Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 165: Battle Part 3

Mab's attacks using light and laser should have been devastating, but Moriggan's weapon was able to parry and deflect the light. It didn't really make sense to me how she was doing it, light had no real structure or heft to it, but somehow her blades turned aside attack after attack. Light was composed of photons, it had energy and momentum but no mass, so how was she blocking the laser-like attacks?

I might have understood if she had been using something to refract the light, a gem, or prism of some type, but she wasn't. There had to be something about the electromagnetic spectrum in this Universe that allowed for light to give light mass when used in spells, or the way that Magic had replaced one of the spectrums changing the very properties of electromagnetism.

The Morrigu had each specialized in a bladed weapon. Morrigan effortlessly brandishing a Zweihander. A monstrous weapon easily twice the length I would expect for a weapon of that type. That she handled the weight was only possible because of the crafting that had been used when it was forged. The blades heft was perfectly balanced. A masterclass weapon that became only more deadly in her hands.

Macha dual-wielded a short sword and a one-handed long sword. The difference in reach each weapon gave her was perfect for her fighting style. She tended to use the long sword for parrying while using spins and dodges to get in range to use the short sword to do real damage.

Bodb was the only one that had anything resembling a ranged weapon. She, too, dual-wielded, but instead of swords, she had armed herself with a dagger and Chakram. All three women were garbed in leather armor, emblazoned with runic enchantments that made that armor as durable and defensive as if they were encased in a foot of solid mithril.

Each of the women was spectacular on their own but moving together they were a dervish of dancing death. Each so in tune with the other that blades would often invade each other's space to offer help in defense or create an opening for attack.

Lugh and Mab were being hard pressed, but Bodb's decision to break off and focus on me gave them some respite. Puck's gambit, maneuvering so that my ice spear bombardment struck her by mistake had worked. She had changed her focus, ignoring Mab for the moment and turning towards me.

Yet even as Bodb broke off, I saw the signs of wear on Mab, fighting two against three had taken a toll. The Morrigu's ability to deflect her light attacks had also been disastrous for those Seelie that had offered support. And the Morrigu was not using those deflections randomly, each time the light was bent, the real damage was done to the surrounding Sidhe. Mab's light attacks had even killed two of her own people.

The intervention by Sithern, the removal of everyone not Ranked at the King level had saved lives and brought order to chaos. The grand melee, the free for all the fight had devolved into, had only been vignettes of distraction. Distractions the Sithern had removed from the battlefield.

I still didn't know why the Sithern had chosen to act, it was something I would worry about later, with Bodb breaking off, the fight between Mab and Morrigan became more a duel between the two women. Not exactly parity, neither able to gain the upper hand in their exchanges, Morrigan was only one small step from ascending and becoming a Ranked Demi-goddess. Mab appeared to be holding her own until you noticed the dozens of wounds that crisscrossed her body.

Her healing and regenerative abilities were prodigious, and she was able to seal and heal each wound almost as fast as they opened, which was a testament to just how fast and effective Moriggan actually was. Mab's dress, her High-court apparel was more for appearance than protection, and as the wounds she received stacked up, her clothing was whittled away until in a fit of anger she tore the remains of her dress from her body and began counter-attacking naked.

It was only at that moment she deployed her aura, creating a shield of light that was blinding in intensity. But Moriggan was not phased. She was long past the point where she needed sight to be proficient in combat. Her senses and perception were so heightened that she wove a mask of shadow to protect her eyes from permanent damage and continued attacking blind.

Lugh and Macha's battle, on the other hand, had entered a true stalemate. Macha was the better fighter, but her skills were barely enough when competing against Lugh Clear-Sight. His ability, what he was known for was to see through and into the heart of the matter. He was able to understand Macha and forecast her actions.

His ability allowed him to find her weaknesses, move and dodge so that she over-extended herself, and make use of those moments of imperfection that he forced in her dance of death to force her to be more cautious. It was this ability to foresee that had allowed him to fight against Bodb as well.

