With Cytortia entering the fray, it was time to check the damage and pray for the fallen.

Rem: probably out from the count from bench-pressing the sea.

Hikma: Severely injured from blocking PALISADE’s one-shot nuke. Now under doctor order to sit and heal.

Luxinna: Disappeared after eating the one-shot nuke.

Melody: Exhausted herself fighting Luxinna also vanished after receiving the nuke in the face.

Survivor: Most were still alive aside from notable loss of Salazar Aztellic. It needed to be added the reason they lasted this long was because of sheer luck and Horizon Dawn’s members taking several bullets on their behalf.

…

Cytortia knew what the current situation boiled into. Rem wasn’t here to lead them, and the rest of the Dawn wasn’t here for supporting. It was the do-or-die moment. Time to test how much the little girl who used to run from crisis held up against the titanic weight of the world being put on her shoulder.

Contrary to her expectation, Cytortia was utterly calm. After the Paracis, the dragon and the debacle in Venistalis, she gave up panicking. Hell, PALISADE charging up superpower cannon didn’t even phase her.

The former goddess activated her EAPS.

[Paradiso the Never-ending Boundary]

Yes, the name was a mouthful, but it encapsulated Cytortia’s unmatched mastery in defensive art. [Paradiso] was a Primal Arcane to manipulate territory and borders. It acted as a seal and barrier that work conceptual level; able to tune many factors such as element and—as witnessed in Hikma’s battle against the 33 Stars—communication with Spirits. Its defensive capability meant it was heavily favored. Hikma heavily relied upon it for his infamous [Trinity]. Melody tried to learn it. Those who lacked potential in it — Rem and Luxinna — still respected its versatility enough to learn how to counter said Arcane.

However, despite being its first practitioner, Hikma was surpassed by Cytortia. He was talented with the Arcane, but Cy was a natural. She was the master of [Paradiso] in the same way Rem became the master of [Tenshou].

Cytortia’s [Never-ending Boundary] was more like an art than a shield. It formed with alternating layers of [Paradiso] stacked together like plywood. Each interval of layers specialized in a different form of defense alternate in layer of physical, anti-interference, magical; glued together by a [Paradiso] specialized as conduction membrane. These smart layers compiled to build an impenetrable artistic fortress enhanced further by [Tir Na Soal] regenerative ability. It had tanked every single combination of attack the members of Horizon Dawn threw at it. This unbreachable castle wall was further boosted by the former goddess’ [Benevolence Core] — the compensation gained from reducing her attack to zero.

The survivors panic as the cyan light emerged from PALISADE's cannon, but Cytortia’s emerald fortress rose into the shape of a geodesic dome. The cyan beam met the translucent emerald wall in the collision that evaporated the water-surface in a flash of heat. Waves rocked from the epicenter. Steam rose. Layers of defense crumbled from the raw output only for [Tir Na Soal] to reverse the damage in the cycle of destruction and rejuvenation. The attack was devastating, but Cytortia succeeded where Luxinna and Hikma failed — her defense held.

“I got this!” Cytortia yelled, receiving the full powered of the orbital weapon powered by several Mana reactor. “Counter attack! Now!”

And thus, under the power-boosting essence of Cytortia the counter-attack truly began.

[Enma Style: Bestial Thunder Spear]

Sorin Enma unleashed a massive lightning bull that leapt at the battle satellite like a maneuverable homing spear, scorching the air as it collided with PALISADE.

“Lightwell Spirit Art: Four Corners array.” 

Magnolia summoned all her four spirits, pooling their power to create a tornado of frozen wind and hail. The tornado engulfed PALISADE. The whirling wind reaching high into the sky was comparable to a mass destruction spell that could annihilate an army. It would cast all of Magnolia's Mana to unleash such a devastating move, but under [Tir Na Soal] such an act became a possibility.

[Infernal Ice: Crept of Frost] x 20

Emily Aztellic conjured 20 spears of Aquamarine ice at PALISADE. Each spear was equal to an anti-siege weapon capable of blowing a hole into a castle wall.

[Devil Flame: Bats swarms]

Amitate Aztellic unleashed a sword of bats that was infamous for setting army camps ablaze and rendering anything that crossed its path into smoldering skeletons.

PALISADE absorbed these four attacks. It admitted the raw destructive ability presented would be enough to annihilate a small army and destroy several settlements. But PALISADE wasn’t a creature of fresh and blood. It need not to care about the lowering temperature or the mystical ice and fires creeping up its barrier. The electrical attack might pose a threat, but the AI’s advance grounding the technology turned that mute.

PALISADE’s orbital cannon faded and its concentric rings spun around in a blur of motion and axis, charging a spatial pulse, which batted away all incoming attacks.

[Ampule: Uprise]

Magnolia cast a towered of a reverse waterfall at PALISADE, which did exactly nothing. It didn’t even distract the machine from Sun Senwei’s dragon punch sailing from above.

