[Ouroboros' End]
Seeing his two opponents suddenly cross what had been over thirty meters in the blink of an eye, Dargant only managed to raise one arm before the first spatial blade struck. Moments later, the spell cut into his forearm, ripping through aura-enhanced skin and flesh before finally being halted long enough by his bones that its pressure built up to cause the crescent projectile to explode. Sending a burst of spatial magic attuned mana in all directions, it tore through nearly Darganth's entire forearm, turning a clean cut into a gaping wound that rapidly spilled blood.
Yet, Darganth didn't have a moment to dwell on it. Already, the second spatial blade was flying toward him, chasing the first attack just a few meters apart. Still, this delay gave Darganth enough time to mount an effective defense. Pushing through the pain it caused to raise his left arm, he summoned his magic to conjure a stone barrier just ahead of his palm.
However, he had no intention of simply waiting out the assault. Cloaking himself in a light magic spell to turn invisible and leaving an illusory copy of himself behind the barrier, he dashed to the side and circled around toward the flank of his foes.
Around ten seconds later, Darganth was prepared to strike, hovering a few meters to their side and with his arm healed. A quick glance confirmed that Serania won't be able to assist him for the moment as she struggled to effectively move or aim through the constantly shifting distortions. Thus, he charged forth on his own.
Dashing forward still under the cover of invisibility, he first targeted the space mage. Brandishing his spear, he cloaked it in a layer of flames to help his strike punch through any defenses the woman had active. This usage of mana didn't go unnoticed, causing the attention of both his opponents to snap toward him as he raised his spear for the strike. With his hands near the lower end of the shaft, he used the weapon's length as leverage to sweep it forward in a wide swing, catching his target just below the ribs and dragging her along.
Watching as the impact practically folded his foe in half, Darganth was surprised when he noticed that the attack hadn't drawn blood. Though when he then pulled back his weapon, the reason was quickly revealed as he heard the unmistakable sound of its metal blade scraping along a metal chainmail the mage was apparently wearing beneath her robes.
Still, the strike left her disoriented and gasping for air, an opportunity Darganth had just started to move to exploit when the time mage entered the fray. With a torrent of emerald green temporal energy flying toward Darganth, he was forced to abandon his follow-up strike on the space mage and instead meet the incoming attack with a torrent of flames.
As the two spells clashed, Darganth was then forced to watch powerlessly as the advantage his surprise attack had established fully slipped out of his grasp when the shifting space suddenly added tens of meters to the distance between himself and the retreating space mage, ultimately resulting in nearly a hundred meters separating the two. While that was a distance he could theoretically cross rather quickly, he'd have to get away from the time mage first. And even if he did, the second it would take him could be stretched into twenty, possibly thirty times that to the perception of a mythic rank mage, giving the woman ample time to both attack him and teleport away.
Though it appeared that the time mage wasn't planning on letting it come to that. The moment his ally was out of the line of fire, he intensified his offensive against Darganth.
"Sweeping clock." He chanted.
Darganth felt the spell strike before he even sensed it, with the green construct fading into existence already practically touching his skin. The next instance, the flat blade that extended outward from the mage swept into him. Striking at shoulder height, it pushed him a few meters sideways before shattering into tiny fragments that soon faded.
Surprised by this, Darganth briefly hovered in place with a puzzled look on his face. Stunned into inaction, he didn't manage to use the opportunity to launch an attack of his own, recovering only by the time his opponent was already forming his next spell.
"Accelerate spell: Fireball."
Seeing the volley of dozens of fire magic spells flying out of his opponent's open palm was no surprise to Darganth. He himself felt that using it to support another element was one of the most mana-efficient ways to use time magic, so it was no surprise that another mage, especially one like his current foe that didn't have an extraordinarily large mana reserve, would do the same.
