“They won’t dare try again and even if they do, they’ll have no idea what they are going to deal with.” The hybrid said.
“Excellent idea.” The Mother extended her hand to cast Dismantle again, but the creature stopped her.
“Wait. We are grateful for your help, but we have a theory about how to safely destroy small cursed objects by ourselves and this is the only opportunity we got to put it to the test before we encounter more.”
“You do?” Baba Yaga said in amazement while the others just gaped at the hybrid.
As for Stargazer, she exploited that moment when no one was looking at her to Warp away.
‘If I have to die, I’ll die fighting!’ So she thought as Baba Yaga’s Elemental Seal array blocked the Spirit Steps first and then even slowed the world energy cursing inside the cursed glaive’s power core.
Stargazer found herself incapable of moving, her body reduced to a piece of wood and metal while her mind had trouble formulating thoughts.
Elemental Seal was a heptaelemental magical formation that went beyond Silverwing’s Hexagram, blocking even Spirit Magic by expending the same amount as its victim.
It was an array long and complicated to cast, not to mention incredibly mana expensive. Yet for a bright white cored Awakened empowered by her tower, it was a cantrip.
The six Evil Eyes on the glaive’s haft opened, shedding tears of despair at the realization that there was nothing that Stargazer could do to avoid her impending death.
The group noticed, but just like the living legacy had been indifferent in the past to the suffering of the people she had killed for joy or business, they just didn’t care.
“Show me.” The Mother offered the hybrid her hand and they took it.
A mind link was worth thousands of words and needed but a few seconds. Lith hesitated since that knowledge might be useful against Night or Dawn but Solus trusted her friend so the final result was the creature frowning.
“Interesting. Very interesting, even, but it’s difficult and situational at best. There are countless things that can go wrong. Dimensional compression arrays, Sealed Space, the destruction of your Demons, and I could go on.” Baba Yaga said after witnessing their thoughts.
“An imperfect plan is still better than no plan at all.” The hybrid replied. “Also, even if nobody would fall for it a second time, as long as we leave no witnesses it will always benefit from the element of surprise.”
pαndα`noνɐ1–сoМ “That’s a fair point, but I have one more objection.” A wave of the Mother’s hand brought forward the materials she had recovered from dismantling Windfell and an amorphous puddle of Davross.
It was what was left of Knightfall after the Thousand Flames and the Primordial Flames had destroyed everything but the metal, erasing even the memory of its previous shape.
“If you let me kill Stargazer, we get her materials. If we follow your plan, we’d lose them all.”
“That’s a fair point.” Lith’s greed battled with Solus’ scientific curiosity, freezing the creature on the spot as their two mouths argued with each other, and their eyes frowned and widened in response.
“Wow. And here I thought that just their eyes shining was creepy.” Tista pointed at the black and golden arms gesturing independently and pointing at the hybrid themselves when making a compelling argument. “This is much, much worse.”
“I find it fascinating.” Baba Yaga looked at Menadion’s opus with a mix of admiration and envy, wondering if her children would ever achieve a similar condition. “You don’t look so good, child. Is everything alright?”
“Can you please give me a check-up? I need a second opinion.” The Red Demon winced in pain as she turned back into her human form.
Shapeshifting had always been a seamless process, but for a few days now it had become problematic.
The Mother placed her hand on Tista’s cheek and activated her breathing technique, Sun and Moon.
“You are turning into a regular hybrid.” She said once she was done.
“I know.” Tista swallowed hard, incapable of denying the truth any longer. “How much time do I have left?”
“Three months tops.” Baba Yaga’s answer startled the Red Demon.
“I thought I had longer.”
“Everyone does. Everyone is wrong, though.” The Mother shook her head. “I know what you are going through, but you have to make up your mind before you have no choice at all.”
“We’ve reached an agreement.” The hybrid said. “Losing magical resources is sad, but we have no use for more Yggdrasill wood and the Davross doesn’t amount to much. The knowledge we seek, instead, might save our lives.
“We can always get more precious materials whereas we only have one life. Survival takes priority.”
“Fine.” Baba Yaga replied. “Then do what you must and bring me along. This way, if your plan fails, I can still deliver the finishing blow and recover the materials.”
“Are you sure, Malyshka?” Solus’ voice became slightly dominant. “An explosion like that might kill you.”
“If I didn’t know what is happening and had no time to prepare.” She shrugged in reply. “Trust me.”
The hybrid nodded, taking a deep breath and hurling a twin burst of Primordial Flames while the Demons who were left joined them with their Origin Flames. The mystical fire cleansed Stargazer’s barriers and then reached her runes.
The moment the first rune of her power core disappeared for good and her wood started to burn, the cursed glaive knew that even if she were to survive, she would never be the same.
Her power was diminished but even worse was the damage to her mind.
Suddenly Stargazer couldn’t remember a few details of her past and some magical knowledge that had been obvious until a second ago became obscure. She felt happy, then sad, then angry.
With every rune that disappeared, she lost part of her memory and abilities while her personality changed. When the Flames completely engulfed her power core, its structure began to collapse.
The energy that she had accumulated until that moment was clogged in some points and short-circuited in others, resulting in a fatal overload.
“Now!” The moment the Eyes of Menadion marked what Lith and Solus assumed was the mana equivalent of critical mass, the Demons of the Darkness broke down their shadow bodies into runes.
Dawn and Tista were expecting them to try another combination of Bastion and Sealed Space but the runes this time belonged to a dimensional spell.
The Demons disappeared, replaced by a Warping array that moved the exploding glaive and Baba Yaga to Mogar’s mesosphere, at 80 km (50 miles) of altitude. Another group of Demons was waiting for them, acting as both an exit point and a second entry point.
The higher they got, the thinner the atmosphere and world energy became. The Demons that Lith had sent away first had come early to gather the necessary mana before reaching their position.
In the blink of an eye, by passing through a series of Warping arrays, the cursed scythe left Mogar’s atmosphere while her power core was still overloading.
The lack of air in space would greatly weaken the explosion but it was the absence of world energy that crippled it.
