Chapter 1097 Well-Laid Plans Part 1 Due to their small size, arrows and bullets couldn’t bear mana crystals. Enchanting them cost dozens of gold coins and they would last only a few hours before they imploded under the pressure generated by the spells they were imbued with. To make matters worse, making a bullet out of Davross or Adamant was not only incredibly expensive, but also pointless. Even the simplest set of runes scaled down to the smallest size that would still allow them to work required an extensive surface to be drawn. The arrow Lith had intercepted was covered in runes from the tip to its feathers just to achieve the armor piercing spell. Lith put Kamila over his left shoulder as if she was just a sack of potatoes and started to run while his mind spun at top gear. ’There are only two ways out of here. Either I throw Kamila outside the array so that she can call for help and I can fight freely, or I fight while protecting her. Both strategies are very risky. ’If I’m not the target, getting Kamila away from me means to fall into my opponents’ trap while keeping her with me is a huge handicap. I have no choice but to fuse the two plans into one.’ Striking first had given Lith the opportunity to cast Full Guard and ran away before his enemies could realize how badly their strategy had failed. The blue aura filling the space for 10 meters (33 feet) around Lith gave him perfect awareness of the battlefield and made up for Solus’s absence. He chose the direction with fewer blood cores to more quickly escape the dimensional sealing array before the enemies could surround them completely. Only true undead could worry Lith, he had no fear of facing even a small army of thralls. He moved like the wind, each one of his steps quick and powerful, sending his shoulder against Kamila’s stomach that was full of delicacies they had just eaten. She needed sheer willpower to not puke her guts outs. Two thralls disguised as a couple stepped in front of Lith, brandishing short swords that emitted a now familiar pungent smell. He noticed that the woman’s nails had an odd color that she had tried to hide with nail polish, but the subtle stench gave it away. ’Fuck me sideways! The undead know that I’m an Awakened so using poison against me doesn’t make sense nor does a woman trying to "casually" scratch me. My skin is so hard that it’s more likely that she would break her nails and poison herself. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦 ’These guys are out for Kamila.’ He thought while swinging War in a wide arc. The Thralls sneered and attempted to dodge, just to see the bastard sword suddenly speed up beyond what their eyes could follow. Lith’s perfect body refining and Fusion Magic made the swing so fast that the Thralls couldn’t react in time and so powerful that it cut them in half along with their weapons. Their sacrifice, however, had given a handsome man enough time to get close to Lith. He kept his tier five magic holding ring at eye level, ready to fire a Final Sunset the moment the enemy made his move. Yet the man was a Banshee. He didn’t need to get close nor his attack could be blocked by the black flames. The undead screamed with all the anguish typical of its race, creating a powerful shockwave that cracked the pavement and uprooted the street lamps. Those who had been cheated on by their alleged one true love could become a Banshee. They needed to kill the person who turned their love into hatred with their own hands and then commit suicide. Only then could their sire turn the thrall into one of them. ’Oh, shit, a Banshee! Couldn’t they work like in Dungeons \u0026 Looting? That way, a simple earplug would make them powerless.’ Lith had no good defense at hand so he jumped back while curling up to protect Kamila. Between the jump and the full force of the shockwave, Lith managed to almost fly outside the air sealing array that blocked his best spells. Seeing their prey get further away, the undead cursed the Banshee and converged on Lith, surrounding him from every side. The boosted Skinwalker armor had protected Lith from harm and even filled his ears to block the noise, but the shockwave had made him lose focus. Lith felt dizzy and activated light fusion to negate the vibrations that still dulled his body. "Stay close to me and get ready to retreat. If we don’t escape the array, we’re done for." Lith said with a slurred voice. He needed a couple of seconds to cast Full Guard again and weave a few spells. Unfortunately, Kamila lacked an enhanced body and light fusion so even with the protection of her own boosted Skinwalker armor, she couldn’t hear a word he said. Her ears still rang and her bones rattled from the Banshee’s scream, making her unable to even stand. Yet she didn’t give up. Kamila pressed a sequence of runes on her army amulet while taking a small purple mana crystal from one of her pockets. She inserted the crystal inside a slot of the amulet and then threw it away with all the strength she could muster. By the time the undead reached Lith, light fusion and half a breath worth of energy of Invigoration had cleared his mind. A dome of black flames intercepted the first wave of enemies, turning them into ashes. The Banshee screamed again, but this time, Lith was ready. The barrier ring almost overloaded to resist the combined pressure of the shockwave and of the darkness spells that rained upon Lith, but it held. The still active Final Sunset turned into a jet stream of black fire that entered the still opened mouth of the Banshee and gave him an excruciating death. Then, a hail of enchanted arrows shattered the barrier, forcing Lith to activate the last Final Sunset stored inside his magic holding ring. The spell created a dome of black flames that incinerated the Orichalcum arrowheads, but the second wave of enemies unleashed a volley of icicles that neutralized the new barrier as soon as it formed. ’Dammit, these guys are professionals.’ Lith inwardly cursed while studying their formation via Full Guard. ’Not only don’t they take unnecessary risks, but they also seem to be aware of my usual tactics.’ Two men and one woman turned into the Vampire’s Chiropteran form, resembling giant demonic bats and amplifying their already outstanding physical prowess. Their bodies were big enough to cover Lith’s field of view, but thanks to Full Guard he didn’t need his eyes. The Chiropterans looked at War with fear and surprise, having no idea how Lith could have pulled the sword out despite the sealing array. Yet they knew about the blade and had taken it into account for their contingency plan. One of their allies was a Ghoul and thanks to her regenerative abilities, she feared no sword, not even the angry blade. Lith infused War with darkness magic while the Ghoul did the same to her body so that when she trapped Lith’s weapon inside her chest the two energies simply canceled each other.