The Lich made his move. Countless spikes of solidified blood rose from the veneer of crimson coating Tonberg's streets. Lieze recognised them as [Blood Spikes], but on a smaller scale, with each of them barely larger than a needle. From the ground, it appeared as if a cloud of blood was rising into the air.
Sokalar's MP - 3,134 / 3,134
With a flick of his staff, the pins pointed towards the Manticore and flew towards the sky. One needle was barely worth the trouble of casting, but with thousands of them summoned at once, it was almost impossible to dodge. The Manticore twisted its body to protect itself from the worst of the barrage, but its whimpers of pain told Lieze that evading the attack completely was out of the question.
Manticore's HP - 23,122 / 26,879
She would be protected for as long as the Manticore survived. Sokalar was [21] levels above her, making victory an impossibility if Lieze couldn't put her allies to good use.
While carnage captured the skies, Marché's cultists charged forward with their thralls to attack Sokalar's army on the ground. A grand chorus of torn flesh filled the air with the sounds of chaos and the stench of iron.
For a moment, Lieze was blinded by the morning sun's rays as the Manticore rose to prevent another attack.
"My Heavenly Favours…" She thought, "They reset at dawn. If the sun's already visible from this high up, it'll only be a few minutes before they return to me. If I can survive until then…"
With that said, she wasn't about to sit back and allow her allies to steal all of the glory. She wrapped her hands around the Manticore's leonine mane and peered over its head to focus her attention on Sokalar's levitating body.
"Let's see how he handles this…" She furrowed her brow.
The Manticore had no fear - as expected of a thrall. When Lieze gave the order, it pointed its head towards the ground and nosedived through the frigid morning skies, claws reflecting a wicked light from the rising sun as they extended from the creature's enormous paws.
Sokalar's MP - 3,134 / 3,134
Sokalar was already defending himself from the attack. Globules of roiling crimson rose from the streets to form a formidable [Blood Barrier] concentrated in Lieze's direction. The Manticore's claws made a horrid screech - like nails against a chalkboard - as it brought its arm across the barrier. It wasn't quite enough to defend Sokalar completely, but much of the attack's momentum was nullified.
Sokalar's HP - 489 / 577
"Damn!" Lieze cursed under her breath, pointing towards the ground, "Pick up one of those thralls!"
The Manticore shifted its weight to swoop low to the ground, lunging with both forelimbs to swipe up an unlucky Horror on its way to engage Lieze's forces. Their speed was hampered by the extra weight, but Lieze didn't plan on immobilising herself for long.
"If I can time this correctly, a [Corpse Explosion] should-"
Sokalar's MP - 3,134 / 3,134
Her own thoughts were drowned out by an explosion of air which sent the Manticore reeling into the side of a nearby home. Glass shards flew past her face, inches away from gifting her with a few new scars.
Manticore's HP - 20,611 / 26,879
"That was… a [Corpse Explosion]!?" She exclaimed, "But how!?"
The Horror once caught in the Manticore's grasp had been reduced to a husk of slurry and ribbons. Its corpulent form had blown apart right next to the beast's heart, shredding layers of skin and revealing the cluster of discoloured organs beneath.
"He can cast that spell from a distance…?" She muttered, "Unbelievable… his status as a Lich must be multiplying his potential for communion."
[Corpse Explosion] had been stricken off the list. She couldn't make use of it without endangering herself, unless it was used immediately and without making it too obvious. The time wasted by the Manticore's recoiling gave the Lich as much time as he wanted to summon yet another curtain of bloody needles from the street.
Sokalar's MP - 3,134 / 3,134
Again, the Manticore flapped its wing and twisted in a futile effort to dodge the attack, but taking damage was inevitable. Lieze was beginning to understand its true worth after witnessing just how resilient it really was.
Manticore's HP - 16,868 / 26,879
"Sokalar's MP isn't decreasing… it's because of his focus." She thought, "I'll need to make use of my own if I want to match him…"
She was reluctant to make use of her own focus for fear of indulging too much. The staff took a [10%] slice out of her HP whenever it was used to cast a spell, but relying on her personal pool of mana wouldn't be enough to emerge victorious.
If she recalled rightly, Sokalar's focus had a reservoir that could contain up to 3,417 MP, whereas her own could only manage a paltry 1,600. Not only that, but Sokalar's focus had a maxed-out attunement index of [100%], allowing it to compensate entirely for every one of his spells. Even without considering the effects Lieze's focus would have on her health, there was a stark difference between the two.
Lieze's MP - 1,499 / 1,735
Lieze's HP - 259 / 334
She settled on a [Blood Spike], drawing 400 MP from her focus with the supply of blood from her Bag of Holding. Sokalar seemed amused by her attempt - he only needed to see the spell's size to ascertain its exact mana usage. Making use of that information, he could create a [Blood Barrier] that would match the strength of Lieze's spell without wasting any MP.
But that obsession with perfection was exactly the kind of response Lieze was looking for. As the [Blood Spike] formed in the air, she could see the gears turning in the Lich's mind as he took stock of its capabilities. Deciding on a particular barrier strength, his form was soon obscured by a shield of blood.
