[Ouroboros' End]
Accompanied by the sound of beating wings, a shadow fell over the Sorlus estate. The usually bright sky that shone near permanently with the light of passing universes was also replaced with the source of these shadows as two wings almost as large as the building complex appeared in its place.
After its appearance, it only took a brief moment before the guards sprang into action. While imposing, such a display simply wasn't enough to rattle them, considering the family's lord could reach such dimensions himself when in his true form. As such, their arms almost immediately snapped up and pointed skyward, followed by dozens of circular energy barriers flashing into existence in rapid succession.
Within a moment, this turned the entire estate into a carpet of glowing circles of energy. When viewing this scene from above, one could also see these circles slowly moving closer to the house at the center of the property, resulting in most guards being gathered close to one another when even more unknown presences appeared on their mana sense in a flash of spatial energy.
Immediately, chaos erupted among the guards. With no superior present acting quickly enough to coordinate the efforts, almost all of them turned their focus onto the new arrivals. With it, barriers were swung downward, exposing them to attacks from above and causing them to collide with the barriers from other guards as the carefully layered and overlapping energy constructs moved without coordination, resulting in flashes of energy that erupted wherever two of them clashed.
Amid the resulting panic, everything slipped out of the commanding officers' control as some of their subordinates mistook the bursts of energy that slammed into them and responded with spells and aura projectiles. Within moments, this caused the road leading up to the front entrance to the Sorlus estate to light up like a rainbow as spells and aura projectiles tore through the air.
Raising an eyebrow at the sorry sight that was presenting itself before him mere moments after his arrival, Darganth raised an arm and let his mana explode outward along with his dragon's authority. From his actions, a wide spatial tear ripped open in front of him, leaving the incoming attacks to disappear into the darkness between its jagged silver edges.
Before Darganth could snap the spatial tear shut, Jennia was already sprinting past him and descended upon the guards. Disappearing as her shadow rose to cover her body, turning her into a blur of darkness barely differentiable from the surroundings, she let two diamond daggers spring into her hands by quickly flexing her palm open.
Re-purposing the spatial distortion of Darganth's spell with a brief injection of her own mana, she briefly flickered out of existence when she jumped into the tear, only to reappear amid the formation of guards. There, she didn't hesitate and let her weapons flash as she tore into the soldiers.
Catching the first one off guard, he didn't even get the chance to resist before the sharp diamond tore through his spine. And though it wasn't lethal, the swipe cut through his lower spine, leaving the man's legs paralyzed and causing him to collapse into two other guards that had just spun around toward Jennia.
By that time, she had meanwhile already jumped back a few meters and thrust her other weapon toward one of the officers. When the man then caught her dagger between the blade and cross-guard of his sword, she only briefly pushed it further forward before suddenly stopping with a grin.
Having caught sight of two more guards rushing at her from the left and right, she abruptly pulled back from the contest of strength the man had caught her in and jumped back with a laugh. Simultaneously reaching out to the surrounding air and pulling it toward her with a tug of her mana, she created a brief vacuum right at the point to which all three soldiers were moving.
A moment later, this vacuum imploded as air rushed back into the area, dragging all three of Jennia's opponents along with it. Watching in amusement as they stumbled forward mid dash and collided with each other, Jennia laughed gleefully.
Ducking a moment later when yet another guard thrust at her with a spear, she then grabbed the weapon's shaft and spun around, causing the woman wielding it to sail over her shoulder and crash into the heap of the three unconscious guards Jennia had knocked out just before.
For a few more moments, she then continued to weave around amid the disorganized guards, her daggers clashing with blades and cutting through flesh wherever she found an opening. During this, the officers continuously tried to bring any semblance of order back into their troops' formation. But amid the, at times, conflicting orders they gave, these efforts fell flat.
Stepping out of range of yet another overeager swing and redirecting it into another guard's back with a push of her daggers, Jennia was using the chaos to its fullest when her rampage was suddenly interrupted by a strong presence appearing in her mana sense. Stopping mid-step as she was just about to dash after the guard who had lost his weapon in its clash with his colleague's plate armor, she spun around just in time to see the wall next to her explode into a shower of brick and debris.
Barely managing to raise her arms before a massive claw closed around her, Jennia only saw the world around her turning into a blur, followed by a harsh impact as her back was slammed into the ground.
Dizzy from the impact, Jennia took a few moments before her eyes refocused and the beast's form became clear. Standing at around twenty meters from head to tail, the massive avian creature reached almost as high as the sparse few trees that stood on the strip of land that separated the estate from the rest of the city.
Briefly letting go of her as it curled its claw into a fist and raised it, the beast was just about to kick down when a concentrated beam of fire came blasting into its side from above. Knocked to the side by the impact, its following strike missed Jennia and struck the ground, forming a small crater as the impact cracked open the soil.
