Two more fights

[Ilnori]

With the mage taken care of, Darganth expanded his focus across the entire glacier and beyond.

By then, the glacier's expansion had stopped, with the people caught in its path laying scattered before its wall, covered in what remained of the trees that had also been uprooted. Wounded and disorientated, they presented a vivid reminder of the gap between mythic ranks and how destructive merely one attack from the more powerful individuals among them could be.

In stark contrast to this, the ragged surface on top of the glacier was meanwhile as calm as any frozen tundra would be.

Apart from Darganth, only a few mages that had been at an optimal distance from the epicenter had even made it over the side. But having been unaware of the continued danger the ice posed, they had became trapped in the same situation the mage Darganth had fought had been in.

With protruding ice formations, abrupt cliffs, and bulges in the ground blocking many from even seeing those from the opposing side that were trapped with them, the fighting there was only sparse. And by the time Darganth had won his fight, even those few exchanges ceased as the trapped mages either realized in time that they couldn't simultaneously fight and hold back the ice trying to encase them or succumbed to the creeping cold.

Deciding to leave these men and women be, Darganth turned his attention away from them and toward where the fight had shifted to. Breaking what little ice had crawled up his legs before the expansion stopped by lightly shaking his feet, he rose into the air to get a good look at it.

Ignoring the sudden moment of silence this caused and the shouts of the elves trying to get his attention that followed it, he flew back toward the fight.

Staying below the altitude at which the two groups of mages fought, he passed over easily a kilometer of ice, giving him enough time to survey the state of the battle as well as search for his wives and see how they were doing.

Spotting Jennia and Serania when he turned his gaze onto the fortress that now stood in the shadow of a massive mountain of ice that ended mere meters away from it, he watched as they fought off a group of five humans that seemed to be trying to get to the lower ranked soldier taking shelter in it.

Standing on one of the central tower's many balconies, they rained spells and arrows down onto the approaching enemies.

Faced with their attacks, the intruders were forced to hunker down amid the barracks that surrounded the tower. Sprinting along the corridors connecting them, they slowly made progress toward the two's position despite the wounds they suffered along the way.

As such, right when Darganth turned his gaze toward the fortress, the first of them reached the base of the tower. Shattering the barrier that could have held back a second rank for eternity with a single swing of his sword, the man was about to breach through the main gate when Serania swung herself over the railing and jumped down from the balcony.

Gathering lightning around herself during the fall, she let it surge into her outstretched arm before unleashing it in one massive surge the moment her feet touched the ground.

Striking the human aura user from close range, she sent thousands of volts crashing into his back. With nothing but external aura and the physique of an aura user to protect him, this surge of electricity immediately caused his muscles to spasm uncontrollably, causing the man's sword to clatter to the ground as it fell out of his hand.

Keeping one arm pointed at him even after this, Serania turned toward the four other humans that were approaching her by then without interrupting her attack. Raising her free arm toward one of the two mages among them, she took control of the mana around him.

Not expecting such an action, the mage failed to materialize the spell he was casting at that moment as the natural mana around him pushed back against the mana he sent out, thus preventing it from exerting its influence on the elemental energies.

Before the harmless streak of mana that thus shot through the air where his spell would have been even ended, Serania was already readying her counterattack.

Making a grasping motion in the direction of the stupefied mage, she took hold of the space just outside his control shield and forced it to constrict around him.

Abruptly turning around when they heard their ally's panicked scream as Serania's spell squeezed tighter around him, the three remaining human mana users nonetheless kept their composure.

Acting decisively, the two mana users immediately broke out into a sprint while unleashing their domain onto her.

As they rushed at her, the other mage in the group raised his arms in their direction. With his motion, a red glow momentarily appeared around them.

Immediately, their speed rose abruptly, with their movement becoming nearly twice as fast in an instant. Not stopping there, it kept rising as the glow seemed to sink into their bodies, with the men moving over thrice as fast at the end when compared to before the spell.

Slightly unsettled by the extreme boost they received, Serania stopped the lightning she was still channeling and prepared to teleport. Aiming the blink spell's target location past the two aura users and as close to the mage as she could, she didn't directly activate it and waited for the former to get even closer.

But just as the two men came within twenty meters of her, a distance that would take them under a fifth of a second to cross, she felt two elven presences appear from above.

With her vastly sped-up thoughts making the distance be more equivalent to forty meters to normal humans despite this extreme speed, Serania had enough leeway to hesitate in activating her spell. Forced to rely on her mana sense as she couldn't turn her head even remotely fast enough to look up at them, she debated and ultimately decided to hold her ground.

This decision quickly proved to at least not have been a mistake, with the two elves that she had sensed each appearing behind one of the human aura users in a blur of darkness. Slashing their daggers down along with their descent, they incapacitated one of the two before even stepping out of the veil of shadows that had obscured their approach.

Leaving the protecting of his elemental manifestation when it immediately became clear that his opponent was out of the fight when the man's right arm went limp, one of the newly arrived elves directly moved to join in fighting the second enemy.

Dashing across the battlefield, the elf moved toward the other aura user right as the latter was in the midst of turning toward his attacker.

Pushing himself off the ground, he pushed forward with such a speed that gravity barely had any time to affect him. As such, he effectively jumped nearly ten meters forward, though it looked more like hovering due to how close to the ground his feet were.

And because an aura user's strength grew by a far greater amount relative to their species base state than the speed at which they could move their limbs, something that also applied to nearly every power system and species, this burst of speed propelled him faster than the two humans steps had been and made him appear behind his target nearly instantaneously.

Catching the human aura user still in his turn, the elf weaved around the man's shield-carrying arm and thrust his dagger upward at the latter's armpit.

