[North of the human empire]
Weaving past a strike of Ikrus's avatar, Neandra almost became too distracted by the sight of human and beastmen mythic ranks dropping from the skies to dodge the unmistakable mana burst of Arkuns's innate ability. Leaning back to avoid having yet another spot of her body become more vulnerable to attacks, she punished the attempt by lashing out with her stinger.
Clashing with Arkuns's sword and sliding along its edge, her strike missed the man and struck the ground at his feet. Reacting quickly, Neandra immediately pulled back her tail, leaving the following swing to miss.
Shooting upward afterward, she intercepted Ikrus in its attempt to move to an advantageous position. Slashing out with her talons, she exchanged a series of rapid attacks with the universe will's avatar until it broke off their clash a second or two later.
Firing the searing beam of her breath attack to chase after it, Nenadra blasted Ikrus to the side even as the flames of her attack melded into its form. Absorbing them, it used them as fuel to immediately retaliate with a bolt of fire that came flying her way.
Accelerating forward, Neandra let the spell pass by below her as she shot toward Ikrus. Manipulating the air element in her surroundings, she preceded her charge with an imploding vacuum that she conjured up next to Ikrus's path, shaking the avatar as the ensuing shock wave struck its side.
Diving after its falling form, Neandra dug her claws into Ikrus' chest. Ignoring its flailing strikes at her chest and abdomen while using her tail to block the more dangerous ones, she lowered the avatar down further until it scraped over the ground as she flew circles over the battlefield. Occasionally also slamming it down for good measure, she was already turning back toward her battle when she spotted Darganth's seat of power spell appearing near her destination in a flash of silver.
"Extension of gifts."
Hearing Darganth's voice echo out with his arrival, Neandra was shocked when she felt her power rise the next moment. With it, her speed and agility both suddenly shot up, leaving Ikrus helpless as she lightly threw its avatar into the air before closing her claws around its head and piercing her tail through its torso. Plunging it deep enough into its body for her stinger to burst out of Ikrus' back, Neandra held its body up through her tail and raked her claws across its torso and arms.
Amid this, she sensed a sudden spike of energy from the avatar. Abandoning her offensive without hesitation, she let go of Ikrus and left its body to drop to the ground while dashing upward herself.
Moments later an explosion erupted behind her, with the build-up energy surging forth from Ikrus' body and chasing after her. Reaching her despite the head start, the combined blast of all sixteen elements washed over her soon after. Though just as she felt it shred through the skin of her tail, another surge of energy washed over her.
Trusting her instincts, she vanished from her position before she even fully knew what she was doing, escaping the blast and leaving her hovering above the crater around which their fight was happening.
Glancing downward, she saw that Arkuns and Rezal were faring better than Ikrus was, even if not significantly. While the constant damage she did to the universe will's avatar had already reduced the energy contained within it by a third, Venrie, Torrak, and Odylia were merely evenly matched against the two emperors.
Though Neandra was confident that this situation would soon change. While Darganth's spell increased her raw power by so little that its effect was negligible, feeling the same control over the space and time elements he enjoyed at her fingertips made her reevaluate the limit of what she thought his power had been before his death.
Using these newfound powers and the guiding voice of Darganth who whispered the secrets to their usage into her head, she reached out into the timestream. Not needing to search for long, she locked onto herself from a few seconds ago and pulled her into the present.
Feeling the resistance her past self from before she temporarily gained Darganth's time affinity managed to muster, she understood why he didn't guide her to aim for a few seconds later. But not willing to give up due to it, Neandra increased the mana she channeled into the spell in response.
As such, it didn't take long for another version of her to shimmer into existence to her right. Though only a pseudo soul as the same being can't exist twice at the same time, this version was almost identical to her, with only two distinctions born from it different soul.
For one, its soul would be destroyed should it die. Secondly, it is susceptible to being sent back to its own time by the true Neandra as she was the one to summon it. In doing so, she would regain a part of the mana that the time stream siphoned from her spell to keep the past stable and prevent any changes there or in the present. Additionally, as it is her past self, she could choose to effectively inherit its memories from its time in the present, though her past self would lose them before its reintegration in its time in either case.