Not letting this opening go to waste, Jennia wasted no time and dispelled her transformation. Not limiting her true form's size, her expanding form pushed the avian beast back as she used the immense size disparity to close the claws of her hind leg around its torso.
Leveraging her mass through this hold she had on him, Jennia then plucked the beast out of the air and slammed it into the ground. Rolling herself back onto her feet along with it, she reeled back one of her front legs and slammed it onto the bird's head with her entire momentum behind it.
But despite the force behind the strike, the beast barely even reacted to the impact. Slowly lifting its head and locking eyes with one of Jennia's swarming heads, it briefly glanced up at the source of the surprise attack that had stunned it and created the previous opening before exploding into action anew.
Easily slamming Jennia to the side with a swipe of its wings, the avian beast shot after her with a push of its legs. Stabilizing its flight with a quick flap of its wings, it then thrust the feathered limbs forward and at Jennia's heads. Catching three of them in the sweeping cut of their front edge, its strike tore through them with ease.
Brandishing its claws as it closed in further toward Jennia, the beast was suddenly struck by a blur that shot down from above. Again taken by surprise despite having watched out for the beast circling above, the bird-like beast found itself on its back as a massive stinger pierced its left wing and pinned it to the ground.
"Didn't you get the message the first time?" Neandra questioned with a booming voice, her massive form having descended partially and now hovering with rhythmic beats of her wings.
The beast simply growled in response to her words. And instead of recognizing the situation it was in, it started to try and free itself by tugging against the stinger. When this didn't show results after the first few attempts, the beast then clawed at Neandra's tail, only for its talons to glance off her scales with similarly little effect.
Nonetheless, this slowdown of the fighting was enough for Darganth to finally intervene, "I think this started off on the wrong foot. We're not here to fight, rather the opposite actually. And we have someone you might want back home, so how about we all calm down?" He asked.
Glancing toward Jennia after a short pause, he added, "That goes for you too."
Following a brief pause that set in with his words, his wife was the first to lower her guard. Though still grumbling over not getting revenge on the three heads she had to regrow, she reigned her mana back in as she returned to her humanoid form before dispelling the already conjured attacks that had formed around her.
At the same time, the beast seemed to realize that it couldn't see what Darganth meant with the last sentence, no matter how much it stretched its head. Relaxing its wings and briefly feeling the relief this brought to the puncture wound in the left one, the beast let its bird-like form fade as its body shifted like a liquid and compressed into a humanoid form within fractions of a second.
Standing proudly, the man straightened the expensive-looking silk suit he wore with a light brush of his arm. Looking like a human in his late fifties, the black and blue in his clothing mixed well with his short, militaristic styled white hair and beard, giving him an air of authority. His gaze held a sharpness that only further reinforced this, with his eyes showing a surprising confidence considering the situation he was in as he swept his gaze across Darganth's group.
A moment later, Neandra also transformed, her humanoid form dropping out of the skies and landing with a wild impact. Not even phased by the almost a hundred-meter deep drop, she stepped out of the resulting crater and stood opposite the avian beast.
In doing so, their presences clashed with a similar contrast as their appearance. Whereas the man appeared calm and his posture exuded a calculating authority and rational confidence, Neandra's presence was as wild as she was. Her lips were curled up in a feral grin and her mana constantly fluctuated with a domineering might as it clashed with the constant stream of mana the man was emitting. With each surge, the raw power she held pushed her opponents mana pressure back, suppressing it until it vanished back into his physical presence to the mana senses of all people present.
Staring back at her in silence even as the pressure reached his body, he beast hesitated briefly when he caught his guards rushing toward him in the corner of his eyes. Debating whether to let them, he ultimately raised his hand toward them and gestured for them to stop after only a brief consideration.
"You suggested calming our temperaments, that sounds like a good offer." The man said to Darganth.
Waiting until Darganth gave her a brief nod following the man's words, Neandra first lowered the output of her presence. When her opponent's mana pressure didn't push into the opening, she followed this with a complete retraction of her presence, returning it to its passive but unsuppressed state.
"Good. Now then, my words already alluded to it, but this is why we're here." Darganth said once she was done.
Along with those words, he stepped out of the man's sight line toward the rest of their group. There, the fading remnants of Allaire's domain were still visible for a brief moment, its light-bending effect having blurred their entire group's positions and appearances.
With it gone, the transformed avian beast thus got the first good look at their group. Briefly twitching when he felt the draconic mana radiating from Yldra, his gaze froze when it landed on their prisoner. Not having paid particular attention to Darganth's exact words, he had completely overlooked the possibility of her presence in the chaos of his clash with Neandra.
"Daughter." He muttered as he saw her, his voice holding a mix of relief, anger, and pride.
"I think it's time to sit down and discuss terms." Darganth said.
Not waiting for the man's response, he stepped forward and motioned his allies to follow as he walked toward the mansion's main entrance.