Sophia flinched and reached for a defense immediately. She’d seen what that lightning did to Dav and absolutely did not want it to hit her, so she even for a moment. She didn’t have time to think or layer defenses; she only had time for one Ability.

She picked Magical Translucence. Unconsciously, she also tugged on the magic with her aura, limiting its reach, but the effect of that was small.

The effect of Magical Translucence didn’t last long, but it was still impressive to Sophia. For Dav, the lightning impacted his shield; only the lightning that pushed through his shield actually hit him, but it was still enough to paralyze him while he was being hit. With Magical Translucence, Sophia didn’t see any sign of a shield blocking the lightning strike.

She could feel the magic as it passed though where she was standing. It made her ache, but it didn’t hold her in place. A moment after the first bit of lightning hit, Sophia threw herself to the side and out of the direct path of the lightning. A single hop was enough because the Hungering Spark didn’t seem to realize she’d gotten out of the way. The lightning continued to sheet through the area where Sophia had stood a moment earlier.

If the Hungering Spark couldn’t see she’d gotten out of the way, how did it find her in the first place after she destroyed its vision?

Sophia’s eyes followed the lightning back along its path to its origin with the Hungering Spark as she scrambled backwards. She froze when she realized that in her haste to get away from the raging energy, she’d abandoned the illusion of the tent. The lightning didn’t move towards her; in fact, the Hungering Spark didn’t seem to realize she wasn’t there.

Sophia traced the lightning back to the tent and realized that the Hungering Spark found her because she made the easiest mistake possible when using her aura to cast a spell: she’d thrown the True Death Bolt from her position straight towards the monster. It was more accurate, which was nice, but it also meant that all the monster had to do was figure out where the attack came from and use something big enough to cover that area. The Hungering Spark’s lightning was more than broad enough; as it was, it hadn’t quite hit her squarely.

She could do better than that with aura casting and she could definitely do better than that if she used her Animated Spell Blade! Yes, it would be a little slower to deliberately cast the spell from a portion of her aura that wasn’t in line with her vision, but if that meant the monster would be fooled about where to attack, it was completely worth it. Letting it waste its energy attacking the ground was a far better choice than leading it to her location.

Sophia tried to form a Death Bolt at the edge of her aura, but nothing happened. Her mana didn’t move. It took her a moment to realize that she was still covered in the effect of Magical Translucence. She hadn’t even realized she could hang on to it for more than a moment. It was great news, in a way, but apparently she couldn’t use Magical Translucence and cast anything at the same time. That made all too much sense; if she wasn’t entirely there to magic, how could she manipulate it precisely?

At the same time, Sophia didn’t like it. Her body should be translucent, but there was no reason her aura had to be translucent as well. At least, she didn’t think there was. The Ability she currently had handled both, but maybe there was one that would let her adjust things more. If nothing else, she was pretty sure that her Magic Attuned Aura still worked; maybe she could use that to enable herself to cast spells while she was translucent to enemies’ spells.

It was something to work on in the future. For now, she would simply have to remember that she couldn’t hold the defense and attack at the same time. For that matter, she probably couldn’t use the defense and fly at the same time; that was still magic. Maybe it would work if she already had her wings out?

Sophia shook herself back to the fight she was in. She could test things later.

The Hungering Spark’s tongue twisted and curled. It seemed to try to lick the lightning that it sent at Sophia’s previous location, even if that meant it was hit by more of Amy’s arrows. It didn’t seem to care about them; that and the fact that its shield hadn’t yet fallen made Sophia wonder just how tough it was. Was it stronger because it only had to cover part of the monster’s body?

The Hungering Spark’s tongue had to be still partially restrained, but Dav’s Eldritch Anchor seemed to be failing. Sophia needed to kill the monster.

She sent her Animated Spell Blade off to one side of her aura and started casting from it and another location in her aura not far from the blade; the last thing she wanted was for the monster to be unable to decide which spot to attack, split the difference, and end up hitting Sophia again. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to get her Magical Translucence functioning in time. Even if she did, she already ached; she wasn’t sure what another lightning strike would do to her. Translucent wasn’t perfectly clear; she was hit with something. That had to be why she ached.

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Like the first Death Bolt, both of her attacks ripped into the Hungering Spark’s body without hitting any sort of protection. Both connected with its upper body; she had to avoid the tongue to avoid the shield, which meant avoiding the belly, but she could try to hit the upper chest. Lightning surged out of the injuries.

The Hungering Spark responded by attacking both directions. The lightning didn’t come close to Sophia herself, but it smashed cleanly into her Animated Spell Blade. For the first time, she felt her Imbue Blade Ability fail through the action of something else, instead of through her own dismissal or use of the Imbuement. It didn’t hurt, but she could definitely feel it as the link to her blade snapped.

