Far above in the sky, thunder rumbled and lightning flashed as Damien collided with the emperor, causing an explosion so large that the wind ignited and buffeted the weaker spirit lord guards, blasting them a short distance away, which gave him time to score a first hit on the emperor.
The attack signalled the start of the fight as more than a dozen spirit lords clashed, techniques flashing and lightning lit up the sky. A storm cultivator controlled his summoned storm, using the heavy wind and lightning to harry Damien's people. A heavy wind blew, redirecting Fenore's arrow which was heading straight for an empire's spirit lord. The arrow shifted, missing its target but hitting and blowing off a mountaintop in the distance. Danor clashed with an empire swordlord, both of them wielding their different techniques in conjunction with their blade skills. They seemed to be on even footing as they flashed from one side to another, leaving behind afterimages. Brunos on the other hand took care of his opponent, both of them wielding fire affinities. Brunos with his hammer and shield and the other with her bow and flaming arrows.
The winter church—it hadn't taken them much to agree to the alliance. The only condition they'd asked for was to be left alone to handle the inferno cultist. Ice and fire clashed, with both cultivators summoning elemental constructs to attack each other. In the distance, a winter priestess chased an inferno priest, the man laughing madly as he flew away from her, dodging with practice swiftness the different ice techniques she threw at him.
Menoe remained over the city and a little bit in front of it, using ice constructs to deflect any stray attacks and intentional ones, the city-wide energy barrier tanking any one she couldn't deflect in time, all the while she clashed with the high priest of the inferno cult.
Damien on his own, battled not one, not two, but three spirit lords, Gray directing his attacks and giving warnings to avoid attacks or tank the ones he couldn't. He summoned star falls, raining down attacks on his opponents. A guard with a shield tried to tank one, thinking he was sturdy enough, he learnt his lesson when both his shield and the arm holding it got mangled, he'll survive, but it gave Damien time to handle the rest. The second one was actually quite surprising, as the second guard—A space cultivator, warped space and his stars disappeared, appearing suddenly at Damien's back. He managed to teleport in time, fighting through the will of the cultivator that tried to lock down space. His attacks crashed into a mountain reducing it to small chunks of rocks.
Their attacks lit up the skies as they fought, anybody watching from the city would have seen only faint figures and massive flashes of light in the clouds.
"You've improved fast, for such a short time," the emperor commented, summoning balls of fire that flew towards Damien.
"I could say the same about you—or not," Damien replied, smirking as he pointed his fingers, a beam of destruction cutting through the fireballs and igniting the air, causing explosions that shook the air. These were no simple fireballs like the ones created with ordinary fire affinities, these were solar-made balls of fire, one of them powerful enough to raze to the ground a small town.
"Boo to me for being the serious one here," the emperor said. Damien sent another salvo of star falls while he used his spear to fend off the cultivator with the shield—who had given up on tanking his attacks and instead resorted to harrying him.
His stars were deflected again, pissing him off and putting the space cultivator on his first kill list. Hours went by as they fought, Damien summoned star falls which were either teleported away or dodged, he tried to overwhelm the cultivator by having the stars attack his three opponents individually. The space cultivator teleported most of them, reducing the strain on the emperor who managed to tank the few remaining, while the third guard just dodged the attack, assisted by the space cultivator.
The terrain of the borderlands was changed as the two groups of cultivators fought, new hills were created and old ones destroyed. The vast stretch of land was dented with craters as the spirit lords battled.
Fenore's arrows found flesh and her nature affinity deposited seeds within their victims, which led to speedily growing into trees if not quickly taken care of, which was done by a life cultivator who flashed from one side to another, healing allies. That didn't stop Fenore from opening holes in multiple cultivators. His fight with the emperor took a frustrating turn when the storm cultivator began using flashes of lightning to hamper him. For every attack he tried to deliver, he had to dodge multiple lightning strikes. He'd have been lightning roasted by now if not for Gray's last minute warnings, and even then, it was mostly close calls. Spirit lords were powerful and very hard to kill, but one mistake could bring down a giant, and Damien didn't intend to become the metaphorical giant.
"Gray! I want that cultivator dead," he sent.
He'd tried multiple attacks, sending stars after the man, but it seemed the space cultivator recognised his effectiveness, warping space to prevent his attack from landing.
[Throw me!] Gray replied.
"Why?" He asked. That was a stupid plan, throwing your weapon. Not only would that leave him vulnerable and put him further on the back foot, but he'd have no way to quickly retrieve the weapon without leaving himself open to well-placed attacks.
[Just trust me, throw me!] Acquiescing, he looked for a good timing. Damien didn't have the perfect opportunity to throw the spear, seeing as he was battling three cultivators close by and one in the distance, but he soon found the narrowest opening. Dodging an attack from the third cultivator—sharp cutting waters—he interposed six stars between him and the cultivators. Pushing, he sent them after the lord's. They'd be quickly taken care of, but it gave him the slightest opportunity. He didn't bother to take perfect aim, trusting Gray on the trajectory—he threw.
He turned back towards his fight, using his senses to monitor the attack. He put distance between himself and the three, giving himself more time to respond to attacks now that he no longer had his weapon on hand. The spear flashed through the air, tearing through the winds and clouds as it sped towards the storm cultivator in the distance. There was a distortion of space around the spear as it sailed towards the man—signifying the attempts of the space Cultivator—but the spear sailed unaffected. He frowned in confusion, how did that happen? The space cultivator also frowned, it seems it was the first time his technique failed to work on an attack. The storm cultivator—who had been mostly relying on the defence granted by his comrade—didn't have the time to fully dodge before the spear arrived. He moved, narrowly avoiding the attack and Damien's heart nearly crashed when his attack fell short, but his eyes were shocked wide open when the spear seemed to turn with man, following him.
