Both started casting their magic at the same time, but with Nevvan being a magic caster, his abilities to cast magic were far superior to Danzel's.
"[Neils of Frozen Pain]" Nevvan casted his spell as he raised his staff, creating several sharp ice spears with magic circles in front of them.
Releasing his spell, the ice spears alone were quite fast, but the magic circles hasten their travel speed of all the ice spears by double the speed.
The moment the ice spears were sent flying was also the moment when Danzel finished his spell. [Curse of Primordial Decay].
A dark mist escaped from his armor and went through the ice spear as the mist sought to decay the body of the powerful magic caster.
"Not enough!" Nevvan said as he raised his palm towards the dark mist and casting [Rays Dominion Light].
The golden magic circle appeared in front of the Archmage and created rays of light that purged the curse.
He even input more mana into his spell to destroy the curse faster considering that the distance between them wasn't that great.
The dark mist was then destroyed into bits, holding no more power of the curse, but the fact that his empowered spell didn't completely destroy the mist made Nevvan frown.
'So his ascendance on the 4th-tier made his curses much more powerful. Troublesome, but now that I know about it, dealing with his curses wouldn't be a problem' Nevvan thought as he looked in front of him, only to notice that the undead wasn't in front of him.
'He is gone?' He thought, unaware that the bits of dark mist that he thought were the revenants of the curses started had started to assimilate and become the death knight with ethereal dark green eyes.
The whole process of Danzel turning into his physical form didn't even take a full second.
Only when he appeared did Nevvan feel the presence of death behind his back.
Using the core skill of magic casters, [Mana Eyes] to greatly enchant his perception, he could see how the ominous sword was coming for his head, extremely slow.
But the fact that Nevvan was supposed to see the movements of others in slow motion spoke to him about the danger of his situation.
He turned around while flying away from the sword while casting [Shards of Primary Protection], creating 3 layers of transparent glass barriers just as the ominous sword was about to reach him.
*Ting!!!
Upon the first swing, the first layer broke.
Danzel ethereal eyes flared upon the appearance of the barriers.
Not discouraged, he swung once again his sword against the second layer with the speed of a 4th-tier before breaking the last layer with his shield, positioning his right arm to swing at the magic caster.
Seeing his barriers broken into bits in such a short amount of time, Nevvan clenched his staff, making the mana crystal of the staff glow in blue light.
The light engulfed him with blue light and transformed his aged body into lighting, bolting in away from the death edges, leaving the death knight to kill nothing but air.
'I won't let you go.'
Danzel wasn't going to let him take a breather.
Turning his body into dark mist with [Phantom Phase], Danzel moved towards the direction of the lighting, but at a much greater speed.
Once Nevvan reappeared from the lighting, all he saw was a dark mist coming in front of him and reforming the death knight in his physical form.
'So that's how he did it!' Nevvan finally understood how the death knight appeared behind him a moment ago.
Though he didn't expect Danzel to be right on his tail after using one of his saved spells in his mana crystal.
Danzel once again swung with the intent to kill.
Seeing that there was no time to create a barrier, he groaned in annoyance.
"[Hasten Haste]!" An orange light engulfed Nevvan's body, greatly strengthing his capabilities to move his body, at the very least making him fast enough to push his staff between the ominous blade and block Danzel's sword from making a lethal wound.
But on Nevvan's side, he felt like a whole mount was swung towards him, resulting in being sent flying like a bullet while also dislocating his shoulder and breaking the bones in his one hand.
"Agh! [Chains of Avalon!]"
Being sent flying didn't mean that a magic caster like him couldn't cast spells.
The spell was put into action, manifesting 10 magic circles around Danzel, and from those magic circles, from each, a chain of ice traveled around Danzel. The 10 of them made a net and chained Danzel in place.
But just as they did, out of nowhere, Nevvan's whole body was slapped by a huge claw that was as hard if not tougher than steel.
Luckily for Nevvan, the enchantment of his armor activate and left him uninjured except for the initial shock.
