The first one to make a move was none other than Aurora, since she will be fighting two high stage Stellar enemies, the collateral damage might be too much, so the first thing she did was of course… summon her domain.
"Radiant Fortress", though Aurora could manipulate space and also had mana sense, her capacity to manipulate space was poorly developed, to the point that she couldn't transport anyone that has surpassed the Half Stellar realm, unlike Vincent or Thea.
But in exchange, unlike them she did develop a domain, that being said, the members of the royal lineage of the Light Palace, weren't meant for combat, their strength lied in a wide range of light support spells.
That doesn't mean they can't use offensive oriented light spells, but their light element isn't a destructive one like Daimon's, but the healing type, meaning that their offensive will always be lower when compared to battle oriented enemies.
Support mages are an existence in the middle of offensive and defensive mages, they have the capacity to use both types of spells, but they aren't as skilled in neither of them, but that doesn't mean they are weak.
Especially when they posses a wide arsenal of boosting type spells, like Aurora, the moment she summoned her domain, a giant white ethereal fortress covered her and the two high stage Stellar enemies.
Unlike the spell "Silver Fortress" that increased both the physical and magical defenses on the allies, there is a counterpart called "Light Fortress" which does something similar but, on the caster, that was the spell Jasmine used when Adam left her to die.
The difference is that while Silver Fortress is a boost, Light Fortress is a barrier that protects everything in a certain range.
Daimon observed the silver brick cubic castle with giant shields attached to its walls, that appeared out of nowhere with curiosity in his eyes.
"Grandma once explained to me how was her domain made, she used Silver Fortress as the base and then added Light Fortress to it, which resulted in her Radiant Fortress, after that, she became skilled in barriers like the one that is protecting us right now", said Jasmine.
Daimon nodded, the domains he knows off are the result of three things, the automatic defensive spell created by a mage when it reaches the Lord rank which is linked to its Manifestation Phenomenon, and the comprehension of laws that is achieved after reaching the Arch rank as well as spell chose by the mage.
In other words, two spells and comprehension of laws form a domain at the four galaxies, but here in Neptune no one has a developed a proper Manifestation Phenomenon, but some do learn an automatic defensive spell in the Lord rank, it's just that most of the times it is discarded, because it is not as effective as wearing a high-quality defensive equipment, not to mention the spell drains the mana reserves of the mage.
For example, some pirates had it, and they were forced to use it back at the beast hunt due tot heir lack of decent equipment, Daimon and the others easily pierced through it though, but that could be because of the lack of Manifestation Phenomenon that Neptune natives have.
Otherwise, they would have been able to resist a bit better against Daimon's group attacks, the result would have been the same but they could have put up more of a fight.
All the girls had their defensive spells but they left them aside, and instead used high quality defensive items, for the same reason, and similar to that, Aurora didn't include the defensive spell into the creation of her domain, instead of that she used two legacy spells of the Light Palace, which resulted in a decently strong domain.
'I bet miss Aliya is going to be ecstatic to learn about Neptune native's mage path', thought Daimon, he was also curious about what will happen when Mellie and the others enter the galaxies, will they be able to obtain what they lack, will their realms regress in exchange, or will nothing happen.
Leaving that aside, Aurora's domain which extended for around a kilometer but only dragged the two high stage Stellars and herself, raised into the sky past the clouds, as Aurora took her fight far away from this place.
Since all the mortal realm soldiers, Lora included, were earlier hit by Aurora's mana pressure, they were all out of combat, their bodies powerlessly floated on the sea next to the ships they brought, but they couldn't move, unknown to them, white chains that became invisible were restraining their bodies, but the difference between realms was too high for them to notice.
So that only left the tall middle-aged guy, which Daimon supposed was the other vice leader of the branch of Black Wave in the Maelstrom Sea, who according to Roger, was called Fabio, because the leader Romel advanced to the middle stage after a few days of accepting the power of a Nethereal from that Garrius guy, while the vice-leaders that were half Stellars advanced to the early stage of the Stellar realm.
