Well, terror had been used as a weapon.
Dante had recently used it against its creators. The shadowy pup-pet appeared a perfect black shadow of the boy Erica had blown to vapor.
The figure was rising from the smoking crater. Its violet eyes were lifeless and devoid of memories. It set its gaze on the teammate from whom it had been birthed.
Still, the Wardcraft user was struggling to his feet; he stared in horror; the remaining members of Derek's team froze.
One deep, primal fear momentarily overshadowed their desire to kill. They had dealt death. But they had never seen it twisted and hurled back at them like this.
"What is that thing?" the Wardcraft user stammered, stumbling back.
The shadow puppet instead obeyed Dante; he pointed. "Attack."
The creature lunged at an unnatural and silent speed, allowing a thin plume of sickly green mist to seep from its shadowy frame as it traversed the distance: a ghost of the Toximancy it had once wielded.
The Wardcraft user screamed. He propelled a shimmering barrier upwards. The puppet slammed into the barrier. Its shadowy claws scraped against the magical shield.
That moment of horror was the opening Dante's team needed. Rina's face was pale but determined. She rushed to Jin's side. Her hands glowed as she began the difficult process of healing his battered body.
But Derek was not a man to freeze with fear. He was a predator. His rage quickly eclipsed his shock.
"It's just a puppet!" he bellowed. The sound of his voice actually snapped his teammates back to reality. "Forget the shield wall! Kill the puppet master! He falls they all fall! Focus on Dante!"
His orders revived some of their spirits. The Maleficium user was just thin. He took his attention from Erica and focused on Dante. "Curse of the Leaden Mind," he hissed.
Mental fog crashed into Dante like a wave. His thoughts became slow. Commands suddenly distantly felt, sluggishly cascading like trying to shout through water.
At the same time, the Phantasm user waved his arms feverishly. The battlefield shimmered; three more versions of Derek's charging brawlers appeared.
"Dante, watch out!" Eric shouted. He stepped in front of him-a living mountain of defiance.
The injured Graviton user tightened his grip on his bleeding thigh. He pointed a shaking hand at Dante.
Air grew heavy around Dante's feet, trying to pin him in place. His spell was weaker now, but it was making any directions of a fight nearly impossible.
"We have to protect him!" Masha shouted. She sent a torrent of ice shards to intercept one of the brawlers real or not.
Talia was a silver ghost darting through the stream of illusions. Her Kinetic Eye was struggling to track the true threats through the confusing facsimile of magic.
She intercepted a blow meant for Masha. The sound of her foil rang out in the chaos.
Their support members Neil and Juno were now their most vulnerable assets. They were standing behind the frontline, desperately trying to provide the information the team needed to survive.
"There's a flaw on his greatsword!" Neil yelled. His eyes were wide with the focused intensity of his Lore Archive skill. "There's a sigil on the hilt! It's an artifact that grants him strength, but it drains his stamina with every swing! He can't keep this pace up!"
It was vital information. But in shouting out, he practically made himself a target.
One of the brawlers, a large hulk, had been ignored in all the chaos of the moment. Suddenly, he severed his attack from Eric; it had been merely an illusion.
The real one was concealed by the phantasm. He had slipped into their flank. He charged from the shadows, his mace raised high, clear in his sights.
"Neil!" Juno screamed. Neil had seen the real threat out of the corner of his eye.
But it was too late. Neil looked up, his face a mask of sudden, final understanding. He had no skills for combat. No time to react.
WHOOSH!
Dreadful clean, the mace had come down upon him.
CRUNCH.
The tense moment hardly elapsed before Neil's collapse heralded his vital knowledge being quelled forever. The team was swept over by a wave of collective shock.
Erica was screaming for him. Her voice, shaken by sorrow, broke in grief. The loss was itself a physical blow. They staggered.
And their enemies seized that opportunity.
"One down!" the Maleficium user crowed. He turned his hateful eyes toward their other analytical. "Your turn artist!"
He hurled another curse. "Hex of Shared Pain!"
Juno had been looking for Derek's weakness. Then he suddenly cried out in shock, clutching his arm as though the impact had struck him.
CRACK!
A searing sound reverberated as his own bones cracked under sympathetic magic that mirrored an injury Eric had just sustained. He knelt. His skill had become useless.
They were disintegrating. They lost their intelligence in barely ten seconds.
"Dante!" Derek's voice erupted triumphantly, having finally pushed past Eric, who was now grappling with two other brawlers. "Your little tricks are over!"
He charged straight for Dante. His great sword was raised for a killing blow. Dante's mind was still sluggish; the curse weighed heavily on him.
Derek's feet were weighed down by the gravity spell. His shadow puppet was still engaged with the Wardcraft user. He was without defense.
Masha tried to raise an ice wall. But the Phantasm user had created a shimmering distortion in the air that deflected her spell some foot left of her targeted point.
Talia was too far away. Busy with the gravity mage and another brawler.
'This is it,' thought Dante. The thought slithered through his cursed mind like sludge.
Derek's blade began descending. In the cruel light of victory, Dante saw it reflected in his eyes, gazing at its own shocked countenance in the polished blood-stained steel.
Then a lance of pure white-hot plasma screamed past his head, not directed at Derek, but rather the ground before him.
It was an ocean of light when it exploded.
The blast sent Derek crashing backward, away from Dante.
He turned to Erica. She had tears streaming down her face, a terrifying blend of sorrow for Neil and pure unfiltered fury. Her palms were pressed together.
The air crackled with an unstable, overwhelming force.
She had saved him but poured out the energy surviving in her and all her agony for Neil into that one desperate beam.
The battle was far from over; they were still alive.
But they were crumbled, grieving, standing at the very edge of destruction.