Sophia saw Dav finally stand up. He raised his sword, clearly intending to stab the Hungering Spark, so she shouted at him mentally. “Don’t hit it! It can only find you by tracing your attacks back, I’ve blinded it!”

Dav stepped backwards. Sophia saw him look down, then relax a little before he projected words back at her. “Can you get him back to the Fire Bud? It’s about to bloom.”

Before Sophia could answer, the dragons she’d forgotten about plunged down from the sky. This time, it seemed like they’d learned from their previous attacks, because neither one tried to attack physically. Instead, they both spat glowing sparks at the monster, the same magical breath that burned it when they first attacked.

The Hungering Spark didn’t seem to know where to hit after that. It flailed towards the dragons, but completely missed the larger purple dragon and barely clipped the tail of the pastel feathered dragon. Sophia watched them ascend back into the sky. The injured dragon seemed to have more trouble controlling its ascent than before, but it was still able to stay in the sky.

Sophia took the Spark’s distraction as a good time to hit it with another True Death spell, carefully aimed from a slightly different direction that wasn’t close to herself. It seemed to confuse the monster even more. It was quickly apparent that other than the belly-mouth, an eye, and its limbs, the Hungering Spark didn’t have any vital points. It was definitely not alive in the normal sense of the word.

Careful strikes to try to bleed out the elemental was clearly the best option Sophia had, but leading it into the Eldritch Fire Bud might speed things up. The faster this was done, the better; she couldn’t count on the Hungering Spark not having surprises of its own that could turn everything around.

Sophia scrambled to her feet and hurried in a wide circle around the Hungering Spark and the Eldritch Fire Bud. Once she had a good view of it again, she could see what Dav meant. The Fire Bud was about halfway through the process; it would be warm now but not horribly hot. She needed to lure it forward a few steps, back to where it started.

Another look at the Spark told her that that might be easier than she expected, unfortunately. The Hungering Spark had turned to follow her as she moved around it. It clearly didn’t know exactly where she was, but just as clearly it had some idea something was moving and was more worried about that than about where it had last been attacked from. Maybe it had realized she was the attacker?

Come to think of it, it had stopped attacking the false enemies of her Offensive Illusion Field after it performed the big attack on two spots near it then ate the lightning. That probably meant it had seen through that layer of illusion. At the same time, it hadn’t targeted her while she was in Taika’s tent except for returning her attack; was that because she wasn’t moving or because Taika’s illusion still worked?

It wouldn’t hurt to have Taika try again. She projected the words across the mental link. “Taika! Can you set up an illusion to give me something to hide behind and also something that hides Dav’s Eldritch Fire Bud? Maybe you can make it look like it isn’t there?”

Sophia made it all the way to where she wanted to be before Taika answered. His response wasn’t particularly reassuring. “Maybe?”

“Please try,” Sophia requested. She couldn’t really ask more than that. “Dav, are you ready to anchor the Spark again if I can get it close enough?”

Dav’s mental voice, unlike Taika’s, had a laugh under it when he responded, “Maybe.”

Lightning speared towards Sophia from the Hungering Spark. It wasn’t quite aimed correctly; it seemed to be aimed at where she had been a moment before instead of where she was now. Sophia had to dive to the side, but she was able to completely get out of the way.

The Hungering Spark’s inaccuracy probably had something to do with how it was finding her. It couldn’t be hearing or sight; she destroyed its eye and the thunder was far too loud to hear over. That limited how it could sense her, and there was an obvious possibility: aura. In this case, Sophia guessed it was probably the thing’s Domain. It was named after the creature and had to do something. While it probably empowered the monster’s lightning, it would make sense if the Hungering Spark could also use its Domain to get a rough feel for where things were.

That might explain how it broke out of the Offensive Illusion Field, too. It could tell there wasn’t anything there when it ate the lightning, and that would confirm the lack of feeling from its Domain. That might be enough even if it preferred to use its glowing red eye, and it would have to use the Domain now that it couldn’t see.

Sophia more than half wished she had electrical abilities, too. If she did, maybe she could blind it or make a dead spot. As it was, she didn’t even have a way to try to ground out the lightning, so she had to abandon that idea and hope Taika’s illusions would work. She wasn’t very confident, not if it paid attention to its Domain. Taika’s illusions weren’t solid.

Sophia crawled away from where she landed after her dive. She didn’t know if that would make it harder to find her, but it was worth a try. She covered her movement with a True Death Bolt from the far end of her aura, to try to fix the Hungering Spark’s attention in that direction and distract it from her. It didn’t seem to multitask well.