But despite these distinctions, its thought process was still the same as hers as little changed in it during the two or three seconds since the timelines present moment was in the copy's time. As such, Neandra didn't need to issue any order for her other version to dive down toward Arkuns and Torrak, leaving her to deal with Ikrus.
Unleashing the flame of her breath attack intermixed with spatial and temporal magic, the true Neandra quickly put Ikrus even more onto the defensive while her copy struck out with her tail against Arkuns. Appearing suddenly and to the surprise of all five combatants, her stinger tore through his back and burst forth from his chest.
The moment it tore through his vital organs, Arkuns' form exploded in a flash of golden light. With it, what should've been his dead body vanished from its position, shortly followed by an unharmed but winded Arkuns reassembling from the coalescing glowing particles that were released in the explosion.
Having fought him often enough to know this trick of his, Nenadra wasn't too surprised by the development. Though she had had some hope that he might've already been forced to use it, knowing that he wouldn't get another assured escape for a month or so was also good, not that she intended to let him live long enough for the exact recharge time needed to matter.
Thus acting as soon as the flash erupted, she dashed backward with a beat of her wings. Twisting in the air, she sharply turned the resulting momentum back toward Arkuns and Rezal and flew at them with her claws stretched forward.
Reacting the fastest to her attack, the beastmen emperor dashed to meet her approach and bellowed, "Transform."
Channeling mana into his through aura-augmented body parts as the words left his lips, Rezal's form shifted as he sprinted at Neandra. With it, his beastial features became more pronounced and spread further across his body. Rapidly, fur grew from his arms and his claws elongated, while his already large body grew another twenty centimeters and his muscles were strengthened.
By the time his aura avatar formed and caught Neandra's claws in its palm a moment later, his form had shifted into a hybrid of bear and some kind of large cat. In this state and empowered by every last bit of strength he could draw from his aura, he managed to keep himself from faltering as her momentum slammed into him.
Nonetheless buckling under her strength, he carved two gashes into the earth as he slid back from the impact. Stopping only once Neandra's initial momentum ran out, he was instead forced onto one knee as she shifted her weight above him with a few flaps of her wings.
At the same time, Arkuns managed to shake off his surprise. Just like Rezal before, he shouted the name of his attack to both warn his ally and better coordinate with him, allowing the two to not have to focus their mana sense on spotting what kind of attack the other would launch next. Their opponents meanwhile couldn't rely on this due to the risk of surprise attacks and other factors, making it a good practice to do in almost every situation where one fought alongside others.
"Swords of chains."
Abandoning his aura avatar as he heard Arkuns' voice, Rezal escaped Nenadra's clutches just as her stinger pierced through the air where the construct was a moment earlier. A moment later the human emperor's sword came slashing down behind him, unleashing a chain of light that unfurled from the weapon's tip.
Flying forward as a vertical line, the construct passed through the space where the aura avatar had been moments earlier before winding around Neandra's torso as it collided with her chest. Already having elongated during its flight, it kept doing so after the impact, coiling around her torso and wings before getting anchored in the ground as the tips were dragged down with a motion from Arkuns.
With it, Neandra was yanked toward the ground, followed by the chain constricting around her. Straining against it, she spread her wings and pushed against the ground, causing the construct to slip off one of her wings and loosen the hold on her.
Planting the now-freed front claw on her wing on the ground, she stabilized her stance before lowering her neck and aiming her head toward Arkuns. Unleashing her breath attack at him, she forced the human emperor to dodge to the side just as he was about to plunge his sword into the ground.
Shifting her head to the side to follow after him, Neandra was about to chase him around the battlefield when her head was thrown to the side by a sudden impact. Immediately after the beastmen emperor redirected his momentum sharply downward, plummeting to the ground before she could reorientate herself and retaliate.
Growling as he dashed beneath her afterward and slashed through the ankle of one of her legs, she let the chain yank her hip down further as she kicked after him. Though missing him, this nonetheless forced Rezal to quickly continue on his path, with the burst of acceleration from his dodge carrying him past Neandra.
The moment he reappeared behind her, a blast of ice shot down from the skies. Exploding against his skin, it briefly froze Rezal in place and left him open for Odylia's next strike.
