664 10/12 0:12 (Autumn, Sunrise, Midrar)
Luna was forced to slide back a couple of meters, Amber's momentum crashing into the Lunarian.
Contemporarily, Amber's body constantly radiated enough heat that the white matter forming Luna's weapon and the surrounding area was starting to melt slightly despite the white-haired one's command.
Yet this was far from enough for Luna to be in danger.
Feeling the heat transfer through contact with the solid matter, Luna imbued in her Will a pattern that she then imposed upon the ground, forming a large series of tunnels with the purpose of channeling and isolating the Phoenix's heat safely before it could warm too much the area.
Even so the humanoid of flames attacked relentlessly, fueling herself by constantly generating oxigen while raining down blow after blow, both with her sword and her limbs, towards the Lunarian.
The red-eyed one gradually retreated step by step, the ground shifting slightly underneath both of their feet to make sure that they would never more too far away from the center of the Domain, right inside of Sabel's field of view, making sure she could study how the two were fighting.
Meanwhile Mafel above was similarly observing the inside of the Domain, accumulating the thin film of Curses all around her into forming hundreds of identical, dull purple nails floating all around her that soon rained down, a general attack intent not to Damage Luna but instead to increase the Elf's understanding over the physical laws of the Domain.
And her bet that Luna would not actively obscure them was a success, Mafel gaining plenty of information before she proceded, irregularly altering the spikes' size, weight, density and texture alike to become ever more precise with the rules.
Satisfied of her comprehension of its rules, she started to prepare her real attack, pushing into overdrive her Unique Skill to create and then concentrate Curses within her Unique Arma, Malevolent Scepter of the Generator, taking advantage of the magical characteristics of attuned Orichalcum to pour an immense amount of Curses into her ashen staff.
So much so, in fact, that glowing purple cracks started spreading upon the grey wood before it restored itself in a cycle that flooded it with ever more Curses, the Elf trying to force her Unique Arma to evolve.
Fortunately it was both an Artifact and a Skill at the same time, negating any risk of permanent Damage done to her resulting from her action.
Moving back to within the Domain as the purple light above slowly flared brighter and brighter…
Sabel carefully observed her two Mates, stuck as she was in the mass of white matter, trying to figure out how exactly Luna wanted her to escape from her hold.
The most direct way would be to use her Aura, Vital Energy and Mana together to enhance her strenght enough to simply rip her way out but, considering Luna's words, she discarded this option.
Trough pulsing slightly her Rebellion she was able to confirm that the material itself was completely unaffected by it, her Skill failing to disrupt the Rankless Skill forming the Domain because of Core's pseudo-Enhancement: Domain.
Soon after she instead decided to fill the granular white stone with her Aura, trying to understand more of their composition.
Black eyes widened in surprise, feeling instability and obvious irregularities in its constitution and not in a pattern that would assist in Luna's efforts but instead constantly and irregularly changing, highlighting flaws and weak spots in its coherency.
'Is this what she meant? For me to find their weak spot to minimize the Energy needed to free myself? No, this is too easy.' Sabel shook her head, turning her eyes back to the fight between Luna and Amber, trying to grasp more about the laws of this Domain.
Within her gaze, she beholded the clashes between the two figures.
Sword swing after sword swing inexorably were met by the immovable wall composed of Luna's Unique Arma, the black gauntlets completely isolating the Lunarian's hands, her previous weapon having long since melted into slag because of the heat.
Yet even so Luna found it hard to respond, Amber's Resistance to Physical Damage having already reached the Nullification Type in her current state as a mass of flames, her own strikes only being able to disrupt the flames at her passage and this much only because she added her Will's influence to her blows.
Yet, even so, the flames forming her body rapidly filled back up thanks not only to her natural Regeneration but also because she was rapidly consuming more oxigen to flare up brighter and more intense than ever before.
