[Ouroboros' End]
When Darganth stepped out of his room the next morning and walked down the hallway, he could hear what awaited him long before his destination came into view. Not surprised in the slightest by the fact that his sister was already awake too, he continued on his path and stepped into the central room where the three corridors that together stretched through the entire 'T' Shaped building met.
There, moving amid the wide open space of the massive, only sparsely furnished room, Alicia was pacing around in excitement. Next to her, Sonita and Vika stood with shadows under their eyes, clearly having become victims of Alicia's enthusiasm.
The moment he joined them, teleporting down from the third-floor corridor above the hallway leading to the main entrance, Alicia spun toward with a wide smile.
"Vic, what are the others up to?" She asked, wanting to know how long they'd take.
Freezing in place as his sister leaned on him as she asked this question, Darganth answered with a mischievous smirk, "Well, we're all gonna miss Neandra for the next week, so we've been spending the morning with her. Might still take a while, it involved very little clothing and some interesting positi-"
Before Darganth could finish the sentence, Alicia's cheeks turned red and her hand shot forward to keep him from continuing. Shaking her head as a shudder went through her, she then narrowed her eyes at him, "The fact that it exists is the only thing I can stomach knowing about your nightlife without throwing up, so please spare me the details brother."
Forcing back the laugh that threatened to escape his lips at the expression with which Alicia reacted to his teasing, Darganth nodded lightly as he moved her hand off his mouth with a light swipe of his hand.
"Couldn't resist the opportunity." He explained with a shrug, "But the point still stands, it might take a moment or two before they get here."
"Should've phrased my question better." Alicia said with a frown, "I don't ever learn, do I. Even after three decades, you still pull the same tricks you did when we were kids."
With this, Alicia let herself drop onto one of the few couches that stood scattered along the edges of the room. The groan that she let out with it drew Sonita and Vika's attention toward her, though the two women made a point to turn their attention elsewhere as Darganth sat down next to his sister.
"I know you like the sense of normalcy and the reminder of our old lives it gives you when I still do this, so what's with the sunken expression. A moment ago, you were beaming." Darganth said.
"Honestly, it just still feels surreal. Being a dragon is something I've grown accustomed to by now, though the ability to transform is mainly to thank for that, and Allaire's ears or the occasional horn one of your girls shows in their transformed form barely register anymore, but this? An only half explored land full of dangers and mystery, that's better than even the, admittedly still extremely cool, trips across the central continent you've organized for me." Alicia said.
Smiling in relief at the knowledge that his words had simply caused her excitement to overload, Darganth gently rustled his hand through Alicia's hair. Content to simply sit in silence as a small smile crept onto her lips, he was taken by surprise when she jumped up a few moments later.
"Come, I've got an idea." Alicia said excitedly, trying to drag him along.
"I could've sworn draconic transformations suppressed the effect of hormones and anything else in a species' biology that would affect the dragon's mind. Has she been like this for the entire day?" Darganth asked Vika and Sonita.
"She's looking forward to today." Vika said with a shrug.
The other woman then elaborated further, "You know that she enjoys the adventure. And up until a few days ago, she thought she wouldn't get to explore somewhere unknown while here, with good reason considering that we're in a practically planet-sized city, and you know how she gets in such situations."
Darganth could only nod in agreement to this. Alicia was always a bit of a chaotic and unpredictable person, but when she gets excited, it's as if her thoughts get scrambled while she simultaneously gets overly fixated on the source of her excitement. Though he hadn't expected her to look forward to the expedition enough for that, mainly because it wasn't the totally unexplored and autonomous adventure she had been wanting for years. But as he thought about Sonita's words for a moment, he realized that he should've expected that.
For a brief moment, these thoughts lingered on his mind before he pushed them aside with a shrug. Knowing that she was fine and only her usual excited self made him follow her without reservation as she teleported onto the balcony that ran along the entire wall.
Arriving at the section opposite to where he had emerged from, she had already opened the door toward the outer balcony when he arrived next to her. For a few relaxing seconds, he let his gaze linger on the untouched expanse that was beyond the property border a mere few dozen meters ahead of him.
Though as he sensed Alicia teleport even further and arrive just in front of the edge of the estate, he instinctively drew some mana in his eyes and let about fifteen new spectrums of sight appear in his mind next to the normal human vision of his transformed form. The moment he did so, his eyes widened as over twenty mana signatures that had managed to hide from his mana sense appeared just beyond the property.