Flying past Neandra, she unleashed about a dozen ice and water projectiles at him. Striking against his skin in a constant interval, they shredded through the defenses of his aura and left him open for the strike from Odylia's tentacles that followed.
Slamming down onto him from above, her limb forced him to his knees with its impact. Pulling it back just as quickly as the tentacle struck, she followed this with a second strike on Rezal's prone form. Slammed into the ground by this, he bounced upward from the impact only for yet another strike to send him straight back down.
Repeatedly letting him crash into the ground through this, Odylia abruptly stopped only after over a dozen strikes. The moment she did, Torrak filled the gap, with a dozen water spears trying to skewer Rezal from all sides.
Prioritizing those aimed at vital organs, the beastmen emperor met the incoming attacks with a whirlwind of slashes from his claws. Tearing apart water constructs with every couple of swipes, he managed to block the first couple of spells before the fifth struck him in the shoulder. Thrown back by the impact, the next attack luckily missed him but after blocking only one more they already scored the next hit.
Staggering back under the onslaught, Rezal moved away just in time as the last spear struck the ground just in front of where he then stood. Not pausing for a single moment, he pushed through the pain of the profusely bleeding wound on his side as he retreated further away from the two beasts opposing him. Scanning the chaos around him, he searched for Arkuns, only to find him retreating from the relentless attack of Neandra and Venrie, clearly in no better position than he himself was. Shifting his focus, Rezal instead sought out Ikrus' avatar, only to find it engaged with what appeared to be another Neandra.
Briefly stunned by the sight, Rezal missed the quick spell that Torrak fired his way. Exploding against the aura flowing around him, it managed to slightly shake his stance despite, almost allowing Odylia to reach him before he propelled himself away in retreat.
Before either of his two opponents could follow, he used the space won through this to shout without hectic, "Arkuns, Ikrus, we need to reform."
His words caused his two allies to look past their own fights for long enough to realize the same thing he had spotted some moments ago. Processing the sight for a second, the two shifted the tempo of their fights by ceasing to attack and instead dashing away from their respective opponents.
Seeing their attempts and believing them to be in agreement with him in the need to retreat, Rezal didn't hesitate to renew his efforts to escape his opponents. Though slightly annoyed by the other two dashing toward the same spot without telling him, he didn't think much of it and followed after them.
Leaning forward and dropping onto all four, the beastmen emperor started sprinting across the battlefield. Dashing to the side when a spike of high-pressure water erupted in his path, he ducked under the swing of Odylia's tentacle and weaved through further water and ice elemental attacks. Occasionally shrugging off one that struck him, he pushed through the field full of eruptions that surrounded him until he was just about to reach where Arkuns and Ikrus were heading.
But while he was still a bit over a hundred meters away, his two allies already met in front of Darganth and his Aegis of the Dragon Lord spell. Not sparing Rezal even a glance, the human emperor and the universe will's avatar shot past the manifestations of the nine dragon gods that leaped at them as soon as they came too close to Darganth.
Once past the first two, Arkuns struck the thunder dragon's form with a crescent slash of aura and sent her flying. Using the opening, Ikrus raised its arms towards the manifestations of Irsyr and Azeal and dragged the two dragons of the void lineage down through red chains formed from the war element that coiled around their bodies.
The moment the two were briefly taken out of the fight and before the manifestation of Darganth could act, Ikrus and Arkuns suddenly vanished. With their disappearance, the spell before them and the energy it spread throughout the battlefield also started to disappear as if dispelled.
Watching in shock as his two allies abandoned him, Rezal barely even registered the Neandra that had fought Ikrus flying through the position they had last been and disappearing in a flash of silver herself.
At the same time four new presences that had previously been hidden by the energy the spell had been radiating appeared on his senses. Though even as two of them locked their senses onto him with their fury palpable in the mana they were radiating, he paid as little attention to them as as to the vanishing Neandra.
Instead sinking to his knees in defeat, he stopped moving even as spell after spell struck his back. Wallowing in his despair and disappointment, he didn't react as the first attack tore into his skin, shortly followed by another one ripping off his arm. Not even stopping the leakage of blood from the wound, he was soon overcome with darkness and willingly let it fall over him, uncaring for whether he would ever awake again or not.