Supreme Magus

Rizo knew that such a wound couldn’t heal so fast and that Lith’s left side was currently exposed. He lunged his blade at Lith’s weak point, only for a silvery clash to stop him in his tracks.

Lith’s wings were coated in Orichalcum as well, and since he couldn’t move his left arm properly, he had shielded himself with his wing. Being upside-down, they almost resembled a hand with the thumb pointing down, allowing Lith to flex the upper part of his wings so to grab the enemy weapon.

Before Rizo managed to free the blade by twisting it and ripping part of the wings to shreds, Lith’s right fist struck at the Odi’s kidney just in time to dodge a horizontal slash that would otherwise chop his head off.

Phloria and Quylla didn’t miss the opening, unleashing a burst of lightning that almost brought Rizo to his knees. He had yet to activate the green array again because once set, he couldn’t move it.

Without a solid strategy, Lith’s Origin Flames would have damaged it before he could exploit the advantage that God’s Will granted to him. Also, the array was very mana expensive and with the Reactor down, Rizo couldn’t afford to waste what energy he had left.

The moment his opponent faltered, Lith took a Gatekeeper prototype out of his pocket dimension and lunged for the kill. Alas, Rizo’s title of blade master wasn’t just for show.

The Odi managed to ignore the shock thanks to sheer willpower and deflected the prototype striking at the point where the metal was thinner. The difference in quality between the blades coupled with Rizo’s skill allowed him to break Lith’s weapon and use the recoil from the clash to launch a counter-attack at the same time.

The attack was too fast and too close for Lith to dodge it, so he had to once again resort to using his metal coated wings as shields. Much to everyone’s surprise, the inner part of the wings was covered in faces twisted in anger and pain that could be seen moving right below its black membrane.

Countless black arms made of darkness and spirit magic erupted from the wings, attempting to grab both the sword and its wielder. Rizo managed to cut them all before they could touch him, but at that point, the strength of his attack had been neutralized.

\u003c "What’s happening?"\u003e Rizo asked more to the Odi who shared the body with him rather than to the humans. \u003c "Where are these things coming from?"\u003e

More and more black arms came out from the surrounding darkness as the lost souls found a way to exploit their link with Lith to use Demons of Darkness in his stead. Soon there were more than just arms, but also heads and full bodies as well.

"Die!" Lith replied joining the onslaught. Thanks to the cover that the shadows offered to him, Lith managed to get close enough to lunge with his claw at Rizo’s right lung, where the sphere that allowed him to conjure the God’s Will array was hidden.

Even among the red sea of rage possessing him, Lith was aware that without the artifact, the enemy would be at his complete mercy. With just tier three spells at his disposal, not even a blade master would last more than a few seconds.

"Is that really Lith?" Quylla asked, finally recognizing the familiar voice. Until that moment, snarls and roars had prevented her to understand who she should root for. She had previously aimed her bolt of lightning against Rizo only because it was what Phloria had done.

"Yes." Phloria nodded. She instinctively tried to reach for her sword before remembering that the Odi had taken it away from her. "We have to help him, he can’t win without a weapon."

Quylla was about to reply that she begged to differ since his claws had pierced through the damaged armor and the Odi’s flesh, spraying blue blood everywhere, when Rizo reactivated God’s Will in the nick of time before Lith’s fingers could close around the sphere.

A wind-push as strong as a tornado sent Lith crashing against the wall while the vengeful shadows were dispersed. The God’s Will array allowed Rizo to manipulate mana, not the lost souls inhabiting them.

Rizo could have used fire or lightning to kill him, but since the monster appeared to be immortal, if the attack failed and the thing still managed to take the God’s Will from him, even the female humans might have been able to kill him.

"I don’t want to stay here." Solus said. "How do I get back to Lith?"

Jirni-Mogar laughed with a sweet and silvery voice that would have been soothing if it didn’t come from someone with Jirni’s features. It sounded mostly creepy.

"You’re so funny, child. I already told you: that’s your mind-" Mogar pointed at Solus’s human form.

"-and there’s your body." She was now pointing at the arm protector visible on Lith’s right arm, covering him from the hand to the shoulder.

"Do the math."

Solus still had a lot of questions, yet Phloria was right. Lith couldn’t win without a weapon. Also, Mogar was right. With a broken life force and apparently also a broken soul, without her Lith was at risk of being possessed by the undead that he was currently manipulating.

She walked toward Lith, looking at her slender, pink hands one last time before overlapping her body with his own.

’Get up, we don’t have a second to lose!’ She thought. There were countless things that she wanted to say to him, but that wasn’t the time nor the place.

Rizo had realized the threat that the two female humans now posed to the Odi’s lives and with the body-swapping machine destroyed, they had no use for them anymore. He dispelled the God’s Will, conjuring it again so that it enveloped the area between him and his prey.

Phloria and Quylla were at its fringes, but having their backs against the wall they couldn’t escape. Not before he reached them and cut them down. Rizo was at the opposite side, darting through the array, leaving no blind spot that Lith could use to stop him.

The two women attempted to Blink, but the magical formation prevented them to.

Lith had yet to recover from the joy and shock to have Solus back yet he could already feel his heart squeezing from pain. He was about to lose one of his closest friends and the only woman that he might have ever loved.

His body moved faster than his mind and faster than Rizo. The Odi’s elemental fusion was more powerful, but Lith’s body was stronger and his limbs longer. It allowed Lith to reach Phloria and Quylla before his enemy.

’Solus, I know that I can beat him, but I need your help. There’s one last trick that I didn’t dare to attempt before because it will put your body at great risk and I hoped that giving you some time to heal, would allow you to recover.

’Thank heavens, I was right. I know that it’s unfair to ask you to suffer again even though you’ve just returned but...’

’I know and I’m deeply grateful for everything you’ve said and done for me, but now stop wasting time. I trust you with all of my heart, so do what you must.’ Solus cut him short.

’We’ll face this enemy like we faced and will face anyone who stands in our path, together!’