"Go! I'll hold her back!" the Water user yelled as she attacked me with a large stream of water.
Bardhyl gave her one last look, and then teleported away. Without his help, the bubble of safety from my Chaos Storm clouds collapsed and rushed in towards her. She tried to use her own Domain to push them back, but Bardhyl's power was more suited to locking down an area than hers. It was just a wasted effort as I rushed forward and stabbed my hand into her chest, destroying her heart. There was no joy in taking down another Disciple since I had allowed Bardhyl to escape, who was more dangerous than the two that I managed to kill.
Glancing around, I could not find Katye, even with my senses, so I knew that she must have been using her ring to hide. Jabo had destroyed the majority of the wall and was happily trying to stomp on all of the normal Disciples with Seluna's help. I was surprised that neither of them seemed to have been attacked, but recognizing the feeling of the Yin user building up a spell, that worried me greatly.
Up on the tower, I could see her being defended by Amser and the woman in dark blue. Between the two of them, they seemed to be able to predict and repel Ishu's attempts to strike at the Yin user. Despite not knowing exactly where Bardhyl, the Fire user, or the woman in green were, I knew that the trio were the most dangerous.
"Jabo, destroy the tower!" I shouted.
The dumb giant looked back at me and nodded his head as he replied, "Yes, little dragon!"
He was an idiot, but he did not argue and was good at one thing, breaking things. Unfortunately, as soon as he stomped a foot towards the tower, Bardhyl and the Fire user reappeared and started attacking him. I kicked off the ground with a flap of my wings and launched myself at the duo while Seluna turned her attention to the pair as well.
"Seluna, silver robes!" I shouted since the Fire user posed little danger to me.
Bardhyl was able to rip off chunks of Jabo's Stone with his power which allowed the Fire user to attack Jabo's body directly. This was one time that his stupidity was paying off as he ignored the damage that he was receiving and closed the distance between himself and the tower. Jabo punched a fist at the tower, but then I felt a burst of strange mana and he somehow missed. I only had a moment to glance in the direction of the unfamiliar mana before I sensed Katye's Arcane Daisy spell bloom overhead.
I decided to ignore everything else and just charged straight at the Fire user. He changed his target to me and sent a jet of flames at me. I raised a hand in front of me and the Chaos clouds rushed forward, swallowing his attack. He tried a few more times, but the silver clouds stopped every attempt until I closed the distance. He threw himself to the side to dodge my initial attack but landing flat on the ground was not any safer as I channeled my mana into the ground and caused several Stone Spears to impale him while I looked around.
Bardhyl was defending the tower from Katye's assault with his silver portals that diverted the violet petals. Jabo was still swinging wildly, but he was moving further and further away from the tower. Closing my eyes, I tried to focus on the source of that strange mana that I sensed right before Jabo missed his first swing at the tower. There was so much going on with Katye and Bardhyl, and the trio on the top of the tower that it was hard to find the one source of mana that was trying to hide. It was shifting, changing... there was nothing defined about it, yet it could change to fit anything.
As soon as I got a grasp on the concept of her power, I could track it. I launched myself up in the air with a flap of my wings then flew towards Jabo and where the woman in green was hiding in what little remained of the forest. She realized quickly that I was after her, but instead of attacking me directly, she used a different method. A giant stone foot swung through trees, breaking many in its path, as it aimed straight at my back.
"Damnit, Jabo!" I yelled, teleporting to the side. "Stop!"
The giant did not listen, which was not only strange, but should have been impossible due to the contract that allowed me to summon him; somehow, she had interrupted or blocked our connection. A barrage of Stone Spears erupted from the ground and fired at me while a stone fist followed right behind. I made a hasty stone wall, but that was only to hide my teleportation behind the big oaf. I had used the same move when I fought him in the Shadow Realm. With a flap of my wings, I launched myself into the air as I channeled a large amount of Light mana into my right hand. Once I was directly above him, I released the blast of Light mana and destroyed his body, using a good chunk of my mana to do so.
I was hit by the backlash of his body being forcibly destroyed, but I was ready for it this time. That did not make the damage any less, but I did not fall out of the sky this time and just glided down. I felt the woman's energy stirring again, though there was little that I could do with the pounding headache that came with the backlash.
"You were smart to destroy him outright, but doing so left you vulnerable," the woman in green said.
"Calculated risk," I grumbled while launching a Stone Spear at her chest.
To my surprise, the spear went right through her, and she smirked. "Not bad, Octavia, but Bellamy already told us how dedicated and stubborn you could be."
"Showing my true self to you would be a death wish for me, and I can't die here," another 'copy' of her said from behind me, causing me to turn my head and look at her with confusion.
"You do not even need to die if you just accept the Shepard's plan. Ascension is only a short time away. You could spend your last minutes as one with those you love... Raven, Echo, Katye... then join with them forever, never to die, never to feel pain. Why do you fight it when you know the truth?" a third copy of the woman asked.
"Save your religious bullshit for someone who cares," I said, pushing myself back onto my feet. "A single person doesn't have the right to determine the fate for the entire human race, and especially not that piece of shit!"
"You will not speak of the Shepard that way!" a fourth woman screamed, materializing in front of me.
