‘How the heck can she separately control two parts of a three elemental spell?’ Lith was amazed by Dawn’s ability, yet he had no time to waste.
The room was becoming hotter by the second and every time one of the constructs so much as grazed him, not even the Orichalcum could protect him. The armor blocked the hits but not the heat they produced, turning the boosted Skinwalker into an oven.
Lith and Solus both were weaving water spells non-stop to cool the armor, but low tier magic couldn’t keep up with Daybreak.
Suddenly, a pillar of light aimed at Dawn emerged from the second collapsed tunnel. Nalrond had managed to dig himself out and had decided to do something instead of waiting for death.
Dawn attempted to redirect it to Lith, but the Rezar had learned from his mistakes. This time, the spell was infused with willpower and without Dominance, Dawn had no way to wrestle its control away.
The hit sent her against the wall and turned the crystal scales covering her body black from the heat. Yet it wasn’t enough to make the Bright Day lose her focus. Daybreak continued its onslaught, devouring even Origin Flames as if they were nothing more than candles.
“Do you remember me, murderer?” Nalrond roared while using up all the mana he had left to keep fueling the pillar that nailed Dawn to the wall. “Is this the big dream you always told me about? To become a monster, no worse, the puppet of a monster?
“Was it worth killing my people? Answer me, you coward!”
“I’m so sorry.” This time the voice coming out of Acala’s mouth was his own.
“I never meant to harm anyone. I didn’t choose Dawn, she chose me. We were destined to be together. It was your people who tried to take her away from me, I just wanted to…”
“To what? To betray our trust? To run away with the relic like the thief you are?” Nalrond cut him short. “I know how the Bright Day is capable of twisting any mind, no matter how strong, but that takes time!
“Back then, you two had just bonded, she had no hold over you. It was you who got intoxicated by her power and used us as target practice. You who burned down the village to make sure that no one would survive.
“Even now, you’ve betrayed your beloved Country, slaughtered your kinsmen, and for what? For some money and respect? That’s not Dawn, that’s you!”
Tears of regret streamed down the Ranger’s cheeks as the memories of the time he had spent at the Rezars’ village flooded his mind. Acala wasn’t used to feel guilt for his actions.
Dawn was skilled in keeping his memories disconnected from each other, making sure that each and every one of his crimes appeared to be the response to injustice, no matter if real or just perceived.
To pursue her ends, she still needed Acala. Especially when dealing with the Kingdom and with the people that knew him well. They didn’t bond for long enough to have absolute control over him so she still needed his consent.
The barriers she had placed in Acala’s mind shattered, forcing him to face the full price others had paid for his choices.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up! Your people had everything. You had strength, magic, and artifacts, whereas I had nothing. All I asked you was to teach me light magic. Everything that’s happened is your fault!
“You hid Dawn from me and tried to take her away once she found me because you, didn’t want to share with me the gifts that she bestowed upon you. I only acted in self-defense. It was your people who attacked me first!” Acala said.
“We were trying to save you, not to kill you. Dawn’s powers have killed my tribe, but it was you who murdered them.” Nalrond replied.
“I said shut up!” All the lies that Acala had repeated to himself to justify the carnage crumbled. Over time, Dawn had corroded his mind to make him weak and obedient, but at the same time, she had brought Acala on the brink of madness.
For the first time in a long while, the Ranger and the Bright Day fought over the control of the body they shared. Acala wanted to kill Nalrond because in his deranged mind, once the Rezar was dead all the proof of his crime would disappear, and with it the guilt he felt.
Dawn, instead, knew how hard had it been to corner Lith and she had no idea if she could manage to do it again. Not only did the Ranger seem to always have an ace up his sleeve, but also Dawn was certain that she had yet to understand the full scope of Solus’s abilities.
The struggle taking place inside Acala’s mind diverted Dawn’s focus from that in the outside world and made her Daybreak spell slower.
‘An opening!’ Lith had discovered the innate weakness that kind of construct had, but only when it was too late to exploit it. Daybreak strength lied in the fact that even if its extremities were destroyed, they could easily reform thanks to its underlying structure.
At the same time, however, if the construct was damaged near its source, then everything past the breakpoint would be cut off from the caster and collapse.
Lith had tried to attack the ever-growing structure at one of its critical points earlier, but all Dawn needed to foil his attack was to change the place from which the construct expanded.
Lith had almost got caught in a pincer attack and after that, he could only wait for an opportunity to appear. Until that moment, he had hoped that Dawn couldn’t sustain a construct that big and powerful for long.
The bad news was that so far reality had proven Lith wrong, the good news was that it didn’t matter anymore.
Lith flew in a spiral pattern, dodging the snake-like constructs that Dawn conjured every time he got too close. Unfortunately for her, between the excessive complexity her spell had reached and Acala’s meddling, the waves of light were now too slow.
Even at such close distance, the wind that air magic pushed beneath Lith’s wings allowed him to dodge, even if just by a hair-breadth. The Skinwalker armor’s surface turned from silver to red due to the intense heat, constantly boiling and reforming as Solus put air bubbles in-between metal layers to slow down the melting process.
By the time Lith reached his target, half of the full suit of Orichalcum armor had evaporated and the skin beneath was covered in blisters. Lith pierced Daybreak’s focal point with Ruin, using its enchantment to disrupt the flow of mana beyond repair.
Once the head of the snake was cut off, the body started to wither. The giant mass of light and heat went haywire and triggered a chain reaction that dispelled the darkness pulse that had never stopped chasing Lith.
The destruction of most parts of the construct compromised its integral structure, making the shockwave generated by Ruin’s enchantment spread backward toward Dawn as well.
The resulting explosion vaporized Acala’s right hand from which the spell originated. With Daybreak’s disappearance, the temperature in the room quickly started to drop and Lith went blind due to the flash his strategy had caused.
Yet he didn’t need sight to find his target thanks to the smell of burned flesh filling the air.
