Vareen attempted to dodge the Chaos by imitating Lith's earlier trick, but Aylen unleashed the Corruption element that turned the ground into a powerful acid and devoured the beasts that he planned to use as scapegoats.
The Eldritch tried to Blink away, but the sudden imbalance in the earth element foiled his spell. Aylen's spell hit him square on and Chaos fought Chaos in a vicious cycle that left Vareen heavily wounded.
'Damn, I need to get away from here.' He tried and failed again to Blink, incapable of compensating for the Corruption that now replaced the earth element.
With no chance to escape, Vareen focused most of his power into his personal Chaos Spell, Extinction Meteor.
"That seems dangerous." Aylen released the Decay, sending it up in the sky.
For an Eldritch, Decay was just a tasty meal, but it was also the perfect defense against Chaos Magic. The Meteor ignored its intended target and followed the pure light element akin to a hungry beast after a wounded prey.
When the two spells clashed, Decay canceled most of the Chaos and what remained was too far away to be a threat to Aylen.
"This is impossible! You are way younger than me, how can you have reached this level of mastery over magic?" Vareen blurted out in surprise.
Dodging a Chaos spell was something that he had seen happening countless times during his long life, but never before had someone managed to completely alter the trajectory of one of his spells despite it being infused with willpower.
"You are completely cut from the world energy whereas I'm at one with it. That's how. Also, fighting weaklings teaches you nothing. Am I right, Sinmara?" Aylen unleashed Zero first, turning the desert into a frozen wasteland, and then Cinder.
Even the Chaos comprising the body of the Eldritch couldn't absorb any of the mana or world energy that comprised the cursed elements due to their imbalanced state. The first brought Vareen's body to the absolute zero while the second instantly raised the temperature to thousands of degrees, making everything sublimate.
The thermic shock coupled with the damage that each cursed element inflicted upon their area of effect shattered Vareen's form for the sixth time in less than six minutes.
'Shit! If I was still at full strength, I might be on par with her, but those runts weakened me too much.
'On top of that, she's right. I've stopped improving millennia ago I can't remember the last time I fought an opponent that my pets couldn't kill on their own.' He thought while Blinking away with Chaos magic instead of darkness to extend the range of his spell.
The Eldritchs were prideful creatures, but not stupid. They were too ancient and emotionless to consider retreat as something different from a strategic move.
The silver lining was that he had not only learned about the existence of Mirror Magic but he had also gotten used to the elemental imbalance and was now capable of using dimensional magic under any circumstance.
What Vareen had lacked for so long was a proper reason for improving his skills, not talent. He had always been a genius and he still was one.
"Where do you think you are going?" Aylen had noticed both the entry and the exit point with Life Vision and had followed him with a Blink of her own. "I consider recurring enemies just like I consider jokes.
"Once you hear them for the second time, they are not so funny anymore. That's why I hate your guts, Sinmara!"
Vareen didn't know whether to be more shocked by seeing a regular Blink managing to follow a Chaos Blink or by the Lich talking to the Phoenix instead of to him.
That was his final thought.
Aylen unleashed Silverwing's Annihilation, sealing his Chaos magic and destroying his body again. Then, before Vareen could reassemble his energy, he was struck by a second Annihilation. Then, by a third and a fourth until he died for good.
Aylen had used the cover of Mirror Magic to buy the time to cast enough of Silverwing's spells to ensure her victory.
"This was truly exhausting." She panted heavily, unable to catch her breath.
For almost two seconds. Then, her white core kicked in and restored her mana reserves at a speed comparable to an Awakened breathing technique.
"Are you kids alright?" The Lich found the Awakened's hiding spot despite Athung's best cloaking arrays and everyone helping her to sustain them.
"Yes, ma'am." They replied in unison.
"You don't need to worry about me, Master." Inxialot stepped forward, his head already fully regenerated. "I have-"
Aylen's fist hit him from above like a sledgehammer, sending him to eat dirt.
"I was talking to them." She said with her eyes brimming with white mana and fury. "You are an utter failure. You had one job: to keep the kids safe. Then why did I have to save those still in the city from the corrupted beasts and waste precious time?"
"But-" Inxialot tried to say.
"I'm not done, young man!" She cut him short. "We have much to discuss like the fact that the fake city looks exactly like my allegedly secret lab!"
"Mom, I'm the undead representative of the Council and you are embarrassing me in front of the apprentices!" He whined.
"You don't need my help with that. You've already made a fool out of yourself." Aylen replied with a snarl.
While the white-cored Lich scolded her son, the young Awakened she had rescued from the Fake Urgamakka appeared on the surface in small groups. The Hordes were among them, but their power and mass had been greatly diminished.
Some of them looked like a persistent puff of smoke.
Now that the crisis was over, Aalejah started to tend to the damaged Yggdrasill staff that was still plagued by the Chaos.
'Excellent work, my apprentice.' The World Tree said amid gasps of pain. 'You are worthy of becoming my Chronicler.'
'Thanks, master. Do you have any idea how Vareen found us? The border area between the Kingdome and the Desert it's huge. Even with all those minions, it took him a stroke of considerable luck to reach Urgamakka while we were still there.'
'Luck played no part in this story.' The gasps turned into cackling and Aalejah stopped the treatment in surprise. 'I reminded him of Urgamakka so that stupid Eldritch would be close to the site of the test.
'I guided his steps so that he found you in time.'
'What test and why did you endanger everyone's life?' Shock and outrage froze the elf yet her curiosity prevailed.
'The entire city was a fake, you fool. Did you really think that an entire civilization could escape my notice? As for Vareen, I guided him because I knew that you couldn't be trusted with the Tiamat.' The Yggdrasill replied.
'I followed your experiments with him and noticed how soft you are. I did it to learn what I needed to know and to teach you a lesson. Only in a battle to the death will people be forced to reveal their true potential, not by sitting comfortably in their labs.
'By sending an Eldritch, I forced Lith to cross boundaries he would have avoided otherwise, to try dangerous techniques that gave us a glimpse of his true abilities.'
