Aimed at you again! Sofia warned Pareth and Pestle, as she could feel through [Heat Death] the attack wasn’t for her.

The high priest just barely cast a healing spell on Pareth, speeding up his recovery a good chunk before Ezerid’s next spell materialized. Pareth’s shield was up and ready, while Pestle dove forward, slipping to the side of the spherical barrier protecting Ezerid.

Instead of another near-instant attack, a bright white ball of magic formed just outside of the Andarian’s staff, and slowly floated toward Pareth.

I have a bad feeling about this. Try not to get hit by it.

Ezerid started casting something else, but it was finally Sofia’s moment. She waited an instant for Pestle to be about ready to attack, and launched a coordinated assault. Having dug a bit into the wall, Pestle started to destroy on of the stakes holding up the shield, while Sofia occupied Ezerid’s attention.

30 seconds should be enough for a start… Let’s not waste mana.

A bright [Saintomancer’s Star] appeared behind Sofia its curse immediately forcing Ezerid to look her way, while the five sandworm skulls of the choir finally attacked. Five beams of light crashed into Ezerid’s shield in the same point, sparks of energy spreading through the flooded cavern. The shield held, without showing any sign of breaking, but Sofia knew how these kind of rituals worked. With most of the energy focused of the front to defend against the obvious attack, it left the protection of the anchoring stakes weakened.

Pestle managed to break the first stake, some of its internal composants causing a small explosion, hiding Pestle as she quickly gobbled up the larger pieces of the stake to prevent Ezerid from even trying to fix them.

Sofia refocused on monitoring Ezerid’s incoming attack. He fought back against Sofia’s star, summoning some kind of white pillar in front of him that seemed to absorb the star’s curse. And now free from the annoying light, he could pay attention to Pestle, unleashing a rain of electric arrows in her direction.

At the same time, the Sandworm skulls’ attack died down, and now they would need a few seconds to recharge.

Meanwhile, Pareth was struggling trying to escape the white ball, which followed him no matter where he went, slowly picking up speed as it tried to crash into him.

Pareth! Rotate left, jump up and back! Pareth immediately followed Sofia’s order, the ball of light just barely missing him as he jumped backwards, and immediately correcting course. Now! Well and teleport!

Pareth cast [Gravity well] forcing the ball of light to curve toward him even faster, and giving it a lot more speed. The moment before the collision, Pareth disappeared. The spell crashed into Ezerid’s own shield, right on the spot the skull choir had been targeting instants before.

Sofia instinctively hid behind her bone wall, Pareth and her other skeletons standing around her. The entire tunnel was engulfed in a flash of white light, and her life slowly ticked down a few percent as she took residual damage she couldn’t even feel.

Even during that moment of blindness, Sofia heard another small explosion. Well done Pestle. Rotate to the back of his shield for now, divert his attention.

When the light started to die down, Pareth rode the Pearled snake forward. Though not an aquatic beast, the snake was still much faster than Pareth underwater and highly resistant to magic. Pareth’s sword morphed to a jousting lance, and while Ezerid cast another salvo of electrical arrows that curved around his ritual slate to hunt Pestle, Pareth stabbed the shield.

The shield flickered but did not give in.

Ezerid thrust his staff forward. Another beam of light. It carved a gigantic hole through Pareth’s body, leaving behind only disconnected heads and legs. His mana heart had relocated to his skull again.

Use the heal. Sofia told him, knowing that his skull was the only necessary bodypart to cast it.

Pareth’s [Greater heal] went off, and his body was whole again.

After avoiding the electric arrows, Pestle started attacking a third stake, but she was a bit late, with no one else attacking the shield, she couldn’t get through it and reeled back from the strength of her own punch.

Ezerid disappeared from Sofia’s view.

Shit! Pestle!

Pareth and the snake took the opportunity to back up for another jousting charge.

The bolts are still too weak… Not even half a million yet…

Fuck.

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Sofia felt her link with Pestle disappear, and Ezerid reappeared in the center of his shield, just as Pareth striked again. Skulls. The sandworm skulls unleashed their beam attack a second time, hitting the spot Pareth had struck just as he moved away.

It’s breaking!

Waving his staff, Ezerid transformed the tunnel’s water into a giant block of ice that spread out from his shield. Pareth and the snake were too close and instantly engulfed by the ice, while Sofia had some time to see it coming. Summoning more bone slates, she transformed her wall barricade into a sealed bone cube with herself and the high priest inside.

Pareth can’t teleport out of that… Shit… And I think he knows not to attack me because of the corona specialization… I could try to take advantage of that, but safely channeling the bolts is almost certainly the winning move…

The magic ice spread outside of the cube, unable to cool the mana-charged water inside without direct contact and with the bolts heating everything up. It continued just past the cube, and stopped right there, its propagation halted by the heat of the [Saintomancer’s Star].

