While Daimon and the others waited at ground level, past above the clouds inside of the cubic white fortress, a battle of huge proportions was taking part.
The atmosphere itself trembled as the dark mist radiated by the masked guy clashed with Aurora's light mana, producing an aggressive reaction.
"Hissss!", a sizzling sound similar to the one produced by an acid dissolving something, but a thousand times amplified came from the point of the contact between the two different elements.
But there was a difference, while the masked guy was slowly but surely losing his ground, Aurora was calmly suppressing her enemy.
That being said, behind that calm expression of hers, she was furious and the next words of the masked guy were the last drop.
"Fucking hell, if only those idiots did their job to capture that little inferior being, this nuisance would have been out of our way", he venomously spat.
For the masked guy, it was obvious that his temporary ally lost to the woman that could bend space at will, because there were no more explosions of mana that could be perceived from the other side of the wall that Aurora created to separate them.
If the black robed guy had won, then he would have been bombarding Aurora's domain with lightning at all moments, so that she is worn out as that is their best chance to win, but since that wasn't the case, then it's obvious who lost and who won.
The only consolation the masked guy had was, that even if this "vessel" died, he will be fine, that's right, this one was one of the Nethereals that did have one of those black spheres as the core of its existence, granting him almost full immunity against pain, unlike Roger who was artificially made and so didn't have it.
Unfortunately, this time he miscalculated, Aurora has been trying to find a Nethereal with a relatively high position, one that would probably be able to provide more information regarding the enemy, and the words the guy said right now had two different meanings.
First, this guy was on a different level compared to the previous Nethereals they have met, and second, he was involved with the ones that tried to kidnap Jasmine, and so he was a valuable source of information, but first of all he was… a good way for Aurora to vent out some anger.
"Mm?", the masked guy suddenly noticed that the light which was clashing with his "Nether", stopped pushing forwards, which of course weirded him out, but he didn't stop in the ceremony and released more black mist until the whole area was covered on it.
"I don't know what are you planning, but I can tell you it's not going to work, you can't do anything to me", confidently said the masked guy as he searched for Aurora, which wasn't such a hard task, because a moving spot of bright white light is easy to notice within a sea of black mist.
Right now, Aurora was covered in a thin layer of white light, she didn't seem to be that different from before, but without anyone noticing, the outside of her domain had changed, the shields that were decorating the outer walls of the fortress had extended and combined, it had also stopped radiating light, but in exchange it started exuding an invisible pressure that dispelled all the nearby clouds.
From below, Daimon suddenly frowned as he raised his head, Bell, Sarah, Aisha, Ivonne, Jasmine and Thea did the same.
"It seems she is eager to test the results of our little experiment", casually said Daimon.
"Grandma is angry", mumbled Jasmine, which made the others that could feel the subtle change on the sensation the white fortress was giving off, due to a variety of reasons.
"It's been a while since I saw aunt being on the offensive", added Bell.
…
Back at the inside of the white fortress, the previously battle of attrition had taken a 180° change, instead of that, there was a white flash of light chasing an agglomeration of black mist all over the place.
Aurora had removed any walls to liberate some space which originally made the masked guy celebrate, thinking that she maybe spent too much mana into separating him from the black robed guy earlier, but that wasn't.
The white spot of light suddenly dispersed into countless white particles and the next thing the Nethereal knew, was that a giant mirror-like surface covered the walls, ground and roof of the castle.
And then in a flash of white light Aurora appeared out of thin air in front of him, but the Nethereal saw her retrieving her hand to form a fist, which made him snort, a mage was trying to punch him whose body is immune to physical pain, what's worse is that she wasn't using any light mana to attack him.
But then the next scene made his brain freeze, or in this case shake, because the moment Aurora's fist connected with his masked face, a cubic barrier appeared on her hand and clashed against the mask, destroying it on the process and sending the now maskless guy flying a few hundreds of meters.
The attack wasn't over though, before the Nethereal could process what just happened, Aurora was already waiting for him, and this time she impacted her forearm against the face of the Nethereal, which had new characteristics, compared to the others they had met, meaning it was yet another type, but right now that didn't matter.
That cubic barrier covered Aurora's forearm, and to the Nethereal's surprise and horror, the impact not only sent him flying once again, but his nose was broken which is normal considering the amount of force behind the impact, what is not normal is that there was a warm liquid coming out of his nose, he was bleeding!
'I-Impossible, she might be the strongest light user of this inferior planet, but at most she should be able to burn our vessels!', inwardly screamed the Nethereal.
Unfortunatley for him, Aurora didn't give him time to compose himself, she once again decomposed into light particles and then appeared behind the Nethereal, this time she kicked him on the stomach, once again that barrier covered the area of impact, and the stomach of the Nethereal dented inward.
"Gahhhh!", the Nethereal was horrified as he felt he was lacking air due to the harsh impact.
"What the hell is this, how can you make me experience the sensations you inferior beings experience!", he shouted, but Aurora's answer was another punch on the face, which this time make a couple of teeth flew out of the mouth of the Nethereal.
And that led to the current scene in which the battered figure that was hidden into that agglomeration, was desperately running away of a fierce flash of light that didn't stop chasing after it.
The Nethereal who had many bruises on his face, broken ribs, busted nose and quite a few teeth missing, tried to look for a way to runaway from this place, he also tried to contact his superior to inform of a horrifying discovery he made, the inferior beings they despised so much found a way to harm them, but none of the previous was possible for him.