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The man's eyes widened in horror when he saw the spear turn with him. As if guided by a mind of its own, it pierced the cultivator just under his navel—where his Cosmo well resided. There wasn't any large explosion when the cultivator died—which was frightening in itself. The man's life aura—the same which all living things possessed—just ceased to exist, winking out like a flame doused with water. He hung on the air at first, as if suspended by the last of his mental energy, and just like that, the first casualty in the battle crashed towards the grounds, hundreds of feet below.
The emperor's normally neutral features turned wrathful as the first of his spirit lords fell.
"Ouch! That had to hurt," Damien said, a smile gracing his lips.
The emperor turned to him, solar energy radiating from him in waves. He came at Damien with renewed energy. "When I am done with you, I will go after your brother, he will mourn your death as I make him suffer,"
Damien ignored the emperor for a moment. "Gray! What was that? How'd the space technique slide off the spear like that?"
[Ohhh, that? Pfff, it wasn't hard, the space cultivator couldn't move me because my metaphysical weight was so far beyond him that he didn't even feel any backlash,] Gray answered. Damien could sense the smugness radiating out of the little man despite him taking residence in his head.
"Your metaphysical weight?" Damien asked. He hadn't really thought about it, but Gray was a very powerful weapon, one he didn't know the full worth of,–
[Yes, my metaphysical weight,] Grey interrupted. [The last time you felt something close to my full powers was when you found me on that continent. Anything that can cause such damage isn't something a spirit lord can just control with their fledgling will, and I am far above just being able to decimate a continent, so my metaphysical weight isn't going to be influenced by any of your opponents, for now.]
Although Damien perceived it as Gray being a little bit boastful, he couldn't help but feel small as Gray referred to the will of a spirit lord as 'fledgling', it made him wonder what level the higher realm Cultivators possessed.
Raising his palm towards the ground where the storm cultivator fell, on the advice of Gray, he willed the spear into his hands. There was a boom! And then, the spear landed in his palm.
"Is there any way I can replicate something like that, it'd feel good to have a technique that can't be easily avoided."
[Mmm....if you funnel enough Cosmo into a technique, it should have the desired effect.]
Hope bloomed in Damien. "Great! I can try it on my starfalls technique, let's see them dodge this."
Using his spear to attack, he slashed through the arm of the third cultivator who thought that since Damien was on the back foot, he might as well overreach. With the time it took him to cut through the arm, the emperor and the space cultivator had already gotten closer. Thinking it might as well be now or never, he tried Gray's advice.
Instead of using the usual amount of energy on the creation of the technique, he instead added five times that. A single star appeared, twice larger than the usual size, and emitting a horrifying aura of pure destruction that made the three cultivators shy back. There was a screeching sound as the very wind itself shied away from the technique. Light distorted around the technique, leaving a thin space around it as if afraid to touch the star. Pushing through the weight on the skill, he sent it against the emperor. The space cultivator interposed himself between the emperor and the technique, Damien saw the massive strain it took as the space cultivator worked his technique, almost blacking out, but it still worked. There was a distortion of space, this time far stronger than usual, draining the remaining of the spirit lord's energy reserves; and the technique disappeared, appearing a few meters behind them and then began falling towards the ground.
Damien willed, and the technique unravelled, there was no reason to needlessly cause that sort of destruction to an already damaged land. Looking at the cultivator, his face was pale and blood leaked from his nose, eyes and ears as he suffered the backlash from teleporting Damien's technique.
There was a lull in their battle as the emperor and his cultivators—even the ones fighting his emissaries— stopped and looked at Damien with a new look. Fear. He could see it in their eyes now, no spirit lord could create something like that and not be massively drained, but Damien was still filled with a raging river of energy—though noticeably drained—and they could sense it.
Fenore and the others gathered behind him, regrouping. The other side did the same, rallying behind their emperor.
"You did well, but it seems you've reached your limit," he said to the space cultivator who was taking the break to quickly gather energy.
"If you've been holding onto this kind of power, why haven't you taken over the rest of the continent? I know you could do it," Solar asked, fear having replaced the normally neutral and regal features. Even his own emissaries looked the same. It wasn't surprising, they hadn't gotten the full grasp of his powers; There was a reason he never revealed his true strengths to his emissaries, it would have given them more hope of winning this war, but some people were not just ready for the truth.
"Why would I take over half the continent, it just sounds too stressful."
Besides, Damien didn't want to be held back by having to manage an empire spanning half the continent. Sure, it could be helpful to his cultivation, as he'd have millions of soldiers to help gather materials and treasures for him. But he could just take anything he wanted himself, and watching over hundreds of cities and thousands of miles of territory just seemed massively stressful, he didn't want that kind of stress.
The emperor knew this fight wasn't going the way he planned, so he instead tried another. "This battle has taken a toll on both our groups, I can see it on you and your group; why don't we take a temporary truce and give everyone time to rest, you don't want any of your people to die, any more than I do mine," and that was maybe the worst mistake emperor Solar made since this battle began—showing weakness towards the opposition. The emperor realised it the moment he said it, judging by the resigned look on his face.
Damien pounced.
"No, no, no, you don't get a free pass just because you asked. You threatened to kill me..... Well come on then, show me what the great emperor Solar can do," He began floating backwards, giving them more space. His spirit lords sensed what was about to happen, seeing as they scattered away from him. The emperor's lords got the clue a few whiles later.
"Let's give Keilan a few more hours, shall we," he said to Grey.
When Damien judged that there was enough space, he summoned his full astral image.
Flooding the battlefield with his calamity soaked aura.