2039 Before the Storm (Part 1)

"In Thrud's shoes, I'd imbue the rain with just enough magical power to blind the mystical senses of us Awakened. This way, her soldiers will have no problem to Blink past the walls undetected and reach the Warp Gate." Jiza said.

"If I'm right, the only battle that matters is the one outside the city. If we lose there, we'll have no second chance and Belius will fall."

***

Belius' plains, now.

Solus took one final deep breath, focusing on the Sage Staff's ability to gather the world energy in order to regain her strength. Leari had kept throwing at her one spell after another, but Raptor had the reflexes of a violet-cored Awakened and nigh-infinite stamina.

As long as Solus shared a bit of her energy with it, the Golem could go at it for days.

The Thunderborne was about to emit a blast of Stormlight, but stopped herself in time. She hadn't forgotten how the golden knight seemed to be immune to world energy-based bloodline abilities.

Even Origin Flames had been easily nullified.

"Run all you want, you can't win." The Thunderborne dived on the ground, activating the tier five War Mage spell, Tidal Crash.

The earth element turned the soil into semi-liquid so that the impact made the road ripple, bursting upward in a mud wave. At the same time, the air element produced a powerful blast of wind.

With its paws sinking in the mud and its wings almost ripped off by the shockwave, Raptor failed to dodge the spell and threw Solus out of the saddle.

She tried to land on her feet, but a sudden white flash distracted her. Several bolts of plasma were aimed at her, Raptor, and the Demons.

'By my Mom, I need to stop that, or all of my hard work will be for naught!' Solus thought.

While they ran away, she had infused Raptor with her mana so that the Golem could focus on recovering solely the energy for its Spirit Crystal and in turn restore the strength of the Demons.

Solus needed her full focus to activate Draining Grounds and neutralize Stormlight, but to do that she fell head-first on the ground. A bit of energy started to flow inside her as the bloodline ability was split into its base components and absorbed.

Oddly enough, the blast of plasma was very bright but had little substance. Then, a burst of Origin Flames engulfed her and Solus felt pain like never before. Her body, her mana core, and even her tower half were burning.

Darkness fusion couldn't stop the agony that her whole being experienced while the mystical flames eat at her.

'I knew it that the kid was as green as grass.' Leari thought. 'She was so focused on protecting everyone that she failed to realize that it was all a ruse. She couldn't possibly absorb two bloodline abilities at the same time and even if she did, I made sure that she didn't see the second coming.'

In her sprawled position and with her mystical senses blinded by the light, Solus had missed the burst of Origin Flames hidden behind the plasma. Leari didn't like leaving the front lines unguarded, but she had to make sure that the enemy was dead or they would come back after a couple of deep breaths.

While Solus screamed in pain, rolling on the ground in an attempt to smother the mystical fire, the Thunderborne prepared a new bolt of plasma to finish her off.

Three beams of elemental energy erupted from the Demons' lines, cutting through both the ground and Solus in an upward arc before hitting Leari square in the chest.

'What the fuck? Why did they attack their own ally?' Confusion and surprise made Leari miss her chance to dodge.

At the same time, a silvery whip flashed in front of her eyes, forcing her to step back.

Yet with her legs off the ground and the elemental pillars still pushing her, she lost her balance, falling on a side. Raptor used its fastest flight spell and rammed from below at the Thunderborne's beak in an Adamant uppercut.

Gravity magic doubled the damage from the impact and a timely Plague Storm from the Vagrash-Golem tripled it. Trouble arrived a second later, wielding a whip of lightning in its left hand and a flaming sword in its right.

Its three eyes shot non-stop, keeping the Divine Beast down, while the weapons searched for a vital spot under the cloudy mass of feathers that protected the Thunderborne's flesh.

Solus slowly stood up, fighting against the fear from the feeling of her body falling apart to keep her breathing rhythm steady and heal. Trouble had saved her in the nick of time.

The odd trajectory of the elemental beams had been meant to smother the Origin Flames without Leari noticing. In the heat of the battle, she had forgotten that Demons, Golems, and even Solus all shared Lith's energy signature, making them immune to their respective magical attacks.

"Is there something we can do?" Trion asked, his eyes down to five after having been destroyed once by Leari.

"Buy me some time and conjure as much light element as you can." Solus spoke the words a bit at a time to not lose her breathing rhythm.

"Will do." The chain in his chest become visible for an instant while Trion used it so call Valia, and Locrias.

"Piss off, ant!" Leari had gotten back on her feet and swatted the golems away like flies.

Their attacks were powerful, but the difference in size limited their effectiveness. On top of that, unlike Raptor that had been recharged by Solus, Trouble had fought non-stop on its own from the beginning.

The three Demons went to their aid, each using a different version of Abyssal Gaze that had been slightly modified to suit their mana flow. Unlike the other Demons, they had received equipment tailor suited for them.

It had taken the three former soldiers of the Kingdom countless hours of training in the Firing Range just to gain a grasp of Blade Spells and they were still far from casting one.

Yet during practice, they had learned how to make their mana flow harmonize with that of their gear in order to draw the energy from the power cores. Demons were no different from the golems in their reliance on Lith to restore the lost mana.

This way, however, they were capable of channeling part of the spells imbued in their equipment and combining them with their own, using the power cores as an auxiliary source of energy.

Among the three of them, Valia was the strongest.

She had died during Orpal's attack on Lutia and Lith had collected her corpse after her soul had moved into his feather. It guaranteed her to always be summoned as a Demon of the Fallen and to have the best vessel possible.

Valia, Locrias, and Trion could weave just a few Blade runes each. Enough to push their spells above the power of a violet core but no further.

Leari had no idea what was happening but she scoffed at their slow spellcasting. Even while fighting with the golems, she had used body casting and now she had plenty of spells at the ready.