it's still daytime." He corrected himself a second too late. Wisps had no eyes, yet the intensity of Solus's glare was almost physical. "I was just surprised. I didn't mean that I don't care about the lives of those poor merchants."
"Tell me another one." Solus clicked her tongue while Warping them to the Hall.
Contrary to Lith's expectations, the mirror wasn't showing a caravan, but a lonely figure flying at high speed at the ground level.
"Human, bright blue core, outstanding vitality." Solus zoomed on the face after adjusting the Sentry's position. "Isn't that Ranger Acala?"
Solus recognized him from the images Kamila had forwarded them.
"He's being followed! Multiple hostiles inbound, all of them have a blood core. Some are thralls, others are full undead."
"It's worse than that, look at his hand." Lith said pointing at the communication amulet Acala was holding. "He's requesting back up and he's near our alleged position. There's no time to lose."
Lith moved the tower as close as possible while casting a Warp Steps, finishing just a few seconds before his amulet started to ping. Acala's handler had forwarded the call directly to Lith, who received only a map showing his own position and that of his fellow Ranger together with the order to provide back up.
The first Warp brought Lith where he was supposed to be, while the second materialized him in front of his flabbergasted colleague, forcing Acala to a halt.
"You idiot!" Acala's green eyes were bloodshot from the lack of sleep and fury. "You were supposed to ambush them, not join the escapees club. If we don't reduce their number, we're as good as dead. We need reinforcements…"
Lith's reply was to push him through the Warp and then close the dimensional corridor right before the two closest enemies reached their position. A blonde-haired thrall swooped down like an eagle releasing a stream of lightning shaped like a net while a true undead pierced at Lith's flank with a heavily enchanted spear.
Ruin appeared in his right hand, cutting through the net first and the blonde thrall's head second. The blade absorbed the spell and used it to empower itself, cutting her vertically asunder while cauterizing the wound at the same time.
Lith sidestepped the spear lunge and raised his left hand, releasing a sphere of darkness magic that engulfed the creature and turned him into ashes. A small piece of a pristine white crystal fell from the dust cloud, shattering on contact with the ground.
The female thrall's corpse turned into fractured glass. The fragments broke down into smaller pieces until the only thing left was her equipment.
'What was that?' Lith asked while focusing on the remaining enemies.
'No clue.' Solus replied. 'The woman was a human while the man was a vampire. It's all I know.'
'Since when do humans turn into crystal upon death and can vampires withstand daylight?' The group had stopped advancing, their eyes shone with a white light that didn't bode well.
'Again, no clue. What I can tell you is that the energy coming from their eyes bears the same frequency. My guess is that they share some kind of mind link.' Solus stored their fallen enemies' equipment inside her pocket dimension.
'Are they Awakened?' Lith was flabbergasted. His own eyes emitted a blue light because he had a blue core. If the same applied to his opponents, it meant that he was about to fight four people with white cores at the same time.
'Not that I can tell. The thralls' mana cores don't match their eye color. Something is off here.'
The four came down in a coordinated formation, attacking Lith from every side at the same time. Life Vision spotted several lines of white mana. It was invisible to the naked eye and connected the white-eyed creatures, forming a magic circle that became more complex by the second.
'Do you want to trap me inside an array? Thanks, but no thanks.' Lith Blinked away before the magical formation was completed, leaving behind a Raging Sun as a parting gift.
It was a tier five War Mage spell created by mixing fire and earth magic that generated a powerful explosion and flames so hot that they could melt stone. Its effects were akin to a volcanic eruption.
The shroud of white energy became visible and engulfed the purple flames for a second, as if it was attempting to smother them. Then, the explosion overpowered the array, breaking it along with the enemy formation and sending the four to crash against the ground.
All of them were burned and battered, but still alive.
'I get that undead are naturally resistant to magic, but what about the thralls?' Lith kept his distance, weaving one spell after another while trying to understand the real nature of the threat at hand.
Both the living and the undead were healing at a speed visible at the naked eye, yet neither their vitality nor their blood cores were diminished from it.
'That's it! They must be Awakened. Only Invigoration can regenerate wounds without exhausting the body.' Lith thought.
'No, they are not. The array was a hard-light construct meant to squash you like a bug while protecting them from whatever spell you could dish out. As for the healing, do you see the white light engulfing them? Well, it has an energy signature of its own.'
Solus's words made little sense to him and to make matters worse, Lith didn't have the time to ask for a more detailed explanation. The four were back at their peak condition and ready for round two.
