The Edict's power still thrummed in every Voss vein like molten iron poured straight into the soul.
Flames roared higher, lightning cracked harder, wind howled with new teeth. Yet the fodder below died just as fast; one hundred thousand S-ranks carved them open like paper, blood mist rising in endless crimson curtains beneath the violet sky.
Ding-Dong… Ding-Dong…
The phantom bells tolled louder.
Seris heard them clearest of all. She and Lyrin had been tearing each other apart since the first heartbeat of war... ash against sound, grey fire against shadow echoes. Ashen Requiem had long since turned the air into a swirling graveyard of cinders and burning orbs.
However, Lyrin moved like a broken melody... erratic, giggling, leaving after-images wherever sound touched, and sound touched everything on a battlefield.
DING-DONG!
Lyrin stepped clean out of Seris's shadow, dagger flashing for the spine.
BANG!!!
The living ash shield caught the blow, but the sound lingered for ten frozen seconds of crystalline laughter.
"Hehe… wrong move."
|Echo of the Last Bell (A) – 35 % MP|
BOOOOOOM!!!!!
The trapped note detonated at point-blank range. Ash scattered like storm-driven snow; when the haze cleared, Seris stood scorched, braids smoking, blood streaming from split lips and torn skin. She spat crimson, wiped her mouth with the back of a trembling hand, and smiled.
"Before His Majesty... gave me this gift…"
She flicked both daggers forward, tips aimed straight between Lyrin's eyes.
"I would've been fucked."
HUMMMMMM!!!!!!
|Physique of Revenant Pyre|
Seris's twin crimson braids snapped upward as if the sky itself pulled them. Every grain of ash and ember within twenty-five thousand kilometers twisted, condensed, and became weapons... spears, shields, and even swords of grey fire.
Her shadow vanished. Behind her rose an ever-growing pyre of pale flame that trailed her like a funeral cloak.
The arsenal did not fall on Lyrin.
It fell on the screaming fodder below.
BOOOOM!!!!
BOOOOM!!!!
BOOOOM!!!!
Thousands vanished into rising ash that fed the pyre higher, hotter, taller. Seris turned, fused with her pyre, and became a thirty-kilometer colossus of living cinder and flame. She then clashed head on with Lyrin who was caught by surprise.
Lyrin's giggle died in her throat.
|Echo of the Last Bell (A)|
BOOM!!!!
BOOM!!!!!
The doubled explosion rolled over the colossus and died, cremated before it could touch her silhouette. As a perk of her physique while in this form, Seris was immune to all damage for sixty perfect seconds.
Her dagger, now a like burning tower flashed.
SHK!
It carved straight through Lyrin's throat.
Blood fountained.
Lyrin clutched the wound, then bit down on a pill that began knitting flesh, but Seris was already wheeling.
Above the battlefield, a greatsword of pure flame and compressed ash materialized, twenty-five thousand kilometers long, edge singing with funeral heat.
It hung for one heartbeat.
Then it was simply above Lyrin.
BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!
------
Vaeloria stood a distance away from Seyra who had fully unleashed her physique to the maximum. She countered the last attack by swallowing it into her Void Garden... rendering it useless for the remainder of the fight.
During the entire fight Vaeloria's eyes never lost their cold glint... she never showed a shred of emotion. Until now...
"Little human…" Vaeloria's voice drifted like frost across a grave. "That talent of yours is neat."
Her ten celestial tails began to move... slow at first, then faster, then too fast for mortal eyes to follow. The pure white tips bled into absolute void-black that left shimmering scars in the air with every sweep. The crescent moon on her brow dimmed until only a thin ring of darkness remained. Her silver eyes full moon eclipsed into perfect black moons that drank every photon that dared come near
|Physique of Lunar Eclipse Regalia|
Then in the next moment.... the violet sky died.
|Eternal Night Dominion|
One hundred thousand kilometers of light vanished as if a god had flipped the switch on creation itself.
|Lunar Night Veil|
A slender sword of liquid moonlight condensed in her hand, edge singing with the silence of a thousand frozen midnights.
Then she moved.
Seyra's myth triggered in the same heartbeat.
|Untouched Garden|
The garden drank the night, grew fat on it, and Seyra lunged to meet her.
BOOOOOOM!!!!!
------
Sylvara found herself in the worse position of all her sisters. She was someone who was a pure flame user, her flames allowed her to devour the power of other elements to make her stronger. However, what the hell was she supposed to do with someone who had complete control over all lesser flames?
Well,
SHK!
SHK!
Two arms spun away into the void, cauterized before a single drop could fall. Sylvara tumbled through the sky like a broken phoenix, golden-black fire guttering around the stumps, eyes dimming to dying coals.
Nia hovered serene, tricolored hair floating as though she stood at the bottom of a calm and endless sea, the sun-mark on her forehead blazing like a second dawn. Beneath her sternum, an illusory black hole ringed with obsidian flame spun lazily, drinking every scrap of heat, light, and mana within fifty thousand kilometers and converting it into something far worse.
Nia's physique was one that was a bit odd.... every one of these physiques were tailored after their souls, talents, affinities, and etc... And Nia... her Physique was...
|Ash-Bound Singularity Heart|
Not the affinity... but Ash himself... The stronger her obsession with the man.... the stronger her power would be. Every heartbeat pulls in all heat, light, and mana within 50,000 Km and converts it into an obsidian flame that devoured.
Her eyes flashed for a second before she smirked and activated a skill.
"Goodbye love." She said sarcastically.
|Cinderlight Requiem (S) – 39 % MP|
Black flames laced with living cinderlight blossomed above the battlefield it was beautiful, endless, absolute, like a night sky made of funeral pyres.
Thalion eyes dilated the moment the skill began falling. However, before he could even speak, a cold voice was heard.
|Maw of Empire|
A massive sigil appeared right in front of Sylvara and devoured the skill whole. From high above the clouds, Kale appeared along with Maelis and King Tharion. They had watched the battle from start to finish, however he wanted Ash to appear before he made a move.
'Fuck! I figured the Edict would've leveled the playing field a bit...' He thought such a foolish thing as his eyes looked at the Veloran troops who hadn't lost not a single member. He saw the twins using lightning and gravity carving holes through tens of thousands of his troops like nothing.
He saw the Elarian Princes and the void reapers using space and even a bit of time.
'Oh Goddess...' He said as a smile crept onto his face. He then moved and, in a heartbeat, he was 2,000 Km above Nia. He activated talent after talent.
|Tempest Wrath (S)|
|Gale Reaver's Descent (S)|
|Abyssal Tide Dominion (S)|
|Crimson Mist Apocalypse (S)|
Lightning, wind, water, and blood-mist condensed into four apocalyptic talents that fell toward Nia all at once, each one capable of erasing entire legions in a single breath.
Nia did not flinch.
She bent her knees, as a storm of pure solar fire erupted around her, the singularity screamed beneath her heart with possessive, obsessive joy.
|Sol Invictus Ascendancy (S)|
|Mark of Obsession (SS)| - (Comes from physique... a fire that devours whatever she marks.)
|Cinder Nova Barrage (A) – 28 % MP|
BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!
Light and storm collided in the center of the battlefield.
And the violet sky finally began to bleed.