PALISADE opened its diamond core and fired a few shots of its laser, catching Senwei in the air, and sending him tumbling into the ocean below. He was barely caught by [Nimbus] tossed out by severly injured Hikma.

Cytortia took a quick glanced at Senwei’s condition. It was bad. The attack severed his arm and blew a hole in his stomach, leaving a sickening image of his innards open for all to see. Worst was the blood that slowly tainted the water beneath her deep red. Even for A-ranker, this injury was life threatening 

[Necta Floral]

The Arcane immediately regrew Sun Senwei’s limbs and repair his body, but he showed no sign of waking up. Cytortia was surprised. Her healing ability was way more powerful than anyone, so… oh.

[Tir Na Soal] might be a miracle power the returned everything to its optimally purified, unaltered state, but that also included the toxin in his body. Originally, [Necta Flora] could extract any alchemical toxin he experience, but PALISADE’s weaponry was more sinister than that.

Magnus Sin Crystal. It was a material that could disrupt Mana via radiation and was the kryptonite to everyone using magic. But certain research Cytortia read proposed that a certain frequency of the radiation could synthesize Mana into a toxic dust. Thankfully, even the Isle of Knowledge still lacked the control condition to weaponized this technology — the equipment size, fine-control of the instrument and the energy requirement made it unfeasible project.

Somehow, PALISADE answered all the questions barring the creation of the perfect mage-killing weapon. Sun body was filled with microscopic toxic dust that was defusing across his body. If not for her [Bio Empathy], Cytortia wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the exact nature of this aliment at such speed. She grimaced. This kind of poison was the one she couldn’t cure with [Tir Na Soal], because once the resynthesis completed the dust was considered a separate entity. [Tir Na Soal] could reverse the proton donation and change Hydrochloric acid back into water, but it can’t remove the microplastic and bacteria inside it.

“Everyone! Whatever you do, do not get his by PALISADE attack! Those lasers are powered by Magus Sin Crystal. One shot and it will cripple your Mana.”

“Wait! I read about those. Isn’t that weapon application being impossible?” Emily asked, lobbing another spear of ice, which yielded no result.

“Well, ask Senwei that question! I doubt there any medication that can fully heal this. If you get hit, you better grit your teeth because I won’t be able to fix you.”

[Harmonic: River Breath]

Artos Sevar unleashed another cleaving wave of water from behind the barrier. A shot from PALISADE’s artillery laser reduce the glowing wave into water and black dust.

“Then why is he still fine?” the elf pointed at Hikma.

Cytortia frowned. That was a good question. Hikma’s [Trinity] failed to block the main orbital canon. Although, it nullified the blunt of the attack. Hikma still got struck by the beam. He should be in the similar state to Senwei.

Then Cytortia realized the one thing to separate Horizon Dawn’s members from the rest of Phantasia.

Lack of internal Mana.

PALISADE attacked couldn’t permanently cripple them because they didn’t store Mana inside their body. Any traditional measuring device won’t register them as physic bending, demi-god killer they were. No. Tradition measuring device would spell them as a baseline Mana-less human. Instead, True Magic sourced power by conducting them through their Mana Core, which Rem and Melody theorized as some-kind of Astral Organ.

Meanwhile, God had [Divine Core] (Divinity). Mages copied them by creating a pseudo [Divine Core]—often known as [Circles]. Meanwhile, Cultivator stored a processed Mana in their Dantian. Melody and Cytortia herself often debated the relation between these subjects in their spare time. Their most logical theory for spell-caster — assuming they got Rem’s vague story of his talk with Satholia’s messenger correctly — was that they directly caused a scaring in their natural [Mana Core] allowing the coagulation of Mana to be reforged into [Circles].

Either way, left over Mana was constantly filling the mage body, while Horizon Dawn’s members neatly tucked their Mana inside whatever metaphysical, para-causal dimension their mental realm resided in. Cytortia internally groaned. The Dawn was likely the only organization in Phantasia who laughed in the face of Magus Sin Crystal.

 But even then, something concerned her.

“Chronicler, how much did that laser hurt?”

Hikma’s silence answered everything Cytortia needed to know.

“It hurt worse than anything,” Hikma spoke. “And it drained my [Aura] in seconds.”

Cytortia grimaced. Yep, her guess was correct. Horizon Dawn might survive a direct hit from Magnus Sin Crystal laser, but its effect on Mana would damage their aura-protection. Their close link with their Mana would also result in a deliberating pain when the [Aura] received the hit.

Cytortia groaned. The difficulty was getting higher with each step of progress.

At the moment, they were stuck inside a stalemate. PALISADE failed to penetrate Cytortia’s supreme defense, while the crowd of ragtag misfits lacked the raw offensive might to overcome the spatial barrier.

Something needed to happen for the battle to progress and that something was PALISADE unleashing its Bunker busting options.

The compartment in the mechanical juggernaut folded open to unleash a swarm of metal bees. The bees sprayed fumes that soon blanket everything in a pink mist.

“What is it doing?” Amitate asked Cytortia whom everyone had recognized as the leader in charge of the defense.

