Renkyk flinched as Dastov lunged toward a window and swiftly shattered a reagent vial of water to conjure a shimmering liquid shield over much of that level of the central tower. He could sense that others higher up in the tower, including Galdrehln, had done the same, though some employed other Auras to make their wards. Renkyk wondered what he could possibly contribute as Gorondos's fiery shots sailed in.

"If I may," Nethron's voice rapidly skittered across his mind, "the Silver Aura can be used for protection as well. That dreadful man over there proved that before."

"I don't know how," Renkyk responded within his head, wincing as the flaming orbs closed. "I..."

"Focus. There is a bit of a hole in your defenses and I enjoy talking to you too much to watch you fail to fill it," Nethron intoned mischievously. "Imagine my power as a shield, an actual shield. And do it quickly."

Renkyk ran to a loophole three to the left of Dastov where he sensed that he would be of the greatest use and grasped his amulet while staring directly at the shot hurtling toward his loophole. Time slowed for him. He tightened his grip on the amulet and trained his mind entirely on the Silver Aura's argent tendrils. Nethron's voice, speaking thousands of separate phrases at once, echoed in his mind's corridors. He saw across his vision a translucent shimmering silver barrier form and radiate outward. Along with it was a lasting iridescent flash of Nethron's eyes illuminating a faint smile underneath them.

With Gorondos's barrage almost upon him, Renkyk braced himself and focused on maintaining the shimmering field he had cast just in front of the tower. It can't end here. I have too much to do, he thought. Not here. Not now.

Two of the orbs struck his barrier at once. Rather than falling away, they continued to try to push through. Based on the sizzling and crackling down the line, he surmised Dastov's ward fared much the same. He paid Dastov's struggles no mind and redoubled his efforts. It was like pushing against a charging horse. He labored so intensely just to hold the fiery orbs to a slow pace of advance. They bent the ward inward against all of his efforts to thwart them.

"Whether they strike or not now is largely irrelevant," Nethron said with an amused lilt. "Save your strength. Let what remains through."

"But..." Renkyk began to protest.

"Trust me. The momentum is broken. They cannot harm the stone now," the Aura Liberator laughed over Renkyk's objection. "Do it."

Renkyk, looking at the two diminishing orbs, doubted that they were indeed harmless, but his own strength rapidly diminished. With a sigh, he let the ward dissipate. The flaming orbs, still crackling and spinning, continued onward. Renkyk closed his eyes just before they struck the stone edifice. They splattered against the outer wall. Only a few stray cinders made their way inside through the loopholes before they too burned out into oblivion on the floor.

Dastov silently cut a glance toward Renkyk, his left eye narrowing. He dropped his hands and let his ward dissipate just as Renkyk had with his. The orbs the commander held at bay struck the tower harmlessly.

"I'm glad you had the sense to take up our defenses in the end. I'll confess you had me worried, genuinely worried, for a moment," Dastov muttered. He then smirked. "Adversity is making you a more rounded mage."

"I don't think we're through yet," Renkyk anxiously glanced out the loophole and saw Gorondos's bright orange eyes lock on his location. "Gorondos will be angrier than ever."

Dastov glanced out the nearest loophole and tapped his black lacquered cane.

"So he is," Dastov let out a resigned sigh. "A new challenge."

Renkyk ran cold while he turned to see Gorondos propelling himself through the air toward the tower. The Flame Angel formed a circle of flaming orbs that spun around him while he focused his gaze toward Renkyk.

"What was that?" Gorondos's voice, resonant and powerful, shook the air. "I smell Nethron's stink upon all of you, but especially among one of you hiding within that tower."

"Leave them be," Tathyk declared as he glided down to float in the air with large slabs of earth at his side some distance opposite of Gorondos. "Your quarrels are with me, Gorondos."

The Flame Angel's eyes flashed, embers flying out of them as he turned his attention to Tathyk.

