1823 Cursed Flames (Part 1)

Solus cursed at herself. She was so used to exchanging her thoughts with Lith that she would often forget that most people found having a voice blabbering in their head distracting, especially in the heat of battle. 

'My guess is that the strength of the two Origin Flames doesn't matter. To combine them into Primordial Flames, our two Demons here have to somehow manipulate the energy signature of their respective Flames until they match.' She said.

'Please, elaborate.' Tista said.

'Think about it. When you breathed together, nothing different from the usualhappened.' Solus replied. 'Your respective Origin Flames worked independently and caused explosions whenever they made contact.' Solus said and the others nodded for her to continue.

'At that point, the Grendel used Night's prism to defend himself by conjuring massive amounts of darkness that mixed your Origin Flames. This way, when the Void Flame arrived, they found a matching energy signature and created the Primordial Flames.

'Void Flames are identical to Origin Flames with just a spark of Chaos added to them. My hypothesis is that Night's darkness tainted the Origin Flames, making a difference.'

Her reasoning made sense, but they had no time for more theories. They got back to their feet and darted through the corridors, following the map in their pins to reach the throne room while the members of the Hand of Fate corps created a diversion.

Or so they thought until a second wave of four enemies appeared from around a corner to intercept them. They each had a prism in their chest and weren't affected by the presence of the sun shining high in the sky.

'Feela said that thanks to daylight we wouldn't encounter much resistance aside from Thralls, yet these guys are as strong as they come.' Friya said.

The Primordial Flames had wiped out enough of the magical aura of the building to make their mystical senses work again.

'It's the prism.' Lith replied. 'One of the Chosen must have a bloodline ability that allows them to move freely during the day and the prism shares it with the others.'

Baba Yaga had disclosed all the information she had about Night's abilities to the Council. She wanted to be sure that whoever found her rebellious daughter first would know what they were dealing with.

"Hello, my dear siblings." Orpal's voice came out of the mouths of the four undead that spoke in unison as they approached. "There's no need to break into my home. If you wanted an invite, all you needed to do was ask."

'Shit! This wasn't in Baba Yaga's file.' Tista said.

The prisms were supposed to only allow Night to share her powers with her Chosen and vice versa. Yet now they seemed to also form a mind link between them, if not even some kind of hive mind.

'Our situation has just gone from bad to worse since Orpal will be able to study our new abilities. Yet if he can pass his own skills unto the undead, things might become from worse to nightmare.' Lith said.

'Shouldn't we call off the mission?' Phloria asked. 'If Orpal knows we are coming, he must have run away already.'

'Gods, you've never met Meln, have you?' Tista replied with a dry laugh. 'Running away would mean admitting he is inferior to Lith. He would rather die.'

The four undead stopped their advance, opening their mouths unnaturally wide as if their jaws had been dislocated. They emitted the shrill shriek of a Banshee, producing each a shockwave with the sheer energy of a speeding truck.

Yet thanks to the mind link and Orpal's fine control, the wavelengths of the screams were in perfect synch, overlapping due to constructive interference. The undead's voices fused into one with four times the destructive power.

Friya shot with Thundercrash while Tista and Lith breathed Origin Flames, but they only managed to reduce the damage they received. The sonic boom of the railgun was neutralized and the bullet hit the incoming wall of sound, fragmenting before it could reach its target.

The Origin Flames ate more of the raw energy of the Banshee's shriek, but the shockwave smothered the flames like birthday candles. Their efforts still bought Lith's group the time to cover their ears and for Phloria to activate Stalwart Defender again.

Her tier four Spirit spell filled the corridor and absorbed even more of the damage, but it still wasn't enough. Phloria's shield-bearing arm went numb from the impact while the others lost their footing and were sent tumbling back on the ground.

Lith's mass had allowed him to keep standing, but the vibrations that now coursed throughout his bones dulled his movements and slowed down his reaction time.

"First, I took out your sight. Now your hearing. Next comes your breath." The four undead said with Orpal's voice, certain that his opponents weren't able to hear a word he said.

He had no idea that due to his unwittingly help, Primordial Flames had made Life Vision useful again and that thanks to their teamwork, Lith's group wasn't deaf.

'The good news is that Meln can't share his mystical senses with them.' Solus said. 'The bad news is that he is about to turn the air in the corridor either very hot or very cold. Pick your poison and cross your finger.'

'It's cold!' Lith replied with a snarl.

He remembered well how Glemos the Tyrant had effortlessly made Lith faint due to his weakness to cold. There was no reason for Glemos to hide such knowledge from his allies and Orpal would have been stupid not to exploit it.

Even though Lith despised his brother's guts, he had to admit that his deranged quest for revenge had made him into a cunning strategist.

Tista was weak to the cold as well so with a single spell Orpal would knock out both demons and cripple the strength of their allies. Many birds with one stone.

Lith hurled a jet-stream of Void Flames just in time to see the four undead employ the bloodline ability of a Wendigo, Chilling Wail. Wendigos were undead monsters born from a hapless creature that to survive a long and harsh winter had been forced to feed upon their tribe.

Their Firstborn was not only plagued by the madness and guilt that cannibalizing their loved ones had caused, but they also carried the cold of that cursed winter within themselves and had passed it down to their descendants.

Chilling Wail sucked the warmth from the air, lowering the temperature of dozens of degrees at once and making snow fall. The focused fire of the Void Flames managed to pierce through the cold wave, sending one of the undead flying.

Yet he was hurt, not dead.

On top of that, the other three kept wailing and the room dropped down to 100 degrees Celsius below zero. Lith and Friya tried to use Spirit Domination to get rid of the cold or at least became immune to it.

Under Orpal's guidance, however, the willpower of the three undead fused into one and he added his own, making Chilling Wail impossible to dominate.

Lith felt his strength plummet and reverted to his human form, but it would only buy him some time. The temperature kept getting lower and the prisms on the Chosen's chests sent a wave of darkness magic that would soon engulf them.