2667 Remember Me (Part 1)
The answer was no, Nova Spells weren't the cause of the gap between the tower Lith had used back at the Feymar mines and the one in M'Rael's hands.
The problem was that even when Lith still had just a blue core, he had fought alongside Solus, not against her. No matter how many opponents they faced, he took care of the physical aspect of the fight while she dealt with intel and spells.
Solus was the one manipulating the tower and operating its enchantments. She was the one collecting the data from the Sentries and filtering only the relevant bits.
M'Rael, instead, was doing it all on his own. The tower was actually several times stronger than it had been at the Feymar mines. It had recovered many floors, the Eyes, and the Mouth
Yet M'Rael was but one elf and there was a limit to what his focus could achieve.
On top of that, there was a reason the Void Demon Dragon had blasted M'Rael and the tower with the Dread Flames despite knowing that they would hurt Solus. Lith had learned the hard way that the tower was set to prioritize her survival.
It meant that whenever she and the host were both hurt, the tower would drain its host to keep her safe. It was how Lith had weakened the tower's battle form and the source of the weariness that M'Rael was experiencing.
Ajatar's spells created a concussive series of blasts that ruined M'Rael's footwork and drained the barriers protecting him. Without them, Strife cut deep into the tower armor, wounding the elf's right arm and back.
Faluel's mouths bit him from head to waist, injecting straight into his flesh both the acidic venom of her fangs and the spells she had conjured. Lith wrapped War around the Sage Staff, pushing it away as he unleashed his tier five Spirit Spell, Primordial Roar, along with the Void Demon Dragon.
M'Rael survived once again thanks to the Immortal Body array, but he was getting hungry. So hungry that he could barely focus anymore. He used the Tower Warp to slip away unhindered and even managed to use his breathing technique.
It restored his mental focus and his stamina but he was still starving.
At the same time, War's fourth crystal lost its light. The outermost layers of the blade's enchantments collapsed and with them a handful of Adamant shards. The angry blade still had its full power, but its remaining energy kept burning faster and faster.
"What are you waiting for? Attack!" M'Rael had one of Solus' tonics appear right in his mouth and even though they tasted like shit, he almost lost himself in the feeding ecstasy.
Many elves had died, but there were still enough to bring down the three Beasts if their spells struck them in the back.
"Guys, I need your help." Lith conjured a blue six-pointed star above his head, taking the place in the array as the seventh.
Yurial's Hexagram drained dozens of arrows dry of their fire, darkness, air, and water elements. Four points of the star lit up to their full capacity, leaving only the earth and light elements off.
There were still more arrows coming, forcing Faluel to return to her original size and spin Strife to deflect as many darts as she could while using the wings of the Royal Fortress armor to take care of the rest.
She took quite some damage, but between the Life Maelstrom cursing through her equipment and her body back to its peak condition she could bear with it. Especially with one of her heads tucked inside the armor using her breathing technique non-stop.
"What kind of help?" Ajatar tried to establish a mind link to save time but the blue flames exuding from Lith's body burned it just like they had done with the previous.
Everything that wasn't attached to his own body was consumed by the fire's hunger.
"I can cast Silverwing's Annihilation alone, but only if that's fully charged up." Lith pointed at the array floating over their heads.
Those words meant nothing to M'Rael, but luckily for him, the research about Yurial's Hexagram was stored inside Soluspedia so he only had to think about the mysterious array to learn its workings.
"By the Tree, no." He gasped in shock.
He had managed to use his breathing technique, but even with the tower's help he couldn't conjure the power of the Annihilation.
"The wench has a blue core, just like my soldiers, whereas this monstrosity requires seven bright violet-cored Awakened. If only there were six more like me, we would be unstoppable. Curse you and your arrogance, World Tree!
"Thank you."The Yggdrasill replied. 'Why do you think I send my Chroniclers alone? This way, they can't get strange ideas and avoid the temptation of using anti-Guardian spells against me.
I'm more powerful than any Divine Beast, but I'm no Guardian. What about you?
How do I defend myself, slave?'M'Rael fell for the Tree's taunt and asked Solus for advice.
Fuck you, that's how!
'What?'The shock from her defiance hit him as hard as one of Lith's fists.
'You know what? I'm not an object! I'm a person and this tower is *my body* 'Solus had tried until that moment to reconnect with the power core of the tower.
As she herself had said, M'Rael could tell her what to do or say, not what to think. And she could manipulate the tower with her mind. The insult was just a rude way to say that she had no clue how to stop an Annihilation.
After all, he had asked her for an answer, not a polite one.
"On it!" Ajatar cast his best tier five healing spell, pouring in it as much mana as the Hexagram could take.
The six stars lit up and the different elemental energies flowed into each other and into Lith until they merged together with his Spirit Magic and formed a perfect Silverwing's Annihilation.
'Stop it!'M'Rael could feel the tower working against him, becoming weaker and harder to move. I forbid you to think!"
Solus had worked hard to build telepathic boundaries by following Dawn's teachings so she managed to hold against those
unreasonable orders. Yet she was just a novice compared to the Bright Day and the tower was just an object.
It reacted by cutting her off the mainframe and isolating her mind in a corner of her life-support system. Suddenly Solus was less than a thing. Less than a voice in her host's head.
She was reduced to a ghost prisoner of her own mind, still able to perceive the world but incapable even of reasoning.
Everything she knew, even the most basic feeling was gone. She was reduced to something even more insignificant than the pebble form she had been back when Lith had rescued her from Protector.
She felt beaten and violated yet she wasn't allowed to manifest her sadness. She was reduced to a faded dream in someone else's memory.
The High Chancellor flew away, knowing that the weak spot of arrays was that they couldn't be moved.
If I put enough distance between us, no matter how strong a spell is, it can be easily avoided.
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