Wait! That’s the perfect opportunity! You fucked yourself, Ez!

Sofia summoned herself outside of the cube, and hastily built a bone wall behind the star. In seconds, she completely sealed the back end of the tunnel, and that done, converted the star to its cold form, its sickly light spreading the rot. The rot was able to consume the mana in liquid, but only if it could surround it, first it needed a solid to take a hold of. Just the sides of the tunnel weren’t ideal, as it would try to eat the leylines, not the water. Now that the water itself was solid, though, it was a different ball game. The wall of ice started to spread again as the heat of the star disappeared, but it was quickly covered in a layer of rot. Each second that passed, the layer of rot got thicker, and the ice disappeared. As for the mana leylines, it seemed that the rot that spread on it went so crazy with the amount of mana that it degenerated into eating itself before even consuming anything.

Above Sofia, the level of water started to decrease as the ice was consumed.

Everything was such a mess, Sofia did not notice anything wrong until she felt something hit her back. Sofia only had a fraction of a second to decide whether or not to sacrifice 800 000 mana to [Heat Death]. She chose not to. Ezerid’s spell blasted straight into her chest, turning her insides into a molten slushie of mana, her mana heart included. Sofia returned to life three seconds later, her bolts still channeling.

Crap. How often can he teleport like that? I felt nothing because of the mana water. Sofia thought, flying up to the thin pocket of gas that had formed near the top of tunnel from the rot eating the ice.

Better. I can finally use my mana senses at least a little bit. High priest died too… Nasty ambush attack. That must be how he got Pestle.

The sandworms attacked him it seems, they’re on cooldown again. I know he has a solid personal shield though, they wouldn’t be enough to break it. He probably backed out because of the rot, as I hoped, the star likely saved my ass from another Hugo style death on revival.

Pareth’s still stuck… But not for long. The rot’s almost up to you. Since he’s not attacking he must be repairing the shield right now. More time for my bolts. Two million bolts would do I think, so we need to hold for another thirty seconds.

Fucking slow.

As she focused on channeling her bolts as fast as possible, Sofia started to see long strands of mana piercing through the rot and starting to fill the air. Curse now?

Sofia waved her bolt in front of her, the glowing plasma destroying the cursed strands without difficulty.

Just how much mana can this guy use in a single fight?! And that’s with Victory’s flames preventing him from absorbing anything too! Mana cheater uh… Does he get free spells? Mana refunds? Kinda wish I still had the skill copy to steal that.

Still, he’s not casting as often it looks like. I just need not to get surprised again.

The rot finally freed Pareth and the snake from the ice. Pareth’s [Purification] had kept them safe from the curse, but his mana was whirling inside of him in a strange fashion. Sofia immediately understood what Pareth was doing, and rushed back down to her barricade wall. He was using his one skill with a long channeling time.

This might be our chance!

Sofia started channeling her signature skill, using almost all the mana she had left, barely enough to get Amazëok the Calamity of Plasma out for ten seconds.

As soon as the final layer of ice surrounding the shield was eaten away by the rot, Pareth unleashed the [Sunless Pulse]. Just like the one the huge fused Sunless sometime used on Cerberus, the pulse of mana quickly spread like a sphere originating from Pareth’s mana heart, ripping through space as it expanded. Ezerid’s spherical shield was badly shaken by the blow but held, barely, until Sofia’s piercing bolt slammed right through, and crashed against his smaller, personal shield. The explosive bolt followed right after, slipping inside of the self-repairing spherical shield through the tiny hole the piercing bolt had left.

The explosion rocked the tunnel, and was contained inside of the shield, making it much deadlier. But Sofia received no victory notification.

That was expected, with a smirk, she used [Paradise Toybox] to freeze the trial.

Where did our little hero teleport to…

Sofia looked around, surprised to find Ezerid behind her, in the water far beyond her bone wall.

She was done channeling her signature skill just in time. Her aura opening a hole through the bone wall, letting the water pour in, the Destroyer of plasma emerged from her mana heart, going straight for Ezerid. Using the very last bits of her mana Sofia gave one second of third tier [Runeforged Overlord] to the destroyer.

The Andarian hero fled, briefly turning around to unleash another beam of light toward the destroyer. It ate away at the plasma skeleton’s body, cutting its lifetime in half. It did not slow it whatsoever. Huge mandibles of plasma closed around Ezerid’s body. Only momentarily stopped by his shield before breaking through. The Andarian somehow survived that first blow, but the destroyer’s mandibles violently opened and closed again several times.

[ROUND 12/13 - WIN]

Great call Pareth. You won us this one.