A new, yet familiar energy filled my body with more power than I had ever known. Piece by piece, scale by scale, my body was remade. My stormy gray scales were now a seafoam green and long, wild violet hair hung past my shoulders. On my back, a second pair of wings had been created with violet webbing.
Simply standing in the empty space was wrapping it, changing it. It was similar to my Chaos Storm, but this was not so confined. Bursts of flames, jets of water, and even sparks of Life were being created while I was being remade. When I opened my eyes once again, the phenomenon stopped as I reined in this new power, but the world still moved around me while I was being transformed.
Joyano and Skansi had been released from the trap and were back to fighting, but Joyano was now on the losing side. Whatever Kali had done, it had returned Skansi to his full strength while also not weakening his trademark Vengeance Return power. It was similar to Entode's Soul Burn of Revenge, but his use of Warcraft to power the spell made it more powerful and without injuring himself as much as Entode's.
Skansi had, literally, died for a moment, so being brought back to his full strength, combined with his Vengeance Return, he was nearly twice as strong. Joyano was doing his best to fight back but he was simply overpowered, since they had been so close in strength before and now, he was carrying the wounds from the first part of their fight. Axe against axe, sword against sword, hammer against spear and dagger, and shield against chakram and whip... They had fought this fight numerous times before and always been nearly equals in strength, but now, Joyano could not even defend fully from Skansi's attacks.
Joyano's shield was ripped away from him then his hammer cracked. When Skansi turned the four other weapons against Joyano's remaining two, they shattered. Next, he directly attacked Joyano's body before he could recover from the backlash of losing his two Soul Weapons. The whip wrapped around two of his wrists, the spear impaled his gut, the dagger stabbed his heart, the axe severed his other two arms, and the sword took his head.
Joyano's body slowly dissolved into motes of golden lights and I let out a roar of rage, finally regaining the usage of my body...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was still nighttime on Alpha when Katye and I stepped out, but that was more of a benefit to us. With multiple sources of mana in the direction of Sanctum, neither of us hesitated and summoned Seluna, Ishu, and even Jabo. They each appeared in their own dramatic fashion and looked at us, awaiting our orders.
"There are people in a city not far from here with mana. They are our enemies, and we need to save the people in the city from them," Katye instructed.
"Ishu, Jabo, guard Katye and listen to her orders like they are mine," I said then shifted into my Dusa form.
"Rebecca..."
I smirked, "I've told you, I'm the one who charges in headfirst while you handle the plan. The longer we debate this, the more people can be hurt or killed."
"Be careful," she sighed.
My expression softened and I started to reach for her, only to see the scaled hand of my other form. Just as I began to pull it back, she reached out and grabbed my hand. Hers was so small in my palm, but then she transformed as well. Had the matter at hand not been so important, I would have been ensnared by her beauty and charm. It was easy to tell that there was something deep between us with our past lives, but now was not the time to focus on it.
"I will, my love," I said, cupping her cheek.
I let my hand fall aside then leapt into the air. The sky over Sanctum was already overcast and heavy, so it just needed a nudge to start the storm, but I did more than just give it a nudge. Using my triple-element spell, I fed the storm and strengthened it to change it from a simple thunderstorm into a supercell. As if that was not enough, I also added Chaos mana into the storm which dyed parts of the clouds crimson and violet. It was the first time that I had used this type of energy outside of my Soul Realm, but considering what Katye had said about my past life self, it seemed like an appropriate first use when I needed to hold nothing back.
Down in Sanctum, the Disciples were not satisfied with simply killing the residents. They had forced everyone out of their homes and had them assembled in the courtyard outside of the Palace. The twelve Primes had already been captured and were tied to stakes with plenty of firewood around them. The Yin and Yang users were preaching to the masses like they could convert them, completely disregarding the fact that we had arrived.
It did not occur to me that they would not be able to sense us at a distance, when we could sense them as soon as we stepped onto the planet, but the look of shock on their faces as I swooped in told me that they had not. Unfortunately, even with surprise on my side, the Disciples reacted quickly and started killing people. The Fire and Wind users lit the pyre built around the Primes and quickly turned it into an inferno while others turned on the innocent people.
