“Nothing works!” Friya said. None of the items Orion had prepared for her could project its energy outwards. Under the seal of the Hexagram, only inner energies like fusion magic could be used.
She wasn’t worried about dying. The enchanted armor she wore still worked and it would prevent the fall from being lethal. Yet without magic, they had no way to stop the four criminals.
“I know.” Protector’s voice was peaceful. He took a deep breath and the world stopped moving. He was the first one to disappear, quickly followed by his two companions.
“What the heck? They Blinked away!” Jaren couldn’t believe his own eyes.
“Stop spouting bullshit! They are still inside the array. Had they attempted any spell, we would have felt it and countered it in a jiffy.” Pelion could still sense Lith’s group presence thanks to the enhanced mana perception the Hexagram provided to all four of them, yet he couldn’t pinpoint them.
At least not until one of Protector’s horns rammed into him with the force of a freight train. After almost being killed by the two Emperor Beasts, Pelion had come to the fight prepared this time.
The moment Benyo had spotted the incoming enemies, he had activated his armor’s pseudo core to boost its defensive abilities at the expense of duration. The enchanted protection his master had Forgemastered for him was now five times stronger than usual.
Such a powerful effect came at a price, though. It would take less than two minutes for the pseudo core to exhaust its mana and when that happened, his armor would be no different from normal clothes for hours.
Fights were not supposed to last for long and Pelion would return home as soon as they were done with the Third Eye ritual. It was a perfect plan, at least on paper.
Despite the armor’s boosted effect, despite earth fusion making Pelion’s body as durable and heavy as stone, he was sent flying out of the formation. All of his precautions had prevented him from being skewered by the horn, but he still took a lot of damage.
His sternum cracked along with several ribs, making him spit a mouthful of blood as he fought to regain control over his own flight spell. Silverwing’s Hexagram disappeared, making it possible for Lith’s group to use magic once again.
Lith and Friya jumped off Protector’s back as he disappeared again.
“Where did he go?” Ailia didn’t panic and kept her focus on her ritual. She could feel the energy accumulated in the air building to critical mass.
“He did another invisible Blink!” Jaren said while turning his head in every direction, hoping to spot the Emperor Beast’s exit point.
“It’s you who blinked, not me.” Protector struck Jaren with one of his horns, sending the Awakened flying and following up with a tier four spell, Shadow Edge. A darkness infused air blade cut deeply into Jaren’s defenses and sapped his strength.
“There’s just the two of us left!” Benyo had several spells at the ready, but had no idea which one to use without exposing herself or her companions to the Emperor Beast’s impossible attacks.
Lith darted toward her, well aware of the blazing mana in her eyes.
‘They are all using Life Vision. Dimensional magic is useless, I can only employ fusion magic to move faster.’ He thought.
Friya stayed behind, casting one spell another. A Mage Knight’s role was to support and protect their companions. She would join the fight the moment the others required her help, not a second sooner.
‘How the heck can these guys use Silverwing’s Hexagram? Even by combining their strength, it’s supposed to be impossible. Speaking of impossible, how does Ryman Warp space without opening a dimensional door?’ She wondered.
The answer was pretty simple: he wasn’t Blinking, just flying with his wings.
Ryman was so fast that from such a close distance not even the Awakened’s enhanced senses could follow his movements.
Now that he could once again use air magic to support his wings, he had become even faster. In an aerial fight, anyone could fly, yet those born with wings had superior speed and maneuverability.
Seeing that Jaren and Pelion had yet to recover, Benyo clapped her hands and activated the tier four spell Chasing Lightning. Several golden magic circles appeared around her and from each circle, a bolt of lightning erupted which resembled a snake slithering across the air towards their target.
The lightning bolts moved toward Lith in a zig zag pattern, slower than normal, but they were still very fast. Thanks to air fusion and his flight spell, Lith managed to dodge all of them, yet his efforts bought him less than a second of advantage.
Being true to their name, the thunderbolts turned around and chased after him. Yet even a split second was more than enough for Lith. He took the Gatekeeper out of his pocket dimension, infusing both himself and the sword with all elements.
Benyo could only unsheathe her own blade, an estoc, and use fusion magic as well. None of the opposing teams could use tier five magic. The slightest mistake when handling spells with such a large area of effect could hurt their companions.
Benyo froze in place when she saw how fast Lith’s blade moved.
‘I can’t dodge, I have to block it!’ She lunged at the tip of the Gatekeeper, trying to use it as a leverage point to deflect the much heavier blade with her own. Unfortunately, even though fusion magic boosted both of them, it only served to widen the gap that already existed in their physical abilities.
To make matters worse, the Gatekeeper’s ability to channel the elements made it faster, heavier, and sharper than most enchanted blades could be. When the two weapons clashed, Benyo almost lost her grip on her rapier and was left defenseless from her waist to her chin.
Lith’s slash blasted her guard away and opened a diagonal cut from her right shoulder to her left hip. Chasing Lightning was almost upon him and he had no time to follow up with another attack.
“Thanks for falling into my trap, you moron!” Ailia and Benyo had a smug grin as the world energy that they had painstakingly accumulated up to that point was released. Ailia used Blink on her two missing teammates to bring them back to the epicenter of Third Eye.
The three arrays forming the magical formation became visible to the naked eye. The Awakened ones used their own mana to channel the gathered mass of world energy through the magical focus points scattered along Zantia.
The magic circles encompassed the entire city up to its tall walls, creating so much light that they would have been visible for kilometers if not for the ongoing storm.
‘We managed to split the damage among five, yet it’s just a partial victory. Activating the Third Eye during a moment of quiet means that there will be a lot of witnesses. Once we are done with those three, Zantia has to disappear.’ Alia thought.
Wiping out a whole city was dangerous, but doing otherwise implied an even greater risk. Lady Tyris was bound to know about Kieran’s trespassing in Zantia and if anyone recognized the use of forbidden magic, she would interrogate Deraniel.
At that point, their lives would end and all of their efforts would be squandered. A snowstorm wiping out a city was uncommon but not unthinkable of in the north.