With this limb thus immobilized, the other elf had nothing more to fear after their opponent's sword passed by above him. Stepping forward and closing the distance between them to almost nothing, he raised one of his daggers and pierced it through the gap below the human's helmet, puncturing his throat.

Pushing the man backward along with this strike, the elven aura user left his human counterpart to stumble backward and collapse.

Not even sparing him a further glance, he immediately turned and was about to follow his colleague in pursuing the mage when a streak of light flashed above them. Striking the latter's shield, it punched glowing cracks into the swirling sphere of transparent dark red energy.

Staring at the arrow whose tip now hovered mere centimeters from his head with wide eyes, the man shakily raised his hands in surrender.

Glancing to the side upon seeing this, Serania watched as Allaire landed next to her a moment later.

"A forewarning would've been nice." The latter complained lightheartedly, shaking her head with a grin as she spoke.

"Sorry, but I barely had any plan myself. After taking out the first one I just went with the flow." Serania said with an apologetic shrug.

"For that you canceled the spell quite well." Allaire said surprised.

Smiling lightly at the compliment, Serania shook her head in disagreement.

"I was lucky that it took him by surprise. Against someone who is prepared for it, I would still not be able to achieve anything with this ability." She said.

"Don't sell yourself short. You gained at least two of the magic-orientated traits that are innate to dragons and can already use one. Even with it being the one they share with many legendary species, that's still quite an accomplishment. Between that and Jennia's potential to become a true dragon practically any day she wants, I sometimes wished to have an overpowered ability of my own." Allaire said encouragingly.

Nodding with a smile, Serania said, "Well, I wouldn't bet against Darganth being able to give you an innate ability if you asked."

"Probably. There are so many stories that include someone gaining one later in life that there likely are ways. And if it's possible, Darganth for sure knows how to do it. So maybe I'll ask him one day, but for now, it's not a priority of mine."

As she spoke, Allaire looked up into the distance where Darganth flew with a dreamy smile.

Only having watched her and Serania for a few seconds before something else had demanded his attention, Darganth was by then already focusing on a different part of the battlefield.

There, Jennia was stalking through the forest in pursuit of a group of three human mythic ranks.

Using the darkness element to hide from their senses, she struck from the shadows of the forest with rapid assaults only to vanish back into the trees. Without giving them any reprieve, she would reemerge a few seconds later for another attack, appearing from completely random and, for the elapsed time, impossible directions.

Furthermore, even in the short moments when she was outside the shadows, even Darganth couldn't perceive her in more detail than that of a shifting mass of darkness. As such, only when he saw her burst through the group of humans and vanish northwards only to follow the same path again a second later did Darganth realize what she was doing.

Grinning at this, Darganth tucked in his wings and leaned forward for a dive.

Rapidly plummeting toward the utterly terrified group of humans, he completely avoided their attention as he rushed at them.

While he was on his way, Jennia again burst forth from behind a set of especially dense growing trees. Like a blur she shot at her opponent's formation, sending them scattering in panic as she cut four parallel gashes into the ground with a swing of her claw.

Pausing for not even one moment, she immediately turned sharply to the right. Dashing in that direction, she grazed against the mana user who had dodged there and quickly vanished back into the forest.

Quickly catching himself mid-turn before he fell in the wake of this collision, the man in question showed no signs of irritation and immediately rejoined the other two of his group.

Gathering in a small circle with their backs facing one another, they wearily watched the darkness that surrounded them. Restlessly scanning it for the next attack, they kept glancing left to right with fearful eyes.

Though this tactic had previously worked great and allowed them to spot Jennia's attacks early enough, Darganth's arrival changed that.

Remaining undetected all the way until the moment he came crashing down onto their formation, he took the three aura user by surprise as he landed in the middle of their formation.

Shaking the ground with the force of his landing and sending splinters flying as trees snapped under his weight, Darganth used the moment while their footing was off to lash out with his tail. Letting it snap toward one of the humans like a whip, he tore off the man's arm and sent him flying before he could even process what was happening.

At the same time, Jennia came rushing in from five different directions. This time she also wasn't hued in a cloak of shadows, revealing that four of the five bodies had only a single head, while the last one merely had two.

Of the five, the four one-headed versions of Jennia then immediately stormed at the two still mostly unharmed enemies. But though both the mages quickly reacted by firing waves of spells at the charging versions of her, Darganth only momentarily glanced at them before turning toward the sole two-headed body.

Standing behind the tree his attack had flung the aura user into, this Jennia had pierced her claw through the trunk and impaled this enemy.

Looking at Darganth with her two necks stretching past this tree on different sides, she momentarily mustered the handful of patches where he was still missing some scales from the earlier exchange.

"You've looked better." She said jokingly, causing Darganth to chuckle.

"They'll be back in a day or two." He answered with a shrug.

Right as he said that, he sensed Jennia's mana surge, followed by a comfortable warmth washing over him. With it, he felt new scales grow out of his skin and seamlessly fill the patches where his old ones had been ripped off.

Looking at her with a raised eyebrow in response, he added, "No need to waste the mana on healing was what I was gonna say."

"I have the reserves to spare. And seeing you in your unblemished glory is never a waste." She said, lovingly nudging her neck against Darganth's.

"Only you would flirt on a battlefield." He said with an internal chuckle.

Moving around the tree separating them, Jennia casually came to a stop in front of Darganth while her four other bodies were still fighting the two mages.

As they were created through the mythic rank ability that all dragon hydras at that stage, these weren't simply clones but rather split bodies that were still connected to and controlled by her singular overarching consciousness. Thus, when she moved her two-headed body to stand by Darganth's side, she still had a perfect awareness of the surroundings through the eyes of these four other bodies.

"So, where is our next target?" Jennia asked.