Millay Continent
The Azmin guard had divided into six divisions and were rotating in and out of battle.
Currently Bre and Yanira's divisions were battling a knot that was larger a sports stadium and was causing chaos throughout a wide area. It was a dense knot and the two groups continued sending in soul magics users and had knowledge users scrying knowledge spellweaves around the knot constricting it.
It seemed to tremble violently and when they felt it was going to dissipate into a gaseous substance it flared out wider and shot small static like seeds of black and grey out from the main body and out into the Azmin divisions.
Where these seeds fell the tendrils quickly sprouted and began ensnaring Azmin by the dozens.
They had already learned this tactic and were prepared. Healers moved forward and healing magic flowed over specific sections of the tendrils and they began to dehydrate and wither. Black-grey dust began falling to the ground and the souls and knowledge magics again began flowing into the black mass.
They had been fighting like this for a full day and a half with the mass slowly disintegrating but Azmin were also falling at a very similar rate.
Bre looked to Yanira and they nodded to each other in unison. They both used Terra firma and the ground below the knot rumbled and quaked. They only wanted to disrupt its connection to the continent and Trannisa.
Again the knot reacted and constricted and trembled but before it could release those seeds of destruction a wide web of healing magic covered it and the Trembling became more violent.
With this the knot lost half its mass and Bre and Yanira called their people back as Cramnal and Shain brought forth a division together and Cer brought one to flank them.
Yanira breathed heavily as she began giving her people orders. Making sure that they were healed if need be, or sent off to rest. She looked to Bre.
"Another twelve hours and we will have it done."
He shook his head, disappointment on his face, "that is a long time. There are three more ahead of us that seem to promise to be just as formidable."
Yanira smiled. "You always tells us that 'No said balance was easily maintained'."
He rolled his eyes. "And you hiss at me every time."
She laughed tiredly. "that doesn't mean you are wrong."
Uta Continent
Emil's healing magic was flowing from him in vast torrents and crashing on two dark knots before him and his siblings. Struns looked on with a frown on his face.
They had somehow gotten caught between two knots and they knots themselves seemed to have begun to work together to fight the small group. Struns had suddenly remembered that Rachel had promised help if they needed it.
Before the thought was complete in his mind a dark shadow of a man appeared next to him. He almost struck out but the senses Rachel emigrating from him somehow. The shadow bowed and them flowed for broadly and then formed a point and pierced the mass to their right.
The knot shuddered and the shadow poured out the other side of it to curve around and Pierce the black mass on the left. They shadow became an odd dark rainbow that seemed to sparkle and shimmer in subdued hues and tones. It spiked out like a bristling porcupine and the swirling black masses of chaos seemed to still.
For a moment everything was still and quiet. Then they all came to themselves and struck out in unison.
It was like the shadow held the knots still for them to finish off.
And so they did.
Emil and Mis were the first to strike but it was Anis that finished them. She wrapped fate magics in webs of knowledge and soul magics. The spellweave moved forward and seemed to communicate with the knots and they all could see them pause and then there was a loud cracking of glass and the right knot separated into two pieces that shattered into dust when it hit the ground. The left knot merely became dust, plumed into the sky and fell back as a fine dust as well.
The shadow figure looked to Struns for a long moment then moved to his side and seemed to wait until he was needed again.
Struns didn't want to dismiss him. He felt that they may still have way too much to do.
The Abyss
Rachel innately understood the abyss. She understood that its levels were dangerous in one way or another. They were toxic, or they could corrode the mind, tear the skin, or even damage the soul.
It was an odd place. There were places completely safe and vast swatches that slowly killed.
Rachel was actually welcome here. She felt the abyss embrace her even as it tried to kill her with what seemed liked unreserved curiosity.
Her body was actually strengthening and the cuts and wounds covering her body seemed to help in this strengthening. She was being healed very quickly but it was as if the wounds on her body fed her soul.
She could feel her soul and soul well gaining power even as she sat and ponder their next steps. Purple smoke streamed from her and Lanncey stood next to her. She spoke and her ethereal voice seemed to shake the entire abyss.
"I always thought this place was too toxic to travel in." She looked to her granddaughter with a raised eyebrow. "It does seem to be rather harrowing. There is a city of Sphinx somewhere down here."
She looked around curiously. "Your soul well has grown incredibly immense child." She spoke into the abyss as she turned back into purple smoke and reentered Rachel's soul well as if her appearance had all been a dream.
Rachel's body lifted up and she glided toward her destination.
Millay Continent
Water rushed forward, before Zolon's division, in an odd swirling rushing way. Zolon was a hard quiet man. He did what he needed to do without hesitation or qualm. His innate abilities were water and gravity and he wielded them as of they were his own right and left hands.
He had learned knowledge, soul, and mental magics, because he felt these were vital aspects to any entity and he wanted a strong, capable, and full arsenal.
The water rose high then broke hard onto the knot. As it dove into the heart of the knot it implanted a small thread of woven knowledge, soul, and mental magics into the knot.
For all intents and purposes the use of water against these knots seemed a waste of time, but using the water as a carrier for something more and then gravity as a way to inject that more into the intricate knot suddenly ,ade everything so much more.
The knot seemed to shiver and Tillynia moved forward with her division. Purple and pink bands flooded forward and Tillynia and her division began to tear the knot a part. Their knowledge, healing, and fate magics dove into the weave of the knot and unraveled it from the inside out.
Zolon step over to stand beside Tillynia. "How many was this?"
She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Two. You know we are not finished though right?"
Zolon slowly turned his head to the knot and watched as healers finished the thing off. He shrugged.
"It is finished now." He turned. Moved his right index finger in a wide circle over his head, signaling for his people to disengage, and walked off. "Come Tillynia. There are still two more. Let's start on the closet one before we are called back."
A large pool of water formed under Zolon and his division and they all moved passed the dying knot on a wave of beautiful blue-green water.
The third knot in their path was not as formidable as the first two and still Zolon and Tillynia had to change off with Cre, Sublyme, and Allian. Zolon and Tillynia moved from the field in exhaustion while making sure that their people had all left ahead of them.
They both sat heavily in one of the freshly constructed healing halls and closed their eyes as healing, soul, and mental magics washed over and through them. They both knew that they were not done yet and the thought of battling another one of those knots or, worse yet, whatever was behind the knots made the exhaustion seep deeper I to their bodies.
The Abyss
Rachel sensed the turmoil within the realm acutely now. She could sense her siblings and her Atrunie and their struggles. It was time for this to come to an end.
It was time but still she had not found all that she needed to complete this. To ensure that this would actually be done.
She had to bleed more.
She had to understand more.
The abyss took but it also gave in equal measure. She readied herself for the exhaustion of it and moved back into the middle layers of the abyss.