Feeling the mana of every one of these persons surge as Alicia stepped past the barriers at the edge of the property before he could stop her, becoming visible to them in the process, Darganth's own mana formed a mantle of aura around him in an instant as he exploded into action.
Pushing off against the balcony's railing with his palm as he jumped over it, he unfurled his wings and shot forward in the time it took the attackers to form their spells. Finishing his spell while already dashing forward, he teleported forward right as the first wave of attacks slammed into Alicia.
But while she reacted slower than Darganth to the surprise attack, the instincts he and her other teachers had ingrained into her throughout these past years weren't too far behind. Drawing on her mana, it took her but an instant to reach out to the element that had been second nature since her reincarnation. Binding a mix of spatial and temporal energy in the mana that quickly flooded her entire body, she attuned it to the gravity sub-element and unleashed its power through a spell unique to her.
Thus, as this element infused mana burst forth from every pore of her skin, light itself twisted around Alicia. Only bending inward at first, her immediate vicinity abruptly vanished a moment later as a black hole formed right where she stood.
Not even a second later, the first beam of blinding light struck her position, only to vanish in the sphere of darkness. The dozen or so spells that followed it fared similarly, with anything from rocks to burning lances being ripped apart, the individual pieces briefly orbiting around the black hole and creating a multicolored hue around its edge as more and more energy, both physical and in the form of mana, bled into the gravitational singularity.
Recognizing the opening that Alicia's distraction was creating, Darganth quickly changed tactics. Having appeared in front of Alicia right as the first spells struck, he had been about to throw up a barrier spell in response when her spell flared up on his mana sense. Canceling his spell in response and letting his already expelled mana dissipate into the surroundings, he abruptly found himself on a small elevated hill right in the middle of the enemy firing lines.
The world around him slowed to a crawl at that as he sharpened his focus on the incoming spells. With a slight twist of his torso, he then dodged the crescent slash that was the first spell to reach him, hastily followed by a drop to the ground as an easily two meter long, elongated rock shard passed by overhead.
Keeping low to stay out of the firing lines, Darganth kept out of the way of the following attacks. Even moving back slightly while staying low to the ground, Darganth moved further behind the cover of the hill crest and readied himself as he waited for Alicia's spell to enter its second stage.
Not even two full seconds later, this patience was rewarded. With a deafening shockwave that tore across the field, the black hole around Alicia collapsed. In the process, the last of the over a hundred spells and other attacks that the thirty or so enemies Darganth could see had unleashed into it vanished.
In the singularities place, Alicia's true form appeared. Towering in front of the mansion, her appearance completely differed from its usual state, with strands of fire and other elements moving across her scales, while her frame itself was bulked up noticeably.
Immediately, she burst forward with a leap. Spells and other attacks splashed harmlessly against her body as she moved, with the enhancements that were powered by the volleys that had been absorbed by the back hole working especially well at guarding her against attacks of these elements.
Quickly gaining altitude as she spread her wings, Alicia drew the still ongoing enemy fire further upward as she closed in on its source. Below, Darganth used her distraction to dash over the hilltop and shoot straight at their opponents' left flank, returning to his true form as he did so.
Thus, the two of them formed a pincer attack as they dove for their enemies. Having more altitude to convert into momentum, Alicia was the first one to reach her respective targets.
Unleashing her breath attack mere moments before impact, she pinned the small group of three she had chosen as her target with a sudden spike in gravity before crashing down in their midst. Catching one of the two aura users among them with a simultaneous swing of one of her front legs, she instantly took him out of the fight as the flat underside of the limb's claw came smashing down onto him.
Pivoting following this initial strike, Alicia swung after the second aura user with her tail as she turned to face the mage. Catching the former with the strike, she used the brief window in which he was thrown a dozen meters or so to the side to fully focus on the mage.
Though by then, the woman had already recovered her bearing and was thus prepared when Alicia's breath attack slammed into her. With a quick flex of her hand, a shimmering bubble of water appeared around her and dispersed the force of the incoming gravitational push.
This was then followed by three massive ice spikes shooting up from the ground as Alicia leapt forward with her claw reeled back. Catching her by surprise, the spell shattered against the scales on her belly, nonetheless pushing her into the air in the process.
Responding with a balled claw that she slammed into the central ice construct on which most of her weight rested, Alicia managed to free herself a moment later. But by then, the aura user she had thrown to the side had already closed back in, his shield held forward and spear reeled back as he leapt up against her falling form and struck.
