'I can't use fire unless I want to repeat Calil's mistake. Earth would only squash Lith, the same applies to darkness. I'm no Healer so I can't help the infected. What are the elements I can safely work with? Air and water.' Phloria thought.
A sudden idea popped up inside her head. It was dangerous and likely to backfire, but Phloria had learned from her father that she had to fight with the options she had, not those she might want.
Regretting to have never learned a single tier four War Mage spell, she unleashed a barrage of the tier thee spell, Frostbite. Fake mages couldn't amplify the strength of a spell below tier five at will, so Phloria had to compensate for the lack of quality with speed and quantity.
A frozen wave after another struck the mass of living spores surrounding Lith, limiting their movements and making those closing in to replace the mass lost due to Lith's dark aura fall to the ground.
The fungal cage became thinner by the second as its external layers were frozen and the internal layers were sucked dry by darkness magic. Lith managed to escape by releasing a sudden burst of his aura that scattered the creature's remains away while Phloria's unrelenting barrage of spells prevented the spores from taking a physical form again.
"Why you didn't do that earlier?" Lith asked while flying to her side.
"Because I was afraid that something like that would happen!" The moment she stopped casting to catch her breath, the spores broke out of the ice and started to multiply at a terrifying rate.
"If something that size lived for so long and kept such a huge mass, then the Odi must have left it plenty of food. Food plus lots of water…."
"Make the problem even bigger." Lith completed the phrase for her.
'So she was aware of the risks and yet she used water anyway. How can she still trust me so much that she bet her life on me finding a way to beat this thing?' Lith thought.
'Maybe it's not just trust. Maybe she wasn't willing to abandon you. Feelings don't fade just because we want them to.' Solus hated it when Lith was so dense, but being cynical also made him blind to the most obvious and cheesy answers.
'I hate to ask you for this after all the troubles we had to escape from that living prison, but I need you to get back in the belly of the beast. Metaphorically, of course. I can't find anything from here, so if you are right, the corrupted spores are in some place deeper inside Kulah.
'It would explain why the creature didn't attack as soon as the door was opened. Probably if its consciousness gets too far from the corruption, the mind link might be broken. It had to wait for us to be in position.'
Lith mind whimpered before saying:
"Thanks for your help, Phloria. Also, please don't get mad at me!" Then he seemingly threw in the gutter all of her efforts by charging at full speed against the spore cloud that was now so big that it covered the entire Kulah from her sight.
'I really hope Lith does have a plan. Otherwise that creature will have to get in line to kill him, because I call dibs.' Phloria thought as she was now left alone against a raging storm of deadly spores.
Only half the creature was following Lith. The remaining half was determined on crossing the entrance and dealing the finishing blow to the crippled expedition team. Then, it would have all the time to focus on the last invader standing.
'Well, at least protecting is what I do best.' Phloria activated her tier five Mage Knight spell, Death Bastion. It conjured a stone wall infused with darkness magic that quickly replaced the opened door, sealing Kulah's entrance.
The spores tried to seep through the crevices in the newly formed rock, but darkness magic killed them faster than they could advance. Then, the creature tried to overpower Phloria's control with its own earth magic, but tier five magic allowed her to infuse her will inside her spell.
On top of that, darkness magic wouldn't make a distinction between the spores and their mana. It devoured them both, giving Phloria an edge in the willpower tug of war for the control of the earth surrounding the city gate.
On the other side of the gate, Lith moved as fast as a bullet, using waves of dark energy to force the enemy to open a path for him. At the same time, he canceled some of the spells he had at the ready and started weaving new ones that were better suited to handle his current situation.
'This plan sucks so badly for so many reasons.' Lith thought. 'The Odi should have ordered the creature to protect the container holding the corrupted spores. The closer I get, the more focused on me the creature will become.
'If on one hand it will help me to understand how close I am from my destination, on the other hand, it's also likely that once I become its only mark, things will get even more difficult.'
Lith flew above Kulah's blue buildings, but kept himself away from the ceiling. The fungal creature had already proved to be able to manipulate earth and the fight was already unfair as it was.
Tidal waves of spores were surrounding Lith from all sides. They couldn't keep up with his speed but they had no need to. The creature was slowly collecting all of its mass, sealing all the possible way outs with living walls made of spores mixed with earth.
Each one of the walls was at least 2 meters (6.6 feet) thick and kept expanding by the second. Their hardness was also increasing, making them able to withstand most tier three spells without effort.
The creature had spent centuries trapped inside Kulah, with nothing to do but eat, multiply, and develop its skills.
'Found it!' Solus said. 'Same energy signature but stuck below the ground. In front of the third building on your left.'
The moment Lith came 100 meters (330 feet) close to the container, the defense order took priority. The entirety of the creature moved against Lith, giving Phloria and the Healers the respite they so desperately needed.
Even the spores infecting the expedition members willingly abandoned their victims and tried to reunite with the main body. Unfortunately for them, the moment they were far enough from the humans, Phloria, Quylla, Yondra, and Morok shot a darkness pulse that wiped them out from the face of Mogar.
Quylla collapsed as soon as she made sure that her patients were alive, not a second sooner. Yondra cursed at her old age. She had not much stamina left and Quylla was not faring any better than the victims of the spores.
Morok was whistling, he had done his part so he could pretend to be exhausted and wash his hands of the rest.
In the meantime, Lith had just landed on the spot Solus had identified. He conjured his tier five spell, Setting Sun. It generated a globe made of darkness imbued flames around him to act as his last stand.
"I'll stall for time, you take care of the container." He said.
Solus glove detached from Lith's arm, using Invigoration to make sure there weren't hidden traps or arrays while Lith filled the space of 10 meters (33 feet) around himself with black flames.
His own magic couldn't harm him nor Solus, whereas it would incinerate the fungal creature as if it was paper thrown into the fire.