She calculated her movements exactly with the time when Albert had snapped his fingers and three spheres appeared in front of him. All circling around like a shield that couldn't be broken despite multiple attempts. It was expected that a halo would form around the person during a ritual, but this was the beginning stage so he was still not granted enough power.
The moon shield suddenly slowed her movements down and she stopped right when she noticed an awkward distortion in the air in front of her. It was a very sudden movement, but she didn't expect less from what may have happened, instead, she was thinking about something more dangerous to happen.
To be able to break through the three moons shield, she needed to know what the either of the three moons were based on. There were multiple starting from Hunters, Strawberry and Beavers. She had learned from somewhere that the owner of the eclipse moon's power was dead, and the position was vacant for anyone who was powerful enough to fit that role, and they were the Guardian of Death.
Judging by the looks of the three moons that were covering the sun, she noticed that one was the blue moon. It was obvious because the blue moon carried the element of water and the place they were at was a water land. The blue hue was unmistakable.
Then was the sturgeon moon and its element that Aefia couldn't remember. It was something to do with wisdom and justice, but judging how one of the elements actively being used a electricity, she deduced that it may be the moon that carried the same element as Albert.
The next thing that she noticed, was the cold moon, the element of ice as its name suggested. That was already hinted by the ice stone and the magic it allowed the user to wield. Aefia knew that she needed to take things the hard way and see if her lady could help, using her magic.
She may have the opposing element, but the real opponent for ice was electricity or lightning. Fire is only the opponent for water, while a wind is an opponent for fire too. The element of fire itself was weak, and that was what made Aefia weak overall. If she knew how to wield it right, she might be able to carve her way out of this trouble.
But most importantly, she could only stop one element and break one of those shields. Ever since the last incident during the third stage, her elemental absorption skill was in its fragile stat. If she used it again, it may permanently malfunction, or it never be useful again. But whatever happened and whatever way things took turn, there was a prize at the end for taking the risks.
If she absorbed a tiny bit of magic from her lady, as a defense for herself, and a little bit more from the mage, she could break down all three of them. But then, something came into her mind. Wasn't there a time that her lady said that I had broken the three moons shield?
If I were able to break through them back then, then it must be possible for me to do it now. Although, I don't quite remember how I did it, it was the chimera dragon that casted it and I just tried to move that annoying shield away to get through.
She noticed her lady shivering inside her small chamber as the edges of the glass started to frost again and this time, she realized an important factor. That time, it could have been an artificial shield created by the dragon to block the brutal blows Aefia was planting on it.
If she needed that level of strength for an artificial that was probably just one third of the total amount of strength the real moon shield held, she might need help from Puppet again. But one thing that worried her was how she was going to survive without informations for the time being that Puppet was gone.
Skip that for now, I don't think I will tolerate having to hear constant blabbering beside my ears while I was invested in something serious. But just in case, I would like to check for the strength enhancement thing that was done back at Hellas. A few words into her deep mind and a response came back.
[I can't increase your strength like I did before, because you are already a Phase two and that temporary extra energy was just to help you if you ever found yourself in trouble.]
Puppet was speaking back in its screen form. Seeing this, Aefia thought back to the system, Then how am I supposed to be able to break all layers of the moon shield? She said as she quickly glanced up to the moon and the sun.
They were a few more minutes away from the total triple solar eclipse and by then, the moon shield would become too powerful to break. So if Aefia didn't start her part of the battle soon, she would be left behind to regret trying to come up with a plan that she had never really been able to play out.
[Come to think of it, you don't just have one or two skills and you mustn't just ignore or forget them. You may have been asleep for a month, but I don't think you have forgotten how to use them, have you?]
Aefia quickly realized that it was true she was starting to forget about her other skills she used to actively use back at Hellas and Nikoan but she seemed to have forgotten about them once she entered this world and this mission.
She slowly raised her red dagger and cut the skin around her index finger's top digit. Blood spilled out and stained the dagger as it was sent deeper into the wound. "What are trying to do? Don't tell me you are about to create a ritual of your own!" The maniac floated as he laughed. "I feel bored like this, it will be a little more entertaining if there were a little bit of violence."
Albert snapped his fingers to form some odd looking cannon balls that were all shaped as irregular stones. They looked like tiny grenades from Aefia's angle of view, with gold gilding in some of the craters and a little bit of a mechanical look to it with springs being shown from the outside of the cases.
One of the bright blue, yellow thing fell to the ground in front of Aefia, but behind the curtain formed by the three moons' shield. It immediately exploded upon contacting the surface and a fiery spectacle bloomed right in front of her. The explosion caused water droplets around the inner sides of the barrier as Albert held out his hand and all the other mini grenades vanished.
"Sorry, I have completely forgotten about the layer it creates. Don't worry, I will remove it." He spoke as the three small spheres around him, turned into a halo and appeared behind him. The three spheres suddenly changed its shape and represented the three moons that were undergoing the eclipse. They all were in three separate locations in the halo and one of them seemed fragile, the Blue moon.
