Solus needed to get away while looking weak and helpless so that during their next confrontation, the living legacies would be caught by surprise by her true power and easily eliminated.
Solus bolted forward, aiming to get past the enemy line and then use the Tower Warp to escape from the Distortion Field array’s area of effect. At that point, they would either signal their position to Baba Yaga or regroup and escape.
‘I could use the tower’s spells and arrays from a distance, but the cursed objects would see that the energy doesn’t come from me. I need to get there and channel it through my body.
‘They think that I’m a “fruit of Forbidden Magic” as well. I can pass everything as an ability of mine that just needs to be fueled by a lot of world energy.’ She thought while throwing the Fury with all of her strength.
The mystical hammer split into eight copies of itself, each one with its elemental crystal red from channeling and amplifying the fire element. They were all enveloped in a small gravity field that increased their speed and weight, making them akin to a meteor shower.
“Sorry, kid. You’ve already used this skill and no one with half a brain falls for the same trick twice!” Stargazer and Knightfall used their flight spells to bolt away in opposite directions, dodging the Furies’ Flight and flanking Solus in one move.
“I know.” She mumbled as a snap of her fingers activated the Fury’s Burning Rain ability.
The eight hammers exploded in unison, turning into a storm of white-hot Davross splinters that flew in every direction. They moved too fast and there were too many to dodge them all without magic.
Knightfall smirked as she lifted the Distortion Field array just for the time she and Stargazer needed to Blink behind Solus, baiting her to use dimensional magic to escape.
Contrary to their expectations, Solus stood still. The glaive and the jagged ax coordinated their attack with surgical precision, but so did Solus’ weapons. The ninth and original Fury appeared in her right hand while War came flying to her side and jumped into her left.
By the time the cursed objects realized their mistake it was too late. Solus threw the final hammer at Stargazer to make up for the range gap while War took the jagged ax head-on.
The glaive’s host was struck in the chest, sending him flying away. War’s Adamant clashed with the ax’s, producing sparks. Yet neither the mastery of their respective artisans nor the strength of the hand wielding them was the same.
The angry blade managed to jam the ax’s enchantments long enough for Solus’ strike to push it away and create an opening for a right straight. Knightfall blocked it, the small fist hit the Davross of the shield with a boom of thunder but dealt no damage.
Yet it broke the arm wielding it and sent both the cursed object and his host flying as well.
With her path toward the tower now clear, Solus charged at the still-raging fiery storm of Davross in front of her. At the last second, she dispelled the copies of the Fury and Burning Rain disappeared.
‘Son of a bitch!’ The two cursed objects thought in unison while unleashing their respective spells and enchantments.
Five of the six Evil Eyes on the Stargazer Staff emitted an energy pillar of their corresponding element while Knightfall conjured three tier five spells at the same time.
Solus countered them all by combining the Hands and the Mouth of Menadion to summon the fire and air elemental sealing arrays. Darkness and earth were too slow to catch up with her flight speed while water lacked the necessary destructive power to stop her.
On top of that, any tier five spell comprised of either fire or air would simply fall apart upon entering the elemental seal. The cursed objects didn’t waste time, Blinking to Solus’ either side to block her in a pincer attack.
She reacted by instinct, raising her weapons again but no opponent came through. The dimensional fissure exploded in her face, engulfing Lith and her in a sea of flames.
The pain woke him up and despite his weakness, he knew what had to be done.
‘It’s over. Drop me here and save yourself.’ Lith said while Stargazer and Knightfall caught up to them and raised their weapons to strike.
‘No way. I’ll throw you inside the geyser. Get into the tower and warp away. Even if my body is destroyed, as long as you are alive and the tower exists, I’ll survive.’ She replied with a sad smile. ‘I’d rather wait another nineteen years to get my human body again than lose you.’
‘You’d lose me either way.’ Lith had no hands so he could only send her the telepathic equivalent of a caress. ‘I’m already too weak. If the tower drains more energy from me to keep you alive, I’ll die.’
‘Maybe. If you die and I don’t bond with someone else immediately, I won’t make it either. I doubt that my mother was so stupid that she would endanger us both. I believe that I’ll just end up in a comatose state again until you recover.’
‘That’s not a risk I’m willing to take!’ Lith said while using what was left of his strength to push her out of harm’s way while also reverting to the full Tiamat’s size to make sure that he would take the blow in her stead.
‘But I am. Goodbye, Lith. Kiss Elysia for me if I’m not back by the time she’s born.’ Solus turned around at the last second and pushed him away as well, using gravity magic to change the direction of Lith’s acceleration to ensure that he would be the one reaching the geyser.
Yet his stumps applied no pressure on her body, phasing through her as if Solus was just an illusion. Her hands touched his expanding chest and disappeared inside of it, quickly followed by the rest of her body as the Tiamat’s form expanded.
The glaive’s and the ax’s blades were millimeters away from their target when Lith and Solus fused. Their bodies collapsed into a small sphere that suddenly exploded into a pillar of golden light.
Their weapons struck their target but the feeling was that of hitting a boulder rather than cutting. Knightfall tried to Blink away with her partner, discovering that dimensional magic was sealed by something more powerful than Distortion Field.
When the pressure and heat from the detonation reached the living legacies, the Davross that comprised their blades heated to thousands of degrees while their hosts’ bodies turned into cinders.
Knightfall and Stargazer activated their Spirit barriers to avoid suffering more damage as the two cursed objects were swept away by the explosion like leaves during a storm.
“What the heck just happened?” Windfell asked.
Dawn had never seen that form before but he remembered well its energy signature since their fight in the Odi’s underground lab.
“Thanks to you idiots, the most powerful mana crystal and the mightiest of metals have become one. That’s what happened.” The Horseman quoted Solus’s words while exploiting the cursed scimitar’s confusion to kick him away and get to safety.
