Locrias had saved as many of his fellow soldiers as he could before helping Solus.
Now that Lith was too busy facing the Black Dragon to share any more mana, Locrias could feel his energy slipping away with each exchange and regretted not having taken care of the enemy leader sooner.
Even as a soldier, Quaron had ranked higher than Locrias did back in his prime and now that he was a Harbinger, the Ranger had become stronger than a regular Awakened human.
‘The bastard is stronger and faster than I ever was.’ Locrias thought. ‘If not for my new inhuman body, he would have already turned me into mincemeat. To make matters worse, Quaron keeps spitting those odd flames.
‘Every time they even graze me, I can feel my consciousness fading. I need help!’
Lith had a natural connection with his conjured Demons but he was too far away for a mind link. As for Solus, she had none so she just assumed that as long as Locrias held his ground everything would be fine.
‘I have barely a couple of spells left in me and I can’t risk Quaron Blinking them.’ She thought. ‘As soon as I get back to the tower, I need to craft some magic holding rings for myself.’
Solus called upon the Sage Staff’s power core, using the elemental energy that the colored crystals and the Evil Eyes conjured to activate its enchantments instead of feeding her body.
She hadn’t done it before because it would further shorten the time she could keep her physical form, but now she had no other choice.
Thanks to Life Vision, Quaron saw the power accumulating in the Staff and reacted by taking a deep breath. The moment Solus activated the Distorted Field ability, the Staff released six small spheres of Gravity Magic while Quaron hurled a river of Origin Flames at Locrias.
He dodged them on instinct only to realize that Quaron had them aligned so that Locrias would cover Solus’s sight until it was too late. Locrias inwardly cursed and flapped his wings with fury.
His body was as lithe as a feather and stronger than a bull, allowing him to reach Solus before the flames and to attempt to pull her in the air with him to not break her focus.
Unfortunately, she weighed more than he could handle. Locrias’ attempt to lift Solus on the go had the same result as a car crashing against a wall.
He didn’t lose consciousness on impact only because there was no brain in his head that could suffer a concussion and she barely managed to block the Flames by having the spheres surround her.
By working in unison, they trapped the Origin Flames in a compressed gravity field where they couldn’t burn anything but themselves until they went out.
“How can a woman be so short and yet weigh so much?” Locrias asked.
“Shut up and get out of my way!” Solus snarled.
Due to Locrias’ meddling, Quaron had managed to get close to her while the Distorted Field was still busy dealing with the Flames.
“Calm down and listen to me.” Locrias blocked a lunge of the glaive but the impact almost ripped the blade out of his hands. “I can take him on my own. I just need you to give me a boost. I’m running on fumes.”
“That’s a bloodline ability that I don’t have.” Solus’s voice was full of frustration. “That’s why I was trying to help you with a spell that you ruined!”
“Good to know.” Quaron replied with a smirk while slashing horizontally with his glaive.
He could see with Life Vision that neither of them had enough energy to be a threat but if they were somehow able to combine their resources, he would have found himself in a tough position.
Now that he was finally sure that their inability wasn’t just a trap, Quaron squeezed the last drops of strength he had left in a final burst.
The curved blade pushed Locrias’ sword away and then traced a small circle in the air, returning to its original position without losing momentum. Quaron shifted his weight, turning the slash into a lunge and piercing Locrias’ chest.
He made sure to remain in Solus’s blind spot by always keeping the Demon between them. This way, Locrias’s energy signature blinded her mana sense and she couldn’t aim her spells.
Quaron charged forward, using the impaled Demon as both a shield and a battering ram while also hurling a burst of Origin Flames. All three of them were dangerously low on mana, but only one of them had access to an ability that didn’t require any.
Locrias’ shadow faded away right after the impact, leaving only the remains of the Skeletal Knight and the stolen armor to take the brunt of the flames. Without his burden, Quaron became even faster and aimed at Solus’s head.
‘I have no strength left or spell ready and there’s no time to rearrange the Distorted Field. I don’t want to find out what happens when my body gets destroyed but Lith still wears my stone ring and I can’t get back inside from this distance.’ Solus feared that the death of her body would force her to rebuild it from scratch.
She had waited twelve years to be human again and the thought of losing it after a few weeks scared her to death.
Much to her surprise, her body sidestepped the attack while keeping War glued to the glaive to control its movements. Her right hand holding the staff performed a riposte that caught Quaron by surprise, crushing his nose and making it hard for him to breathe.
‘I bet that he can’t spew fire with his mouth full of blood.’ Locrias’ voice said in her head. ‘Don’t let him recover and use your magic. I’ll take care of the fight.’
‘What? How? Most importantly, why didn’t you do it sooner?’ She replied.
‘Demons are just shadows. the moment I understood that I had lost, I moved into yours and left my body behind as a decoy. As for your last question, yes, I could have done it since I know by instinct everything that I’m capable of in this form.
‘Yet after over a month of isolation during which I couldn’t speak, touch, or be heard, even pain is a pleasant change and I wanted to savor every single sensation my new body could offer.’
Solus knew the feeling very well so she telepathically nodded and focused on the fight. Now that she didn’t have to worry about hurting Locrias anymore, she could use the Distorted Field to its fullest.
The six spheres arranged themselves in a circle around the fighters, each one releasing small bursts of energy that could alter the gravity in a small area. On the one hand, it limited their effectiveness but on the other hand, it also got rid of most of gravity magic’s side effects.
Solus was very proud of her idea. Usually, conjuring and controlling six elements at the same time while also keeping them perfectly balanced was a demanding task, but the Sage Staff had been devised exactly for that purpose in order to feed her mana core.
