"What the heck?" Lith was as surprised as Dawn, but for a different reason.
The three deathblows had actually failed to kill two out of three targets. Dawn's prisms enhanced the regenerative abilities of her spawns to the point that almost destroying their heads or hearts wasn't enough.
Only Ruin had succeeded and only because it had shattered the prism along with most of its victim's torso. The spawn turned into glass shards and released a sphere of light that returned the cursed object another portion of her strength.
"Most impressive." Dawn clapped her hands while another gigantic white energy mass moved towards her at subluminal speed.
Lith didn't like her tone nor her calm. The spawns had yet to fully recover, so he used that opportunity to disengage and put more distance between himself and the battlefield.
The Bright Day clicked her tongue at his paranoia, redirecting the light pillar in his direction with but a gentle slap. To not hit her minions, she focused the beam to half its size and aimed it at the middle of the corridor.
The spawns shared her mind and strategy. Dawn ordered them to stick to the walls and add a few heat rays of their own. The move allowed them to dodge Nalrond's spell and prevented Lith from doing the same.
'Did she use Dominance?' Lith's brain was working at full gear to find a solution.
'No, just mastery over the light element. The spell's energy signature still belongs to the hybrid.' Solus replied.
'It's worth a shot then.'
Lith kept flying back while conjuring perfect ice crystals on his hands and boosting his Orichalcum Skinwalker armor with a steady flow of mana.
'The beam is half heat and half light. Ice can neutralize the heat and help the Orichalcum to reflect the light. Silver is the most reflective across the visible spectrum, so Orichalcum shouldn't do any worse.' Lith thought.
When the elemental energies clashed, the light pillar melted the ice until it came dangerously close to Lith's body. The temperature of both spells was solely dependent on the amount of mana their respective casters imbued them with.
Nalrond had accumulated a lot of mana before unleashing his attack, but their connection was now broken whereas Lith kept pouring mana into his own. At first, the residual ice and the Orichalcum only managed to refract the light.
The ever melting and reforming ice separated the pillar into seven different colored beams that carved deep cuts into the rock while they moved in random directions.
Then, once the cold overpowered the heat, Lith managed to refocus the seven beams into a single one by adjusting the ice crystal's shape.
Nalrond and Dawn were locked into close-quarters combat so they took the full power of the reflected pillar, but since it carried the hybrid's energy signature, only the Bright Day was affected by it.
Nalrond had no idea where the attack came from, but he exploited the opening it had created to carve the Living Legacy out of the Ranger's chest. Nalrond infused his long claws with the darkness and fire elements, using them the cut through the flesh while hindering the artifact's amazing recovery abilities.
Unfortunately for him, between the loss of the fire element and the huge distance it had covered, the light pillar had barely a quarter of its initial strength. Dawn recovered from the surprise and shrugged off Nalrond as if he was an annoying fly.
"Maybe my long imprisonment made me lose my touch at genocide, but luckily, failing to kill a single Rezar is a mistake I can easily fix." Dawn snapped her fingers and another array enveloped the underground cave network along with the dimensional blocking formation.
'Damn, I've failed again. Time to go.' Nalrond the Rezar had spent most of his mana for the two light pillars. He knew that he couldn't beat the Bright Day in a direct confrontation. His only option was to overpower her quickly.
The tunnel's wall bent under his touch as he dove into the rock again. Retreat to fight another day was a strategy that had kept him alive for long until it didn't.
The earth blocking array Dawn had just activated cut him off from one of his most powerful means of attack and the only escape route he had left. With dimensional magic already sealed, he was now trapped in the spawn infested corridors.
'Three of those creatures are enough to give a hard time to that Verhen guy, and he handed my ass to me.' Nalrond thought. 'I'm between a rock and a hard place, but there is still a silver lining left.
'If I can get Acala to focus his efforts on Verhen, I have a concrete chance to escape. The two bastards are both the puppets of a Living Legacy. With a bit of luck, the two cursed objects will kill each other and Mogar will be better for it.'
Lith, instead, was planning to save Nalrond, but not for altruistic reasons. The Rezar clearly knew both Acala and Dawn so he was Lith's best shot at understanding what was going on.
The undead had spoken of the artifact as if it was the end of the world, yet not one of the many books he had ever read made a single mention of such artifact.
'Solus, analysis.' He thought while darting toward Dawn as fast as a bullet. The two undead were closely following him, their bodies had yet to fully regenerate so Lith was faster.
'Whatever the Bright Day is, it's not as strong as the Black Star but still terrifying. To make matters worse, she's still not at her full power. My guess is that the Bright Day is a relic crafted by an undead to overcome their innate limitations and conquer the light element.
'It would explain why she only took thralls and undead as her spawns. The only thing I don't get is why bonding with Acala of all people.'
Lith nodded and pointed his right forefinger at Acala's head.
"Hi, Dawn." Lith unleashed everything that was left of his Final Sunset upon her at point-blank range, hoping to either kill her or buy enough time to save the hybrid.
"Bye, Dawn." A stream of black flames engulfed Dawn, who conjured a shield made of white light to protect her host's body.
Lith was about to use the conflicting spells to cover his escape and save Nalrond, but his plan was ruined by the hybrid who slashed at both Rangers before running away.
The corridor Lith had come from was blocked by two undead, so his only choice was to move deeper into the complex and find a way to deal with the array.
"Guess you two aren't good friends either." Dawn took the blow without flinching, whereas Lith almost lost his focus to block the incoming claws with Ruin. Nalrond had infused them with enough light and fire magic to make them look like laser daggers.
"Let me teach you a bit of math. Two beats one!" Dawn placed her open palms behind her shield, turning it into a powerful beam of light that ate the black flames and almost managed to do the same with Lith's face.
His answer was to use both hands as well to channel all the mana he could muster before it was too late. The stalemate lasted a split second before Solus gave him a literal hand.
'And three beats two, sister!' Solus noticed that the undead were upon them, so she slightly altered the spell's angle, using it as a means of propulsion rather than just attack.