Daimon still didn't know what made some directly become ugly creatures like Roger, while others stayed in the black mist stage like Fabio or Romel, but that's what interrogation and "tests" existed for, so he just needed to capture Fabio and the answer will naturally come to him.
There was also an interesting supposition that appeared in his mind after hearing to some of the things that Miriam and Lora mentioned, as well as the particular split color hair of the other guy that seemed to be leading the enemy forces.
While the black and orange haired guy didn't recognize Thea, Fabio who is the one in charge of information in this branch of Black Wave, not to mention Romel participated in the ambush that the pirates pulled on Marlene, of course recognized the Black Empress, and his face paled on the spot.
Some didn't consider Thea to be on the same level as the other three magic beasts that ruled the middle area of the Maelstrom Sea, as she is a middle stage Stellar while the others are at the high stage.
But those who had personally seen or experienced a battle with Thea, would not dare to look down on her and Fabio belongs to the second category, also the murderous gaze on Thea's eyes was more than obvious.
"Milo, let's join hands to take her on!", he shouted at the black and orange haired guy, which made the latter snort.
"Fabio, it seems I overestimated you; the enemy is just a middle stage Stellar, with the power I obtained from Lord Envoy, I can easily jump realms and control her, you can coward behind if you want to, but she'll be mine kekeke", the moment Milo saw Thea's elegant and beautiful appearance he already had plans for her.
He has been living in a paradise lately, because his superiors weren't interested in women, so, besides some specific targets, he could keep whoever he wanted without asking for permission.
But now right in front of him, one of his favorite women, Lora, was attacked and wounded, he was furious.
Before Fabio could say anything else, Milo took out his weapon, a serrated sword and then exploded in dark orange flames as he became a meteor that rushed towards Thea.
"Shit, fucking ignorant bastard!", Fabio cursed, he took out his mirror plate to contact Romel, and his expression became unsightly when he noticed that the thing wasn't working.
"Clang!", the sounds of metal colliding echoed through the battlefield, as Thea effortlessly blocked Milo's sword with the edge of her black spear.
Milo's eyes widened, Thea trusted her spear and he was pushed backwards all the way next to Fabio who immediately took out his weapon, a white harpoon, just in time to block Thea's attack.
The Black Empress's flashed and the next thin everyone knew was that she was in front of Fabio and Milo, as she laterally swept her black spear at them, Milo and Fabio used their weapons to block at the same time, and as result they felt their hands shaking, sparks flew all over the place due to the friction of Thea retrieving her spear to continue with her attack.
She pierced her spear towards the left side of Fabio's chest, since she wasn't supposed to kill him, the vice-leader of Black Wave paled as he shouted.
"Help me block, if one of us loses we are both death!".
Milo's confidence was long gone, while Fabio blamed him, if they took the initiative to attack together, they might have been able to gain the upper ground from the beginning, but now they were forced to a passive situation.
Still the black and orange haired guy knew Fabio was telling the truth, in a 1v1 fight, none of them stood even a small chance of victory, so he used the serrated side of his sword to block the spear from the side, and then a horrible smile appeared on his face.
His sword was designed to be used as a weapon breaker, and with his newly acquired power, he was confident he could at least leave some chips on the edge of the black spear.
The serrated side of the sword heated to the point that its color changed from the gray metallic original one, to bright orange one, and then Milo fiercely moved his sword back and forth as if it was trying to saw through the black spear.
But the scene of a deep scar appearing on the weapon of the enemy didn't appear, instead of that the unmistakable sound of metal cracking made its way into everyone's ears.
"Crack!", under Milo's surprised eyes, many of the serrated teeth of his sword, broke and Thea's spear continued its trust towards Fabio's chest, luckily for the assassin, the precious milliseconds that Milo earned for him, allowed him to dodge sidewards avoiding a thin black line of light that zig-zagged on the air where he was floating a second ago, landing on one of the many ships that were surrounding the hideout of the angelfish clan.
