[Temple of the gods]
While Darganth was conversing with Ikrus' other avatar, the battle before the temple's entrance was rapidly picking up in pace. With comets of starlight from Enilla and various elemental attacks from Vorthos streaking through the air, Neandra and Ikrus' avatar had little room for error as they weaved through the battlefield.
Clashing dozens of times each second as they chased each other, their strikes reverberated as thunderous impacts across the clearing. With each one, nearby structures trembled and toppled, carving a path of destruction that ruined the already worn-down temple even further and expanded the clearing as their fight tore down many of the trees around it.
Though as seconds passed while the two constantly exchanged attacks, Ikrus started to grow increasingly nervous. Its senses gave it a clear picture of the precarious position Arkuns was in, while it simultaneously felt its own power drop with its fading energy reserves.
Whereas it was magically stronger than Neandra at the start of the fight and could at least hold its ground in a physical clash, with every attack the avatar launched and each time it had to regenerate a wound its power sank proportional to the energy reserves it expended. As such, it was increasingly forced onto the defensive in its clash with Neandra. Though her mana reserves too were far from full, physically she wasn't even winded by the prolonged fighting, making it practically no issue at all.
Forced to dodge attacks it could previously endure with ease, the avatar had to retreat further into the treeline as Neandra's closed claw sent him tumbling as it met his punch. Suddenly, her tail shot after Ikrus, winding through a gap between trees too small for it and catching the avatar by surprise.
Recoiling as her stinger tore a gaping hole into its torso, it hastily jumped to the side when her fire breath shot at it a moment later. Though barely dodging the flames with this, Ikrus still found itself trapped with its back against the dense forest.
Ducking as Neandra's tail struck out again causing it to miss and embed itself deep into the tree behind it, Ikrus abandoned its worry and switched tactics. Suddenly charging at Neandra, the universe will's avatar took her by surprise as it jumped and tackled her.
Wrapping one arm around her neck and catching the top of her wing with the fingers on its other arm, Ikrus abruptly yanked Neandra down as the full weight of its almost ten-meter-tall body pulled on her wing. And with her right wing still moving down to keep her afloat, this caused her body to flip over and swerve to the left. Though this also caused Ikrus' grip to slip, by then Neandra had already dropped a dozen meters and was too close to the ground to stabilize her flight in time, causing her to crash with her back first.
Already having accepted this as the likely outcome when she had felt her world spin a mere moment prior, Neandra was barely rattled despite the harsh impact. Tugging her wings close to her body, she used the slight sideward momentum she had and a sharp twist of her torso to turn with the landing and roll right back to her feet.
Arresting her momentum by digging her right front limb into the soil, she shot up to dodge as Ikrus immediately launched a surge of stone from beneath the earth at her. Catapulting herself forward as it followed this with a bolt of lightning from the sky, she burst through the wall of wind it frantically conjured and struck out at its still-prone form.
With one knee still on the ground after having crashed even harsher than her own landing had been, the avatar could only lift its arms in response when it saw her break through the sharp winds it had conjured. Matching the first swipe of her talons with its palm and blocking it by letting it sink into its hand, Ikrus moved to catch her other claw with its other hand.
Though just before its fingers reached her, Ikrus' avatar suddenly jerked back. Shaking visibly as its shoulder tensed and its head dropped into its neck, it didn't even react as Neandra dug out one of the crystals embedded in its body when her strike plunged into its chest.
Along with the light green gem being pulled out from Ikrus' body, the wall of wind behind Neandra started to rapidly fade. Noticing this, she was briefly surprised as this had never happened in their previous clashes. However when the avatar's expression dropped a moment later, she recognized this unknown as an opportunity and thus didn't let it stop her from exploiting the opening that presented itself.
Diving forward with a confident grin on her face, she tackled Ikrus with her talon outstretched, driving her claws into its torso. Lashing out with her stinger to sever its arm before it could attempt to grab her, she tore into the avatar's form with ruthless brutality, freely clawing and biting as it struggled to free itself from her grasp.
Having connected the dots between Ikrus' fearful reaction, its loss of control over the conjured air, as well as the lack of the replacement gem that normally regenerated within a second of the original's destruction, she chose to concentrate her attacks on the remaining fifteen. Focusing on no particular element's attuned crystal, she instead took every opportunity that presented itself to her, with her claws, maw, and tail striking whenever one appeared in her sight.
Within moments this onslaught tore apart Ikrus' body half a dozen times only for it to regenerate anew, though just as before, the gems embedded across its form didn't return with the surrounding flesh. This quickly started to show its effects as the avatar's initially ferocious resistance started to fade, with the blasts of flames it unleashed from its eyes and the remaining hand giving way to a slightly weaker burst of force it unleashed with a roar.
But once Neandra managed to hit the focus crystal responsible for its unparalleled ability to wield spatial magic within its own universe, this too forced Ikrus to rely on another element, with it again being weaker than the previous attack. And while the surge of darkness it released still managed to wound Neandra by seeping into the wounds left by her reckless disregard for the previous attacks, it barely did any new damage and mainly only managed to cause her some discomfort.
Even as Ikrus tried to supplement it with the ice element this didn't change, especially once she managed to destroy another crystal by the time Ikrus barely managed to launch two of these combined attacks. Though not belonging to either of the two used elements, their power still dropped off noticeably due to this, causing Neandra's grin to widen even further as the next massive ice blade that erupted out of the avatar's chest shattered almost immediately after piercing her scales. In doing so, it left a wound so small that it didn't even eclipse her comparatively slow healing, with the damage done being less than what her body restored of other wounds in the same second.