I would have liked to have spent more time watching those duals, but Bodb and Puck were intent on my destruction. Both had begun attacking. The stat increases from my Regalia allowed me some leeway and protection. It increased my speed, strength, attack, and defense enough that I was able to fend off the deadliest attacks.

I simply didn't have the battle experience, the eons of practice and foes that they had honed their skills on to have any hope of sustaining a battle using weapons. The interesting point to note was Bodb's ability to mesh as well with Puck as she had with the other Morrigu. It was a testament to just how easily she could adapt to the conditions of battle and change her attack methods to take advantage of current conditions.

I could see that this was going to come down to a battle of attrition unless I changed strategies. Puck and Bodb were just too well trained, they had too much real battle experience for me to compete with on an even playing field even with the boost from the Regalia. Their regeneration allowed them to almost ignore Beleros and Cyronax Aura. They did some damage when I blasted them out at full power, but not enough to be worth the effort. It was better to use the aura as a shield. It was the only way I was able to survive the clashes with dagger, Chakram, and Puck's poniard.

I eventually had to split my shield, using ice to protect my front, and fire to protect my back. Puck refused to fight unless it was from behind. Foregoing easy strikes so that he could keep maneuvering to backstab. His poniard was covered with poison, Elf-shot, that should have left me defenseless and unconscious. But my reactions were also enhanced wearing the Regalia, and I was able to burn out the poison as fast as Puck applied it.

The use of Elf-shot was proscribed, but at this point who was there to complain too? If I was able to make use of the Wild Hunt, I could have sought justice, but System had removed that option for this battle. I would rise or fall on my own, with whatever mortal help and skills I could count on. The Sithern had removed my allies, almost as if it was working in concert with System.

I dismissed that idea as ludicrous, the System and Sithern did not join together to conspire against me. Some hidden events had been triggered, something that demanded that this engagement between factions be settled by the heads of each faction.

I was able to shrug off Puck's attack, for the most part, healing them fast enough that there was no way he could out-damage my regeneration rate. But Bodb was a different matter. Her weapons must be part of her own set of Regalia because whatever damage she managed to inflict, received a multiplier bonus.

The Chakram was most effective. I'd long since put weapons back in storage to concentrate on shields soon after she started attacking me. It had left my hands free, encased in gauntlets that I used to deflect the dagger strikes that managed to sneak past or breakthrough my shields.

I began to understand Bodb's attack pattern. Leaping strikes followed by rolling somersaults as she ducked under my swinging arms to only spring up and dash away. Once she had built some distance between us, she would follow up with a thrown Chakram. That spinning discus of metal was a lot sharper than I'd expected. I thought it a more blunt type attack, my ignorance was made evident when I reached out to catch it only to have my fingers sliced off despite being protected by my Silinium armor.

The stupidity from that mistake took a few seconds for even my enhanced regeneration to heal. The fingers and bones re-growing distracting enough that I almost missed a poniard thrust into my back and the application of another round of Elf-shot.

Fighting head on, exchanging attacks was simply not sustainable. I was going to lose if I continued engaging in combats that they were most familiar and skilled with. I needed to mix things up and start using those skills and spells of mine that were my real strengths.

So, I adapted. Instead of standing there deflecting or accepting their blows, I began dashing away. I'd been an idiot to just stand there and let Puck stab me over and over. I'd planted my feet like some lumbering idiot determined that this one spot would be my line to cross. That was not my fighting style. I had focused too much on spells and auras to ignore my roll. I was a mage not a fighter, and it was time to start fighting like one.

I began forming chunks of ice, yards high that I scattered throughout the area. The ice stacking and forming a column was imbued with enough fire aspect woven within the core so that if Puck or Bodb shattered that column, the explosion would contain enough blow-back to do serious damage.

Once I had a half dozen ice columns formed and layered with traps to explode if shattered, I began using them as a line-of-sight defense. Leaping and jumping behind one or another working to isolate my opponents. The strategy was effective in separating them, keeping them from engaging within melee range. I increased the output of Beleros Aura concentrating on healing and damage. The flame creating licks and sparks of fire that ate away at the shields and protections Bodb and Puck had employed.

