A.N: I reached the first milestone I set for myself so I'm going to run a little promo of some sorts. for every 20 collections I receive from now on, there will be an additional chapter released instead of the usual one per day
Same with power stones. As at when this chapter was released this book only has 24 collections
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She was seated on the highest tower in town her staff raised up high as she sent streams of fire arrows to the ones clad in black outfit.
She was one of the guardians of Gamora, chosen by Diara herself, and one of the few that knew the secrets the small town held.
If this attack was what she thought it was, then it came a little too late, if they were that eager for it, why were they just making an appearance now.
From her position, she had a clear view of most of the battlefield, providing accurate cover for her allies when needed while also getting rid of any trouble that they couldn't handle on their own.
Her using such flashy magic from such a high spot made her a target for members of task force X though.
They tried sneaking up in her from different angles as she was still discharging her magic, only for them to be singled out by shots out of nowhere
The only evidence of the shot where the sounds reminiscent of a sniper rifle, an arrow and the fallen body of the assailants
This continued for a while until two water golems shot out in Helen's direction, the snipers providing her extra cover were also bombarded by a series of magic attacks
Luckily the rifle use was able to react quite fast, leaving the area before he got hit, The archer however wasn't so lucky
The shockwave from the attack sent him flying, his body pushed to its limits with holes riddle all over them
"Might as well go out with a bang"
He chuckled as as loaded his bow with all the aether he could squeeze out from his surroundings, draining his core in the process and perfecting his final shot
"Crescent shot: Huntsman"
Releasing the string of the bow, countless fiery arrows shot into the sky illuminating like fireworks before descending and aiming only for the masked assailants.
Igor might not have been an ascendant, but his final strike had the bearing of one, he might not have taken the lives of many of the assailants, but he had affected them, some hit and injured, others forced to defend which led to an opening the townsfolk utilized
The sniper seeing the fall of his friend and partner bowed slightly in his direction, turning to find a new location for sniping
"I'll be sure to send a lot of these bastards to accompany you brother"
Getting to a new position, he returned to providing support to his allies, although his workload had increased now as he had to perform the job previously handled by three alone
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Helen had to cancel her attack midway in order to deal with the two water constructs coming towards her.
Even without looking she could tell that one of the snipers Igor was already down for the count, she could only hope that the last one Peter was enough to keep an eye on things as dealt with whoever was attacking her.
As a veteran ascendant of the embodiment route, she didn't need to cast for most of her spells to be activated, even the ones that required more attention from her just needed their names called before it would be activated
Locking unto the golems coming at high speed towards them, massive fire spears formed around her before shooting into the golems, ten per one, incinerating it from the inside out.
"Even if you gather a lot of water users and send them against me, I'll just make them evaporate, water is just as weak to fire you know"
She chuckled as she estimated who attacked her and from where
The golems were definitely too weak to count as someone's spirit, so it was just a spell by a mage
They were too many near her so she couldn't pinpoint who exactly sent the attacks, so she might as well wipe them all, this was gonna be a big spell though
"Arise from the ashes, fiery bird of creation"
As she started her incantation, A giant red magic circle appeared in the sky above the town, it had weird inscriptions and the sign of a bird, bringing panic to everyone who saw it, even her allies
"Are you crazy, that's sorcery, everyone would be wiped out"
Four masked figures appeared right in front of her trying to stop her from completing her spell, it would lead to disastrous results if not
"Gotcha"
Helen smiled as the four she was trying to bait out finally appeared, the spell was just a hoax
"Burning mansion"
This time was for real though, as the magic circle in the sky vanished, the space around Helen and the four figure blurred, an illusory viel covered them from the outside, but the space on the inside was completely different
It was a burning mansion with different rooms, furniture, walls, pretty much every part of the mansion was burning, with places falling apart from time to time.
This was Helen's domain, a maze type that separates everyone once they are dragged in, she shouldn't have this type of domain as peak early stage ascendant but her route art was a special type she had found in the ruins of Gamora in the past.
The only way to escape from the maze was to either overpower it and blast it away, making their way back into reality, or to find the core where the now defenseless Helen was and destroy it.
If she was of a higher level, let's say perhaps a mid level ascendant sho would have been able to ambush each isolated member and kill them off, but right now, it took everything she had to just maintain the domain.
The masked assailants in their own locations tried using brute force to break out only to fail, even when they succeeded in breaking a wall, and walking out, they ended up going back to the original spot they left.
After spending several minutes and trying different methods they realized it was a maze and the only way out was to find the right route, or they will keep returning to their original location.
To make matters worse, the longer they stayed in the maze the weaker they got, it was a race against time, would they escape first or will Helen run out of aether first
The mage who was responsible for the water golem channel her energy to create the golems to find the right way out, the rate at which she was getting weaker was lower than the rest of her squad as water was on the opposite spectrum of water but there was no way she could find that out since they couldn't communicate
The other members just kept walking and trying to mark out a right path to the core.
After a little while the first masked assailant fell to the floor, if anyone were there, they would see the completion was pale and soot mixed was ash was being emitted by his body
This continued with the other members too with the exception of the water mage.
She was a water embodiment mage but as she was the weaker between her and Helen, she couldn't make her own domain manifest.
One of her golems had found what she suspected to be the core but she ran out of energy to keep maintaining it at that moment, dispelling the creation
At least she knew where her nemesis was now and it was just a matter of finding her and putting an end to this farce
She started on the path to her opponent, stumbling on the road as she truly had burned through her reserves just to find the correct path.
Just when she was in sight of the door to the core she also fell, drawing her last breath, the opponent was just in sight but she couldn't do it.
Helen had won, her domain was a support type rather than the usual attack type, however it had a passive attack in the form of poisonous gasses created by the burning mansion itself.
Infact if it wasn't for the the opponents being ascendants they wouldn't have survived that long and would have died from suffocation alone
Her only worry was the water users of the only four she was the only one who controlled the water element and the poison wasn't having as much effect on her as the rest and there was a big chance by the time Helen ran of out aether, the water user would still have enough left in the the tank to finish her off.
Luckily for her, the water user burned through her own reserves in search of a path, allowing her to fall prey to the mansion's deadly trap.
Helen upon confirming the deaths of she dragged into her little world, she withdrew her domain and retreated into one of the houses below, taking some elixirs to regain aether as fast as possible and continue with helping
As for her reasoning about why they were attacking now or what they were after, those were questions that could be answered later on, they had to survive first