I had seen firsthand what these powers could do to people without them. Dmitriy surrounded the masses with a stone wall, so that they could not escape. The Water user started conjuring water out of the air and sent it at the people in high pressure streams in different directions. To make things worse for them, the Lightning wielder unleashed violet lightning from his fingers like he was Emperor Palpatine, but with the rain from the storm and the excess water from the Water user's spells, the electricity bounced from person to person. Artem jumped onto the wall that Dmitriy had created, but he was the only one who did not turn his powers directly onto the people. Instead, he stared up at me, still in the sky, with excitement and a hint of madness.
I was close enough now that I could hear the screams of pain. I had to make a decision in the next moment. Would I try to save the people in the killing box, or the last of the Primes that were quickly being burned alive? Thankfully, Katye was just as fast as I was when she transformed.
Jabo suddenly appeared out of the Shadow Realm in midair as if he had jumped to close the last of the distance between the hill and the courtyard. Like a ghostly blue meteor, he crashed down on a few of the stone houses that we had built, right behind the Water and Lightning users. The impact threw rocks and debris towards them, forcing them to dodge and defend themselves, but it also broke one of the walls of the kill box that Dmitriy had created. Standing back up, Jabo began his true assault on the two Disciples that he was nearest to, which also drew in Dmitriy since there was little that the pair could do against Jabo's Stone Armor.
I tilted my wings and dived towards the pyre. Gathering what rain I could on my way down, the flames of the fire started to grow under the manipulation of the Fire and Air users. Together, they hastily made a spiraling cone of orange fire and aimed it straight at me, but I snorted with disdain; no dragon feared Fire. I manipulated the water around me to move around the attack and douse the pyre while I charged straight into the fire tornado.
The fire washed over my scales like warm water, and I activated my Elemental Domination, absorbing the Fire and transforming that energy into Water as I landed. The pyre was extinguished, but there was only a single person alive, though badly burned, yet I still recognized her. It was almost poetic to see Josephine tied to the center stake since it had been her theory originally that sparked the use of the Mind-Drives to live through other people's bodies and she had been the first to be revived. Still, it didn't matter to me right now.
I kicked off the ground and grabbed Josephine while cutting the charred bindings with a talon. With a flap of my wings, we were launched into the air, and I carried her away from the developing battlefield as I quickly glanced back at it. The Yang user had joined the fight against Jabo, and he could do true damage to him, but Seluna also entered the fight, using arrows of Yin energy to weaken the blasts of Yang energy. The Yin user had not moved, but I could sense her gathering lots of mana, so I knew that she must be doing something.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Katye watched Rebecca fly off with someone in her arms. Although she knew that Becca must have had her reasons for directly taking someone away from the battlefield, it still left her in a bad position, making her sigh. Jabo was already engaged against three of the Disciples and the Yang user was about to join in as well.
"Seluna, stop the one who is building up that Yin energy. Ishu, you were an assassin before, right?" Katye asked.
"Correct," Ishu agreed.
"Good, then show me your skill. Hide until you can make a kill strike..."
"I was ordered to protect you."
"You were ordered to listen to me as well! That man there is the most threatening person to all of us. You want to protect me then kill him."
"As you command," Ishu replied as he melded with the darkness.
Katye fluttered her wings and took to the air. Seluna was already running ahead and conjured her bow. Jabo's stone armor and resistance to most forms of elemental magic allowed him to ignore most attacks, so he focused only on attacking. Unfortunately, that resistance did not carry over to his Yin Spirit form, so he was taking heavy damage despite not realizing it; Rock Giants were never known for their intelligence.
Jabo stomped his feet in an effort to squish the three Disciples, but they could move too fast. He tried to use his Earth mana to chase after them, but one of them prevented him from doing as he pleased with his own mana. Getting angry, he manipulated his stone armor to cover his fists and he focused on catching the little Earth man.
