***
Banks of the Tikusha River, a few minutes ago.
Ygri was still engaged in a furious battle with Imosi, leaving Solus, Nyka, and Loma to deal with seven wounded yet Life Maelstrom-empowered Isharas, while Kalla brought the fungus folk to safety.
'No matter what happens, kid, stick close to and hide as many spore stashes as deep as you can.' The Wight said via a mind link. 'I will protect you to the best of my abilities, but I might need to throw you under the carriage a couple of tis if we both want to co out of this alive.'
'How is that even supposed to work?' The fungus folk had little trust in their protector, but did as bidden anyway.
'I don't plan to die a heroic death, kid.' Kalla replied. 'Those guys won't hesitate to kill , but they need you alive. When push cos to shove, I will use you as a spore shield to force the enemy to hold their spells.'
'It makes sense. Why the spore stashes, then?' The fungus folk asked.
'Because if one of those morons doesn't follow the script, your decoy body will take the brunt of the damage and we'll both survive.' Kalla tapped into the white crystal at her neck, slowly opening a channel for its energy that would soon allow her to exceed the limits of her bright blue core.
She weaved spell after spell, focusing the Eyes and Ears of nadion on detecting and identifying any incoming threat.
anwhile, Solus gestured her allies not to move.
'Let the Isharas break free of Permafrost on their own. There is no air inside my spell, and they can't use Invigoration. The mont they force their way out, they'll create an openin,g and the debris will cloud their senses. That's when we need to strike.'
The seven elental crystals orbiting over the Sage Staff spun quickly as she talked, but only the orange, silver, and erald gemstones lit up. Their facets collected and amplified sunlight, shaping it into a curved blade in a single heartbeat.
The combined effect of the elents of creation and Spirit Magic granted the hard-light construct the hardness of a diamond and a mass of several hundred kilos.
'I'm sorry, Staff. This might hurt.' Solus shared her plan with the Sage Staff, afraid that the artifact would misunderstand her actions and refuse to follow her orders in self-preservation.
'No worry, Mom. protect you!' The honest affection in the artifact's thoughts hurt Solus more than it reassured her.
'By my Mom, it's so naïve and pure." She thought. 'The Staff would do anything for , yet I'm about to endanger it to protect myself. Have I beco like Lith? Is this how he felt whenever he put my life on the line?'
Permafrost exploded with the violence of a volcanic eruption, snapping Solus out of her daze. Frozen Horizon had amplified the effects of Permafrost by several folds, but the Isharas tore it apart as paper.
Their colossal bodies crackled with silver lightning, and each one of their pincers held a powerful tier five spell ready to be unleashed as soon as they spotted the enemy.
'Now!' Solus conjured a copy of her hamr and threw it with all her strength before activating the Furies' Flight enchantnt.
The hamr split into seven more copies whose enchantnts worked in unison to generate a powerful gravity field that gave the eight small Davross hamrs the kinetic energy of a teor.
Solus directed the hamrs to the core of the enemy group without a specific target. Her goal was to draw the Isharas' attention and keep them confused for a few more seconds.
The Furies were much smaller than a human, but to a Divine Beast, the difference in size was negligible. All the Isharas would see while under the cover of Permafrost's dust cloud was a bunch of powerful energy signatures approaching at high speed.
The Divine Beasts had no ti to notice they were dealing with artifacts instead of living beings, and spread their formation wide not to hurt each other when they unleashed their spells at the hamrs.
Just like Solus wanted.
'I'm really sorry!' She kept the Sage Staff floating horizontally in front of her and hit its heel with the true Fury as if she were hamring a nail in a wall.
'It's okay!' The Sage Staff moved the orbiting crystals from the head to the bottom of the haft, lighting up the yellow and orange gemstones.
They created two powerful magnetic fields of the sa charge around the Fury and the Yggdrasill wood, so that the blow transmitted Solus' full might without the Hamr ever touching the Sage Staff.
Then, the crystals returned to their original position, conjuring an air blade in front of the construct to reduce air friction and accelerate the energy glaive further.
The Sage Staff now moved so fast that the Isharas would have never seen the energy glaive coming if not for their multiple eyes and the mind link connecting them.
'It's just another artifact.' Minkura said. 'They want to fool us into wasting our spells and depleting our mana cores. The enemy is aware that they have no chances in a fair fight.
'They plan to rain spells upon us from a distance and keep us from using Invigoration. Preserve your strength and combine your Spirit Barriers.' Upon his signal, three Isharas activated the barriers in the armor and boosted them with a spark of silver lightning.
'How is the Staff doing that? That wasn't part of my plan, and I never taught it physics!' Solus' frustration with the Divine Beasts seeing through her strategy was nothing compared to her surprise at the Sage Staff's ability to improvise.
The Isharas felt exactly the sa way when the seven gemstones atop the Staff spun at high speed, conjuring a small Blink. The Sage Staff's spell allowed it to change its target to a defenseless Divine Beast and appear ters away from her.
The energy glaive punched through the female Ishara before her comrades could conjure another Spirit Barrier to protect her. As the full power of the light, earth, and Spirit crystals cut through Adamant, flesh, and bones alike, the six Balor eyes hidden on the Staff's haft opened.
Each one of them released a pillar of elental energy that burned, froze, rotted, pierced, cut, and smashed through the Divine Beast's insides. The Sage Staff erged from the wounded Ishara's back and Blinked again, piercing through her head next.
By then, the other Divine Beasts had recovered from the shock and burned with rage. They released their spells at the artifact to save their sister-in-arms or at least stop the abomination from reaping more lives.
The Sage Staff had lost most of its montum and was easy prey. It was the reason it Warped away and into Solus' hand.
'Mushy brain ans dead, right?' The artifact asked as its six eyes drew in world energy to recover its lost strength.
'Yes.' Solus watched the Ishara's energy signature fade away despite her comrades' best attempts to save her.
' good, Mom?'
'Very good.' Solus nodded. 'When we go back ho, I want you to explain to how you beca this good, but now focus!'
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