As Daniyal saw where the fireball was headed, his heart started to thump wildly with fear, he knew that if the fireball managed to hit the cocoon, the wild, sleeping beast would wake up and he was not sure that he would be able to handle it now when he had wasted a large pool of his mana while fighting against the bastard old man. He was cursing Novias inwardly because of this, and he wanted to skin the old man alive, down to his bones. He took a deep breath in and raised his hands upwards to create a shield around the cocoon to protect it from the fireball. White holy mist starts to gather at his fingertips and slowly started to coalesce into a giant shield of white holy energy. The white energy starts to quickly advance towards the still glowing cocoon and when it finally reached the thing, it wrapped around the cocoon and also folded over due to its giant size. The cocoon which was made up of holy magic started to become even more powerful because of the extra holy energy it was receiving from the shield, and due to it, the cocoon started to expand in size but before it could expand further, Novius's fireball hit the cocoon right in the center of it, but the shield held through, and blocked any damage from reaching the cocoon's body.
As Daniyal was just gloating that the fireball managed to do nothing in front of his shield and Novias was not able to get the result he desired, another two fireballs came at the shield at once and even before they collided with the shield, the air sizzled to demonstrate the sheer power and the destructiveness of the fireballs about to strike.
Daniyal's mana was finally at its limits, and in a few more seconds, the shield will disappear completely from existence and the cocoon will return back to normal and Daniyal did not want this to happen, not at any cost, so he decided to use his ultimate card, his life force as the source of energy instead of his mana. This meant that Daniyal will use the essence of his life to power the shield. It will be more powerful, but the cost will be that Daniyal will start to age in seconds and after he will reach his age limit, he will just die and the magic will disappear along with the cocoon!
A reddish force covered the shield as it was about to disappear, reinforcing it and making it more powerful, it wrapped more tightly around the cocoon, like it was acting on the will of its master and refused to let the structure suffer any damage.
The reason for this wasn't that Daniyal had any love for Agni instead, he just wanted to experiment on Agni's body and find out that if he could find way to extract his legacy from his body and take it for himself so he decided to protect Agni with his life on the line and his youth, ensuring that nothing happened to his prize.
As Novias saw what Daniyal was doing, he smiled knowingly, as though he was expecting this kind of desperation---" so much for this cocoon, eh, looks like that it is very important for the holy order. Well now I know this, we shall see how will you protect the life of this creature inside the cocoon from my destructive flames!" Novias laughed maniacally, and made the fireball even faster than before!
As the fireball finally reached the cocoon, it crashed into the cocoon with a raging explosion like it was embodying the rage inside Novias for killing his men!
'Booooooom!'