'It's impossible.' Dawn emitted an energy pulse to shook off the Odi tomes that were clouding her vision. 'Even though I still haven't Awakened Acala due to his too powerful mana core, I've refined his body way above the human level.
'He's almost ready to withstand a blue cored Awakening without turning into an Abomination, yet Verhen swatted us away like a fly. To reach such a degree of body refinement at his young age, he would need to have Awakened in the crib, but that's impossible.' And yet it was the truth.
Usually, Lith would have not missed the chance to follow up with his attack, but his body was still trembling with all the world energy coming from the mana geyser that was now coursing through him.
Solus had assumed her arm protector form, covering his right arm from the hand to the shoulder. Yet it wasn't stable enough to harness the same amount of power that the tower usually would, forcing her to share the burden with Lith and dispel the excess.
'By my maker. This is worse than I thought. The dimensional and earth blocking arrays are still in place, so it's time to improvise.' Solus's stone body bonded with the Orichalcum Skinwalker armor, becoming pure silver in the process.
In turn, the armor started to expand, reshaping itself according to Solus's arm protector, turning from a thin layer of silvery metal into a thick full armor that covered Lith's body from head to toes.
The world energy coming from the mana geyser now kept the Orichalcum in its boosted state without the need of mana from Lith's core.
'The good news is that I've just tapped into the full potential of your equipment, me included.' Solus thought. 'The bad news is that, unlike me, neither the sword nor the armor was made to withstand this kind of power.
'It's only a matter of time before they collapse.'
Lith cursed his bad luck, resuming his attack the moment he regained control of his movements. Dawn had recovered as well and plunged her hand inside the crystal on Acala's chest, taking a prism out of it.
The prism changed its shape into a longsword, working as a scaffold for the light construct and further boosting its power. Now the blades were equally matched and so were their bearers.
Dawn had on her side hundreds of years of mastery above all forms of combat, but Acala's body couldn't keep up with Lith's speed or strength. It was a bout of technique against physical prowess.
Lith managed to evade all the attacks because he was faster, whereas Dawn did the same by predicting his movements and dodging before an attack motion had even started.
"Not bad, boy. Keep entertaining me like this and I could take a fancy to your body." Dawn conjured countless hard-light constructs shaped as blades around them, each one holding the same destructive power of a tier four spell.
"Sorry, sister, he already has a girlfriend. Also, you should at least offer him a drink first." Solus cast the tier five spell, Setting Sun, taking both Lith and Dawn by surprise.
The Bright Day still believed that Lith was the rival cursed object's personality whereas Lith just hated witty banter during a fight.
'Solus, what have we said a thousand times about answering a madman?' Lith thought while the sphere of black flames generated by the spell erupted from his body.
Instead of keeping Setting Sun active, Solus had it detonating to throw Dawn off guard and blast her constructs away.
'That it makes us sound just as crazy.' She replied. 'Yet that's your style. She already knows about my existence so there's no point in hiding. I'll do things my way.'
The mix of fire and darkness ate through Dawn's aura, burning away Acala's uniform. The Ranger lost all of his body hair and his skin became charred from the heat.
Dawn healed his host as fast as Solus's spell damaged him, using her own life force to provide Acala's body with endless vigor.
'This doesn't make any sense. I've watched this Verhen guy with Life Vision earlier and he wasn't this powerful. I have never heard of a member of the family capable of holding their ground against a Horseman.'
For the first time since she had bonded with Acala, Dawn was regretting her choice of not replacing the Ranger with an undead. The three Horsemen of Baba Yaga were not meant to bond with humans because they limited the artifact's potential.
Baba Yaga had sired her children to help the members of the undead race, not the humans. Dawn's plan had been to exploit Acala's mortal body to more easily Awaken him while hoarding the fame and resources necessary for her research.
Only once the Griffon Kingdom had outlived its usefulness would she turn her partner into an undead and join the Courts as their rightful ruler. She had never expected to face an opponent who would force her to go all-out.
Dawn's gemstone shone once more and covered the ranger with crystal-like scales that were an extension of her own body, bringing their fusion to the next level. At the same time, she willed for her burning light blades to bounce in mid-air and strike at Lith.
'We're still surrounded!' Solus warned him. He could either defend against the spell or against Dawn. Lith confided in his own Forgemastery talent and let the constructs hit his Orichalcum armor.
The spells had lost part of their power, but the distraction they caused was enough for Dawn to regain the upper hand. Her crystal blade pushed Ruin's tip aside, leaving Lith exposed to her tier five spell, Daybreak.
It was a mix of light, fire, and darkness magic that generated a wave of dark energy followed by a volley of fiery constructs shaped like snakes. The darkness would weaken the target and seal off their senses, be them physical or mystical, while the hard-light constructs attacked from every side.
The light would paralyze the enemy, the heat would burn them, and the darkness would destroy any form of protection they had.
To make matters worse, as soon as two constructs made contact between them, they would fuse and a new one would be generated until they became a small sun sealing both the darkness and the enemy at its heart.
'Oh, shit!' Lith was too close for a flight spell to be enough, he had to take out his wings to escape from the first volley.
Yet all he achieved was to buy some time. The constructs kept following him and even though they were not as fast as heat rays, they were much more dangerous because they didn't fade after their passage.
Lith could only dodge so many times before all the space inside of the cave was filled with light constructs, leaving him no place to hide.
'I could try to escape in a tunnel, but I have no idea where they lead. On top of that, Dawn could detonate the corridor just like I did.' He thought.
Lith used Dominance to spot the weak points in the constructs, striking at them with Ruin whenever he could. Daybreak shattered in several places, but all Dawn had to do was to use more mana to repair the damage.
Meanwhile, the pulse of darkness kept following Lith like a malevolent shadow, cutting off his escape routes and further limiting his movements.
