[Ouroboros' End]
As Darganth arrived next to Scalladras and Yldra, their two foes had seemingly finished regrouping and were already moving apart again. As he watched, the mage flew upward until he hovered further above ground than the three of them were. Meanwhile, the aura users landed back on the ground. Seeing this, Darganth wondered what their plan was.
However, before he could worry about that, Darganth first had to get the full picture of the situation.
"How are your mana reserves?" He asked Yldra and Scalladras, though he still kept his gaze focused on their foes.
"No need to worry about us, it was you whose head got turned into an ice block." Yldra answered him, with Darganth taking it as meaning she was still fine in that regard.
"Didn't even get through my scales. But it was an ingenious attempt to circumvent my resilience and the magical resistance my scales provide. So watch out for the mage, I suspect that wasn't the only such trick he has." Darganth said.
"He tried something similar with me, so he has at least two. And it seems to be done purely through skill and precise control over the spell, because at least the one he used against me was a basic spell and not some advanced spell variant of it." Scalladras said.
Though he hadn't seen whether the spell used against him had also been a basic spell, Scalladras' words made Darganth inclined to assume it was. And annoyingly, that was the worst-case scenario. Had it been done through advanced spells that were simply adapted versions of a basic spell, the mage would've been limited to however many such spells he had created. But if, as Darganth now had to assume, he was achieving these applications through his fine control over basic spells, they had to account for potentially dozens of variations of each of the dozens of first rank ice elemental spells alone. If the mage was skilled enough to do the same with second rank spells, which were almost universally more complex, that number would easily double, possibly even triple.
Darganth sighed at the thought. "Then we assume the worst. No matter if we recognize a spell or not, we'll treat it as if it were an unknown advanced spell and act with the deserved caution."
"Not all that different from fighting foes that can form invisible spell circles, so I'll manage." Scalladras said and let the flames that clad his body flare up.
Seeing this, Yldra turned her gaze toward the aura users. "Looks like we'll get to fight that one then."
By then, the aura user had already touched down on the ground and was looking up at them. The greatswords he was wielding hung on his shoulder, with the occasional spark flashing up as its enchantments clashed with those of the man's armor.
"Word of warning, he used the earth element before, so he'll be at an advantage if we let ourselves get dragged into a fight on the ground." Yldra said.
"Good to know." Darganth said.
With Yldra briefly nodding in affirmation, the two set into motion. Spreading out a bit further to ensure that they didn't get into each other's way, they got into position. A few moments later, Darganth pushed himself forward and flew in for the first attack.
Diving toward the aura user at a rather shallow angle, he quickly had to start dodging as the man raised his right foot and stomped on the ground. In response, the earth along Darganth's flight path ripped open, sending boulders almost the size of an adult human flying upward. Each one was slightly staggered and tilted into a different direction to maximize the trouble they caused Darganth. Still dodging the first one by simply twisting his neck out of the way, the next boulder already cut it closed when it grazed his wing despite him leaning to the side to evade it.
The third projectile then struck Darganth dead center in the chest. Flinching as the stone shattered against his scales, he at first still considered pushing on. However, when the fourth boulder glanced off his shoulder and caused his wing to jerk back with its impact, his body lurched to the left in such a way that his only option to dodge the next strike was to climb up. Though this left the remaining dozen boulders to miss him completely, it also left him flying too high to effectively use his dragon's breath.
Veering off to the side, Darganth thus abandoned his attack. Instead circling around the aura user at some distance, he waited to see how the man would react to Yldra's attack.
Moments later, she also set in for a dive. Having learned from Darganth's attempt that the aura user wasn't as limited when it comes to attacking airborne targets as they might've hoped from someone seemingly specializing in the earth element, she had closed in a bit further and came at him at a far steeper angle.
Accelerating far quicker thanks to the steeper angle, Yldra closed in to within breath attack range in just a few moments. Unlike before, the aura users also hadn't tried to intercept her attack, making it all the easier for her to close within a kilometer of him and unleash her attack.