It was silently quivering and appeared in its waxing gibbous phase. Whatever it meant, it was clear enough to every one else that Aefia's magic energy was detectable. Without further ado, she stood still and noticed for whenever she could get near her lady.
Albert seemed to tap on a blank space as he simply followed a finger gesture and drew down a single straight line on the air. The line then transitioned into a sky splitting action that looked like a zipper was pulled open to reveal the galaxy. Soon, the line and the space design dissappeared and the image in front of her was much more clearer.
She was inside the barrier, or maybe the barrier was opened up for her to enter. Without thinking twice, she stepped in and with a blink of an eye, the tiny grenades appeared and all of them were sent at her direction at once.
She sliced through the one directly in front of her face as she jumped away from the other ones, only to get more deeper into the barrier. She sliced more of them that were approaching her, and cut through her way towards Albert.
It was predicted, but if she could get her weapons to even scratch him, she would be able to absorb his lightning energy. To level herself up in the air, she would usually have the dragon send her, but she couldn't do that because it was frozen like a living statue. Instead, she accepted her only ways and stepped onto the grenades.
Before they all went off, she jumped onto the other one and explosions trailed her footsteps as she was finally high enough to plunge back down at Albert. But instead of doing so, she pulled on her fingers like threads were being pulled and threw her daggers down at the mage.
Time was almost up as her blood recollected and appeared in the form of strings. Her Restrictive Strings skill was activated and the surroundings distorted. In mid-air, she pulled her bow out of her inventory and shot at the mage's stick before falling back down with all of her daggers and weapons flying back to her with red strings tied to them. Water sprayed back as her shoes became wet.
"What's the point if you weren't going to attack me anyway? You were stupid because the arrow or the daggers didn't even touch my stick. You were aiming for the ice stone, weren't you?" The mage laughed. "How foolish! You shouldn't have been the one the Guardians chose to support."
The arrow that she had shot, reappeared in her hand as sparks caused her palm to burn. "I don't think I have failed, but I think my plans did." Aefia finally spoke out.
"I...think it is better to die in this world then to go home." Her lady said as she shivered and opened a portal in front of herself. The shivering cold all went out in the vacuum of space as she looked towards the inside of the portal she had just created. She closed her eyes for the final time, but the distraction from the next second didn't allow her a peaceful getaway.
"Queen Brooke Bouquet!" Aefia shouted at her lady as she tried to get her attention. "Shut up!" She threw one of the daggers she was holding at the glass cube as tiny pieces of glass snapped and fell outwards upon impact with the sharp edge. Wait, there is a way to save her, without having to go through all this!
Without thinking or hesitating for a moment, she ran directly towards her lady without looking back. By the time she had reached there, her lady was already up on her knees as she held out her hands while staying in a crooked position due to the cold. She shivered as she tried her best to stay upright, but legs almost gave up.
Aefia reached in time as she held out her hand and her lady grabbed the blade of the already stabbed dagger inside the glass barrier and in a fraction of a second, slid the sharp edge of the blade across the crack and rattled it hard. More of the glass broke and her lady held her hand out of the frame.
Their fingertips touched and then, Aefia wrapped her hand around her lady's wrist as to pull her out of the remaining pieces of standing glass. Due to the imbalance in force, her lady was out of the cage and standing upright, but Aefia leaned forward and had accidentally smacked her head against the fragile frame and the rest of the glass barrier fell apart.
Aefia instantly collapsed on her knee as she breathed out like an athlete. Dark, red, liquid fell from her forehead and dyed the water a bright maroon as the glass dissolved into the marshlands like cotton candies. "She has successfully done what needed to be done," her lady spoke to Albert from slightly far away.
Aefia presumed that either she was about to take over the battle, or she was trying to end it. But it was neither and she quickly came to the realization that, her lady was actually pushing away the time slightly for Aefia to recover and finish off what she had started.
"You know that you beg to differ. That girl has probably already exhausted all her magic energy, didn't you see how she wasn't able to use her speed related skills?" Albert laughed as he got down to the ground and became within hand's reach. The annoying laugh and all that had happened, made Aefia overflow with anger as her mind started hurting a little by little.
"You know that no one here begs to differ. The triple solar eclipse is still a few more minutes before totality and if she manages to take you out within that time frame, your ritual would be incomplete and you would be possessed with your insanity." her lady spoke with a smirk in her face.
"If you are really confident enough, try making her stand up and fight me again. You said it didn't you? There was still a little bit more time left until the totality." The maniac Albert turned slightly around.
In a split second, he felt a different kind of energy start to cover every surface of the visible world. A new and familiar sort of energy mixed up to form some kind of hybrid. Her lady smiled a little bit bigger and spoke out. "You are not the only one who can do whatever they want. The weakest is given their title only when they have their powers and potentials not in show."
This made Albert immediately turn around, but he a split millimeter away from actually contacting the blade that was thrown or wielded at him. The wielder was a little too far gone to notice, but when he got a clearer view, it was Aefia who had done it.
Albert was left standing between two of the people who were actually participating in combat. Aefia and her lady, while Aefia was the one who had grazed her blade against his throat.