The emerald-gold construct avoided the Firstborn and attacked the Mad Queen from every side with the power of all elements at the same time.

Spirit Mastery also dodged Thrud's spells and sword unless they would hit its master, working as a defensive wall that took no free hits. It doubled Scarlett's attack prowess and guaranteed her survival in the case she failed to defend.

Dozens of birds with one spell.

Vladion, instead, unleashed his tier five Blood Magic spell, Immortal Ruler. Blood Magic was the Awakened undead equivalent of Spirit Magic and packed as much as a punch.

The Vampire converted part of the mana and life force stored in his full red blood core to manifest a rain of blood-blades as big as a drop and as sharp as Adamant. They would follow their target until they had pierced through its flesh and turned it into shreds.

'Would have you really abandoned them if Jakra knew the identity of the one behind the Balkor cards?' Solus asked, almost afraid of the answer.

'Please, Scarlett is no friend of us. Back when we first met, she tried to kill us both and then she spilled our secrets without a care. Had not Faluel been Faluel, we'd be fucked as fuck.

'As for Vladion, he didn't even want us in Lightkeep. He only let us in because Nyka asked him to and because he needed us. If it was up to me, I'd gladly walk away from this mess.' Lith replied with thoughts as cold as his blade.

'Yet the answer to your question is no. I wouldn't. Scarlett is precious to Nyka and Kalla, hence she's precious to me as well. As for Vladion, his death would pain Baba Yaga, and you care for her.

'She's the only person left from your old life you can still freely talk to and I'd never let you down, Solus. Never.' His honest sincerity and worry for her moved Solus to tears.

There was little good left in Lith, but it still could make him raze mountains and split oceans for the sake of the people he loved.

'Last but not least, I've got my professional pride on the line. As long as I'm paid, I always follow my job through. You know that.' That last part bummed her big time.

Meanwhile, to dodge the emerald-gold and blood-red avalanche Thrud had been forced to step back until she reached the first outer rim of lesser Dragons. She had discovered at her expense that Immortal Ruler defended its caster as well.

Every time one of her spells or her blade was about to reach Vladion, the blood droplets would merge and turn into a flexible shield that stopped her attacks. She had nothing at the ready that could stop such powerful spells and she wasn't an Awakened.

Yet.

"You guys are amazing!" She said with a huge smile on her face that sent a shiver down her enemies' spines.

Thrud lit four of the seven gems on Arthan's Sword, unleashing a quadra-elemental spell that was supposed to be impossible for someone without a tower.

Staunch Griffon conjured a rock wall as big as the tunnel and infused with darkness, air, and fire. The black flames evaporated the blood and eroded the emerald tide while the solid rock wall stopped their advance.

On top of that, the air element repelled the enemy's spells by creating an air barrier and by mixing itself with the black flames to generate timed explosions akin to small Raging Novas.

In a confined space, the shockwaves bounced off the walls, doubling their intensity and forcing the other spells to exhaust their mana even faster to protect their respective owners.

Scarlett cursed Thrud's insane equipment and used that time to use Aura, her breathing technique to recover the lost strength while Vladion did the same. The Firstborn Vampire was certain to be stronger than the Mad Queen, but Arthan's equipment made it akin to fighting two Awakened at the same time.

"I really needed worthy opponents to get accustomed to the most recent changes I did to the Madness. The Kingdom praises you for your sacrifice to make it grow even stronger!" Thrud said.

'There's only so much that the sword can do. She's no Awakened so as long as we keep her from casting more spells, we'll get the upper hand the moment she runs out of those she has at the ready.' Vladion said via the mind link and Scarlett nodded.

Both of them had achieved the power of the violet core for long enough to learn how to cast all kinds of spells with their bodies. They could cast several of them at the same time while fighting, no matter their tier whereas Thrud needed time.

A time that they had no desire to give her.

'Can you override control of the geyser?' Lith asked while parrying Jakra's flurry of feints and thrusts.

'No. Xedros did a great job with his arrays. What I can do is to take control of the still free energy, but it might take a while.' Solus replied.

'It's better than nothing. Do it, please.'

'Way ahead of you.' She said with a smirk to which he smirked back.

After the fight with Qisal, Lith had come up with a strategy that he could use any time that Solus was with him. He would use everything he had learned about his vortexes to turn them into auxiliary cores and she would compress his body.

Usually, the more the vortexes turned into quasi-spheres, the more mass Lith gained and the more he increased in size, bringing him to proportions he wasn't used to. A single step moving him for meters, being forced to mind the ceiling, and his extra limbs, made him a worst fighter than he was in his human form.

To make matters worse, it also made the Scalewalker armor and War pointless. The armor was too small for a giant over 4 meters (14 feet) tall and the angry blade was reduced to a mere kitchen knife in his hands.

Solus, however, had practiced her Body Sculpting technique countless times on him and now she knew Lith's life force like the back of her hand. As the vortexes turned into spheres and Lith's body grew in size, she compressed it, keeping Lith's proportions to those he was most familiar with.

Jakra had more and more difficulties restraining Lith's movements because the gap between their mass shrunk as their fight went on. Sure, the Wyrmling had a long way to go before weighing a single ton, but the more mass Lith gained, the more effective his body refinement became.

To put it simply, if the mass determined the raw physical prowess of the fighters, body refinement was akin to a multiplier that made every single gram/ounce of Lith's muscles produce a more explosive power.

"Are you really just a Wyrmling?" Jakra said as the mere clash between Dragonclaw and War produced now a shockwave that propagated through their armor and into their bodies.

"You have no idea." Lith used his tier four Spirit Spell, Piercing Explosion, that produced a tetra-elemental ray of energy aimed at the Dragon's head.

According to Lith's and Solus's estimates, it should have dealt a huge damage and created an opening for more.