"You felt it, too, Tathyk. You could not have missed that. Nethron's creation, his precious Silver Aura, was part of that display," Gorondos snickered. "The rest of it was much like when he imprisoned me below Mount Hetras, though a pale imitation. But the Silver Aura? Countless have been trying all over these lands and yet this is the first time I have seen it used to any effect. Tathyk, what would Forynda have to say about that?"

"That is not your concern," the Harvest Angel answered firmly.

Gorondos tilted his head back and forth, the ring of orbs around him spinning faster.

"This, however," he laughed as he raised several orbs above his head, "is yours."

He hurled them toward the tower's upper reaches. Renkyk feared immediately for Galdrehln, but then saw the purpose of Gorondos's ploy. Tathyk hurled his slabs of earth toward the upper levels to check the orbs and protect those above. Gorondos, taking advantage of the distraction, hurled the remainder of his arsenal at Tathyk, striking the Harvest Angel with gelatinous fire all over his body. Tathyk loosed an agonized scream while he strained to put out the fires that raged on his mortal form.

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Gorondos smirked and lunged up to Renkyk's loophole, gazing with his wildly excited orange lava-like eyes at Renkyk. The angel's ashen skin shifted around his face as his smile grew.

"So, it was you," Gorondos growled. "You think you can play Nethron's game, do you? That is almost sad you think--"

Three ice bolts sailed in from the right and pierced into Gorondos's skin. The angel recoiled, grasping his face where one had struck.

"WHAT?!" he shouted and trained his sights on Dastov.

"I thought so," the spymaster smiled, opening up several more vials of water. "We're not so helpless."

The next volley from Dastov met a puff of flame Gorondos summoned seemingly from the air itself. Several more ice bolts rained down from above, three of them bearing unmistakable artistry along their sides. Galdrehln, Renkyk smiled. One slipped through Gorondos's efforts to shield himself and struck him on the head, causing him to wince.

"Even the master of fire's flames burn low eventually," Nethron's voice quipped within Renkyk's head. "Hit him now while he struggles."

"My thoughts exactly," Renkyk muttered aloud as he clasped his amulet, holding it out through the loophole. Amidst the spirits of those who had died elsewhere along the wall from Gorondos's earlier attack, Renkyk drew his strength. Even without closing his eyes, he saw their argent wisps as the Communion of Souls in Ceuna called them.

A sprawling set of argent tendrils lashed out toward the Flame Angel, striking him repeatedly like cracking whips. Gorondos let out a deafening screech that shoot the very stones beneath Renkyk's feet.

"ENOUGH OF THIS!" the angel bellowed as he summoned forth wild and uncontrolled flames all around him. "YOU WILL BE CINDERS IN THE WIND!"

A horrible heaving and whooshing sound came from above. At once, Gorondos and his fires were encased in a ball of soil. Tathyk floated downward, parts of his skin still smoldering. His power, too, appeared diminished, but he would not be cowed by his foe.

From within the prison of dirt Tathyk had placed around Gorondos, a muffled enraged scream built. Renkyk winced and braced for what he knew would come next. Just as the scream reached a crescendo, flaming cracks appeared in the soil and great flaming tongues burst through. The entire shell exploded in a cloud of fire that immediately dissipated. Gorondos glared at Tathyk, but did so almost crumpled, his head drooping. Pieces of his face looked as though they had been chipped off from the lashes of the Silver Aura and ice shards from earlier.

"You are wounded, Tathyk," Gorondos tried to bluff.

"As are you, Gorondos," the Harvest Angel said with a wheezing voice. He then pointed westward. "And Cyrona approaches. It is finished."

Indeed, the blue shimmering body of the Water Angel sprang out of the river and landed just below Gorondos and Tathyk.

"For today, perhaps. But I will burn that city to the ground!" Gorondos roared before fleeing toward the opposite bank, met with cheers by Emperor Duronaht's soldiers. It was unclear to Renkyk what they thought they were cheering, but they may not have understood what they watched at that great distance.

