Chapter 1557 - Eye Versus Eye (Part 1) Quylla shielded Morok with her wings while Protector moved in front of Nalrond to take the brunt of the impact for him. Realizing that not even their armor were a match for the combined effect of the Evil Eyes, the Rezar and the Tyrant weaved their spells together via the mind link, making the ground rise and forming a series of makeshift barriers. 'If someone covers for me, I can dish out a big spell, but I need time.' Nalrond said while a volley of fire pillars pierced through the rock walls, Protector, and yet they still had enough power to almost burn the Rezar to a crisp. Nalrond used his mastery over earth magic to conjure more and more thick layers of stone to fill the hole in the barriers before the next volley arrived, unwittingly turning the tide of the battle. The goblins had already consumed most of the ground with their spells, forcing Nalrond to take what he needed from the walls to not trigger a cave in. His spell dislodged several metal rings and made the magical gemstones that the Harmonizers had kept stable until a second back go haywire. A mana crystal was just a mass of world energy that had taken physical form due to its abundance, time, and the presence of rare minerals that usually could be found solely at great depths. The things that Morok had mistaken for slave collars were magical devices capable of exerting so much pressure that, in the case of living beings, it created an artificial mana flow… If left on the ground, instead, several Harmonizers linked together compressed the world energy to the point of causing the germination of mana crystals even in the absence of the rare minerals. By dislodging the Harmonizers, Nalrond had also relieved the newly formed crystals from the very force that kept them together. The gemstones had yet to stabilize so they exploded, triggering a chain reaction that turned the upper side of the corridor into a slaughterhouse. "You idiot! Months of hard work and sacrifices ruined!" Rhona said in outrage after completing her tier four spell, Heat Wave. A raging river of boiling water erupted from her wings and flooded the entire corridor. Protector tried to Blink, but the elemental imbalance just made him waste his mana while the hot water seeped through the openings in his armor. Nalrond used his rock barrier to shield his companions, but the water suddenly turned into vapor while the heat cracked the stone, letting the gas in while emitting a shrill sound akin to a pressure cooker. He sealed the cracks with earth magic but the reverted Balor burst through the wall with a single fist. Protector stepped in before Rhona could interrupt Nalrond but more water kept getting past the broken barrier. The Balor kept turning Heat Wave from liquid to gas and back, using both forms as an extra limb. A wave sent Quylla crashing against a wall while a fine mist blinded Protector that failed to dodge an uppercut and retained his consciousness only thanks to darkness fusion blocking his pain receptors. "Sorry, sister, but you are not the only one with a cool bloodline skill!" Morok said while turning into his real form, that of a lean humanoid covered in rainbow-colored scales and with six big eyes, each one bearing the light of a different element. He now had the yellow and the orange eyes where his regular eyes had been until a second back. The black and the white rested respectively on his right and left shoulders while the remaining two emerged from the back of his hands. He used the blue and the red eyes to counter Heat Wave, yet the willpower imbued in the spell made it resistant to both his bloodline ability to absorb elemental energy and to Domination. 'Something is wrong here. That's a tier four spell, yet it has the same properties of a tier five!' He warned his companions while the hot water got past his armor and covered his skin with blisters. 'You don't say.' Protector replied with a snarl as Rhona blocked his mace, Boros, with her bare hands and almost stole it from Protector after stunning him with a headbutt. The Balor had only recently regained her ancient powers but her mastery over them was pushed to its limits by her rage and desperation. She kept Heat Wave within the control range of her elemental wings and constantly infused it with new mana. 'If only I had a violet core, I would be able to weave spells while I fight whereas now I'm a sitting duck!' Protector cursed himself for his lack of progress as the cold that the Balor's touch generated sapped his strength. 'Thanks for the cover!' Nalrond came to the rescue, unleashing his most powerful spell, Daybreak, that he had learned from Dawn. It was a mix of light and darkness magic that generated a wave of dark energy followed by a volley of fiery constructs shaped like snakes. The darkness engulfed the tunnel, blinding even the Balors' Evil Eyes while the hard-light constructs attacked from every side. Daybreak turned the Rezar into a one-man army while the light blooming from the shadows made him look like a rising sun. Each tendril of light moved akin to a living being, coiling around its respective mark and paralyzing them. The darkness spreading from Nalrond flooded the monsters' skin first and then it seeped inside their bodies, eating at them from the inside. A single construct was enough to kill even a reverted goblin on contact, leaving it free to search for new prey. Yet the Balors were much tougher opponents. They used their physical might to fight against the tendrils of light while squeezing whatever elemental energy was left inside their Evil Eyes to fight back the incoming wave of darkness magic. The tier five spell and the pillars clashed against each other, technique against raw strength, to a standstill. While the Rezar's friends couldn't do anything without risking to mess with the hard-light constructs, the reverted goblins used their earth magic to build fortifications where the Balors could safely retreat. Their good intentions gave Nalrond an idea. Instead of focusing on his enemies, the Rezar had Daybreak attack the walls on the lower side of the corridor, where another batch of metal rings and unstable crystals was. 'In theory, using powerful spells inside a crystal mine is suicidal, but those gemstones are too small to cause a cave in. What they can actually do, is to take the monsters out for me!' He thought. The ensuing explosions killed the goblins, destroyed their makeshift buildings, and ripped the defenseless Balors to shreds. At the same time, however, Nalrond had to turn Daybreak into a plug to keep the blast from reaching his side of the tunnel. The hard-light constructs tanked the shockwaves while the darkness they were infused with smothered the flames. By the time the dust settled down, Nalrond was exhausted but all the enemies were dead. Except for Rhona, who had used the water from her Heat Wave spell to encase herself in a self-regenerating ice coffin. As soon as Daybreak disappeared, the ice melted, releasing the reverted Balor who was as unscathed as she was livid.