[Ouroboros' End]
As the burst of destruction tore through the forest and toward the original battlefield, the smugglers there were already trapped in a disadvantageous position. With all enemies they could see either flying or standing near the top of the tens of meters tall trees, Darganth had been the focal point of their attacks.
Thus, when rushed into the treeline, their formation had unconsciously shifted to follow after him, leaving them bunched up at one edge of the clearing. Practically the sole exception to this were the handful of seriously injured colleagues and the one healing specialist left among them who had been near the center of their original formation. But with the rest of their colleagues moving to chase after Darganth, that position became one at the exposed rear of their formation.
This left them exposed when Jennia charged onto the clearing a few moments later. Covered by the storm Serania was creating in the skies and the lightning strikes raining down from it, she was free to unleash the full variety of breath attacks her heads granted her as an opening salvo.
Not aiming directly at the turned backs of the smugglers, Jennia's attacks instead carve a half circle around them. The six distinctly colored lines that formed wherever her attack struck then started to glow before erupting into walls of their respective element the moment the actual breath attack ended.
Separated from the fifteen or so other surviving members of their unit by these, the wounded had even less of a chance when Venrie then joined the battle. Through but a light tap of her staff on the ground as she landed, five thick roots started to tunnel through the earth, leaving a brief moment where nothing happened before her spell burst forth beneath the four wounded smugglers and the mage presently healing them.
Aiming for one of the five people each, the wooden constructs Venrie had conjured split apart the moments they reached their target. With a fluidity more akin to that of water than wood, they flowed around them, encasing their torsos in thick trees as they merged back together on the other side and hardened back into solid wood.
Joining Jennia in the attack on the remaining enemies, the blast that Darganth's opponent had caused erupted not even half a minute after Venrie had launched her first attack. Immediately, Venrie's gaze snapped past the enemies. Only faintly registering Sonita retreating from her position at the edge of the clearing through which Darganth had disappeared, she focused on her mana sense and watched with wide eyes as she sensed the wave of chaos rush toward them. While no danger to herself, a quick glance to her sides confirmed that the rest of their group shared her own evaluation of their respective chances, with even Yldra seeming slightly hesitant to face the blast.
Though their caution paled in comparison to the danger their enemies suddenly found themselves in. Especially those among them that had already followed Darganth into the treeline suddenly found themselves amid a storm that appeared before them out of nowhere.
When the first eruption of the ground burst up, almost a third of the smugglers got caught in it. The leading two men even had the misfortune of standing on the soil that exploded upward in the second burst, flinging them into the mix of debris that was already gathering above.
By the time the men and women following behind them had come to a stop, the third eruption happened. Though the explosion itself missed the third fastest of them by just a meter, the man's luck couldn't save him from the uprooted tree that was flung his way a moment later. And with a cloud of dirt obscuring his sight, he was caught unaware. Having just turned to flee, the tree trunk struck him squarely in his back and exploded into splinters as it shattered against his aura-enhanced physique.
Send sprawling to the ground by the impact, the man could only stare as the shockwave continued to propagate underground, literally pushing the earth beneath him away and leaving him to drop into the still-growing crater.
Those further back than him were meanwhile at least lucky enough to start their escape. With the flare of around a dozen mana signatures being pushed to their limits, mages and aura users alike shot back onto the clearing with trails of various elements erupting in their wake. And while not all were lucky enough to escape the cascading destruction that chased after them, four of the smugglers managed to rejoin their five colleagues who had stayed in the clearing.
Though the danger didn't end there. The moment these men and women burst out of the cover of the forest, they became but another target for Allaire's arrows. Flying through the storm Serania was creating over the area without being affected by it, they rained down on the remaining smugglers. Each draw of the bowstring was a practiced and near flawless motion, with her calm gaze making out individual enemies while her steady aim ensured that nearly every shot struck true. Despite such strikes not being enough to bring down a prepared aura user from such a distance, that wasn't necessary, as it pinned them in place.
Soon after, the destructive burst from Darganth's battle was added to this equation. Tearing through the forest behind the trapped smugglers, its raging winds scattered the densely packed fighters, shattering the coordination that had kept them alive until then.
