"HOW THE HELL DOES HE HAVE SO MUCH MANA?!" Irhaal screamed into the storm of exploding frost, her voice cracking as another shockwave slammed into the dome.
Gone was her previous aloof elven poise as shards of ice the size of her forearm hammered against the barrier, each impact jarring her teeth as she forced another spell into existence.
Blue flames of the highest purity she could muster spiraled around her hands before she compressed them into a tight killing sphere, launching it with a sharp sonic crack of her own.
And it missed.
Because, of course, it missed.
"And how is he dodging it so easily?!" she screeched as the fireball exploded uselessly into the clouds.
Her voice was swallowed instantly by the next blast -
BOOOOM!!
As another colossal Ice Boulder crashed onto the dome, sending shrapnel flying like frozen artillery.
The barrier rippled violently, cracks shimmering across its surface before sealing again.
Gorran, Tier 5 warrior and walking fortress of Team Laps, staggered even with Amaterasu's blessing coursing through his own magic.
"How much longer, Naya?!" he growled, his knees trembling, shield braced up like he was holding up a collapsing sky.
Beside him, Naya stood perfectly still.
Eyes closed and hands pressed together.
Her breath was steady despite the carnage while Naf clung desperately to her robe, shaking like a leaf while the priestess whispered the final lines of her prayer:
"O Radiant Mother, Sun that burns the false
O Dawn that pierces shadow's veil.
Hear us, and guide your wrath to our foes
Let your arrows fall as judgment from the heavens."
And then the temperature changed, light gathered into up above…
And the next moment—
The sky split open.
A halo of gold tore into existence overhead, bathing the entire forest in the light of a newborn dawn.
Within the radiant circle, countless orbs of condensed sunlight formed, each trembling with lethal promise.
Gorran grinned savagely.
"Irhaal!" he roared. "Hit him with the biggest, dumbest spell you have… let's scorch that bastard!"
Irhaal didn't need to be told twice. Her hands shot outward, blue fire swirling around her like miniature hurricanes as she began her chant again, voice rising above the thunder of falling ice.
And up above, Nico hovered in the clouds with frost caking his arms.
He looked at the tiny golden glimmers appearing in the halo.
And as he blinked, the glimmers grew.
And grew.
And grew.
"…oh come on," he groaned, dumping every ounce of MP into flight and precognition, and bolted.
And a moment later-
-BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM-!
The golden orbs detonated into motion, now fist-sized projectiles of divine light, and launched after him at supersonic speeds, catching up to him instantly.
Nico managed to dodge the first volley by the skin of his teeth, feeling the heat graze his cloak.
But the projectiles curved mid-air.
They arced... corrected course.
And came right back at him.
"They're HOMING onto me?!" he yelped.
He fired back on reflex, unleashing fragmentation Ice Pebbles like a stressed-out Gatling gun.
-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-!
Some orbs detonated mid-air, hit by the shrapnel before exploding in bright bursts of gold.
But for every one he hit, ten more screamed toward him.
There were hundreds.
No… They were far more than that.
Each one tracking him with the unblinking precision of divine targeting systems.
The sky behind him lit up like a golden meteor shower.
"THAT'S… THIS IS BULLSHIT!" he screamed as he dove, spun and twisted, detonating pebbles in all directions.
But still the lights chased him like celestial heat-seeking missiles.
The sky had become a battlefield of gold and frost.
And Nico twisted through it like a man trying to out-dodge God's bullet hell, each precognitive flash slamming into his mind with brutal force.
Precognition didn't speak; it lunged at him.
Two seconds of the future with hundreds of variables dumped into his skull all at once, making his vision go white at the edges.
Every incoming orb wasn't just a projectile; it was a variable of trajectory, angle, speed, and there were hundreds of them.
The strain compressed his thoughts like someone tightening a vice around his brain.
He dragged breath through his teeth with each pulse that hit him.
Left.
Up.
Down…no, twist.
A golden sphere streaked past his cheek, the heat blistering his skin before exploding behind him with a thunderous crack.
Blood trickled from his nose.
Still, he forced a Fragmentation Ice Pebble with hands trembling, reinforcing the inner core till it overloaded with just enough mana to detonate at that exact second to match the incoming cluster and -
- CRACK - BOOM-!!
Three orbs burst apart mid-air, but the shockwave staggered him, as ten more instantly curved toward his exposed flank.
[Can't keep up!]
Tracking hundreds of those orbs via Precognition, and creating Fragmentation Ice Pebbles all the while doing evasive aerial maneuvers against supercar-sonic homing projectiles required the kind of cognition Nico simply didn't have.
"Ah!" Nico yelped as another blast grazed his foot, spinning him in the air.
Through gritted teeth, he fired off another sequence of fragmented pebbles, each one requiring more precision than his fraying mind wanted to give.
Yet the barrage did not slow.
It chased him like a divine meteor swarm, lighting the clouds in gold.
Nico wasn't winning.
He was surviving on instincts, future-sight, and raw stubbornness.
But while he was carving chaos through the sky, the island below cracked with a different kind of violence.
A ripple of black mana unfurled at the forest's edge.
Luke stepped out of the darkness, knife drawn, smile sharp.
And in the same heartbeat, Nom-Nom dropped in front of him, four wings spread wide, violet embers curling off her wrists.
And blood dripping down onto the ground from the gash on her shoulder as she growled.
The air between them snapped like a drawn bowstring let loose.
A Greater Dragon.
And a master of shadows who still thought he was fighting an experimental newborn dragon.