Dragon Gods Reign

[Beast continent]

Fuming as Jennia's lips curled up in a mocking smile, the third order aura user tightened the grip on his mace in rage. Taking a step forward and preparing to launch at her, he was stopped only by the mage holding him by the shoulder.

“Calm yourself first, you're playing into its hand.” The mage warned.

“And? Give me half a minute and I'll have Eldriog avenged.”

Pausing for a moment as he looked at his colleague, the mage just sighed in resignation and let go of his shoulder.

“But watch out, I still can't sense the dragon we were sent here for.” The mage said.

Disappearing as soon as the mage's hand left his shoulder, the aura user turned into nothing more than a blur until he slowed down a couple dozen meters in front of Jennia to conjure his avatar. Rising into the air, a towering mana construct shimmered to life around him.

At around twenty-five meters tall, his aura avatar dwarfed those of the other aura users and even surpassed Jennia in height, at least if she didn't raise her heads.

“Normally I would promise to make it swift if you hold still, but we're far past that. So let's see which element I'll destroy this time.”

Ignoring Jennia chuckling in amusement in response to his words, he stepped into her striking range. Reaching back with his mace, he swung it up in a crescent arc that aimed directly at her chest.

Surprised by the speed he displayed, Jennia's eyes widened in shock as she barely managed to jump back to avoid the blow. Hastily moving her head out of the way of the horizontal swing that followed directly after, she was forced to back away even further.

Seeing him transitioning seamlessly to another swing, this time an overhead one aimed centrally onto her back, she was forced to call upon her elemental control to stop him. Letting multiple stone formations surge out of the ground around her, she formed them into an intersecting grid of columns that all reinforced each other.

A moment after she created the desired structure, the aura user's mace struck. Chipping off pieces of stone and leaving cracks on impact, the swing nonetheless didn't break through as most of its energy was transferred into the ground, causing the earth below to shift slightly.

Using the opening this left in the beastman's defenses, Jennia struck out before he could lift his weapon again. Controlling the nearby air to rotate around her, she started by sending a small tornado towards him.

While this barely fazed the third order beastman, the slowly expanding torrent of wind didn't stop when it reached him, instead continuing toward the other aura users. Using the seconds this delayed their arrival at their comrade's side, Jennia lunged at her opponent.

Using the claws of one of her limbs to puncture the shoulder of his weapon-wielding arm, she balled her other claw into a fist. Further enhancing her already considerable strength with external lightning aura, she struck out.

Punching the aura avatar square in the chest with all her might, she managed to send it flying back with enough force that the avatar's feet momentarily left the ground.

Crashing to the ground a couple of meters away, the aura user managed to control his avatar to push up and into a flip, quickly returning to his feet. Looking up in a hurry but finding Jennia not attempting to press her advantage, he relaxed slightly and stood up from his lowered stance.

Taking a moment to move his already regenerated right shoulder as losing control over an arm had been uncomfortable even if it only had been that of his avatar, his gaze started drifting to the missing mace that was knocked out of the avatar's hand. Sighing at the waste of mana as he conjured a new mace, he finally returned his attention to Jennia.

“Seem like it's time to stop playing around.” She said as all six remaining aura users closed in on her.

Turning one head around and looking at the section of the wall next to her, she nodded seemingly without reason.

Stopping for a moment as they followed her gaze with confused looks, the aura users' irritation only grew when they found nothing there. Simply shrugging in response, they were already taking their next steps toward Jennia when an unknown domain suddenly blanketed the area.

Completely taken by surprise by it, the eyes collectively widened in fear as their aura avatars began to flicker and shrink. Acting purely on reflex, some tried to fight it and stabilize their avatars while the others simply accepted the waste of mana and dispersed their avatar.

One after another the avatars of those that tried to resist collapsed over the course of a couple seconds, leaving the beastmen that conjured them to drop to the ground unceremoniously. In the end, only the third order aura master remained encased in an avatar, though even his had been reduced to being barely larger than a base-sized one of five meters.

Despite this, he stayed steadfast even as he came face to face with Jennia. Stopping her charge even as his aura avatar's strength waned with every second, he kept on fighting to keep her away from the other aura users.

Fortunately for him, her elemental control was also affected by the domain. So even though she was by no means incapable of using it, the threat it posed to the five aura users wasn't something they couldn't handle, especially once they formed up in a defensive formation, ready for whatever the new opponent might throw at them.

At the same time, the two mages had their own trouble due to the domain. Both were starting to have problems keeping their continuous spells active as they became harder to control, though this problem was even more pronounced for Jaron.

Whereas his more powerful ally could still keep the shield spell around him, his flight spell, and multiple less important spells of all variety active, even if with some difficulty, he was having trouble with just three.