The sight of this made Ikrus realize that its attacks had finally turned completely ineffective just a moment after her. Hesitating briefly upon making this discovery, its by then regenerated right arm froze mid attack before the avatar suddenly plunged it into its own chest.
Grabbing the claw that was dug into its body just as Neandra pulled it back, Ikrus leaned to the side and dodged the simultaneous attempt to grab it with her other talon. Before she could react to this, Ikrus then tore through its own torso without hesitation, cutting away the entire section of its body she was holding onto and allowing itself to break free.
Ignoring the gaping wound this left in its chest, the avatar immediately turned around and dashed toward the other fight. Heading straight toward Vorthos, it summoned the two-handed sword it had been wielding earlier into its hand before lunging at him with an overhead swing.
Landing with a thump, Ikrus immediately brought down its sword. Aiming the strike at as many of his necks as it could, it cleaved through three of Vorthos' outstretched necks.
Reeling back from the sudden pain, his remaining heads abruptly swirled around toward Ikrus. Snapping forward with them, he ignored the second swing that severed two more of his heads and swarmed the avatar's form. Catching its shoulders, wrists, and every other joint he could get to in his maws, Vorthos pushed Ikrus back, much to his own surprise.
Briefly rethinking his tactic of merely restricting its movements, he just let go with two of his heads when Neandra made it redundant by having her tail burst through the avatar's torso from behind. Grabbing it in her talons a moment later, she ripped it out of his grasp as her momentum carried her further forward, leaving a blood-like substance to drip onto his as his teeth tore out chunks from Ikrus' body.
Tightening her grip as it struggled and scratched at her legs, Neandra turned slightly to the right while dragging Ikrus along. Heading toward Arkuns, she shot dozens of meters up with a beat of her wings before diving toward the human emperor and using Ikrus' avatar as a projectile that she hurled at him.
Kept busy by his fight with Enilla, Arkuns only spotted this when it was too late. Nonetheless suddenly shifting his momentum in mid-air after delivering a powerful kick that forced the dragoness back, he placed the flat side of his sword against the forearm of his free hand and braced himself for the impact.
An instant later Ikrus crashed into him. But even though Arkuns managed to catch it with his bladed, with only his hastily attempt at flight as leverage the impact sent both of them hurling toward the ground.
Seeing this, Enilla dashed forward immediately upon recovering. Flaring her wings, she let starlight flow through them and coalesce into numerous spheres of intense heat and bright light. With a flap of her wings, these then shot out in a single wave and rained down on Arkuns and Ikrus, making them vanish amid the ensuing explosions as each of the miniature stars erupted once its momentum was stopped by a sufficiently strong impact.
Not intent on getting caught in close quarters with Arkuns again, Enilla quickly turned while her attack still blanketed the area in front of her in blinding light. But as she flew past them, a sudden surge of mana beneath made her head snap back toward her opponents.
A moment later Arkuns shot out from amid the blinding lights. Wreathed in white flames, his battered form flew at her with his sword reeled back.
Quickly responding with another volley of star comets, Enilla was shocked to find her attacks melt as they came close to the cloak of flames that covered the human emperor, with their explosions erupting as early as ten meters in front of him. Meanwhile, those few that nonetheless reached him burst harmlessly against his flames, with their explosions being swallowed by the fire that encased him.
Unsure how to react to this new power he was displaying, Enilla quickly switched to different attacks multiple times. In under a second, blasts of lightning, cascading flames, spatial explosions, and more tore into Arkuns, though none left much more of an impact than her initial attack.
As such reaching her a moment later, the human emperor swung his sword in a wide arc. Cleaving through her scales with ease, he left a deep gash on Enilla's shoulder as he shot past her. Following this with a platform of light he conjured up in his path, he abruptly redirected his momentum back toward her.
But just as he was about to slam onto her back, Neandra arrived in a flash of light green light. With wind coiling around her wings in a rapidly moving swirl, she struck out with her front claws and met Arkuns' sword.
The moment this contact was made, the wind that surrounded her wing exploded forward in a single giant burst. Slamming into the human emperor, it blew through all of his defenses by bombarding them with a constantly shifting mass of energy and winding itself into all weak points before literally dragging the opposing spells along after catching them in its flow.
Suddenly, Arkuns found himself without his flaming cloak again as the wind carried it away behind him. And before he could reform it or any of the other spells that had been protecting him, Neandra struck a second time.
Shrinking as she transformed into a humanoid form, she dashed forward while thrusting forward with her arm. Briefly delaying its transformation, she kept it in the form of her claw-tipped wing just long enough for it to still strike Arkuns with the might of her true form.
Without any resistance from spells, this strike easily pierced his skin, with Neandra's claw plunging into his chest and resulting in her left arm completely reaching through Arkuns' chest once it also transformed. Holding his heart in her hand, she met her old enemy's eyes with a smirk one last time before reaching up with her other hand and forcing his head to twist backward with a pull.
"I can't say that you've been a worthy opponent over the years, but at least you were an entertaining one. So take your death as the gift it is when compared to the alternative and use the knowledge that we won't enact any retribution on the humans of this world to finally rest." Neandra said, the ascendant mana lacing her voice ensuring that Arkuns' soul could still hear her in the few seconds it lingered.
Afterward, she directed a brief surge of mana into her arm, leaving flames to erupt from it and rapidly consume Arkuns' body. Within moments, all that remained of him was the sword that clattered to the ground at Neandra's feet and the heart she still held in her palm, with her then letting the latter dispensary into a personal pocket dimension as she turned to face Ikrus.
"Now then, where were we before this distraction." Neandra said, flaring her mana as she hovered past Enilla and toward the universe will's avatar.