Spewing forth as a cone-shaped torrent of spatial energy attuned mana, the breath attack struck not just her target but the entire area around him. Wherever it passed, matter ceased to be as space itself turned against it. Not just was this an exceedingly destructive offensive force, it also shielded Yldra in a way few other kinds of dragon breath could as it would likely destroy any attacks her target launched before they reached her.
However, her attack could not last forever. Forced to catch her dive about two hundred meters above the ground, she still managed to keep her maw aimed at the aura user for another half a second before being forced to end her breath attack lest she'd waste mana on unnecessarily scarring the landscape.
The moment her attack stopped, the counterattack came flying her way. From the crater her attack had punched into the ground, a gray blur shot after her as she flew away. Almost not sensing it, Yldra was still struck on the back by it as she failed to fully evade. As the object struck her scales, it shattered into thousands of fragments that bounced off her back and scattered wildly, with some fragments flying so far that they struck her in the back of her head, though their impacts barely even registered for her.
Meanwhile, Darganth watched as the aura user lifted a second massive rock above his head. Not only had the man seemingly been left unaffected by Yldra's attacks, but it had also dug through the looser soil that had made up the surface layers of the ground and revealed a harder stone layer beneath. The aura user was now using this layer as projectiles, using two or three punches to break a piece out of the stone before hurling this second projectile after Yldra.
However, this time the dragoness knew what she was dealing with and didn't even bother evading. Thus, the stone reached her while she curved back around and struck her wing. This was similarly ineffective as the last attack. Failing to even move the limb, not to mention wound it despite hitting the comparatively fragile membrane there, it again shattered into thousands of fragments that were more an annoyance than anything else.
Seeing this, Darganth realized that their foe was taunting them. While they were barely even an annoyance, his attacks also didn't cost him any mana, so he could keep throwing them for possibly days. He was saying that he had time to wait for them to come to him, a message Darganth understood quite clearly.
And despite knowing that the aura user was baiting them, Darganth was willing to fall for it. While he wasn't sure what his foe was trying to achieve with his tactic, he knew that by keeping him occupied and preventing him from helping his colleague, Scalladras was effectively guaranteed to win.
Thus, when his opponent broke the next piece of rock out of the ground, he decided to strike. Leaning forward into a dive just as the aura user lifted the rock above his head, Darganth's timing quickly proved to have been almost perfect, as it took his foe until he was already reeling back his arm for a throw to notice the attack.
By then, it was already too late. Having closed to just over a kilometer, Darganth unleashed his dragon's breath before his foe managed to fully form his aura avatar. Unlike Yldra, he focused his breath attack into a concentrated beam.
When this beam struck the half-formed aura avatar, it tore through the constructs. Striking the right shoulder, the aura avatars' freshly formed arm immediately exploded into fragments of solidified mana that quickly disintegrated as the dragon's breath cleanly severed the limb. As the aura avatar was sent stumbling back by this impact, Darganth shifted his aim and tried to follow.
However, this didn't go as well as he had wanted. With each beat of his wings, his body swayed up before sinking slightly in the moment before the next flap, forcing him to continuously adjust his aim to compensate. But as he was targeting a barely six meters tall figure across well over half a kilometer with a beam barely a few meters high, the smallest mistake caused his attack to completely veer off target.
As such, instead of cutting to the right and following after the aura user's fall, his breath attack cut upward and tore through dozens of meters of stone before curving to the right and circling back down toward his target. By then, the aura user had already noticed the attempt and had prepared for it, allowing him to roll his aura avatar to the side and causing Darganth's breath attack to miss by almost a whole meter.
Two more such passes of his breath attack happened as Darganth continued to close in. The first only grazed the aura avatar as his foe had managed to move the construct onto its feet and step out of the way. The second missed fully once more, with the aura user stepping forward and ducking as the beam cut through his previous position horizontally.
With that miss, Darganth let his breath attack fade as he readied himself for a brawl. Closing his maw and readying all four of his limbs to strike, he reached forward with them and slammed into the aura user with his full momentum.
