Chapter 4122: Turning the Tables (Part 1) "Bomb wha-" The Upyr’s laugh died in her throat as the Lindwurm’s personal spell, Blasting Barrage, blew her foot off. It combined the fire and earth elements, compressing them to the size of a marble. Phillard had woven them with body casting and scattered them behind himself as he ran away. The Upyr had missed them due to the colossal size of her body and ego, and now she paid the price for it. The first explosion dug a hole deep enough to make the corrupted Divine Beast lose her balance. Phillard exploited the Upyr’s moment of weakness to jump to her face and breathe a thick cloud of his corrosive breath right into her open mouth. Pain and lack of oxygen made her falter, and the Lindwurm bodily slammed into her while unleashing the full power of his axes. His combination of attacks and enchantments brought her down, and the rest of the Blasting Barrage Phillard had left inactive until that moment blew huge chunks of her body, spraying the area with her black blood. "How can you still be alive?" The Lindwurm cursed when he noticed a second Upyr approaching. He hacked where the jugular was supposed to be one last time before running away. "Good job, you stupid Minotaur!" The Upyr said while rescuing her with Invigoration. "You’re lucky I’m a plant folk, or you’d die of shock before an ordinary healing spell could take effect." A hammer blow to the head pushed the Minotaur-Upyr beyond salvation and left the Firbolg stunned. ’Not a chance!’ Morok recalled Grimnir to his hand as he turned around to face his opponent. The Tyrant had escaped the ambush as well thanks to his energy wings. They didn’t need to flap to gain speed, and the moment Captured World had disappeared, Morok had taken off like a rocket simply by pumping them with mana. The Upyr had never seen a Tyrant with wings before, so he had gotten too close and got burned for it. The prismatic trail Morok left behind was comprised of pure elemental energy that burned, froze, healed, rotted, calcified, and electrocuted at the same time. The corrupted Divine Beast had taken the twin jets in his face, giving Morok all the time he needed to escape the encirclement while the Upyr was blinded. "Vinire!" The Tyrant’s silver eye lit up, and a bright light wreathed his twin battle hammers, increasing their mass. He launched them with excellent aim, but the Upyr was faster and far away enough to read their trajectory and dodge them. "Stormnado!" Morok put all the Vital Storm Tista had given him into a thunderstorm filled with air blades and noxious gas on the flying path of the Upyr. ’Why does he keep shouting his m-’ A flick of Morok’s wrists recalled his hammers, striking the Upyr in the back and pushing him inside the thunderstorm. Raging Sun came silently and infused with the Tyrant’s Vital Storm, completing the attack. The combination of the two tier five spells resulted in a violent conflagration that covered the Upyr in deep wounds and burns. Grimnir dealt the finishing blow after being infused with darkness and another dose of Vital Storm. "Five minutes break?" Morok asked the angry Firbolg-Upyr who had come to avenge his dead comrades. "No!" The Firbolg replied while lunging with a long glaive entirely made of wood. Meanwhile, Lith found himself between a rock and a hard place. Getting too close to Jorl put him at a disadvantage, but getting too far would play into Salanoth’s hand. ’If she blocks me again, I’m dead.’ Lith thought. ’I can’t deal with two enemies at the same time. Not if the cursed ring keeps messing with my rhythm.’ Salanoth could alter the area of effect and duration of Captured World at will. Lith’s movements had already stuttered more than once because of her, and each time it had cost him to miss the timing for a dodge or pressing on after a successful attack. She and Jorl always kept themselves on opposite sides, so that the Tiamat couldn’t focus properly on either. "Don’t feel too bad about this, Verhen." Jorl shapeshifted half of his constructs into weapons. "You fought well, and when your brother will learn someone else killed you, he’ll probably have a stroke. It won’t kill him, but I will." ’Meln is not my brother.’ Lith thought, refusing to waste time with banter while his life was on the line. ’The only silver lining is that Solus can’t be hurt too badly, or the tower would drain my vitality to heal her. Still, she needs my help. They all need it.’ The eye in the middle of his forehead watched Protector dodge Uragar’s Mana Storm, but the emerald bullets always curved and tried again. ’Actually, I’m hurt pretty badly. My wounds didn’t affect you only thanks to the life force stored in the Bleed.’ Solus sighed. ’Anyway, don’t worry about me and focus on these bastards.’ ’Any suggestions?’ He asked, relieved to hear her voice. ’Yeah, one.’ Solus replied. ’The cursed ring uses a dimensional field too vast and powerful to rely solely on the mana she and her host possess. An enchantment that size needs world energy to work...’ ’And I can bend world energy to my will with Tiamat Fear.’ Lith completed the phrase for her. He spread his aura as far and fast as he could while exchanging blows and spells with the Storm Griffon. ’The bastard is not giving his all. He’s just searching for the perfect spot from which to strike once the cursed ring stops my movements again. I need to play this smart.’ Lith thought. Once Tiamat Fear covered the area around him for 30 meters (100’), Lith stopped its advance and increased its density. The world energy and the willpower it stored became thicker by the second, so when Salanoth activated Captured World again, things didn’t go her way. The hyper-compressed space now had to overcome the multiple layers of world energy that, driven by Lith’s willpower, fought Captured World’s effects tooth and nail. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶 Jorl put all his weight into the attack and used the constructs surrounding Lith to strike at him from every side at once, expecting Captured World to mess with Lith’s tempo again. The Plague Storm erupting from the Tiamat’s scales caught Jorl by surprise, and so did the Spirit-infused darkness projectiles ignoring the effects of Captured World. Spirit Magic gave the bolts of darkness both speed and mass, so that when they reached the Storm Griffon, they hit him like a barrage of counterpunches before seeping inside his body and sapping his strength. The Plague Storm also blew Jorl’s constructs away, so that when Captured World broke past Tiamat’s Fear, it froze the hard-light weapons first. Lith exploited the Storm Griffon’s moment of hesitation to breathe another blast of Void Flames at Jorl and open a deep wound in his shoulder before Salanoth’s trump card forced Lith to a halt. The black flames dispelled the Life Maelstrom once again, and without it, the Storm Griffon couldn’t avoid Ragnarök’s deadly lunge. Yet he was far from helpless. Jorl changed the trajectory of his maces at the last second, aiming for the angry blade’s hilt.