However, wasn't that why Darius had branded Xela?
Immediately, a level 10 Restore landed on Gunner, bringing back 10% of his HP, MP, and STA!
Of course, this alone was not enough to stave off 50% HP lost per second, so Darius topped him up using Heal.
Right after that, he cast Convert Vampire on Darm once more. The Vampire Lord screamed as his attack chain got broken, giving Gunner some breathing space as he cast Engage once more in case the aggro had shifted.
After all, with Darm's speed and the fact that he was taking things seriously now, he could rush over to Darius and Xela and cut them up faster than Gunner could sneeze.
Xela focused and cast Restore on Darius as well as Gunner. She brought up their MP reserves, as the duo would be screwed if their MP hit rock bottom. Even Lady Luck could not interfere to the degree that the Vampire Lord would sit idly by to let them drink a mana potion.
Earth's Guardian drained quite a bit per second and Darius was spamming spells.
The battle continued in an endless cycle of such, becoming less one of skill or luck and one of attrition, Gunner could always keep aggro and had enough defense to resist attacks.
Xela would heal both of them to restore HP for Gunner while giving the duo 10% of their MP back. She had already cast Bless on herself to increase her MP regen by 5%.
At level 22, her natural regen was 22 points per second, and Restore only took 10 MP per cast. Casting it twice a second, that was only 20 MP, so one didn't even need to add the 6% boost from Bless, nor the 1% decrease from Spell Mastery she had recently learned.
This allowed Xela's output to be fully sustainable.
As for Darius, he alternated between casting Heal on Gunner when necessary to supplement Xela's still insufficient healing power and casting Convert Vampire on Darm.
Darius didn't use Lighting Bolt even though it was stronger because it could definitely not shatter the innate magic barrier of a Master stage Vampire Lord.
Even though he had been weakened, that had nothing to do with his magic barrier as that was formed each time one climbed stages and was based on a skill, not stats.
If he used Life or Light element, that barrier would be a joke, but against any other element, it was an impervious wall that could turn even 1,000 damage to a single point that felt like a finger flick.
If not for that, why would he have spent 6 weeks making a completely new spell? If Lighting Bolt would have been sufficient, Darius could have kicked the coffin open and zapped Darm to death from the onset, instead of wasting time.
Since Darius was limited to casting one offensive spell per second - but had no such limitations for support spells - he could manage both within a second and that cost a lot.
Heal took 40 MP and Convert Vampire 50 MP. Even with Spell Mastery reducing it by 5% and the Gloves of the Mage also doing so by 1.5x, that still made 25 and 32 MP respectively.
However, with Xela's MP regen buff of 6%, Darius MP regen of 21 points at his level, and the use of Restore bringing 10 of his entire MP bar back - which amounted to 168 points - he had more than enough to foot the bills.
(Author's Note: Serious question, should I forgo numbers and statistics during battle completely henceforth and just show the result? I add them because I used to write litrpg on Amazon and the readers were VERY particular about numbers.)
Currently, Darius' damage to Darm amounted to 135 points per second. By continuing this output, he could take his foes down after exactly 289 seconds. In this battle, the trio kept their firepower and did not make a single mistake while Darm began to pale.
After about 4 minutes, he realized that he could truly feel the air of true death approaching him. If he died by this cursed Life element spell that converted his vital Death Energy, he would be disintegrated upon death.
Right now, the amount of Death Energy within him that could still maintain his life was dwindling as the rest had already turned to Life Energy which he was instantly expunging from his body to avoid even further damage.
Otherwise, Darius would have only needed to cast his initial Convert Vampire before he could enjoy the sight of Lord Darm getting slowly eaten away from the inside.
It was technically a damage-over-time spell that should increase in momentum as time went on, but Darm's power forced Darius to cast it over and over again.
That was exactly why this Intermediate spell had such a high MP cost despite being level 1. Whatever the case, Darm knew he had to change things up, but his sudden sobering up was pointless.
Gunner cast Engage each time moment Darm showed even the slightest intention of breaking free, forcing the Vampire Lord to concentrate on Gunner alone, his mind unable to focus on anything else which infuriated him.
Darm had long since realized that Gunner's defense was too tough to break through, and with this constant healing, he would not be able to kill him.
He would have loved to bombard him with magic spells, yet each time he had tried, Darius' Convert Vampire would cause him unbridled agony, shattering his focus.
Lord Darm could already be counted as a rare genius, for he was able to use One-Word Cast, but even that had a start-up time.
Still, Lord Darm felt it was trash compared to how Darius could instant-cast without even needing to focus in the slightest.
He could only watch with despair and scream out in fear as his remaining Death Energy could no longer stave off the encroaching Life Energy, making it course through his system like it was a natural part of him.
Unfortunately, it was not, so all Darm could do was bellow as he glowed with a bright light, his body cracking like glass about to shatter.
"NOOOO!! PLEASE SPARE ME, PLEASE!!"
The Vampire Lord's cries fell on deaf ears as, even if Darius would be willing to take him in as a subordinate, he lacked the power to reverse what Darm was going through at this time.
Hardly anyone on Faust would be able to.
The next moment, Darm finally exploded in a flash of brilliance, his remains turning to ash and falling on the ground.
Ironically, everywhere his ashes had touched, grass and greenery quickly sprouted.