Making the quick decision to descend back to the ground to focus on his personal shield and detection spell, he landed on the open ground behind the aura users. Knowing that staying there would leave him far too exposed, he hastily started moving toward the formation of aura users despite the situation they were currently in.

Standing in a loose circle, their backs facing inward, they were forced to keep constant vigil from the frequent arrows fired their way. Each one would come from a different direction, with some even seeming to originate further into their camp. And despite the five beastmen holding on, the constant attacks were keeping them from joining the fight against Jennia.

Hoping to rely on their defensive effort to unleash his spells without fear of reprisal, Jaron communicated his idea to them with a single look before rushing toward them. What he didn't expect was that as soon as he stepped into the small circle, their attacker included him as a target causing a sudden impact to strike his shield spell. In an instant, he felt an abrupt drain on his mana reserves as a patch of dark red fog appeared and stopped the projectile.

In an instant his face dropped as he noticed how much mana this one attack cost him. And as reactive type shields like the one he was using used mana proportional to the strength of the impact, he instantly elevated the danger that this new attacker posed.

Momentarily considering whether he should switch to a static type of shield, it didn't take him long to decide against it. While this type of shield wouldn't abruptly drain a part of his mana pool with every impact, conjuring and sustaining it was far more costly mana-wise than the near-zero base usage of reactive shields.

Of course, this flexibility was balanced out by other factors, namely that even though both types of shield could achieve the same level of robustness, when pushed to this full potential the reactive shield was considerably more costly in its mana usage. Not even its trait that this full power can be concentrated on specific spots fully negated this drawback, though it results in reactive shields being more efficient against powerful attacks that are concentrated on a small spot.

All of this information and some more has to be constantly considered by a mage in their decision of which type of shield spell to use. To further complicate it, a small number of shield spells don't fall into either category. These spells generally have more unique traits that differentiate them from other shield spells, though at the cost of lacking the overarching traits of either category.

As Jaron made his decision on this, his attacker also noticed at which result he arrived. Reaching for the quiver on her back, Allaire pulled three more arrows from it and knocked them onto the string of her bow.

Dashing out of her position behind some debris and directly sprinting for the next piece of cover, she unleashed the arrows right before she jumped behind it. A moment later the arrows struck their target, impacting Jaron's shield and exploding in a bright flash of light.

Shielding his eyes and waiting for the light to subside, Jaron prepared a couple of spells to fire into the direction the arrows came from.

Spinning around into Allaire's direction the moment the light vanished, he suddenly felt a large concentration of mana gathering in the sky. Looking up without stopping his spells, he couldn't even curse at the sight of the dark clouds hanging overhead before they discharged the gathered energy.

Bolting down from the skies, a bolt of lightning multiple meters thick descended amidst their formation. Landing right next to Jaron and cracking the ground open, it exploded into smaller arcs of electricity that jumped through the air and latched onto him and the aura users.

Fortunately for him, his shield caught the bolts heading for him, allowing him to focus on regaining balance after the shockwave that swept through the area along with them.

The aura users on the other hand were off considerably worse. While the shockwave harmlessly passed by them, the electric arcs easily latched onto their bodies. Burning through all but the densest aura constructs, they left scorching marks on the aura users as they flooded their bodies with enough electricity to force them to freeze up.

Knowing he had to act, Jaron let his mana flood into the surroundings. In an instant, he felt the pressure of the domain being alleviated. Further expanding this elemental field he was now conjuring, he was relieved when he saw it weaken the arcs of lightning enough to allow the aura users to escape.

Gathering near him as he reduced the area his elemental field covered to cut down on the rather substantial amount of mana this technique cost him, they didn't relax and prepared for another attack that never came.

Instead, a new presence appeared on the battlefield, descending from the skies from right where the bolt of lightning had originated. Landing next to the small crater the bolt's impact had caused, the red-haired woman looked at them with an unnerving calmness.

Before any of them could react to her presence, a familiar presence appeared above them.

“Leor, I thought-” Jaron started addressing his fellow mage.

“You can stop hiding, I can sense you.” Leor shouted, cutting Jaron off.

His words were followed by a moment of silence, with only the slight sound of movements being audible as the group around Jaron turned around to cover all directions.

After a moment, the space near the woman cracked open as a rift formed there. Snaking outward, the small tears spread out into the surroundings as the rift of pure silver expanded until it was large enough for an adult human to fit through.

“Impressive, I would have thought that I could make it all the way to Inrad before someone found me.” Answered a voice from beyond the rift shortly before stepping out.

Letting the rift vanish as soon as he fully stepped through it, Darganth walked up to Serania and stopped by her side.

“Well, he did send you to hunt me down so I probably should have expected some level of skill.” Darganth added.

Tightening the grip on their weapons, the beastmen looked at him nervously.

“Then let's see whether Inrad's assessment of you was right, shall we?” Darganth said and flared his mana, an action that Serania mirrored.