While being sent flying now towards another direction, he looked to see what hit him, only to see a three-eyed undead wolf.
"A Death Hound!?" Nevvan recognize the undead that Skull Claw was.
Using his fly spell to fight against the force, he quickly lost his balance as soon an ethereal skeleton hand grabbed his leg and pulled him down towards the range of the newborn undead who wouldn't mind getting a piece of him.
"Die!"
Two Wights jumped on the opportunity with their magic spears to kill Nevvan.
"Begone!" Nevvan yelled in anger as a wave of frost burst through his surroundings, turning the Wights into ice sculptures.
Before he could break the ice sculptures, Nevvan saw how 3 dark green wind blades were coming towards his direction, forcing him to teleport away up in the air.
But once he created a large amount distance, he found that a dark mist was coming on his way like some homing missile.
Danzel didn't use [Soul Reaping Wind] to attempt to hurt the magic caster, instead, he used it to force him to teleport away.
While his spell, [Shards of Primary Protection] was a perfect counter to his [Soul Reaping Wind] as it seemed like it completely blocked one and only one attack. But he knew that Nevvan couldn't cast the spell while being surrounded by all kinds of undead that were of the 3rd-tier.
While they were on the lower scale of the 3rd-tiers strength, nonetheless they were still on the 3rd-tier and a threat to magic casters with weak bodies.
That's when he took advantage of the nature of his curses, by casting [Curse of Chaining Fatigue] and [Curse of Primordial Decay], more specifically their homing nature.
In his current state, he could cast two hard spells at the same time, though it was a bit straining. And [Soul Reaping Wind] was more of a technique than a spell.
As for the chains, they broke easily thanks to his [Armor of Undying Protection] absorbing the mana from the chains.
Though after breaking them, he felt his armor becoming heavier.
Nonetheless, Danzel used his surroundings to his advantage to deliver a blow to the magic caster.
And with how the dark mist that was the mix of 2 curses entered Nevvan's body, Danzel maliciously smiled to himself (as much as a skeleton could smile of course).
Nevvan in turn cursed internally at how a newborn 4th-tier being managed to guide him to make such a mistake.
He felt his vitality slowly disappearing from his body and he could see how ethereal dark green chains were binding his legs and sucking on his stamina.
He found it way more annoying that the curses had the unique mana of the undead in front of him.
Destroying and removing curses were two entirely different things. The latter was ten times harder than the former to do as the curses will stick on one's body and mana like a parasite.
Killing one that wasn't in your body was much easier than killing one inside it.
'I underestimated this thing's unique abilities.' Nevvan criticized himself as he flew up in the air to see the death knight now on top of the death hound.
"I am at disadvantage with all those minions though out the area. I guess I will have to remove them." He said as he pointed his staff towards his broken shoulder. Making a white and gentle light surround his arm.
"[Restore Body]"
Once he finished the spell, Nevvan could once more move his broken hand.
He took a glance towards the death hound and its master riding it dashing towards him, but being quite far away, he started channeling a huge amount of mana into his staff.
Once he considered them to be in range, he released his spell.
"[Frost Nova]!"
Bursting outwards of his body was a wave of extremely frost air that froze everything it touches, leaving a wave of ice sculptures of undead while also freezing the ground too.
Seeing that Danzel cast [Stone Wall] in front of him and told Skull Claw to stay put behind the wall.
And soon enough the wave of cold air hit the wall and created layers of ice on the wall, protecting Danzel and Skull Claw from the frost that passed through the surroundings.
While he himself might have been fine, Skull Claw wouldn't be able to handle such a spell.
The hundred of 3rd-tier freezing to sculptures was perfect proof of that.
It took only a few seconds before the spell stopped. Once it did, all the ice sculptures exploded into dust-like pieces, leaving a huge field covered in ice and snow.
The stone wall also crumbled into pieces.
Only Nevvan floated in the middle and Danzel with Skull Claw remained in an ice field.
