[What the heck was-], but before I could finish my thought, the Fog of War shifted suddenly as a new figure entered my perception.
The figure had dark shaggy hair, tanned skin and reminded me of Alyra. Didn't take me long to realize it was her brother, Boleros...holding a drajule and a chain of aether, okay what?
"You're a binder"?!"
[He's a binder]?
The two of us were bewildered by the sudden appearance of the former possession victim turned binder, that we failed to notice the aether chain had squarely hit the Bultungin in the chest until he had released a rather loud howl of pain. A moment later, Boleros forcefully gripped the aether chain and began to pull as hard as he could.
As he pulled on the chain of aether, a sense of deja vu came over me as I saw the Bultungin being separated from the Echo I had saw earlier. But unlike last time, the Echo was putting up more of a fight from the separation. It reminded me of trying to pick a hair out of a jar of honey, not pleasant.
[Huh...], Voxea suddenly said in my head.
[What]?
[Nothing, it's just... I'm a little upset I didn't think of using the binding ritual in such a manner to separate the Bultungin from the Echo. My plan was very different due to me assuming the two were too connected to each other to do so], Voxea explained.
[You were going to just keep hitting it until it exhausted it's aether, weren't you]?
[...I was going to freeze him into a block of ice at some point].
[...].
[What]?
[It scares me how similar our line of thinking can be sometimes], I told Voxea.
[It's why we get along~].
I shot Voxea a withering stare, just as a loud howl of pain pierced the air and caught our attention.
The Bultungin and Echo had now been separated from one another, but now the Bultungin had become a ball of light stuck in a literal tug-of-war between Boleros and the Echo.
On one side, a chain of aether was pulling it towards a drajule, while the other looked like a liquid man trying to suck in the ball of light. I was feeling rather dumbfounded on what to do, until the realization hit me like a sack of Fragmice to the head...mother had rather extreme training methods.
[Voxea...do you think you can attack the Echo?], I asked
[Silvia, you know as a majimonster I can't attack non...wait...the Fog isn't preventing me]?
[I think the Echo is in a weird state of being both a majimonster due to being fused with the Bultungin, but at the same time not due to the binding ritual being used to extract it from it like right now], I shared with Voxea, [so now I'm thinking...].
[Way ahead of you, still have any aether left for a charge up]?
[Just enough for one more attack].
[We'll only need one], Voxea told me before shooting across the battlefield like a crossbow bolt towards the Echo. As she flew towards the Echo, Voxea's fist began to glow purple and a gauntlet made of aether manifested around it. Once I charged up her technique with my own aether, the gauntlet developed runic patterns of the Ice and Lighting affinity.
_________________________________________
{SurvivesurvivesurvivieSURVIVE! MUSTSURVIVE}, the Echo thought as he kept pulling the Bultungin back into him and away from the drajule's grasp.
The Echo didn't remember when he was born, or why he was born, all he knew was that he had to survive for...some reason.
He knew he had to survive, so fused with the incomplete hyena monster's essence to stick around a little longer.
He knew he had to survive, so he took over the body of a human boy and buried his soul deep in darkness.
He knew he had to survive, so he sought to kill the girl who learned of his existence.
He knew had to survive, so he slew innocents and drank their blood to stabilize his form.
He knew he had to survive, so when he lost his host, he fully embraced the monster.
He knew he had to survive, so he fought back against the former host trying to take what was his.
He didn't know why he had to survive...until he saw the reason why flying straight towards him.
{Survivesurvivesurviesur...Vo...xea}!
But it was that point, the reason for his existence punched him in the face.