Sokalar's MP - 3,134 / 3,134
Lieze smirked. Despite all of his strategic brilliance, her father was gripped with overconfidence just like any other enemy she'd faced. Before firing the [Blood Spike], she drew a globule of Materia from her Bag of Holding, allowing the corrupted solution to mix with her spell, enhancing its properties to unbelievable proportions.
"...Hm!?" Sokalar's expression remained still, for he had no muscles to move, but Lieze knew that he was wide-eyed from within.
Her father had yet to see the Materia in action, and as a result, he had no way of countering its effects when Lieze's hand was played. Naturally, she thought, the most effective method of outsmarting one of the world's greatest strategic minds was to keep her plans hidden until it was far too late.
Sokalar scrambled to reinforce his [Blood Shield] as the [Blood Spike] quintupled in size, blotting clouds and casting a shadow over the legions below. When Lieze released her grip on the spell, it carted forward like a ship unmoored from its dock, barrelling inexorably towards Sokalar's pitiful barrier.
Sokalar's MP - 2,988 / 3,134
The javelin's tip spindled with flecks of blood upon contact with the barrier, drilling its way through the hardened surface with every intent of striking the Lich cowering behind its illusion of safety. A combination of pride and logic prevented Sokalar from moving - he knew that strengthening the barrier was his only hope of survival.
Fresh lifeblood from the battle raging below their heavenly duel rose like creeping fingers towards the clash, melding to form a near-impenetrable shield at an incredible cost to Sokalar's mana.
Sokalar's MP - 2,133 / 2,988
Lieze's attack was thwarted. Or, at least - that's what the Lich would have liked to believe. Under the strictest application of the system's rules, there was no spell more powerful that Lieze could possibly use. But she was well past the point of 'following rules'. Every step forward she'd taken had been in defiance of authority in all of its forms.
She summoned the particulars of her [Blood Spike] spell, eyes scanning the text faster than she ever thought herself capable of.
Mercurial Enhancement - When enhanced, the damage and size of your next blood spike is quintupled. Additionally, the attack will pierce through physical and magical protection.
Where did it say she could only enhance a spell once? The answer, as she hoped, was nowhere. Drayya's surgery to extract the Phylactery from her body had resulted in an overabundance of Mercuria leaking out from her Godflesh. She had the mindfulness to make sure that most of it was collected into her Bag of Holding after the operation was over - almost 3 litres in total.
"There's no point in holding back…. I can end this right here!" She thought.
Quintuple, quintuple, quintuple. Her mind swam with possibilities. If she enhanced an already-enhanced [Blood Spike], would the increase in power be exponential, or would the enhancement use the properties of the original spell as a reference?
The answer, disappointingly, turned out to be the former. When Lieze enhanced the [Blood Spike] yet again, its power and size dectupled the original's statistics. She understood why, of course. If the boost to power was exponential, she would have quickly ended up with a [Blood Spike] the size of the planet - and while she would have loved that, her strength would be scraping the upper-limit of the ethereal plane at that point.
Still, Sokalar was overwhelmed. He continued to funnel mana and blood into his barrier in a desperate attempt to escape the blow unscathed, but the longer he focused on the spell, the more Mercuria Lieze poured into her [Blood Spike], eventually disintegrating his chance to evade once the javelin had grown to cast a shadow over the entire street.
"What is this power!?" For the first time in Lieze's life, she witnessed her father losing his composure, "I believe it not! It isn't possible for a mere human to command this level of sorcery!"
He had further complaints, but they were muted by the screeching cacophony of his [Blood Barrier] shattering under the weight of the [Blood Spike]. What remained of the throughway leading towards the city square was devastated by the spell's impact, its tip striking Sokalar's chest before forcing him towards the ground. Great fissures appeared at the impact point, but the spike did not cease as the road itself began to collapse into the labyrinthine sewers beneath the city.
"Shit! Oh shit!" Drayya leaped back as a chunk of the road in front of her began to split apart, "Levitate! Levitate, for the love of all that's good!"
The idea came to her quickly, before the realisation set in that Marché and his followers were far too middling of skill to accomplish such a feat. As she rose into the air, Drayya cast a glance over her shoulder to see Marché and a handful of cultists pushing past a group of thralls and sprinting towards the castle.
A cloud of smoke obscured the horde of undead scattered within Tonberg's sewers. Most of them were crushed beneath the rubble, though the survivors persisted in their aggression, leaping gleefully at one-another with yellowed teeth bared. Lieze observed the chaos from atop the Manticore, hopeful for a brief instant that Sokalar had perished in the collapse.
"No…" Her breathing was rapid, "I have a quest to kill him… I would know right away if he was dead. He's still down there."
"Lieze!"
She looked down to spot Drayya waving her arms while hovering through the air. A few flaps of the Manticore's wings saw the beast descending to the point where Drayya could clamour aboard before her reserves of mana began to run low.
"You couldn't have done something a little less destructive!?" She exclaimed, "It's a miracle this city hasn't already become our tomb! Don't go collapsing the roads while we're still on them!"
"Can you really blame me?" Lieze asked, "This is my father we're up against."
"...Do you know what? That's very true." Drayya blinked, "Is he dead!?"
"No." She shook her head, "But he must be weakened. We have to descend into the sewers and find him before he recuperates."
"Go in there?" Drayya pointed towards the groaning, collapsing chasm beneath them, "The hazardous, undead-infested sewers?"
Lieze paused, then nodded, "Yes?"