Not one to waste such an opportunity, Yldra launched the first of many deathblows to the waning formation. With but a brief flare in her mana as a warning, she launched her breath attack and cut a swath right through their enemies.
Immediately, Vika and Sonita descended upon the now split formation from both sides. Like two massive waves, fire and darkness swept inward from opposite directions, trying to push the smugglers into the expanding dome of destruction.
In response, walls of elemental energy flared up to block their path. Smashing into the first one, the fire from Sonita exploded into a cloud of steaming vapor as it burned through the wall of water that had formed in its path.
Watching this happen from above, Alicia acted quickly in response and sent a blast of pure gravitational force flying through the resulting cloud. Blasting it forward, she pushed it toward the smugglers that had been Sonita's target in the first place, causing the two mages' personal shields to flicker to life in the face of the extreme heat.
Meanwhile, on the other side, a solid wall of darkness pushed through the formation of Vika's targets. Though the mage there had tried to stop it, the burst of acid he had shot at her spell only slowly melted through the darkness, forcing the aura users to defend against it.
Acting quickly once the realization set in, the three of them all surged upward as aura avatars formed around them. At the same time, the world itself seemed to join them in their actions, with the ground shifting to stabilize their footing as the three launched themselves at the incoming spell in quick succession.
Slamming his hammer into the wall of darkness in a sweeping swing, the first aura user to arrive was taken aback when Vika's spell gave way to his strike. Stumbling forward as his momentum carried him through the opening that had emerged in the wall of darkness, he found himself staring at the vampiress while entangled in a web of back strings as the wall closed around him.
Vika didn't let this opportunity go to waste. Dashing forward, blood started to pour out from beneath her skin and gather in her right hand, forming an easily five-meter-long lance by the time she leaped at her target. Reeling it back, she launched it with the full might of her twisting torso behind it, causing the weapon to leave a shockwave in its wake as it shot through the air and impacted the aura avatar before its conjurer could dispel it.
Raising her hand just as it shattered the construct's head and was about to embed itself in the ground, Vika then returned the blood into a liquid state and let it surge forth. Like a raging tsunami, it flooded into the opening where the head had been and pushed through the corrosion the aura avatar's energy caused in foreign substances while heading straight toward the aura user's body.
Panicking, the aura user did the first best thing that came to his mind and dismissed the avatar. Though a bad idea in retrospect, in the moment, it did achieve his goal of escaping the tendrils of blood that snaked toward him as he managed to slip out of the strands of darkness that had bound him in place.
But what he hadn't considered was that while he landed on the side of the darkness where his allies were, it was still his opponent's spell he was taking cover behind. Furthermore, the spell still pushed onward even with his two fellow aura users pressing against it with the full strength of their aura avatars, forcing him to hastily step back lest he be caught by it.
Landing nearly twenty meters further away, the man just breathed a sigh of relief at his successful escape when a blur burst through the darkness. Appearing on the other side of the darkness with a quick stride, Vika briefly slowed down before finding her target and dashing toward him. With a few quick steps, she crossed the distance the hammer-wielding aura user had retreated, needing just half the time to do so, and arrived before him with her fist already reeled back.
Before the man could react, her fist had already struck his face. His head snapped back from the impact, disorientating him and giving Vika the room to disarm him with a cut to the wrist from her claws. What followed were two more hits that were aimed at his neck and ribs, though neither found its mark as she missed the small openings she had been targeting and instead harmlessly bounced off his chestplate with her claws.
Despite being left without his weapon and disoriented from the first two strikes, her opponent managed to retaliate at that moment. A wide swing from his other arm forced her to step back, interrupting her momentum and giving him the room to also jump back.
Sliding to a halt after having practically thrown herself backward, Vika eyed her opponent with a grin. Behind her, the wall of shadow was still advancing as if it possessed a mind of its own, something it practically did due to the sheer complexity of the spells and commands she had interwoven to create it, combined with the massive quantity of mana that could fuel it for another half a minute, increasing the advantage she held by the second.
Knowing this, Vika lowered her center of gravity slightly and shifted into a more defensive stance. Her opponent seemed to recognize that and, at least based on the snarl that marred his lips in response, wasn't at all happy with it. Though with his three allies having to keep their full focus on her spell just to slow it down, she would only have to keep him occupied for a few more seconds.
