1891 Wisdom Against Mana (Part 1)
"And it should also give you the best tan you can get, but it's not body modification. My spell simply cranks up your natural resistance to the sun to the maximum. With a bit of luck, you'll get a darker skin than Selia." Lith said.
Kamila was about to scold him but his sincere smile stopped her. She had seen from his memories how much Lith had suffered after leaving Lutia. A bit of tan was a small price to pay if it helped him to overcome his trauma.
"Fine, do your worst. You have my permission." She said with a sigh but Lith's squealing with joy brought a smile to her face.
"I want you to promise me something, though."
"Anything you want." He nodded in excitement while he boosted the melanin in her skin.
"As long as we are here, promise me that you won't use magic except that for cooking and doing the chores." She actually would have avoided that as well, but she was too lazy to give up on those cheat abilities.
"Promise me that you won't use Accumulation, Invigoration, nor will you study magic. I haven't had a good night's sleep for weeks and I didn't have a single day of rest for months.
"Now that we are finally back together, all I want is to eat when I'm hungry, sleep after snuggling up to you when I'm tired, and make love with you when the mood is right. I want us to be a regular couple on their honeymoon.
"After everything that happened, I think we both deserve some peace. I want to enjoy every single moment we spend together without magic messing with our lives like it always happens.
"Can you do it for me?" Kamila asked.
"I promise you that no one and nothing will mess with our honeymoon." Lith replied.
***
Meanwhile, in the stratosphere, Roghar was seconds away from reaching his destination. He had circled the globe in the opposite direction from the Kingdom, to make sure that he would cross from his own turf into Salaark's without passing over Garlen.
As he descended from the sky, he made sure to slow down enough to not leave a trail of fire that could alert a sentinel left by the Guardian of War along the coast. After making sure that no one was around, the Fenrir took his time to prepare all the spells he might need, just to be safe.
"This is as far as you go." Leegaain's voice almost broke Roghar's focus.
Almost.
"What are you doing here, old lizard?" The Fenrir asked while staring at the black-scaled Dragon.
His massive wings flapped slowly while the rest of his body floated in mid-air without oscillating. For some reason, his back was hunched and swollen, but Roghar paid it no attention.
"What I must, hungry cur." Leegaain replied. "I'm not going to let you disturb the kid. Not after everything he has gone through."
"Really? Since when does the Father of all Dragons care so much about his offspring? You let terrible things happen to your firstborns like Jormun and now worry for an artificial hybrid made by Mogar?" The Fenrir said with a sneer.
"I don't." Leegaain replied. "Jormun's choices, just like Lith's, are his own. I won't interfere with their consequences either, but you are not here because of something Lith did. You are here because you want something from him."
"Even so, why did you bother keeping an eye on me and the kid? Or is the human woman one of your lost children as well?" Roghar tilted his head in confusion.
"You wish, it's much worse." Leegaain said while power kept accumulating inside his body. "By coming here in defiance of the decree of Garlen's Guardians, you have become our enemy.
"I promised my granddaughter Elina to protect Lith from all of my enemies and that's what I'm going to do. Also, any enemy of Salaark is my enemy as well."
"Still chasing the sparrow's skirt after all these centuries? Grow a spine!" Roghar said in mockery and the fight began.
The Fenrir had tried and failed countless times to get accustomed to wings. Yet no matter how much he practiced, he couldn't match the skill of those who were born with them and had lived as long as he did.
Since he had no time to waste, he used the same tactic that he had prepared for Salaark. Roghar activated Doom Tide's passive effect, Elemental Flow. It was similar to the power manifested by the Fomors' blue eye but much more powerful.
It allowed the Fenrir to cast arrays quickly, to freely move their position even after conjuring them, and to change their effects at will.
The water aspect in Doom Tide's world energy could freely reshape itself so that once cast, a magical formation could turn into another of a completely different kind without losing power.
Suddenly, six elemental sealing arrays surrounded Leegaain and he started to fall. Without air magic his wings couldn't support his weight, forcing him to activate Gravity Fusion to not waste precious mana.
He sprinted past the speed of sound but the magical formations kept following him. Roghar, instead, could chase him effortlessly by combining air magic to fly and Light Mastery to create floating platforms.
He used them to both sprint and suddenly dodge, exploiting his mastery over footwork even in the sky. It gave him an aerial maneuverability on par with that of flying Guardians and a strong edge against them whenever it came to close-quarter combat.
While they had to keep flapping their wings and needed space to turn around, he stood on a solid surface that empowered his physical attacks. Whenever Roghar's maw reached Leegaain, the foothold allowed him to sink his teeth in and twist, ripping huge chunks of flesh at a time.
Leegaain cursed as most of the spells he had prepared had now become useless whereas Roghar's kept hitting their mark. Elemental Flow answered to the Fenrir's will, turning the arrays off whenever Roghar unleashed his magic and turning them on solely to neutralize the Dragon's spells.
Leegaain hurled a stream of white Origin Flames the size of a skyscraper, but they were too slow compared to a Guardian and Roghar dodged them with ease even from point-blank.
The Father of all Dragons still managed to exploit that moment of respite to cast the Guardian Tier Spirit Spell, Roaring Destruction.
An emerald sphere with a one-kilometer radius covered the sky around the two Guardians before exploding with so much force that a tidal wave formed in the ocean that was hundreds of kilometers below.
The light aspect was supposed to trap everyone inside the spell but its caster. Earth to reinforce all other elements, giving them substance. Water was supposed to freeze the target, turning their blood into deadly blades that would pierce through the flesh from the inside out.
Fire would dissipate any kinetic energy, reducing even the strongest creature to a helpless baby. Darkness destroyed everything while also engulfing the area and smothering all forms of magic.
Air produced bolts of lightning that were supposed to blind the Fenrir and electrocute him at the same time. The ozone they produced would seal Roghar's sense of smell while the thunders would deafen him, robbing him of his senses.