Cytortia stared at the smoke slowly dying the ocean pink and thickened it into a pink jell. Then she noticed an acrid smoke rising from where the dyed liquid met her barrier.

“Acid!” Cytortia yelled, as the pink ocean rose into a massive a gigantic slime decorated with circuit lines.

The slime headed toward the dome and the defender response by blasting it to pieces. However, the only thing that accomplished was scattering the blob everywhere on Cytortia’s barrier, causing more toxic smoke and shipping at the protection’s durability.

Hikma rose. It was a tremendous game plan from PALISADE. It knew breaking the barrier with one attack was improbable, so it sought to weaken Cytortia’s defense with a synthetic acid slime. Aside from passively damaging the barrier, the acrid fumes its produce would slowly displace oxygen and choke their air supply.

Then the bees emitted a god-awful noise. A high-pitch vibration that rocked the eardrum of everyone in proximity sent everyone to their knees and nearly caused Cytortia to drop her barrier. The sound-waves were so intense that its frequency quaked the dome.

It was a two-pronged assault with sound and chemical. Cytortia gritted her teeth. She must cast another [Paradiso] to seal the sound attack.

It was then she saw PALISADE priming another orbital strike. The AI wasn’t playing around. This wasn’t good. Cytortia was slowly being overwhelmed and undercut. Hikma was still recovering. The priestess doubted anyone inside the barrier could go out and reversed situation this horrible.

It was then the lightning struck.

…

Magnolia Drakokia was always afraid of lightning. It was a story her father told. The tale of a monster that arrived from the sky and burned everything with the wrath of the gods. The tale about the monster who would take her away if she misbehaved. Thunder was the element their guardian trembled in surrender. It was the mark of a beast.

It explained why her sister needed to go.

So why…

The giant thunderbolt from far away mutilated the acid slime in a split-second. Scent of ozone wafted in wake of the sparks lit the sky. The golden shower which carried that lightning sailed into a swarm of robotic bees and overturned every obstacle in front of it to smithereens.

Why was that lightning bolt so reassuring?

A young woman landed inside a barrier like a heavenly messenger, cladded in golden armor, illuminating with light from several power nodes. Her armor glistened like a steel forged from the sun. Even its chinks shone with undying light. Glass-visor covered her identity but, for a brief second, Magnolia felt the gaze behind that mask made a quick glance at her.

The Ace of Dawn landed at the right timing. On her shoulder was an unconscious woman with scarlet hair, a ruined jacket and a torn bloused.

The blonde woman called Saint breathed a sigh of relief at the girl’s arrival.

“Thank god, you are here,” She glanced at the horned red-head. “What happen to her?”

“I won the fight,” said the newly arrived knight. 

“Bullshit,” said the demoness hung on her shoulder.

“Don’t mind our Empress,” the golden knight quickly tried to reassert her victory. “We kinda get blasted by that thing. It was tough as hell. The attack broke [Guard Flora] like nothing, but we ducked away in time. Although Emp, got grazed by it.”

“Shut… up,” Empress was groaning. “Hey, the attack is…”

“Yeah, Magnus Sin Crystal, how fast did it knock out your [Aura].”

The demoness grimaced.

“Almost instantly. It felt like my inside being shredded.”

“I concur,” the Chronicler called.

The newly arrived golden girl absorbed the situation. 

“Shit! How many of us are down?”

Magnolia butted into the conversation.

“The rest of us are okay,” she pointed at Hikma. “I believe he would be down for a count. Sun Senwei just got taken out and the last I check Artos is about to get into a fight with Amitate. As for Sorin and Cocogar… wait they were there a moment ago.”

""Hey!!”” The dysfunctional pair yelled.

“Shut up and stop fighting,” Emily yelled. “Sorin! Cocogar! Why the hell you are hiding behind me. Why are you looking at that woman like she is death itself? Hey, Cocogar stop praying. It is getting creepy!”

Nearby, Commander Serina watched dead in the eyes as the situation deteriorated.

“Should I help them?”

“Please do,” Emily Aztellic looked to the sky and wished for peace.

Cytortia watched all this development and made one observation.

“How the fuck did thing break down this fast when I take my eyes off them for less than a second?”

Luxinna petted her on the shoulder.

“You did your best, Saint. I will handle this,” the Ace of Dawn then glanced back at Magnolia. “I have one favor to ask you, Mag-.”

“It Magnolia,” Hikma reminded Luxinna about keeping distance

“What?” Magnolia felt she wasn’t supposed to be in the conversation.

“Please be quiet, kay?” Ace begged. “Magnolia, I know you mean well.”

Cytortia gazed to the distance sky to ignore the huge irony in that statement.

Ace continued.

“But for a reason I can’t explain, I want you to be as quiet as possible. I simply had no mental capacity to deal with my garbage and a killer AI at once. So, I beg you. Please try not to help. Okay.”

Luxinna Latoria blasted upward. Totally eager to face PALISADE to escape her family drama, ignoring vehement protest from her estranged little sister.