And though it was a simple combination, it was effective. Boosted by time magic, the swarm of fireballs reached Darganth almost instantly. However, it did nothing to increase the attack's raw power. Thus, even though he only managed to conjure an equally basic water barrier, Darganth managed to block the volley, with the flames that erupted on impact being consumed by the thick water wall in front of him.
This time, Darganth also answered the attack in kind. Pointing his spear forward, he sent forth a spray of stone shards that flew at his opponent. In response, a stream of lava surged forth from his opponent's hand, quickly gathering into a wall that blocked his attack. Without delay, it was then followed by a beam of searing flames, something Darganth responded to by simply shifting his water barrier to block it.
From that, the exchange of spells only intensified. War magic surged around Darganth's form, soon shooting forward as three slashes. Earth magic then blocked the lightning that flew at him in response, with the invisible barrier he had conjured turning even electricity into solid stone that then plummeted to the ground. The water magic he countered with, however, remained unaffected, allowing the snake-shaped construct to reach his opponent, open its maw, and flow through the mage's position.
Just as his attack reached his foe, Darganth's instincts flared up. Time slowed even further in his perception as millennia upon millennia of combat experience warned him of approaching danger even as none of his senses, whether physical or magical, found anything out of the ordinary.
A moment later, a green construct almost identical to the blade that had struck him around a minute ago appeared to his right, striking just as fast and unexpectedly as the previous one had done. However, this time it didn't merely push him. Even more surprising for Darganth, neither the aura coursing through his body nor his innate resilience did more than slow the spell slightly, allowing it to cut through his entire arm by the time he managed to conjure a spell and form a layer of stone over his skin and at least stop it from piercing his torso.
At just this moment, the spatial mage rejoined the fray. Whether it was planned or not, the timing was a worst-case scenario for Darganth. Missing his right arm and weapon, he had no choice but to go on the defensive as his foe exploited the shifting distances to suddenly arrive on his right with her spatial blades already reeled back.
The first cut nicked Darganth's cheeks as he barely twisted out of the way. Yet the second swing followed almost immediately. This time, the blade came in from the opposite side and left no room to evade, forcing him to raise his remaining arm. Hoping that the stone armor encasing him could endure the clash, he swung the back of his hand into the flat side of the blade, battering it aside enough for the strike to miss him.
Three more strikes like this came after this. Ducking under the first one, Darganth grabbed the second swing even as the edge of the blade cut through the stone armor and bit into his skin. This forced the third swing into an odd angle to not clash with the other blade, giving him the room to bring up one leg and kick his opponent into the stomach, sending her flying back a few meters and giving him room to escape the onslaught.
However, just as he escaped the space mage, his other foe unleashed a barrage of spells.
"Plasma bolt." As the chant reached Darganth, a dozen glowing purple balls of energy with white cores were already flying toward him. Quickly turning toward the attack, he minimized his profile in response before weaving sideways once, then twice, and finally a third time to dodge the balls of scorching energy that shot past him.
"Searing lances." Just as Darganth cleared the first volley, the next spell already shot out from his opponent. Five thin, around two meters long flaming projectiles flew toward him in a slightly staggered formation. When he then shifted his flight path upward, they followed, constantly readjusting to his position until they were following behind him by the time he was moving straight up.
"Stasis field." Obviously, his opponent wasn't going to just wait to see how this played out. One after another, small green sparks flashed up in Darganth's path. Moments later, they erupted into massive bubbles ten meters across, each activation perfectly timed to catch Darganth in their range. Though by then he was already turning away from the spells, knowing full well the danger slow-down effects such as these presented.
Amid one such turn, the spatial mage burst back onto the scene. Teleporting to Darganth's right, she came at him with her blades. Meeting the charge by summoning two light constructs, Darganth mentally controlled them to intercept the woman. With his physical body meters away and not directly wielding them, he could use them to aggressively push into her guard without risking injury.
This quickly put his opponent on the defensive. An initial thrust forced her to twist to the side, already delaying her pursuit of him even before the two swords twirled around and slashed at her exposed back. Racking across the chainmail she wore beneath her robes, they tore through fabric and metal links, sending a few dozen of the latter flying away and opening a small gash in her armor.
