Chapter 3888: One Step Ahead (Part 1)

"You didn’t listen, Raum." Another snap of the Guardian’s fingers turned the flames white. "Sure, this is your lab, we stand above a mana geyser, and you are an ancient Eldritch."

"Yet this is also the Gorgon Empire. This is my turf." A third snap, and the white flames turned emerald. "And I am a Guardian."

Primal Spark not only allowed Leegaain to ignite the world energy, but also to consume mana instead of life force to fuel the Immortal Flames. It greatly reduced the strain of conjuring the searing sea of fire and manipulating it like an extension of his will.

Knowing when he was defeated, the Wonderer bolted up in the form of a single ray of Chaos to escape the trap and open a Chaos Steps that would lead him to safety. Very few things moved faster than a Cursed Element, to the point that even Dragonspeed couldn’t keep up with it.

Dimensional Fusion, however, could. Leegaain teleported himself right in front of the soaring Eldritch and punched Raum back into the roaring abyss from which he was desperately trying to escape.

Raum tried again and again, but even his Dragon Eyes were incapable of following the flow of the minuscule Spirit Steps that carried the Guardian’s particles to their destination and then reassembled his energy body.

Leegaain moved faster and hit harder than anything the Wonderer believed possible, chipping away at his dwindling energy reserves with every blow.

And the worst had yet to come.

As Raum fell into the Immortal Flames, a burning hand grabbed him by the leg and pulled him down with immense strength. A second hand comprised of emerald fire punched the Wonderer in the stomach, sending him deeper into the fire.

Then a third, a fourth, and hundreds more hands came at him from every side, grabbing and tearing him apart.

’What?’ Raum couldn’t believe his own Dragon Eyes.

Beings made of fire, not magic, surrounded him like souls damned to spend eternity in a burning inferno. There were no runes the Wonderer could find, yet the fire creatures had limbs, eyes, and mouths.

"Do you like this?" Leegaain asked. "I call it Avatar of Fire. It’s not a spell or a bloodline ability. Just a technique that only those who fully master their life force and willpower can use. It’s the pinnacle of Origin Flames.

"Make no mistake, those things are not alive. They are merely an expression of my fury."

As Raum drowned in the ocean of emerald fire and more of his body burned, he realized that he still had one last move he could try. A move that became less and less effective the weaker he became.

’Gods below, I’m so stupid.’ He thought. ’I wanted to impress my father so badly that I kept playing his game instead of mine. It ends now.’

The Wonderer compressed his body as much as he could to limit the surface exposed to the Immortal Flames to a minimum and bolted up in the form of a spear of darkness.

Once again, Leegaain used Dimensional Fusion to intercept the Eldritch, but this time, Raum was ready. The spear of darkness was an actual weapon that pierced through the Guardian’s fist and dismembered his arm from knuckles to shoulder.

As it passed through Leegaain’s energy form, the spear released violent pulses of Chaos element that infected the living Spirit Magic like poison. The Guardian felt pain spread as the Chaos invaded his life force and corrupted him from within.

’Son of a...’ The Guardian took instinctively a step back and prepared for another Dimensional Fusion, but it turned out to be unnecessary.

The black spear performed a sharp U-turn in mid-air and charged at him again instead of trying to escape. Leegaain conjured his mana into a Spirit Barrier that Raum pierced along with his chest.

The Guardian was indeed stronger, but the Eldritch put everything he had in each blow and focused the power of his hundreds of cores on the spear tip, executing surgical strikes at the weak points of Leegaain’s energy form.

This time, however, the black spear stopped its charge right after punching through the Guardian and reverted to his humanoid form. The dull light of Soul Cutter already in his hand, Raum moved the combat to close quarters and attacked with the fury of a desperate man.

True to its name, the Chaos blade ripped Leegaain’s Spirit Fusion to shreds.

The Guardian tried defending himself with what’s left of Father of Wrath, but without its enchantments, Soul Cutter phased through the Davross like mist and struck directly at Leegaain.

The Guardian tossed the broken blade away and conjured an emerald replica of Father of Wrath, but Soul Cutter shattered it just like the original.

’Cunning bastard!’ Leegaain’s eyes narrowed in realization. ’He wasn’t trying to escape. He just wanted to get out of the Immortal Flames. Raum wanted me to follow him so that with my focus split between him and sustaining Avatar of Fire, my mana is stretched thin.’

He dispelled the Immortal Flames and conjured a second emerald blade, and this time, when Soul Cutter came from his neck, the construct held.

’Even away from the ground, this is still a mana geyser.’ Raum thought. ’While I tore Father’s body to shreds, I absorbed the world energy and replenished my feed cores. As long as I keep hurting him faster than he can heal, victory will be mine!’

The Wonderer relinquished any stray thought and gave everything he had to the fight. He poured every ounce of his focus and mana into the battle, uncaring if he might end up so weak that his energy form faded or that any of his surviving minions might kill him with ease.

He activated the enchantments engraved in his body to conjure powerful magic whenever he spotted an opening worth taking. From that distance, dodging a spell was hard, and dodging a spell the size of the Chaos Annihilation was impossible.

The Guardian and the Eldritch lunged at each other, blocking the enemy blade without ever averting their eyes from the enemy body. The slightest spark of mana in the form of a rune announced a spell that Dragon Eyes predicted, and the opponent had to counter.

Leegaain tried several times to put some distance between him and Raum, but the Wonderer kept the energy blades locked. He moved forward whenever the Guardian retreated and stepped back whenever the Guardian advanced.

It was a precarious situation where every move had to be weighed and executed to perfection. Every millimeter counted, and the enemy exploited the slightest mistake to increase his advantage.

Raum’s Soul Cutter was stronger than the Father of Wrath replica, but the Eldritch’s spells were limited to those stored in his power cores, whereas Leegaain had no such problem.

The ability to perform body casting required a body, something that Abominations lost during their fall into Chaos. Leegaain’s Spirit Fusion form was comprised of pure energy as well, but the life force it carried allowed him to weave spells with every movement he took.

On top of that, while the energy of Raum’s body was fixed in his humanoid form, Leegaain Spirit Form was made of pure mana.

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