He completely disregarded the other two and the other one that was racing over, but that was a mistake. The Yang user conjured a golden spear of pure energy as he ran then threw it at Jabo once he had fully formed the spell. Jabo's giant hands were closing around Dmitriy, but before he could grab him, the golden spear hit him, and the giant screamed in pain. Just as Yin had properties that involved the Soul, so too did Yang, but they worked in opposite ways.
Jabo knocked Dmitriy away instead of grabbing him and turned his fury to the Yang user as he charged up another spear of energy. The Water and Lightning users tried to hold back the giant, but he ignored their attacks even as his body flickered. He punched a fist straight at the Yang user while, at the same time, the Yang user released his attack. The golden spear impacted the fist and exploded, destroying the stone armored fist as well as Jabo's body.
The three Disciples let out a sigh of relief, thinking that the worst of the dangers had passed with his destruction, while Dmitriy stood back up slowly. Suddenly, there was a burst of Yin mana behind the Yang user. He tried to turn around, charging his own body with Yang energy, but it was already too late. Ishu's daggers struck out, one stabbing into his heart while the other slit his throat.
"Elio!" the Water user screamed, but it was already too late.
The Yang user's body crumbled to the ground, dead, as Ishu melded with the Shadows once again. The woman summoned up her mana and attacked wildly in hopes of hitting the spirit, but he retreated too quickly for her to destroy him. The Lightning user placed a hand on her shoulder, in comfort, but also to calm her down, when an arrow of Yin hit his back.
"Pilan!" she said with concern, catching him.
Dmitriy raised a stone wall around them as he ran to the pair and asked, "Can you heal him?"
"I'm not sure; Yin energy is difficult to handle without... Elio," she said with sorrow in her voice.
"I'll be fine once I kill those betrayers!" Pilan growled, standing up.
"We need to protect Tzila. She needs five minutes to cast her Blood Summon spell. Come on!" Dmitriy ordered.
Dmitriy shifted the wall as the three of them moved towards the other group who were defending Tzila from Seluna's attacks. There was a dome of fire around Tzila, Hotaru, the Fire user, and Cirocco, the Wind user, which opened to allow the other three to enter. Artem was running across the battlefield, chasing after the other spirit who continued to fire Yin arrows towards the fire dome, but the centaur was too fast and nimble for him to land a hit, even though he had gotten close several times.
Unlike Jabo, Seluna understood that taking any attack could lessen her energy and she could not afford to do so needlessly. Her arrows were condensed from the mana that was forming her body, so every attack she launched was eating away her remaining time manifested. After Jabo's destruction and Ishu killed one of the humans, she knew that she needed to keep the focus on herself since her master had ordered Ishu to hide and kill.
Baiting the Axe wielding one had been an easy matter, but the others seemed more intent on protecting the one that she had been ordered to stop. Thankfully, when she attacked one of the ones outside of the dome, they did exactly as she wanted and retreated inside the dome. Although her target now had more defenders, being inside the dome meant that they could not go after Mistress Rebecca, her master's partner. All she could do was continue to attack the fire dome, in hopes of weakening their opponent while also toying with the Axe holder.
In the air, Katye twisted her ring and turned invisible, though she could still see herself. She positioned herself directly over the Yin user then started tracing out glyphs. Just like for the enchantments, there was a large-scale spell that combined the six that she had gotten into one grand spell. The moment that she completed it, the invisibility enchantment would be undone, but that wasn't a concern as the spell would manifest a flower that would protect her while also giving her the ability to attack anything she directed it at.
If anyone else could see her and the glyphs, it would look like she was creating a cage of violet vines. When the last one was in place, the enchantment shattered like glass as the glowing runes released a torrent of energy which took the shape of a flower bud then bloomed into a giant daisy. Pointing a finger down at the fiery dome, petals of the daisy started flying off the main flower and headed straight for the dome.
A large stone shot out from the dome and hit the first petal. An explosion erupted when the two touched, throwing out an incredible amount of mana. Even though it had happened about ten feet above the dome, it still flickered under the energy assaulting it and there were a dozen more petals coming towards it.
A/N: I would like to ask for those of you who are enjoying the story to leave a review on the story if you haven't already since we are getting near the end goal of 100 chapters!
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