Vell's crystalline form fractured the air, and prismatic shards lashed out like angry serpents. The twelve Guardians did not flinch, and the woman with mercury hair snapped her fingers, time seemed to stutter.
The shards froze mid-air.
"Cute," she said, her voice dripping with disdain. "But crude."
Her companion, the man wrapped in chains of light, flicked his wrist. The chains unspooled, and each link hummed with celestial energy. They coiled around Vell's shards, not to restrain, but to purify. The fragments hissed, and black smoke curled from their edges as the light seared into them.
[Master, that is holy mana! It is countering your absorption!]
Vell's laughter echoed through the chamber, warped and layered. "Holy? Please." His fractured voice sharpened. "I will make it unholy."