Lith focused even more, increasing the density of darkness magic surrounding them to put an end to the fight. He didn't know how long he could still hold the Valor in place. Keeping both the spells active while trading blows with the undead was quickly draining his strength.
The Valor shot several rays of darkness from his eyes until he slowly turned to smoke and ashes.
"At least I will not die alo…"
Lith didn't stop the attack until the Valor's blood core was no more. He never trusted monsters to stay dead, so besides confirming it with Life Vision, he also asked Solus to double check with mana sense.
- "By my maker! Lith, behind you!"– Despite being on the verge of exhaustion, Lith followed Solus's instructions, ready to fight with the last bits of power he had.
He only then realized that what Solus was referring to wasn't an enemy, but the members of his group. They had yet to wake up from the lightning bolts, so unlike the other students, they had remained on the attack site.
Suddenly the Valor's words made sense. They could be the only reason why the undead had wasted his life force to cast spells that he knew Lith could dodge with his eyes closed.
After a quick inspection, he discovered that only Yurial and Phloria had been hit. The creature had shot blind, so most of the rays had just hit the ground. Yurial had been grazed on a leg while Phloria on a shoulder.
The wounds were superficial, barely bleeding, but the flesh surrounding them was turning blue and the veins were bulging out. Lith used Invigoration to understand what was happening.
A mass made of darkness magic was ravaging their bodies while advancing towards their mana cores.
- "Damn b*stard!" Lith thought. "He invaded them with his life force. If I don't stop it immediately, they are either going to die or turn into undead."–
Lith saw several students, that had been killed earlier by the Valor, groggily stand up with their eyes shining with the red light of undeath.
"Damn! I hate always being right!" Lith opened a Warp Steps, but he was too weak to go far from the battlefield. His destination was their room in the mining town. He threw Friya and Quylla inside and on to their beds, more or less.
Then, he picked Phloria and Yurial up and ran away from the undead mob that was chasing them, closing the gate right behind him. The monsters were fast enough to compete with Lith in his exhausted state while burdened by his companions.
Some of them were already crossing the gate when it disappeared. A few heads and limbs fell on the floor, emitting a screeching sound before turning into black smoke and ashes.
"Just Balkor's style. He sacrifices undeath's eternal life in exchange for explosive power. The fallen students turning so fast can only be a bad omen."
Lith lay Phloria and Yurial on the floor, discovering that the black matter was already halfway towards their cores. The corruption was spreading at an alarming rate. Almost half of their bodies had turned blue, with black veins bulging all over them.
Cursing Balkor's name, Lith had no choice but to activate Invigoration and wait until he had regained enough strength to make his blurred eyesight return to normal before attempting a treatment.
He used that time to call for help with his communication amulet. This wasn't the academy's healers first rodeo. The light magic department was bound to know a cure for their affliction, after ten years of fighting the same kind of undead.
Alas, the amulet was once again offline.
"F*ck Linjos and his idiotic plan! F*ck Manohar! He's nowhere to be found when you really need him!" Lith's rage was almost out of control. In that moment, he hated everyone. The academy for failing to protect them, the nobles and the Crown for having caused the crisis, and Balkor for messing with his turf.
- "Calm down, Lith" Solus did her best, using their symbiotic bond to quell his anger. "Healing is a delicate process, you can't brute force your way to save someone. Letting yourself go can only do more harm to your friends."–
Lith still rejected that word, 'friends'. Yet denying his attachment to them was hypocritical, especially his fondness towards Phloria. Aside from Solus, no one outside of his family had ever made him feel so special since his rebirth in the new world.
Lith swallowed his anger, studying the black matter only to discover it was some kind of darkness magic he had never met before. Light magic would be useless, while Invigoration wasn't able to purge it because of its immaterial nature.
- "Solus, please help me!" What can I do?"– Their bodies kept turning, their breathing had almost stopped.
"You can only brute force your way." Solus sighed. It was a gamble, but also the only thing she could improvise with so little time at hand.
"Use your own darkness magic to stall and destroy the Valor's one while using light magic to immediately heal the damages the conflicting energies will cause. That kind of power isn't made to last, if you resist long enough it should self destruct."–
Lith commenced the procedure even before Solus had finished her explanation, he had already understood her idea from the first sentence. First, he attacked the black veins, preventing the affliction from spreading further, then he focused on the black mass.