Every single book that had an even remotely interesting title would float toward the tower's door or windows along with all the tomes that Dawn had left on the lab counters.
Lith didn't even bother checking them and took his enemy's opinion at face value.
'Can your tower form help us in the case enemies get here before we're done?' He asked.
'It can amplify your magic, but I would be a sitting duck. The tower has yet to regain real defensive abilities like barriers. All I can do with the earth blocking array preventing me from digging underground is becoming invisible.
'However, even if Dawn wasn't an expert of light magic, by blocking her constructs from reforming the tower walls give away my position.' Solus replied.
'I'll take it as a no.' Lith thought while weaving his most destructive spells.
"According to what you've told me, Dawn and her spawns should be vulnerable to darkness magic. Focus on that and hard-light constructs!" He ordered Nalrond.
"This is ridiculous. If you wanted to kill me, there are countless less idiotic ways to do it. Why are you throwing away your life for some books?" The Rezar had considered flying away, but the tunnel was narrow.
If Lith decided to shoot him in the back, Nalrond would have no way to avoid it. Even if he survived the blast by sheer luck, the wounds wouldn't let him go far. Rather than being at the mercy of the winner, Nalrond preferred to take his chances and fight.
'I can always run away the moment an opportunity arises. I must survive until Lith and Dawn are too busy tearing each other's throat to mind me.' He thought.
Luckily for Lith, the swarm of Sentries plus the enhanced intellect Solus gained while in her tower form greatly reduced the time needed for a full sweep of the room. She managed to get back at his finger when the first fanged shooting star reached the underground lab.
'Why are you in your ring form?' Lith was worried that the mental strain he had put her through might affect her combat abilities. He had planned several moves ahead, but they all required her assistance.
Against an opponent as powerful as Dawn, Lith had to go all-out right of the bat. Without Solus boosting Ruin's fusion magic and supporting him with her spells, things would go downhill quickly.
'Because there's something I have to try. It shouldn't take me long.' She replied as another shooting star joined the fray and the first vampire charged at Lith with the momentum of a freight train.
'"Long" is a relative concept when each second could be the last!' Lith was already infused with all the elements and attempted to dodge the living bullet, but the vampire shapeshifted into her Chiropterann form.
It was a giant hybrid between a human and a bat.
The creature was 2.5 meters (8'2") meters tall, with membranous wings connecting her hands to her hips. Ten centimeters long razor-sharp talons replaced her nails and a thick dark brown fur as hard as steel covered the rest of her body.
Her open mouth emitted a beastly screech, revealing fangs as long as short swords. A single flap of her wings allowed the vampire to perform an abrupt turn in mid-air. Between her high-speed movements and her long arm, she managed to catch Lith's leg.
The Chiropteran spun on herself, adding centrifugal force to her own, and slammed Lith against the ground. The impact opened a crater one meter deep and sucked all the air out of his lungs.
Even with earth fusion and the mana boosted Orichalcum armor, Lith's vision went blurry for a split second. Gritting his teeth allowed him to not lose consciousness despite the concussion, but such focus cost him all the spells he had prepared.
On the bright side, even if he was stunned, even if the prism was well hidden under the creature's fur and muscles, Lith managed to use Life Vision to spot Dawn's spawn.
He struck with Ruin the moment the undead beast came for the finishing blow. The blade released the spells Lith had infused it with and blew up a hole in the vampire's chest. Without both the prism and her own heart, the creature fell.
The second vampire assumed the Chiropteran form as well the moment he saw Nalrond. The Rezar held still, anchoring himself to the ground with the claws on his feet and bracing for impact.
He had never faced a vampire before and had forgotten to ask Lith what he should expect from them.
The bloodlust exuding from the Chiropteran was so powerful that it crippled Nalrond's will to fight. Vampires were a link above humans in the food chain. It was something that their victims instinctively knew and that struck fear into their hearts.
Nalrond swallowed a lump of saliva, his human half was paralyzed by the creature's red eyes that were numbing his mind, lulling him to surrender. His animal half, however, reacted like a cornered beast and lashed out.
A wall of light materialized a split second before the Chiropeteran's claws could reach their target. The impact broke the creature's wrists, but it wasn't enough to stop the charge. Light constructs weren't as sturdy as earth magic and required some time to fully form.
The Chiropteran smashed through the wall, just in time to see the Rezar curled up and charging forward with all of his scales slightly bent upwards. A Rezar's body was covered by sharp scales that could be packed together to increase their defense or raised to use them as weapons.
The impact sent them both flying back, but while the Chiropteran was covered in deep cuts and had sustained several broken bones, Nalrond was fine. Adrenaline cleared his head, allowing him to uncurl his body and use his prehensile tail to catch his enemy in mid-air.
The undead didn't feel pain and his wounds were already closing, but all the damage he had sustained slowed his reaction time. The Rezar's tail wrapped around his chest and released two tier four darkness spells.
The combined effect of magic and of the powerful hold generated by the opposing momentum of the two titans ripped the Chiropteran in half. Before the hips could reattach to the torso, Nalrond was on top of the fallen vampire.
While their claws were locked into a grip contest, the remnants of the Rezar's construct reassembled into a giant spear that impaled both fighters, striking at the prism bulging out the Chiropteran's chest.
The spear was made of Nalrond's mana, so it harmlessly phased through him and cracked the prism. The Chiropteran screeched in pain and his eyes regained focus. Dawn control over him was temporarily lifted.
The proud vampire used his claws and all the magic he could muster to dig the prism out of his own flesh. His act of defiance cost him his life. Dawn stopped using her power to heal the minion's wounds, letting him turn into dust.
Nalrond would have liked to take a moment and marvel at the vampire's bravery, but two more creatures had just darted inside the cave.
'Solus, I need you. I'm running out of tricks' Lith had to resort to Invigoration to heal the concussion without getting exhausted. To make things worse, he had only two new spells at the ready.
'Working on it.' She replied. 'The good news is that Dawn is only sending vampires to fight you. Probably she can't afford to lose the human's knowledge and be forced to start from scratch again. Worst-case scenario is you two versus six.'
