“Where’s that bitch of Night?” Dawn cast her best life-sensing and array-detecting spells to make sure the rescue team wasn’t falling into a trap. Life Vision covered only her line of sight whereas her spells covered kilometers.
The Horseman sat on top of Sunrise and her Tower Blade Spell, Rising Sun, shone on the tip of her Twilight blade.
“She’s gone, dammit! We’re too late.” Baba Yaga cursed their bad luck.
The fight hadn’t lasted long, but more than it had taken Baba Yaga to go back to Lutia from Silverkeep and from there reach Zeska with the rest of her allies. Not knowing how dangerous the amnesiac Lith would be and after hearing about Night’s sighting, they had decided to move together.
“Okay, how do we stop that?” Friya asked via the communication amulet while sharing the vision of the blue inferno surrounding them.
“You must overpower them with raw strength.” Valtak was in the safety of Baba Yaga’s tower. “They are not like regular Origin Flames. They don’t exhaust their strength as they burn something.
“Consider the blue flames like a living being you have to kill.” The Father of Fire couldn’t deal with the Void Demon Dragon in his debilitated state and with a bit of luck, he wouldn’t need to.
Many powerful individuals had joined the rescue team, some of them eclipsed even the power he had during his prime.
“A living being, uh? Then leave it to me.” Xenagrosh took a step back to check on Lith’s condition and unleashed a volley of the tier four Chaos spell, Howling Void.
Black spears the size of a small tree and as fast as bullets erupted from each one of her fingers, piercing through the blue flames like a hot knife through butter.
The destructive power and the Chaos and its speed toppled over ten walls of fire for one whole second. Then, the Void Demon Dragon stood up with an angry roar, releasing more waves of blue fire.
“Who are you and why are you doing this to me?” The physical pain had snapped Derek out of it and summoned him away from the door.
Without his help, the Voidfeather Dragon had no chance of sealing the gate. All he could do was make sure that no soul would get past the blue star and the black sphere, reaching the defenseless human life force.
With the Void gone, there was no one left to stop the stream of parasitic souls. They flooded through the cracks in Lith’s life force and fueled the blue flames, bringing them back to their full power.
“Lith, it’s me, Friya!” She didn’t recognize the voice but according to Life Vision, the creature’s energy signature matched Lith’s. “Gods, I never thought the day would come when I’d miss your extra eyes.
“They are kind of creepy. No offense, sister.”
“Hey, no kink-shaming!” Quylla released Bloodbind from her sleeves to restrain Derek.
Yet not only did he not show any sign of recognizing the two women, ignoring their attempt at humor, but also the chains took fire like they were coated in oil. Bloodbind writhed and screeched in agony as the blue flames corrupted its runes.
“What’s happening?” Quylla recalled the chains. “Bloodbind is already so hot that it hurts. And I’m wearing a Featherwalker armor.”
“Since when does it screech?” Friya used a series of small dimensional doors to Warp the flames away while Quylla smothered them with multi-layered hard-light constructs.
“It never did but this is the new model.” Quylla replied.
“Eyes on the prize!” Morok unleashed six pillars of elemental energy from his eyes.
The knowledge he had garnered about Light Mastery was still shallow, but more than enough to understand how to use the light element for offense.
The elemental pillars struck the Void Demon Dragon but between the blue flames weakening them and the mass of the Divine Beast, their effect was negligible.
“Is that supposed to be funny?” Derek asked while releasing his tier five Spirit Spell, Primordial Roar.
It knocked the Tyrant off the sky and pushed Zoreth one step back.
“Stop it, Lith!” She released a burst of Origin Flames from her body to counter the spell. “We don’t want to hurt you. We are your friends. We want to help you.”
“What kind of friends smash a friend into the ground?” He breathed a river of blue flames at the Shadow Dragon.
“Don’t you remember?” Friya tried to Warp the flames away but they burned at the edges of the Steps, making it collapse after only part of the flames had been redirected. “We didn’t attack you.
“We stopped the souls possessing you from destroying Zeska!” She waved at the flames engulfing the entire city block.
Baba Yaga was still in her tower, focusing her attention on cutting the blue flames off from the world energy and keeping them from spreading to the rest of the city.
“Lies!” Derek roared. “This is just the aftermath of my fight with Poopie. If even the Kingdom’s most wanted couldn’t stop me, what makes you think you can?”
A short burst of light and Dawn’s Rising Sun blasted away Lith’s right arm and shoulder, leaving a clean, cauterized wound like he had been hit by a laser. Because that was exactly what had just happened.
“Does this answer your question?” The hot woman riding the white crystal horse reminded Derek of Night, but with one big difference. “I could have blown up your head. I could have blown up your entire body if I wanted.”
She shot a bigger burst of Rising Sun diagonally, cutting through the blue flames and the clouds alike to demonstrate her power.
“But I didn’t because I’m your… I’m here to help.”
Unlike Night, Dawn exuded no killing intent nor did she show signs of aggression. Derek had learned to recognize them since he was a child in order to pacify Ezio and avoid a beating when possible.
“Or maybe you just know it wouldn’t work, sweetie.” There was a hint of lust in Derek’s voice that caught everyone by surprise.
Almost as much as his shoulder and arm growing back in one second.
“Poopie didn’t fail to kill me for a lack of trying, believe me.” He flexed his new fingers, feeling them no different from the old ones.
“Guys, the bad news is that he’s half Abomination.” Xenagrosh said. “Since we are over a mana geyser, he can heal from any wound in the blink of an eye, and killing him is nigh impossible.
“The good news is that we have no reason to hold back!” The Shadow Dragon extended the claws of Sky Piercer and slashed at Derek.
The air pressure alone cut the flames wide open while the clawed gauntlet left dozen meters deep trenches in the ground where the Void Demon Dragon had stood just a second ago.
He Blinked out of the way but in doing so he also severed his connection with the rest of the blue flames for a split second. More than enough for Zoreth to release a pulse of prismatic energy from Sky Piercer and snuff most of the flames out.
“I’m sorry!” Friya emerged from her Blink right behind Derek, lunging at him with Dreadnought.
