Seven emerald stars arranged like the Big Dipper appeared in front of the living legacies, channeling the power of the seven elements before merging them into one single burst of energy the size of a skyscraper.
The Origin Demons roared in defiance, using their bodies to shield their master.
They were thousands and covered in various alloys of magic metals coated in magically resistant gold-veined marble yet the Annihilation was delayed only for a split second while piercing through their ranks.
The Demons refused to yield even in defeat, detonating themselves the moment their armor cracked. The Origin Flames further weakened the Annihilation but it was too little and too slow to stop its advance.
After cutting the black tide in half, the emerald beam pushed through the sea of searing fire created by the Demons and almost reached its target.
Almost.
The golden right hand of the giant was covered by a black working glove with seven mana crystals, each of a different elemental color. In their fused form, Lith and Solus had gained the strength necessary to restore the Set of Menadion to its full glory.
The world energy flowed through the tower, then it moved from the Eyes to the Ears before reaching the Mouth. There the stored spells would be carried to the Hands where they would take physical form.
Each gem acted akin to one of the towers of Silverwing’s fortress, splitting the world energy into its basic components and allowing its master to instantly cast spells without consuming a single drop of their own mana.
The emerald seventh gem born from the bond between Lith and Solus filtered the will of Mogar, replacing the planet’s energy signature with their own to fuel the Spirit Magic component of Silverwing’s spells.
The surviving Origin Demons bellowed their joy. They had succeeded in their task, buying enough time for the Bastion to be completed.
“How?” Windfell blurted out, taking the words out of everyone’s mind. “Even if there are two of them, even if they both had a bright violet core, it’s not enough to fuel a spell like that.
“Only a white core can use Silverwing’s spells alone and even they need longer than a thought to conjure them.”
“Who cares! They must have exhausted their strength to pull something like that. Let’s shoot another before they have the time to recover.” Stargazer said.
“Do you realize that we all have mana sense?” Knightfall pointed at the wounds all over the hybrid that were mending at a speed visible to the naked eye. “We can literally see that even after blocking our attack their energy keeps increasing.”
The left hand of the Demon bore a black glove as well and as they extended their fingers, a Big Dipper appeared in front of their palm.
“It must be a trick!” The cursed glaive replied. “Now shut up and shot them down. Unlike us, they don’t have an immortal body otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered defending themselves from our attack.
“Let’s hit them with everything we have!” By combining fake, true, and body casting from each host with the true magic and the body casting from their respective cursed artifacts, they weaved the spell as quickly as there were fifteen mages.
The counter Annihilation fired right after the colossus’, but the living legacies decided to avoid a direct clash and take the impact. As Stargazer had predicted, the hybrid couldn’t afford to have its head blown off.
The titan squinted their eyes, trying and failing to Dominate the enemy’s Annihilation. Imbued with three willpowers and moving at the speed of sound there was no time to wrestle for its control.
The hybrid couldn’t activate another Bastion either since the power of the tower was already split between healing their wounds and fueling the Annihilation. The colossus could only try to tank the blow or turn the Annihilation into a Bastion, leaving the initiative to the leaving legacies again.
The hybrid did neither, opting for a third way.
A wave of the right gloved hand of the giant recalled the equipment they had lent to the Demons. With a bit of power from Lith’s and Solus’ cores, a second wave of the hand had an impossible shield appear out of thin air.
It was big enough to be worn by the colossus, with Darwen at its center where the Annihilation struck. Right behind the anti-magic matter, spread too thin to do more than break the secondary impact, there was a layer of purified Davross.
Below that, there was purified Adamant coated in gold-veined marble. Most of the shield, however, was comprised of Orichalcum and silver. The Darwen broke due to the pressure and the Davross shattered under the magical onslaught, creating cracks that caused the whole shield to collapse.
“They are done for!” Knightfall had his allies converge their Spirit Barriers on him. He combined them to boost the resistance of his Davross’s surface while using small dimensional gates to redirect part of the hybrid’s Annihilation.
Even that wasn’t enough for keeping the shield from shattering non-stop and forcing the living legacies to employ their hosts as meat shields to give their companion the time he needed to reform.
They would heal while he blocked and he would heal while they blocked in a cycle that left everyone weaker by the second, draining their energy reserves as quickly as if they were casting both an Annihilation and a Bastion at the same time.
Yet it was worth it.
With the impossible shield broken, the hybrid was dead.
Or so they thought until the colossus crossed the Fury and a fully white Double Edge in front of themselves, stopping the Annihilation long enough for a second and better impossible shield to appear.
Both the hammer and the blade were charred, their surface full of cracks. Yet they were rapidly closing and the new shield held. It was constellated with white and violet crystals that fueled a power core that generated an external Spirit Barrier.
Also, now the magic metals weren’t split into layers anymore but amalgamated in a better alloy that once coated in gold-veined white marble could take quite a beating before crumbling.
“What the fuck? No one told me that Verhen knew Creation Magic!” Stargazer said while her host shattered faster than she could regenerate him.
“Screw Creation Magic!” Windfell replied. “Where the heck comes all that stuff? If Verhen possesses enough resources to arm his Demons and craft that thing, what the heck is he still doing in the Kingdom?”
The shield shattered again, just to be replaced by a new one with better-placed crystals, a more stable power core, and a better amalgam of the enchanted metals.
“Three of them? Night has sent us to our death!” Windfell wanted to disengage, but at the least mistake, the hybrid’s Annihilation would leave them too weak to escape.
Truth be told, Night had shared everything she knew with her cursed brethren. She simply wasn’t aware of Solus’ tower nature which was the source of the unknown variables that kept causing their strategies to fail.
Lith only had a rudimentary understanding of Creation Magic and even once fused with Solus, he would never be capable of crafting something as big as the shield so quickly.