Cyrona rose to greet Tathyk, placing a hand on the Harvest Angel. Renkyk stood alongside Dastov as both observed the two angels speaking almost directly before them.

"You left Rithys with Parlon?" Tathyk asked incredulously in his wheezing voice.

"She is far more capable than anyone understands," Cyrona cheerily answered. "And you let Gorondos hurt you? Be more careful, Tathyk, or I will have to give you an escort."

"Cyrona..." Tathyk groaned before they spoke to one another so softly that Renkyk and Commander Dastov could no longer hear them.

Dastov glanced at the pile of shattered glass water vials at his feet and brushed them aside with his cane.

"That was a very interesting skirmish," he commented to Renkyk. "We proved a point and, despite the fact that we would've been annihilated without Tathyk here to aid us, I consider it a great success."

"Is this what we should call establishing something in principle?" Renkyk laughed.

"Exactly," Dastov raised his eyebrows and nodded. "I know you're thinking that we nearly died in the process, but confronting angels was always going to carry that risk. Now we know things. Next time will be even more interesting now that they know what we can do."

Renkyk's skin prickled even thinking about it. If I do things right, there won't be a next time. Galdrehln and I will be far from here, he vowed as Dastov continued to preen to himself. Far from here and safe from this impossibly stupid war.

~~~

Rithys recovered from the blasts she had unleashed upon Parlon as she glanced around the beautiful total abyssal blackness she cast upon the land. She could not immediately sense Parlon's presence. He had been right in front of her when the orbs of light detonated, engulfing them both, but now she knew not where he was. She felt far weaker now, but that was her design. A long battle against Parlon was too uncertain. An attack that would hinder them both seemed the best use of her abilities.

She collected herself, both in mind and body, as she set about restoring the damage to her mortal form. She still sensed nothing from Parlon. Eerie silent seconds passed. She glanced around in all directions and there was nothing. Nothing at all.

A twisted laugh then echoed around her. It felt like fingers brushing along her back.

"Ahahaha! That was cruel, Rithys. So... cruel," Parlon cackled and wheezed as pieces of his mortal form consolidated before her. "You see, I tried spreading... myself around when I knew what you were doing. I thought, ha ha, that I could avoid the worst of what you tried, but... eh hehehe..., all I seemed to have done is cost myself part of my body."

Rithys saw at once what Parlon meant. Most of the right side of his face below his eyes along with everything down to what had once been his right hip was missing. Gone, into oblivion. Only the spectral spiritual form remained there. Oddly, his right hand escaped unscathed and floated by itself at his side.

"I should have, heh, clenched into a ball instead," he laughed painfully. "No matter. In time, it will heal. But now, now I will make you watch as I do what I came here to do."

"Parlon," Rithys murmured wearily, "be done with this. Rest, away from here."

"Oh no, Rithys," Parlon's amethyst eyes sparkled at her. "The stage is set. I must perform!"

His detached right hand reached out and summoned a crushing purple pulse that locked her in place. She tried to break free, but she was too depleted from her earlier gambit. She even tried to transport back to Ceuna, all to no avail.

"Parlon, no!" she screamed as he lurched outward from the abyssal trap she made for them, dragging her along with him. They came into the clearing, even the muted sunlight coming through the clouded sky appearing blinding. Spread along the hills and tree line before them, Emperor Rohmhelt's army watched in abject confusion. "ALL OF YOU! RUN!"

The soldiers were staggered by her command and few moved from their positions. Meanwhile, Parlon's detached hand melodically moved back and forth as his dissonant music swelled, pulsing out from him with mischief and malice. At first, the bulk of the soldiers merely stood in rapt attention. Then Parlon's song quickened, the notes turning chaotic and frenzied. Rithys's soul ached as she knew what would come next.

Cyrona, please. Please come back, she cried as the first soldiers turned their weapons against one another, impaling their own comrades as Parlon's murderous madness ruled over all. Please. Cyrona.