There was no shockwave or explosion, but the moment the line of black light made contact with the ship, it turned into giant head of a snake made out of black energy, which bit off the ship, a huge hole was cleanly made on the ship before it sank on the spot.
Thea's darkness has space property, her attack opened a small controlled rift on the space, which swallowed a giant piece of the ship, including the defensive formations and the materials of the ship.
Fabio was pale, if that attack landed on him, then wouldn't a hole would have been created in his body he wondered, this was what put Thea on the same level as the other three magic beast rulers, her darkness element was incredibly dangerous.
And combining it with the ling reach of a spear and the innately high strength she had as a descendant of a magic beast, made her an enemy to be wary off, it's worth mentioning that her father didn't have the same type of darkness as her, and she was in fact the youngest ever member of her clan to take the role of a ruler of the region that has belonged to her family for countless generations.
"Damn it all!", Fabio shouted, black mist leaked out of his body creating a deformed black sphere which used to be his domain, but after his attribute and affinity was overwritten when he chose to enter the path to become a Nethereal, ended up looking like this, appeared around him.
Milo didn't hesitate to do the same, orange flames exploded out his body, unlike Fabio, his domain wasn't deformed, and properly took the form of a dark orange waving sea, both domains took Thea by "surprise" engulfing her into their range, surprisingly they didn't repel each other, but mingled together, probably because Milo's flames weren't fully of fire affinity as his half black and half orange hair suggested.
The young members of the angelfish clan what were seeing the fight from behind the barrier of their hideout, tried to innocently warn Thea to dodge even though it was obvious that their voices couldn't reach her from so far, considering they were only Lord ranks.
But Miriam and Laura calmed them down telling them everything will be fine, that being said, they were both inwardly worried of Thea.
Unlike the younger girls, they aren't as sheltered, so they do know about the outside world as they are the sole remaining members of the previous generations, and it is their job to be informed as they periodically come out accompanying Marlene to gather information.
And the pressures that Milo and Fabio were exuding weren't the ones early-stage Stellar ranks should have, at least not from their point of view.
'If I were you, I'll cover those girl's eyes, Marlene mentioned they are too innocent to see what's about to happen'.
Miriam and Laura were taken by surprise as the voice of a young man reached their ears, which made the two of them look in panic, thinking their hideout was infiltrated.
'I'm one of Marlene's friends, you can't see me because senior Aurora casted an optic illusion over us'.
Miriam and Laura stared at each other, that voice clearly belonged to a man, it's not like they hated men, but certainly it was harder for any member of the angelfish clan to trust one, because they had to hide mainly because of that superstition, which caused all the male nobles to covet them, not to mention they all were born with superior appearances.
Ultimately, they both decided to follow the instructions they were told, because they could see that Thea indeed looked angry earlier, and the young girls had already been through a lot for a single day, considering they were attacked and saw one of their mother figures die, while other betrayed them too.
As if it was orchestrated, the moment the members of the angelfish clan were told to turn their looks away, two pained screams came from the agglomeration of black mist and dark orange flames.
"Ahhhhhh!".
"No stop pleaseee!!!".
At the same time, giant black snakes came from within the inside of the domains, piercing holes through them and then wrapping around them, before they forcefully crushed the domains to reveal the result of the fight.
Thea floated there with an elegant but fierce aura surrounding her, she was perfectly fine, without even her pretty black dress suffering any damage.
On the other hand, Milo and Fabio were covered in blood form head to toe, they had clean holes of different sizes covering all the non-vitals areas of their bodies, it was as if they were bitten of by some kind of fierce magic beast, the one who seemed to be suffering the most was Milo whose hands were covering the area between his legs, while tears came down of his eyes.
The next moment, the eyes of the two enemies rolled backwards as they fainted, due to the mix of massive blood loss and the excruciating pain they were suffering, their bodies fell from the sky and they landed on the deck of one of the many ships, it was unknown whether they were alive or not.
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