Impacting her scales at a slight angle, the weapon screeched as metal scraped against keratin, with the shaft first bending under the strain before the tip slid off. Only noticing this diversion due to the sudden drop in resistance that resulted from this, the aura user was then slightly too late in unleashing the stored-up energy inside the spear. As such, when he let it erupt a moment later, the pointed burst of aura that shot forward almost completely missed Alicia, only cutting through her scales and leaving a shallow but long cut on the flesh underneath.
In inflicting this minor wound, the aura user left himself completely exposed to retaliation. Still airborne and having barely avoided getting stuck beneath Alicia as she fell, he didn't have the maneuverability to dodge as Darganth's attention landed on him.
An instant later, a beam of intermixed spatial and temporal attuned mana tore through the air, his four opponents briefly unable to stop him after having been forced to dodge a wide swipe of his claw. And that short moment was more than enough for Darganth's breath attack to unleash devastating effects, causing a brief flash of light and a crack in space as it struck the aura user.
Not a second later, he beam vanished again as the four opponents Darganth had been facing closed back in. Throwing his head to the side with a concentrated barrage of spells that slammed into it, they drew his focus back toward themselves.
Though this didn't help the mage Alicia had been fighting much. While the other small groups they had split their formation into were already rushing to aid him, the agility she had shown and his proximity meant that they wouldn't be able to offer it until they were at least closer.
Now on her own, the woman didn't let her colleague's demise distract her and shot into the air with a quick casting of magic. At the same time, Alicia's gaze honed back in on her, tracking the woman's ascent for a few moments as she flew up to hover above the height of the former's head.
Without any indication, Alicia then burst into action. Pushing her gravity magic toward her opponent, she tried to pull her closer before moving in with a beat of her wings.
With the gravitational pull slowing any attempt to fly away, the mage instead accelerated toward Alicia. Simultaneously, water started to gather around her, coalescing into three constantly shifting masses before shooting ahead of the woman.
Watching the attack fly at her, Alicia quickly brought up her arms in response. Smashing into the spell just as its form stabilized into three different constructs, the enhancement still coursing through her body reacted by demonstrating the increased resistance it offered her. Radiating out from beneath her scales, its mana rushed into the incoming spell, destabilizing the latter by also influencing the elemental energies and ripping its form apart in the process.
Consequently, the fearsome constructs of pressurized water barely even slowed down Alicia. Though with her arms still fully extended after having cut through the spells in two wide swipes, she was left only with her maw as a means of attack as her opponent continued to close in.
But even as her opponent drew closer, Alicia hesitated. A part of her still recoiled at the idea of eating a humanoid creature despite having no such reservations with beasts, her mind still associating the act with cannibalism despite not having been human for well over a decade. As such, she hesitated just a tad too long before surging forward with her maw open, with her target having gotten just the moment she needed to refocus away from her claws.
Thus, when Alicia's head shot toward her, the mage's eyes were already tracking its movement. Turning to the side the moment she spotted the twitch of muscles that preceded her neck extending forward, the woman barely dodged the row of razor-sharp teeth that clamped shut where she had been a fraction of a second prior.
Now in a prime position with Alicia having overextended herself, the mage started drawing on her mana and was just about to punish Alicia for her mistake when a sudden streak of light tore into her torso. Barely having the time to widen her eyes as the arrow around which the light was forming cut through her ribs and lodged itself into her stomach from the side, the woman never caught even a glimpse of her attacker before the enchantments on the projectile activated and converted the remaining aura imbued in it into a torrent of flames that exploded outward, devouring the mage's body whole.
Simultaneously, the smell of ozone filled the air as a blue flash tore across the battlefield. With perfect precision, the lightning bolt that came flying from the mansion's balcony struck one of the mages rushing toward Alicia, piercing through the weak reactive shield the man had active and burning his body beyond recognition in an instant.
Swirling around toward the source of the two attacks, Alicia's mouth curled up into a relieved smile as she found Serania and Allaire standing there, with Jennia already charging across the open field in front of the two. Behind them, the mana signatures of Yldra and Venrie were closing in rapidly behind them, likely together with Neandra but Alicia had difficulty pinpointing her exact location due to the sheer magnitude of power she exuded.
Though before the two, or three, of them could join the fight, or Vika and Sonita for that matter, as Alicia could sense that the two were even further away, likely having called the others in the first place, a magic item activated on each of their attackers.
With it, the spatial realm grew turbulent as almost two dozen teleportation spells activated simultaneously. In an instant, the chaotic fight around her then ceased as both their living opponents and the bodies of the slain attackers vanished from the field. Though while it saved these men and women for the moment, it only served to further aggravate Darganth's rage at their ambush.