But before the constructs could strike again, the woman disappeared. One moment, she was already almost two dozen meters behind Darganth, the next she floated directly ahead of him. Though this time, he didn't appear to make any effort to defend himself as she pulled back one of her swords for a thrust.
Once he came into range of her blade, her arm shot forward. The spatial blade cut straight toward Darganth, its silvery body poised to pierce his head. But when it reached him, there was neither resistance nor blood, with the blade simply cutting through his form as if it wasn't there.
The mage had only a moment for her eyes to widen as she realized she had targeted an illusion before the searing lances reached her. With a series of deep thumps, three of them struck her torso and erupted into a small explosion, devouring her entire form in flames and dark smoke.
Meanwhile, Darganth reappeared a few meters further ahead as he dismissed his invisibility spell to save mana. And unlike the illusion, which had been fleeing from the spatial mage's spell, he stood in the air with one arm outstretched and pointed toward the remaining two attacks flying toward him.
"Ocean blast." Immediately upon finishing his chant, water burst forth from his palm. Rushing forward, the highly pressurized blast devoured the two flame lances in an instant before slamming into the spatial mage's position. There, it scattered the thick smoke still encasing her form and doused the flickering embers still clinging to her robes while smashing into her, causing the skin-tight shield spell that surrounded her to flicker to life and strain against the multiple dozen tons of water that were barreling down on her fast enough to rip skin from flesh.
Simultaneously, the time mage caught up with him. Surrounded by a few dozen tiny glowing red dots, he unleashed a barrage of just as many red beams.
"Fire barrage." He chanted.
Seeing the wall of energy beams shooting toward him, Darganth abandoned his offensive and rose higher. Not a moment later, easily a hundred laser-like beams tore through his previous position. The entire area immediately became saturated with red lines of energy, some of which still caught his leg and foot but were stopped by his shields.
A second later, another barrage followed. Again, Darganth turned abruptly to dodge the attack, throwing a glance behind him as he did so. Seeing that both of his enemies were following him, he drew on even more mana and accelerated even further.
For a second or two, the three raced through the skies. With each moment, the ground and battle below became smaller, slowly turning into an indecipherable mass filled with eruptions of elemental magic and massive infernos consuming the grasslands beneath. Even the wall soon started to become more of a distant feature than a looming monument in the shadow of which they were fighting.
Only by the time they were flying almost two kilometers above even the highest point of the wall did Darganth start to slow down. Turning around as he came to a stop, he watched as his two opponents took up position a few dozen meters ahead of him.
"Took you that much effort just to keep up?" Darganth asked with a grin when he saw the spatial mage's heavy breathing as she floated opposite him.
"And? I doubt you're much better off, why else didn't you continue to flee into the cloud cover?" The spatial mage answered him with a sneer.
Hearing this, Darganth had to hide the brief confusion he felt before he remembered Serania's spell that still hung overhead. Internally, he admitted that it would've also been a good plan, but he took care that none of that showed on his face.
Or at least that none of it showed until Serania was ready. Because when he sensed the lightning gathering overhead, he couldn't keep the smirk from creeping onto his lips.
"Good guess, but no. We just needed to find an opening in your distortion field."
Having perfectly timed his words, Serania's attack tore through the clouds just as he said 'we'. Immediately, the eyes of both mages widened and their gazes shot up, quickly followed by their arms as they mobilized their mana to reinforce their shields.
Moments later, two bolts of lightning struck in unison. One purple and one yellow, they slammed into the two mages and tore into their shields.
Already having prepared for this moment, Darganth unleashed his own spell. "Fire dragon strike."
As the flames gathered into the shape of a dragon and shot forward, he himself dashed to the side. Exploiting an area of compressed distance to shorten his travel time despite the roundabout path, he arrived only a moment after his spell and struck.