Feeling exhaustion clawing at Amber, Sabel pursued her lips, knowing that this stalemate would be shattered soon considering how much Mana and concentration she needed to use to maintain this plasma-based State, the Human's gaze being able to see how the ground in Amber's blindspot was brightening and boiling, safely releasing thermal energy.
Black eyes widened in confusion, her mind working overtime to figure out why the Domain was behaving like this, her thoughts turning back to the flaws she found in the white matter. 'It makes no sense. Normally she would accumulate as much heat as possible to then convert it into more Energy for her use. Why is she just venting it out? Unless… Unless she cannot create an holding pattern for the heat! But creating a Runic Pattern to hold thermal energy is well within Luna's reach and she could just then use Creation by Annihilation to integrate the energy into herself.'
The battle continued on, Sabel concentrating entirely on finding out other anomalies in the white-haired one's actions to try and understand the motives behind them, finally seeing how not all of her wounds had closed entirely, only the ones that Amber would be unable to see stuck as she was in their current deadlock.
Small tears in Luna's skin, tears that should have long since closed automatically, were now instead kept open, silvery droplets flowing down her skin to the white matter forming the ground.
And under Sabel's black eyes, she watched as the glowing vital fluid was eagerly drunk in, vanishing within the ever shifting terrain.
Curious, her gaze moved to her hands kept carefully free from the white substance before experimentally forming a shard of Light-Attribute Mana in her right hand, her fingers cutting themselves on the light's sharp edges, her crimson blood dropping upon the ground and it too being eagerly drank in.
Despite a couple of seconds passing and feeling nothing change around her within the white matter, Sabel instinctively grasped that this was part of the way she should free herself.
Even so she knew that this would not be everything and, unwilling to just waste time, breath and Energy in an incorrect guess, instead returning to analyze what exactly Luna was doing, her blood continuing to fall drop after drop upon the thirsting floor.
The wavering flame intensified, Amber pushing herself to try and stabilize her current state, feeling herself almost fall apart if not for her Aura and Luna's Will surrounding her and applying just enough pressure that she wouldn't explode while at the same time not exerting enough pressure to cause her to collapse.
Amber's sword flashed again and again, flames trailing after her blade before they were entirely deflected by Luna's black gauntlets, the conflict between her Blazing Blade of the Piercer and Luna's Thaumaturgic Armor of the Singularity ending in repeating ties.
A plasma jet erupted from the orange-eyed one, the red-eyed one merely leaning left, Will condensing around her nails and releasing ten sharp waves at once that ripped into Amber, doing her best to force the Phoenix to progress while subtly making sure she would suffer no permanent Damage.
'No, not like this. Concentrate on your body's composition, you are too unstable to fight properly.' Luna sent out, her Will pulsing in rhythm with her words. 'Stabilize or you will die!' She ordered sharply, continuing to suppress the mass of flames with waves of condensed Will.
Upon hearing her Mate's words, Amber stilled briefly, turning her attention inwardly and this way actively taking notice of the way her body was slowly falling apart, the lack of nerves and feeling in her body having led her to mistakenly believe her situation wasn't that dangerous.
Yet now that she was examining herself, the Phoenix was able to see how her body was clumping together to then collapse, her heat causing minuscule reactions within the air that she was breathing in, the air generated through her Mana, that meant she was slowly but surely losing mass as time passed.
And once her mass reached a certain threshold, she would die, her body reacting like a star whose gravity, in her case the pressure of her Aura, failed at balancing her outward pressure, detonating and bringing an end to herself.
Made aware of this possibility, Amber stilled, minimizing her consume of energy to stretch out her remaining time, focusing on finding a way to stabilize her current state.
Sabel, even while imprisoned as she was within the white matter of this place, watched the two, her eyes wide open as she grasped the truth of her escape, ready to enact her plan at any time.
Mafel, flying above on wings of solid Curses, held what was now her barely-existent staff, the wood-like Orichalcum forming it now completely marred by a thick web of glowing purple cracks, a miniature Plane composed entirely of Curse-Attribute Mana starting to form within her weapon.
This fight was rapidly approaching its conclusion.
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