"Damn it all, how can that woman keep such a tight restriction over space after fighting that idiot, did he didn't even tire her out fucking useless piece of trash!", the Nethereal was at the end of the rope.
There are many reasons as to why Daimon doesn't rely on the passive Dull Nerves, when one doesn't feel pain, senses deteriorate, because there is no need to worry about being wounded, since there is no obvious punishment, also there is no need for courage to fight when nothing can harm you, and that made this Nethereal runaway in despair since he was experiencing something he never expected from someone he looked down upon, pain.
Naturally that doesn't mean Daimon likes pain, Dull Nerves is a great anti-measure for recovery or a last resort for when he has to put his life on the line, in a do or die kind of situation, the only one that is crazy enough to put herself into dangerous situations willingly, so far, is Sarah, but she is a bad example considering that even for Nethereal standards she is a weird one.
Suddenly the flash of light doubled its speed, cutting the way of the Nethereal and before he could react a fist landed on his face, white shields covered a spherical area of around thirty meters, after Aurora landed the first hit, she flashed and then appeared in a completely opposite direction, just in time to use her knee to hit the stomach of the Nethereal.
Once she started, she didn't stop, her image flashed all over the area encircled by those white shields and each time, she landed a heavy hit on the enemy.
"What "Experience what we feel", this isn't even near to the pain I felt when you, abominations killed my daughter, but don't worry, when we finish with you, you'll be able to understand us way much better, including the sensation of death!".
After hitting the Nethereal to the content of her heart, which resulted in literal holes in the body of the latter due to the constant impacts, which turned the Nethereal into a bloody pulp, the black sphere naturally tried to escape, but then Aurora who emerged from the white flash close her hand and the shields that were previously being used for her technique, created light walls connecting each other to form a dodecahedron, that trapped the black sphere.
The black sphere started clashing against light walls trying to escape, Aurora simply snapped her fingers and the previously large dodecahedron shrank until it was tightly wrapped around, he black sphere, but she didn't stop there and actually forced the dodecahedron to shrank to the point that it was applying an insane pressure around the core.
"Aghhhh!", a pained scream came from the black sphere, before it finally stopped moving, according to Daimon, these black spheres probably contained the consciousness of the Nethereals, that or they were their real bodies, or part of them, more investigation was needed.
What was 100% sure, is that if these black spheres were destroyed, then they will truly die, Daimon confirmed it because the Nethereal that was put under a terror contract by him, was removed from the list after the curse activated, so he was as dead as one can be.
The white dodecahedron flew towards Aurora's hands and landed on it, at the same time the cubic white fortress dispelled into many white shards that returned to Aurora's body.
"I might have overdone it a bit, I could have trapped it from the very beginning… whatever "field tests" were needed anyway and I do feel quite refreshed", mumbled the Matriarch of the Light Palace.
The brutal beating wasn't strictly necessary, she could have trapped the Nethereal and then crush his body until only the black sphere was left, but she wanted to personally give a few punches to these guys, and she also needed to test something they discovered thanks to Roger.
And it worked like a charm, which meant they now had a way to fight back, so she will be contacting Sylvie so that everyone past the mortal realm starts training in a very specific way.
Aurora descended from the sky and then landed next to Thea, the barrier she placed around Daimon and the others earlier, dispelled revealing them to the young members of the angelfish clan, as well as the two elders, that now confirmed there was a man accompanying Marlene.
Speaking of Marlene, she turned to see Thea who nodded at her, before they both gazed at Daimon.
"We are going to take the other girls out of the barrier", they said.
"I'll gather and restrain all the prisoners together, little Bell, lend me a hand", added Aurora who seemed to be in a good mood.
Daimon nodded, as he disappeared from where he was standing, landing on the deck of one of the many ships that were surrounding the hideout of the angelfish clan, the next scenario required him to do some preparations, and the first one was a tragic battlefield.
He took out his mirror plate and then sent a message, in response to it a portal appeared in front of him, from which two figures came out, it was Remi and Roger.
Remi kneeled down in font of Daimon, while Roger was forced to put his face on the ground by Remi.
"Roger, go destroy those ships with your black mist exclusively, you supervise him, you know what to do if he tries anything funny".
"Yes, young master", answered Remi, who was now wearing a mask, Daimon didn't refer to him by his name of course, after that Daimon used blink again to appear on the ship where Fabio and Milo were laying down fainted.
Thea earlier took their storage rings just in case, and they couldn't leave or communicate due to her spatial restriction which still in place, but didn't affect those that were recognized as allies, so even if they woke up there was anything they could do.
Aurora restrained Fabio and then brought him away, while Daimon grabbed Milo by his neck and then he smacked him against the deck of the ship.
"Aghh!", the pain actually woke up the black and orange haired guy, whose eyes opened just to see a silver haired young man with a mask smirking at him.
"I have a job for you", said Daimon.
Milo saw the malicious smile on the face of the silver haired youth and he had a bad premonition, unfortunately even if he was alive thanks to his magic beast ascendance, he was so weakened that any Lord rand would be able to kill him, Thea damaged him to that point, on purpose of course.
So, he had no other choice to comply to keep his life, little did he know that at this point, death might have been a better option compared to what he will experience later, but for now he listened to Daimon's instructions and obediently used his fire to burn down one of the ships.
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