2352 Combined Assault (Part 2)

Or rather, that was how things were supposed to go.

Hystar shared not only a tower-like bond with Thrud's Generals, but also a mind link. In the face of defeat, he had turned off the Static Field array and sent to the Divine Beasts the dimensional coordinates of the power core along with an SOS.

When Lith burst the door of the office open, he found several Divine Beasts waiting for him, though they were beaten and battered. The fight with the Council first and then with Vastor had drained their strength to the point that even Invigoration had a limited effect.

Yet they were all back to their best condition possible and coursing with the little Life Maelstrom they had left.

'For Phloria.' Lith and Solus thought in unison.

The limited space actually played to their advantage, making the enemy's numerical advantage of little relevance. Solus activated the Mouth which started to weave the academy-destruction spell on its own, requiring no focus on her side.

The runes formed as if someone was reading them from a parchment without even bothering to understand their meaning. At the same time, she unleashed the Furies' Flight while Lith cast Ruin all around himself.

He and Solus had the same energy signature so their respective spells didn't bother them or each other.

The Divine Beasts, however, weren't so lucky. Even with the Golden Griffon raising its floor and lowering the ceiling to protect them, the red-black fire still bit deep into their flesh.

The nine hammers of the Furies rode Ruin's storm, using its momentum to blast through the enchanted stone and pummel at the Generals.

Origin Flames clashed against Origin Flames into violent explosions, but while Solus only had to get back into her ring to escape the conflagration, the other Divine Beasts could only suffer more damage.

From there, Solus kept focusing on the Mouth and healing Lith so that once the smoke dissipated, he was back at full strength while the others were still shaken by the blast.

"I admit that you are full of tricks, but that's not enough. There's strength in numbers!" Iata said while conjuring hard-light constructs to both shield and heal her allies.

She moved into close quarters, using her claws and scorpion tail to perform attacks from opposite directions at the same time.

"I couldn't agree more." Trion came out of his Void Sigil, stabbing at the Sekhmet's side with a poison-coated healing dagger.

The light magic imbued in the blade closed the wound, draining Iata's stamina and spreading the poison through her system. It was a neurotoxin that blocked her nerves, paralyzing her.

For a Divine Beast who was a Light Master, it would take a few seconds with light fusion to cleanse the poison, but during those seconds she was slow and clumsy.

War had never forgiven nor forgotten the day of Phloria's death. The mourning blade hated every single one of Thrud's soldiers with a vengeance and expressed that hate through its edge.

It turned into many small blades that spun like a buzzsaw, cutting through the armor and ripping Iata's flesh off, leaving behind a hole so big that not even Invigoration could close it.

Many Divine Beasts tried to stop Lith but one of his Demons emerged from a Sigil, poisoning them every time. War needed but one small opening to cut down their heads and numbers.

When they were about to surround him, Solus emerged as well, sucker-punching them from impossible angles or dishing out spells that not even Life Vision could predict.

"Just keep him away!" They raised a Spirit Wall that sealed Lith on the opposite side from the power core.

'Fine by me.' Lith thought while his mouth chanted the next string of runes.

Solus was already triple casting from her ring whenever she could to speed up the destruction spell stored inside the Mouth. A physical copy was also stored inside Soluspedia so that she had no need to memorize the runes.

Lith joined her, bringing it to heptacasting.

"What is he doing?" A Fenrir asked.

The Generals joined their forces and created several layers of barriers to keep the Tiamat at bay, but he didn't seem to mind.

"Who cares! We just need to buy time until the White Griffon runs out of steam. At that point-" Rayne choked on her words when the lost academy started to tremble with such violence that she thought the fight had reached its apex.

What was happening, instead, was the destruction spell reaching its second half.

Hystar wailed in pain, feeling the flow of world energy from the mana geysers and the Royal Array turning into poison that coursed through his system and flooded every stone of the Golden Griffon.

The walls, floor, and ceiling started to crack open yet there was no trace of the self-repair spell that had protected the lost academy from the passing of time and enemy strikes alike.

"Good gods, it's a Forgemastering spell!" Rimo the Fire Dragon said after his Eyes read enough runes to understand what Lith was weaving. "Verhen's previous raid didn't fail. He knows how to destroy the academy.

"We need to stop him!"

Alas, Marth waited for no one. The more the spell neared completion, the slower Hystar become. The Headmaster of the White Griffon had fallen into a controlled frenzy that allowed him to strike as precisely as violently.

The shield-bearing arm of the Golden Knight fell first, followed by the hand holding the blade. Then Marth conjured dozens of Tower Tier spells aimed at every part of the lost academy but the Headmaster's office.

The quake became so intense that the Divine Beasts couldn't even stand so they had to fly. They bolted at Lith, tearing down the defenses they had painstakingly built. Or at least, they tried.

Reality and Domination hit them in the face, locking them in the wrong half of the room.

'Learn Domination all you want. Your resurrection chamber is not going to work this time.' Lith thought as his Spirit Eye and Solus' emerald streak combined their strength to force the barrier to submit to their will.

'No, this can't be right. I'm supposed to be eternal!' With the last of his strength, Hystar Warped Meln Narchat, his equipment, and his steed as far as he could. 'If Verhen is going to be the Scourge of the True Queen, then may Narchat be the Curse of his existence!'

A few seconds later, Lith was done and the spell was complete.

The power core of the Golden Griffon imploded on itself and then exploded. The blast killed all the Divine Beasts in the Headmaster's office and it would have threatened Lith's life as well if not for the thick Spirit Barriers that now were under his control.

He focused on holding them together while Solus quickly weaved a Warp Steps leading back to their original position.

He stepped through the dimensional door in time to see the Golden Knight disappear in a burst of flames and stones. Hundreds of lights came out of the rubble and darted toward the sky.

The souls of the Forgotten had been locked out of their bodies and trapped inside the lost academy for centuries but they were finally free.