She stabbed a hand into my chest, and I could feel her strange, biting energy rushing into me where her hand passed through my body. I tried to grab her, but just like the stone spear, my hands just passed through her body. The energy and pain increased as the other copies of the woman drew closer and stabbed their hands into my body. I could not help but drop to my knees from the pain since it was unlike anything that I had felt before.
My scales and strength had no way to combat whatever type of mana she was using. Images, memories started playing out in my mind. Raven laying in our bed back in Polis... the battlefield of dead bodies where Katye and I fought against Iseto's army... Lincoln dying in my arms within Mount Weather... A blue sandy beach on the banks of an emerald waterfall under a violet sky at sunset.
Suddenly, the copies of the woman in green shattered like glass and I realized that I was clutching my head. Not too far away, the woman in green was sliding down the trunk with a bloody wound over her heart. The sound of hoofbeats reached my ears and I looked up to see Seluna quickly approaching my side.
"Mistress Katye sent me when she saw you destroy Jabo," Seluna explained.
"Good call," I sighed, releasing my Dusa form.
Exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks. I had spent years training and using my Dusa form, but training could not compare to a true fight. My body was just not strong enough to use my full strength for more than a few minutes and I had pushed past that limit as well as added on conjuring those Chaos Storm clouds.
"Go help Katye. Kill the one in silver robes while he is distracted by her," I ordered.
"But in your current state, it's not safe..." she started to argue.
"Katye is fighting alone! I'll join in a minute, but I need to recover a little," I insisted.
Seluna was not happy with my orders, but she did not argue and raced back towards the tower. I sat down properly and wiped away the streaks of black blood that were dripping from my eyes. Whatever that woman's power had done to me had caused a number of strange images to appear in my mind that were familiar yet unlike anything that I could remember. There were places, people, and events that would not even fit in a science-fiction or fantasy story, yet I slowly realized that they were memories of my past life as there was a centralized figure that I did recognize... Katye, or Alkatyenia as she had been called back in that time.
Although I was curious about the memories and where they came from, I pushed them aside and stood up slowly. Few trees were left standing after Jabo's attacks and there were dozens shattered and littered across the field between myself and the tower. Up in the sky, I could see Katye with a violet energy barrier around her as bolts of silver were shot at her occasionally. Seluna had started firing up at the four people on top of the tower, but similar to Ishu, her attacks were being predicted and countered though it was Bardhyl who would defend from her arrows instead of the woman in navy which gave Katye the chance to counterattack at times.
Whatever spell the Yin user was charging, it was taking much longer than the summoning of that spider creature had, which worried me greatly. Tired or not, I needed to get moving, so I transformed back into my Dusa form and leapt over the debris then glided towards the base of the tower. My arrival was not unnoticed and Amser finally acted with a powerful spell while Bardhyl also casted one of his own.
A dome of silver surrounded the top of the tower, hiding the four Disciples and cutting off my ability to sense them. Katye took the chance to fire multiple violet diamonds like the one that she had used to destroy the spider back in Sanctum, but they were reflected back the way they came. I landed and immediately channeled my mana into the ground. Digging my talons into the dirt under the tower base, I used my Earth mana to help me heave the side of the tower up and tip it over.
There was a deafening crack from above and I could feel something resisting the movement at the top, but the tower broke in the middle. The lower half was knocked over while smaller pieces of debris rained down around me, but the upper half of the tower was suspended in the air by the silver bubble. I jumped back a few feet and, since nothing falling posed too much of a danger to me, I started conjuring my Chaos Storm clouds. Katye also seemed to realize that there was nothing that she could do right now, so she dropped her barrier and started the process of casting her Arcane Daisy spell.
Just before Katye could finish her spell the silver bubble flickered and then vanished as the tower top started to fall. I threw my hand upwards, and the clouds raced, knocking the building to the side. There were no people falling, but I sensed Bardhyl's power erupt once more and the four of them appeared about a hundred feet away on the wreckage of the wall. He collapsed onto his knees and then sprawled out onto the ground while Amser had a similar reaction, though she stayed conscious. Both of them had overused their mana, but it was clear that they had accomplished their goals. The Yin user and the woman in navy had nearly completed their spells and they released the energy once their feet were back on solid ground.
Just like before, black blood rose from all of the shattered bodies of the dead and gathered over her head, but far more was being collected this time. It rippled and swelled as a new, giant creature started to take shape. Fifty feet long, the black blood took the shape of an enormous wasp with two large wings on its back.
From the woman in dark blue, her mana infused with all of the dead Disciples, or more specifically, their Souls. The spirits of men, women, and children rose out of their bodies made up of dark blue, nearly black, energy. They gave off the same feeling as the Spirits that I had fought during my Naru Darc trials, and I swallowed hard since I recognized a few faces that were closer to Ishu than the other spirits.
Speaking of the ghostly assassin, he chose the moment that their spells were casted, but it did not stop them from taking shape despite killing them. He also turned his blades on Bardhyl and Amser, killing them as well. The spirits started to rush towards Ishu, and I sensed a silent request to be unsummoned which I granted before he could be destroyed. Katye flew down and landed next to me as Seluna joined us as well.
"As if the twelve Disciples with mana weren't enough on their own," I complained.
"Well... we knew that this was going to be one hell of a fight," she retorted with a sarcastic smile.
