A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

All third ranker within Erik's dome had their neck hair stand up when they felt the power behind Lilith's explosion. Erik's barrier wavered and flickered… but it held, barely.
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"Hmpf," Lilith snorted, her gaze tracing the weaknesses her attack had created in the dome. "Impressive, but you can't take a second atta—"

Suddenly, Erik's eyes flashed, and power flowed back in the dome. Nearly instantly, all holes were filled, and the barrier was restored to its earlier power.

"You—" Lilith blinked, turning back to Erik with a scornful smirk. "Nice try, but how long can you keep that up, huh?"

"Why don't try it?" Erik calmly shrugged, smiling confidently.

Narrowing her eyes, she did exactly that. Once more, twice more, thrice more. Explosion after explosion was flicked against Erik's barrier. Every single time it flickered and wavered, nearly breaking, but then instantly restored itself before Lilith could launch her second attack.

Outside the barrier, the armies had already engaged each other, with blood, explosions, and screaming filling the air. The sky had lit up with the blinking, glowing, and pulsing of thousands of destructive spells, all launched from the Humanitas Sangh's backline.

With merciless precision, they reigned death and terror down on Enkare Nkai's Runebound. At least, when their spells managed to penetrate Enkare Nkai's defences.

The defender's limited number of Arcanists had all formed together into hundreds of defensive formations, each doing all they could to defend their Runebound against the enemy's magical bombardment.

Since they could never win in a war of spells, they didn't even try to attack. Instead, they left all the fighting to their vampire and shapeshifter brothers and sisters, while they did what they could to keep them safe.

The idea now was to wipe out the branded Runebound as quickly as possible, then charge the backline under protection of those formations. Unfortunately, this was the first time Enkare Nkai's Arcanists were using these formations in such a stressful situation, and their enemy's Arcanists were extremely powerful.

It was unknown how long they could hold on…

Meanwhile, Erik watched Lilith rage against his barrier and was in no hurry to get their third-ranked battle started. For one, he was far from confident in his victory over Lilith, and for two, delaying was still the name of the game.

After five more shadowflame explosions, and an equal number of barrier restorations, Lilith finally turned to Erik, eyes flaring with rage. Her piercing gaze travelled all across his body, searching for any sign of exhaustion, but found none.

"Why are you not exhausted yet?!" she nearly screeched at him, unable to accept this outcome.

"I have my ways," Erik shrugged calmly, obviously unwilling to explain. "Surely you should realize that by now, after the way things ended between us last time…"

More fury rose on her face when she remembered the embarrassment of being punted away and wounded by a second ranker. Even now, she still had no idea how he pulled that off. The Primarch had offered her a few possible explanations, but she wasn't satisfied with any of them.

In fact, Erik was using much the same method now. While he still couldn't actively use elorium without tearing apart his own body, advancing to the third rank had still made things a little easier for him. Now, he could restore his energy reserves using elorium, and practically eliminate stamina as a factor.

He did this in much the same manner as he did when cultivating with it. By creating the elorium with aetherium and runic energy, then seeping it into his aetherium storage, it would quickly break apart and turn into more aetherium. Thus, effectively turning the quickly rechargeable runic energy into aetherium.

Meanwhile, Erik panned his gaze over the thundersnow shield with a smug smirk. "Anyway, the only way to destroy this barrier is by doing it one blow, but you're clearly incapable of doing so…"

Finally, it seemed Lilith had enough. "Fine!" she spat, once again brandishing her long knives and covering them in their shadowflame. "If you don't wish to share your secrets, I'll pull them out one by one!"

Pointing her knifes at the nervous Arcanists by her sides, she then motioned over to Ankur and Enkai. "You four! Take those two down and be quick about it! It's two against one, so if you dilly dally, I'll tear your tongues out! The werewolf is mine!"

Finally, the third rank battle kicked off. Not wishing to wait around after Lilith's threat, the four Arcanists next to her started casting their spells, immediately capitalizing on their numbers advantage to gain the upper hand.

Fortunately, the limited area they had to fight in with actually worked in their favour. Normally, an Arcanist would do whatever they could to keep their distance, but that was much harder to do when you were forced to limit yourself to an area of only a few hundred meters in diameter.

But this was not an issue for Lilith.

With a wide grin, she charged straight at Erik, completely disregarding the usual playbook for Arcanists. But Erik had expected this. Although they still had no idea how Lilith became this physically powerful, it was something they were already aware off.

With a grim expression, Erik brandished his warhammer and activated his thunderstorm armour and weapon enhancement. "I guess there's no more stalling anymore…" he muttered to himself, inwardly pumping himself up for what was likely to be the most difficult battle of his life.

At least, the most difficult where he actually had a chance to win.

Icy-white lightning started to flicker across his body and hammer. Stomping the ground, he met Lilith's charge with his own, howling into the sky. With the fight starting, Erik finally let loose the anger in his soul.

Once again, he stood in front of the woman responsible for his father's death. The woman responsible for Frostvik's destruction. The woman who'd deceived him for eighteen years.

But this was different from last time. Now, he finally had a chance to defeat her. To set right the grudge. Roaring, he charged a howling thundersnow blast on his warhammer, swinging it wildly at Lilith's face. "Die, Edda!"