Ancestor Tyre found his heart skipping a beat when Theron’s gaze suddenly landed on him. It was as though he was being tracked by a beast, and yet rather than facing off against a wild gaze without much thought but a feral obsession, it was cold and calculating instead.
The bination of wild abandon and chilling ice pressed onto his chest, suffocating him.
Scholar McIntyre frowned. He had been watching the scene from the start, so focused on trying to find a weakness in Theron that he had noticed in time when his brother started to attack.
This wasn’t something that they should have eagerly gotten involved in if it wasn’t necessary. The fact that Theron had thought it right to lure them here in the beginning should have been enough cause for pause.
Still, what Ott wanted to understand was exactly how Theron had done it. How had he broken free of Juliax’s attack? What changed? How was he—?
Ott’s eyes sharpened as he realized something.
They were running out of time.
And fast.
"Support me," he said without explaining anything.
Ancestor Tyre felt locked by Theron’s gaze until Ott suddenly stood in front of him. The broad back blocked his vision and finally let him gasp.
Before he could fully recover, Ott had already shot out with even faster speed, his body rushing ahead in a blinding light.
Ott’s fingers spread through the air, hanging so low they practically dragged against the ground as he rushed toward the oning Theron.
Light began to accumulate at his tips, and then the webs of his hands. As though the world’s light had bee streams of water he was running his hands through, he accumulated more and more of it.
Theron’s gaze flickered as he approached, feeling that there was something particularly wrong with this Light Mana...
’Mandate.’
Not just any Mandate, but the Mandate of the Heavenly Tribulation roaring from above them.
Light Mana was plicated. The division between nature and Mana was quite blurred, and the number of things that could produce Light by virtue of this was practically limitless.
In a lot of ways, the simplest definition of Light was actually just...
Energy.
However, understanding this concept and actually using it were two different things. Scholar McIntyre, though, seemed to have touched on this exact level of control.
He could gather Light Mana even from the fiery radiance of bolts of lightning.
And when he dragged his hands across the air like this, he seemed like another bolt himself.
Then their paths crossed.
Theron changed his approach instantly. Even though he had e aggressively, he adapted to the shift in opponent, his torso leaning back and Ironvale’s sword crossing about his body.
Ott’s arm slashed out with an accumulating pulse of energy.
The instant blade and claw met, the world imploded.
BOOM!
Theron’s arm was violently swung back under the impact. Ott very carefully controlled the angle, taking advantage of the weak point in Theron’s defenses to not send the blade back toward his chest, but instead out and up.
Theron’s chest was suddenly open to be attacked, wherein a second claw came in even swifter than the first.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
A quick series of explosions left concentrated bursts in the air. It looked as though Ott’s claw had bee a meteor streaking down from the skies, a tail of golden debris being left in its wake.
Fast.
Faster than any attack that Theron had ever faced before, and it cut right into his chest, slashing against his inner armor.
BOOM!
Chi. Chi. Chi.
Sparks flew and Theron coughed up a mouthful of blood.
A rushing vibrational energy charged. Ott copied Juliax’s methods from earlier, using the Tribulation energy to disrupt the flow of runes in the inner armor and target Theron more directly.
While he couldn’t phase through the inner armor like the Space Mancer had, he could shift the location of his Light Mana from attacking across the surface...
To attacking a layer deeper.
Blood pooled out of the crevices of Theron’s armor, and he knew that Ott understood his current weakness very well now.
Theron had managed to break free of Juliax, but the Space Mana was still rampaging within him. Because of that, he was forced to abandon the more mage-like aspects of his bat and pick up his blades again.
However, without his Mana, he was using his Resonance alone.
While his Resonance was powerful, what wasn’t was his body. He was still a Silver Mancer, and an Elemental Mancer at that, without strong defensive abilities.
Without the ability to cast spells... his strong bat and Water Resonance were all he had. So long as Ott didn’t allow Theron to get into the flow of battle and used a speed and power advantage instead...
Theron would suffer.
Ancestor Tyre seemed to finally wake up, his javelins roaring to life again and cutting off Theron’s paths of escape. They sheared through the air like blades against the wind, splitting space and tearing the air to pieces.
A bolt of Tribulation descended from above, and Ott easily used the opening Ancestor Tyre created to forge some distance between the two. Then he drew his arms across the air again as blinding flashes of light filled the region.
Everything was so bright and luminescent it felt like there was more Light Mana here than Ott could even begin to use.
Sparks flew and dispersed, revealing a coughing Theron who had blood drizzling down his lips. He took in heavy breaths as arcs of electricity jumped from one open wound to the next. His face could hardly be recognized at this point, and it was a miracle he was even standing on his feet.
Ott didn’t wait, surging ahead again. He practically looked like a man of burning gold, his hair dancing through the air with a white radiance as veins of crimson lined his eyes and cheeks.
But these changes were hidden to the world, his focus reaching an unprecedented state.
Unlike the others, he wasn’t growing placent even now.
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