At the impact, the aura construct, along with its creator, was thrown back. Scraping over the ground for a few meters, its form was shredded between the stone beneath and Darganth's weight. Even as the aura user started tearing at him with his fingers, his weapon having been flung out of the aura avatar during the first impact, Darganth held on and dug his claws into the construct.
When his momentum ran out dozens of meters further back and the aura avatar slid to a stop beneath him, Darganth let go of it and pushed himself forward with one last beat of his wings. Easily clearing the aura avatar's reach despite his own enormous size, he landed with a grace that would astonish onlookers considering his size and weight.
Slinking into a prowling gate, he turned his head backward to keep an eye on the aura users as he slowly circled around until he faced him one more. For a few moments, he simply met his foe's gaze while the latter held out one arm and called his weapon back to him. As it flew into his aura avatar, its form also manifested in the construct's hands once more, allowing the smuggler to once more move into a defensive stance with his blade readied.
However, while Darganth was willing to fall for his foe's bait, he wasn't going to fight him on in an even situation. Thus, instead of charging at his opponent, Darganth let his mana surge through him, briefly causing wisps of it to radiate off his body before his spell finished forming and channeled it into the ground.
His opponent seemed to realize what he was doing rather quickly. Or at least he guessed that it wasn't good for him. With a quick overhead swing of his aura avatar's sword that caused the blade to cut into the stone ground, the man sent an energy slash flying at Darganth.
Letting a second stream of mana flow from his heart, Darganth manifested a spatial barrier in response. As the energy projectile struck it, the invisible barrier briefly rippled with numerous geometrical shapes that distorted sight through it as if they were glass. For a brief moment, the attack disappeared in this amalgamation of shapes, only to reappear a fraction of a second later. But when it did, it was facing into a completely different direction, missing Darganth by tens of meters as it passed by somewhere to his right.
But the aura users' attack didn't end with this. From where his sword had cut into the ground, a gaping chasm opened in the stone. Rapidly expanding into Darganth's direction and growing wider with each meter it crept forward, it needed barely a second longer than the energy slash to reach the barrier and pass through below it. By then, this chasm had widened to a great scar in the earth over twenty meters wide, with the extent of its dark depth being difficult to judge.
However, by then Darganth's spell had also manifested. Starting beneath its feet, the stone broke open and blackened as lava spilled forth, slowly emerging from cracks that were spreading in all directions and pooling into a small lake that quickly surpassed a meter deep at its center.
When the expanding volcanic ground met the aura user's attack, it almost immediately overpowered the latter and halted its expansion. Though looking similar to a spell, the specialty of aura ultimately remained personal enhancement, making its effects far less potent and stable than actual spells. Within moments, Darganth's spell then started to push back against the chasm, with lava bursting forth from the chasm's walls and quickly hardening into volcanic rock that sealed the opening like a wound that was scabbed over.
As the volcanic ground slowly overtook the entire battlefield over the seconds that followed, it more than nullified the aura users' environmental advantage. Whereas stone and earth had been his to command, lava not only wasn't controllable with the element he favored most, it also actively damaged his aura avatar as it encased it from all sides. Simultaneously, it forced him to expend additional mana on growing the aura construct around him or risk having the growing lava lake encase its head. Meanwhile, though he could control volcanic stone through the earth element, doing so wasn't as easy as normal soil would've been, further increasing the rate at which his mana reserves would drop in a battle.
Meanwhile, Darganth only felt some warmth on his legs as he waded forward through the, for him, knee-high lava lake. Additionally, fire had always been his third favorite element to use. Even before his friendship with Scalladras, he felt it optimally complemented the comparative lack of offensive efficiency of space and time magic. After millennia of friendship with the primordial of flames, the proficiency he had from that time was only honed further through numerous spars and battles where they fought side by side.
Thus, Darganth felt confident as he let fire magic surge all around him in preparation for the final stage of the battle.