2450 Stargazer (Part 2)

'We didn't follow you for the fun of it. I needed time to learn how to isolate and neutralize your energy signature to keep Baba Yaga from interfering. I created this spell to capture Night, but this works too.'

'Laugh all you want. Soon my mother-'

'Will waste her time looking for you hundreds of kilometers from here, where I dropped the dimensional device that relays your signal right after leaving Nestamaath.'

Dawn inwardly cursed the living legacy's cunning as she relayed the bad news to her companions.

'This is great!' Solus took out her Council amulet, the one from the Desert, and another that she and Lith crafted exactly for a situation like that.

Unfortunately, none of them worked.

'Please, work. I beg of you.' Distance had never affected the tower's pocket dimension or Soluspedia.

It was how Solus had kept communicating with Lith while he was quarantined in Valeron after suffering from the Unwavering Loyalty array. In the days before the departure, she had put several scrolls inside Soluspedia and she was now pushing one of them out.

'We only have one chance. We have to get to the mana geyser at all costs.' Solus said once another scroll was stored inside Soluspedia, confirming to her that Lith had received the message.

'To what end? Sure, it will empower us but it will empower them as well. Even worse, the constant flow of world energy will further widen the gap between you and them since they will make up for the quality of their enchantments with raw power.' Dawn replied.

'Trust me. I only need to touch the geyser while the three of us are there to guarantee our escape.' Solus replied.

'How?' Dawn's question was met only by silence.

'She's telling the truth. Please, help us.' Nyka said.

'Fine! But I don't see the point of keeping it a secret from me since I'll witness it. Cutting me off would also mean that you'd fight on your own. No more Light Mastery nor my battle experience.'

'Dammit, she's right.' Solus thought. 'We managed to fool Bytra and Zoreth only thanks to Lith's unknown bloodline abilities and tricks whereas I have neither. I can only hope that Nyka cuts Dawn off before she sees too mu-'

One of the men behind them raised a masterfully crafted harvest scythe, conjuring what Solus recognized as one of the impossible arrays Yurial had shown them.

A six-pointed star, each point of a different elemental color, appeared in front of the curved blade, generating six beams that converged into a single point before erupting in the form of an emerald blast aimed at the girls.

They managed to dodge the attack by moving in different directions but then the cursed scythe activated the second effect of the Spirit World array.

The emerald blast detonated the moment it reached its target destination, creating a violent shockwave that rendered the evasive maneuver useless.

The impossible array had been devised in ancient times by an Awakened Phoenix in an attempt to overcome the mana cost of Spirit Magic. His idea was to have the array conjure the world energy and split it into the six elements without giving them a specific form.

This way, they would be purified from Mogar's will and primed to receive a spark of his life force upon being reunited. On paper, it was a perfect method to conjure Spirit Spells exclusive to creatures capable of manipulating their life force.

Using the world energy as a power source meant that even tier five Spirit Spell didn't require more mana than a regular array. In practice, however, the array was vulnerable to all kinds of elemental sealing formations and Domination.

Disrupting a single flow of energy was enough to make Spirit World backfire against its caster. It was the reason no Awakened used it except as a teaching prop.

Cursed objects, however, had no such problem.

The boundary between their life force and mana was paper thin so they could turn the flow of the elements into Spirit Magic like a Phoenix and even if something went wrong, it would be their host paying the price.

By simply keeping the array active, Stargazer could conjure tier five Spirit Spells non-stop at the measly price of a spark of her mana. Until her victims caught wind of her trick, of course.

While Nyka was still grunting in pain and confusion, Dawn took the wheel, shooting a simple tier one heat ray at Stargazer. The cursed scythe had no problem dodging it, but the sudden influx of light element disrupted the elemental balance and added Nyka's energy signature to the mix.

"Twice already. This isn't my lucky day." Stargazer shrugged as Spirit World exploded in her face.

She used her host as a shield, uncaring for his pain as his body was torn into shreds. Vines erupted from the haft of the scythe, collecting every single fragment of flesh and bone before reassembling them into a usable vessel.

As any living being, it needed nutrients to make a full recovery but Stargazer had no rush. She filled the blank spaces with her sprouts in order to create a perfectly functional plant-human hybrid.

A regular person would have gone insane from the agony but her host's mind was long gone so Stargazer barely experienced a mild discomfort as the Awakened's body fought to reject her implants.

'The geyser is close!' Solus could see it via mana sense from a distance via mana sense.

'Great. We just need to hold out for a few seconds and we are safe.' Tista flapped her wings with all of her strength, thanking her Red Demon form for having a speed above that of a regular bright blue-cored mage in the air.

She was letting Solus keep an eye on the situation while Tista focused all of her strength in her wings and poured every drop of her mana into her flight spell to reach their destination as soon as possible.

'Nyka, try to not fall behind. If we get split-' Tista spotted the exit point of a dimensional spell opening right in front of them and focused her attention on the threat at hand.

She took a deep breath, unleashing a twin burst of True and Frozen Flames. At the same time, she had the enchanted gloves, Sunder, turn back into their real form and slashed at the enemy's vitals.

Windfell had used that trick countless times and knew what to expect.

He combined the Spirit Barrier of his own blade with that of his armor to block most of the damage, letting his host take what remained of the attacks. Then, he charged at Tista, uncaring for the razor-sharp Adamant claws and the bolts of lightning they were imbued with.

The Red Demon had expected the enemy to fall, dodge, or block. Anything but offer himself on a silver platter. Her left hand cut his head into five pieces while her right pierced through his barrier, armor, and heart.

The man in front of her had no head and a hole in his chest so big that she could look through it yet Life Vision warned Tista that his life force and mana were unaffected.