Clearly aware of this himself, her opponent didn't hesitate long before closing back in. With a roar, he unleashed his domain and dashed forward, warhammer hefted onto his shoulder once more and ready to strike, though now held in his right instead of the left like previously.
Smirking, Vika prepared to meet his charge. Planting one foot forward, she turned to resent a thin profile and reached out with her left hand. Standing completely still like this, she waited until her opponent came within two meters of her.
The moment he did, she burst into action. Lunging forward, she thrust her left hand at the aura user's weapon just as he started his swing. Appearing in his personal space, she let her palm collide with the head of the descending weapon, causing a shudder-inducing crunch to ring out as her bones snapped under the impact.
Though in doing so, the angle at which she held out her arm caused the warhammer to veer off its original trajectory. Missing Vika by almost twenty centimeters, its weight caused its wielder to lurch forward as the weapon dug itself into the ground.
In doing so, the aura user was thrown into Vika's waiting hands. While her left arm was only a bloody pulp up to the elbow, her right arm jumped forward and seized the man by the throat. With a step forward, he was then pushed away from his weapon as the handle slid out of his palms.
"How I would love to take my time with you, but sadly, ensuring that we get all of you takes priority over the thoroughness of the punishment. Just know that attacking my lady was the greatest mistake you've ever made, even if you're lucky enough to get off with just death."
With those words, Vika let another surge of blood erupt from her arm. Making it gather around her hand and hold the man in its place, she then launched him backward with but a twist of her wrist that caused the blood to erupt. Following his flight path, she watched with glee as he got caught by the storm and soon collided with one of the floating trees. Immediately, the man's expression twisted in pain as he was seemingly stuck in place, with the source of the pain revealing itself moments later as tens of roots burst out of his chest and started to drain his body of vitality.
By then, Vika's other arm had also mostly regenerated. Though slower than what she would've liked as her opponent's domain had stayed locked on her until the moment of his death, she supposed that she should be grateful that she could regenerate at all. Even her mistress's brother couldn't replace entire limbs in a fraction of a second without the active usage of magic and monumental quantities of mana.
That thought made her glance up briefly. There, Alicia was still hovering next to Yldra, the two dragonesses' magic radiating out from them. And though the presence of the lady she serves was one of the weakest on the battlefield, her draconic heart ensured that the gravity magic she launched across the battlefield was more than a match for even the strongest enemy mage.
Suddenly, her musings were interrupted by a burst of mana that washed across the battlefield. For a brief moment after, Vika's mind was reeling with fear. Though by now over a decade ago, on the lucky day on which she had come into the service of Alicia, the first time she had felt the full brunt of an unleashed dragon's fear had burned itself into her mind.
Then the approaching wave of destruction simply shattered.
Instinctively spinning around toward the nearest forest edge, Vika's eyes widened as she saw Darganth's form towering in the distance, his body practically consisting of pure power to her mana sense. At the sight, all she could think of was how glad she was how glad she was to be on his side. While her desire to protect Alicia had long since outgrown the will for self-preservation that it had started as, with her considering the girl to be a mistress worthy of her loyalty and even a friend, at that moment, Vika was reminded why she had been so afraid of her and Darganth at first.
Now, seeing this same terror grip the fools that had attacked Alicia made her lips curl up into a smile.
What followed were a second or two of almost total silence, something that felt more akin to a minute to the enhanced minds of her and the other mana users present. But just as Vika thought about her next action, one of the enemy aura users made every one of her ideas moot when he conjured an aura avatar with a roar.
"Don't fall for his trick, Rorland must surely have weak-"
Before he could even finish, the woman's attempt at rallying her allies was cut short by Darganth. Teleporting to the edge of the crater, he dashed forward faster than a creature of his size should have any right to be and struck with his claw. Sinking through the aura avatar's form, one of his fingers sank into the woman's torso as his arm tore through the construct, cutting her sentence short as her impaled form was lifted even further into the air.
"Any more questions?" Darganth asked with a booming voice, while his icy gaze swept across the gathered smugglers.
It didn't even take a single moment for the first weapon to drop in response. Quickly, more followed the first man's example, with Dargant watching with satisfaction as almost all enemies surrendered in the following few seconds.