I split my awareness, having Caraid monitor Mab's fight. It was something we had discovered by accident when I was trying to create a new spell while practicing within the Ring of Hidden Depths. It required intent and will, the same as any form of magic, but if I made the conscious decision to give him permission, to access a part of my magic and intellect, he was just as capable as I was of casting and controlling spells. In fact, because he didn't need to juggle multiple attacks, defenses, and strategies, at the moment, he was better at perceiving where Morrigan would deflect Mab's light attacks than I would be.

I began making use of that reflected weapon damage. Forming small orbs of ice, shaped into prisms, I had Caraid deploy them moving them into position so that when Morrigan deflected the light, the orbs would intercept and refract the energy.

I was a child of Beleros and Beleros was the Sun God. Light may be incidental, a by-product of the massive fusion and burning of energy that was the real purpose of a star, but even as a by-product that light was part of my domain. I would never be as strong as Mab in the element, but our power levels would be close.

It took a few moments before Mab realized that I was intercepting her rays and using them to attack Puck and Bodb. There wasn't much she could do about it, not unless she changed her method of attack, so she was forced to endure the insult of me using her own power as a weapon against her Consort.

Once I had Caraid busy with the prisms of ice, I returned my focus to casting a blizzard of spears. My auras were doing damage, but the ice spear was more effective. The line-of-sight issues I'd created affected me as much as it did them, things like fireball and fire-blast were unable to land before they dodged behind an ice column. But the blizzard of spears was an area effect damage spell, damage that could not be dodged by hiding. They had to retreat beyond the area affected to mitigate the damage the spears made.

The spear focused damage, each successful strike penetrating and was doing internal damage. The wounds were still repaired and healed, but as each spear, one after the next pierced their armor and sank within their flesh, the regeneration required began to take more effort, to take longer to heal. Additionally, they had to take the time to pull the spears out, and I had crafted them such that they spear shattered once their bodies were penetrated. It increased internal damage exponentially. And in this kind of battle, those extra seconds needed to heal stacked up.

Once I had enough distance that I was relatively safe, I began casting illusion. Flexing my abilities at glamour I created a dozen body doubles. Exact replicas, each sporting the same armor, cloak, diadem, and scepter. I placed each doppelganger haphazardly around each ice column, polishing and creating concave surfaces on the columns so that they acted as mirrors.

The dozen simulacrums were incapable of actually doing battle, but they were lifelike enough to spread confusion. And with the dozen becoming hundreds as the columns that I had polished to mirror standards began to reflect images, the arena became a warped version of a Fun House.

Once I was satisfied with the placement of each simulacrum, I focused my attention on Bodb, standing my ground, baiting her to attack. When she made her move, I translated inside the Ring of Hidden Depths. Now that I knew my body physically transitioned into the space provided, leaving behind an illusion in its place, I hoped an attack on the illusion would result in a chain reaction.

I had timed the transition so that Bodb was beginning to thrust her sword at the real me; she was fully committed with no way to change direction or cancel the skill. I had my back against the reflective ice column so when I entered the Ring, her sword passed effortlessly through the illusionary body left behind. The entire kinetic force of her strike destroying the ice and releasing the explosive traps I had placed inside.

Each ice column was within range of the next, so that first explosion created a chain reaction as every ice column exploded enveloping the room with shattering ice projectiles and blasting all six monarchs with enough explosive force to level a city. The damage from each explosion stacking and doing cumulative damage to all parties.

Even this much damage was not enough to kill them, their ability to heal and regenerate powerful enough that recovery was assured. But for one, a confluence of events meant multiple attacks landed at the same instance as the explosions.

My explosion and the attacks between Mab, Lugh, Morrigan, and Macha combined. And that combination resulted in a System message.

It was a System message that led me to believe that I could exit the ring. That I had taken one of the Monarchs out of the fight.

[You have leveled up]