The red eye of the Balor emitted a pillar of fire that neutralized the attack of the second hammer and burned Solus’ hand.
She used darkness fusion to ignore the pain but her charred fingers lost the grip on the Fury that fell down. A split second later, four more eyes shot their respective elemental beams in unison, leaving her no way out.
Solus attempted to Blink out of reflex, but nothing happened due to Stargazer’s Distortion Field array. She cursed her bad luck, focusing whatever energy the Voidwalker armor had left into the Spirit barrier.
She intercepted the ice pillar with the second Fury, neutralizing the cold thanks to the fire element channeled by the elemental crystals of the hammer and avoiding putting further strain on her already weakened mana core.
At the same time, Solus dodged the slower darkness and earth pillars, and tanked only a burst of lightning that was too fast to avoid from so up close.
The barrier shattered and the violet crystals of the Voidwalker turned dull having exhausted their energy but at least she hadn’t taken any more damage. Every spell she cast bled her mana core faster while every wound she suffered brought her life force closer to shattering.
‘Thank the gods Light Mastery is a discipline as hard as it is uncommon. I don’t think I could have dodged a light pillar as well.’ Solus was about to sigh in relief, her eyes focused on the opponent to anticipate a riposte or a spell from body casting, when she noticed that the barbarian’s lips were curled up in a smirk.
Solus’ eyes went wide as she suddenly remembered one of the favorite tactics of all dimensional mages. Knightfall had surrounded her with dimensional openings to make any attempt to dodge a waste of time and energy.
The moment the elemental pillars had missed their target, the cursed shield had arranged the dimensional field in order to intercept and redirect them at Solus in a seamless attack.
When the earth and darkness pillar entered Full Guard’s area of effect it was too late. Stargazer conjured a frost wave with body cast while lunging at Solus with the blade of her weapon.
Solus gritted her teeth and put all of her strength into a counterattack aimed at the scythe’s blade, hoping that the pain would make the cursed object lose focus and allow Solus to use the barbarian as a meat shield.
When the weapons were about to clash, however, Stargazer Blinked away. Solus was too focused on the enemy attacks to notice the sudden disappearance of the Distortion Field array and by the time she understood what had happened, it was already back in place.
The earth element hit her with the momentum of a freight train, crushing her bones and wrapping around her body in a cage that made it impossible for her to dodge the blast of darkness.
It ate at her both body and core, disrupting the forces that kept them together despite the deadly wound she had suffered 700 years ago. Solus screamed in pain as cracks opened all over her skin.
Energy seeped out of her wounds along with the blood, giving it a golden color.
“Solus!” Nyka screamed as she saw with Life Vision that her friend’s body was seconds away from falling apart into sparkles of light.
‘Calm down, you idiot!’ Dawn struggled to keep control over their shared body. ‘Getting ourselves defeated isn’t going to help anyone.’
‘Easy for you to say!’ The Vampire snarled. ‘You don’t-‘ The internal struggle caused the two women to switch from one body to another, slowing them both enough for Windfell to cut their head off and their argument short.
“Amateur! That’s why there can be only one master. A host is no different from a horse. It’s just a means to an end. Giving them free will weakens your authority which in turn creates a weakness.” To underline his point the curved blade also pierced through Nyka’s chest, bursting her heart.
It would have been a lethal wound even for a Vampire if not for the Horseman. White crystals sprouted from the neck, reconnecting it with the severed head, and from the chest, trapping Windfell.
“So does your big mouth.” Dawn smirked as she activated the tier five Light Mastery spell, Supernova.
A giant sphere of light, fire, and air enveloped the living legacies and their hosts. Light gave the construct substance and blocked Windfell’s every movement while fire turned the blade white hot and burned the man wielding it.
Supernova imploded on itself, reaching a temperature of thousands of degrees before the compressed air element made it explode. Both contestants were hit in the same way but while Dawn was immune to her own mana, Windfell took the implosion and the explosion in full.
The air around them was now devoid of any oxygen and so hot that it would cook the airways of anyone who attempted to breathe. Dawn suffered from the indirect effects of her spell as much as Windfell, but they had little effect on her.
Nyka had no need to breathe and undead were naturally resistant to fire whereas Windfell’s host was human. Without oxygen his body would die and his mana flow stop.
The charred arms of the cursed scimitar’s host fell limp, the muscles too damaged to hold the blade.
At the same time, ignored by everyone, Tista reached the mana geyser without a care for her own safety. She crashed onto the ground, opening a crater on impact that she used to put Solus’ stone ring deep into the ground.
‘Come on, lil bro. We need you!’ The tower avidly sucked the world energy, using it to take its full form while also hiding from prying eyes.
Solus had left a series of precise instructions that would allow them to escape or at least summon Lith to their aid without exposing their secret.
Thousands of kilometers away, in the White Griffon, Lith had barely the time to fake an emergency call to justify the scroll popping out of his dimensional amulet. He had just dismissed the Void Magic class when he felt the tower pulling at him.
‘Fuck! I need a non-imprinted geyser and I’ve yet to call for reinforcements.’ With no time to lose, he used his Professor’s ring to reach the Gate in Marth’s office.
From there he traveled to the Verhen mansion in one step, answering the call.
His body became one with the world energy that thanks to the bond with the tower carried him to his destination from below, avoiding the effect of the Distortion Field array.
His arrival changed everything.
Solus was part of the tower so even though Stargazer’s magical formation blocked most forms of communication, it couldn’t stop the part of Solus that was ingrained in the tower from thriving now that the connection with both a mana geyser and her host was restored.
Even from a distance, her wounds started to heal and she could feel the fissures in her core and life force being mended again.
Lith also unleashed his Demons of the Darkness among which there were Trion, Valia, Varegrave, and Locrias who had all six eyes.
