3006 Poisoned Well (Part 2)
Strider kept moving without losing speed, dodging Death Bind and carrying Lith away from the throne with him.
'I was so close to killing four enemies with one move.' Maergron sighed. 'I have gotten myself a consolation prize, though.'
While the Awakened caught their breath, the Redcap used the respite to drink the blood shed by his enemies. The Zouwu's, the t.i.tania's, the Naga's, and the weird blood of the mysterious creature.
'Wait a second. He's not a human, the Lich has no blood, and the Eldritches' blood leaves behind no traces.' During his fight with Bytra and Xenagrosh, the Shadow Dragon had been wounded multiple times.
Yet her black blood sizzled on contact with anything, burning matter away until there was nothing left.
'This blood hasn't turned golden yet which means there's only one possibility!'
"You are the one with the freak blood!" Maergron stopped sucking Lith's blood and hurled out what he had already taken without trying to absorb it.
Despite the gory effect of spitting out so much blood, the Redcap had taken no damage, realizing the danger before it was too late.
"Guilty as charged." Lith shrugged while healing his wounds. "Since you like using various kinds of poison, it was only fair to return you the favor."
'Lith's plan has failed but it was worth a shot. Is there any way to know where he's hiding his Root?' Strider asked via the mind link.
'Thank the G.o.ds, no. Or the Fae's regenerative abilities would be utterly useless.' Ryka replied, glad to see that he was alright. 'I mean, no, sorry.'
Fae and plant folk had no internal organs and only one vital spot. The Root, also called the heart, was a remnant of the original plant they had evolved from. For a Dryad it was a flower, for a Thorn a twig, and Treantlings had sprouts.
Redcaps like Maergron were one of the possible evolution of Thorns which meant that the fastest way to kill him was to destroy the piece of the bramble he was born as.
Before Strider could reply, a tier five spell erupted from the ground for each member of the team. A Raging Sun appeared from the ground in the middle of the group, breaking the formation by sending everyone flying in a different direction.
Zoreth was. .h.i.t by the anti-Dragon spell, Frozen Wasteland, that trapped her in ice and made the temperature around her drop by dozens of degrees. It sapped the internal fire that fueled her strength and reduced her to a s.h.i.+vering mess.
A Burial Ground emerged from under Azhom's feet trapping the Lich in a cage made of the temple's stone after infusing it to the brim with darkness magic. Liches were still undead and darkness magic was their bane.
Ice, lightning, and darkness flooded the room without damaging the shelves or harming one of the many trinkets they held.
Maergron had used the Ears to have his spells ride the waves of surrounding world energy so that they reached their target without taking a physical manifestation until it was too late.
Awakened were reliant on their enhanced senses and Life Vision to antic.i.p.ate a threat but the spells seemed to appear out of nowhere and the world energy blinded most mystical senses.
On top of that, thanks to his training in using Menadion's masterpiece, Maergron knew how to focus the usually widespread effects of tier five magic in a small area, increasing their destructive power by several folds.
Lith and Solus managed to dodge the spells aimed at them only thanks to the Eyes. As long as the artifact was focused solely on the Redcap's energy signature, the external interferences wouldn't affect its readings.
The problem was that they couldn't warn either Bytra or Zoreth, letting them take the blow in full. The Frozen Heart spell that hit the Raiju was comprised of water and darkness magic.
It drenched her and her allies in water so that the more powerful the lightning she conjured, the grislier wounds she would inflict upon them. At the same time, the darkness element attacked her Eldritch and Goblin side.
One became hungrier while the other weaker and easy prey to the former.
'Any brilliant ideas?' Lith asked while escaping a Frozen Wasteland by the skin of his teeth.
'Just one.' Solus dodged at the last second a Stormnado that was supposed to slice her to shreds. 'To make it work, we need perfect coordination and a bit of help.'
'Got it!' They bolted from one point of the room to another, rescuing their allies and using a mind link to share with them Solus' plan.
Luckily, what the members of the Hand of Fate knew about Maergron's secret weapon was enough to understand the plan without the need to expose the Ears.
'Guys, this is going to hurt, but it's our only chance.' Strider said to the bright blue-cored Awakened on his team.
They were bound to have had a hard time fighting a normal bright violet core, let alone one with the speed of a Zouwu, the strength of a t.i.tania, and a device that allowed him to antic.i.p.ate the enemy's attacks.
'Don't worry, boss.' Azhom replied. 'Guys, feel free to use me as a s.h.i.+eld. As long as my phylactery is intact, I cannot die.'
'And where is it, exactly?' Rhuta asked.
'Rude! I never took you for someone with a slave kink nor did I suspect you looked at me that way.' The Lich had hidden her phylactery outside the cave before entering the Garden.
The natural flow of world energy would trap detection spells on the inside, making it impossible to spot the phylactery while also keeping it close enough to retain her full strength.
'I don't!' Rhuta blushed in embarra.s.sment. 'If you have your phylactery with you, we can't help you protect it unless we know on which part of your body it's hidden. If you left it somewhere, the moment your body is destroyed you'll go back to the phylactery.
'You won't die, sure, but you won't be back here before the end of the fight. I, I mean, we need to know where it is to plan ahead.'
'Oh.' Azhom replied. 'I don't have it with me. It's all I can tell you.'
Everyone cursed at the news. A Lich was a Redcap's natural enemy but without the phylactery, it wouldn't take many hits to banish Azhom from the Garden until it was too late.
Once again, Strider charged in first, followed by Bytra as soon as she dried herself up. The t.i.tania came next, Blinking to his back but this time at a safe distance. Ryka shrunk and compressed her body to offer a smaller target.
She lifted several blocks of stone with earth magic and threw them at the Redcap with all her strength.
The mind link alerted her allies of the trajectory of the projectiles and they made sure to block the easiest escape paths. The temple was made of rock that had been refined by the Garden through the centuries, becoming as hard as diamond.
The stone projectiles weren't enough to kill a Redcap but with the t.i.tania's strength, one hit would be enough to block Maergron's movements long enough for Bytra and Strider to finish him.