The end of a conflict
664 10/12 0:15 (Autumn, Sunrise, Midrar)
Luna observed briefly the shards of light impaled all over her arms and chest, feeling the Anti-Luna Effect trying to invade her body.
Satisfied, she clenched her whole body, shattering the small pieces of Sabel's sword imbued in her flesh. "I see, so your sword was made to be shattered in the first place." Luna's words sounded out. "Good job!" She genuinely complimented.
The little shards of light further ripped open the wounds upon the Lunarian's skin at her action, the sharp sparks shredding apart her shirt and sections of her outer layers of her skin.
Casually looking towards the scraps of cloth that remained around her body, Luna simply ripped them away, throwing the remains of her ripped clothes into her roiling shadow.
She however remained bare only for a couple of seconds, her shadow enveloping her body and collapsing inwardly, a wave of transparent flames melting and then reshaping the solid darkness, melding it with the Virtual Energy her Unique Arma generated from her previous uses of Astral Ichor.
The flames extinguished themselves, leaving behind a new Artifact already Attuned to the Lunarian, her body, more precisely her shoulders and back, now enveloped only by a thick mantle composed of large black feathers, held together only by a silvery ring little larger than her Mates' Marks.
Luna properly adjusted her new mantle around herself, preparing to restart their fight only to stop with a deadpan expression on her face. "Seriously? You all already saw me naked multiple times." She couldn't help but complain upon seeing how her two Mates were currently behaving.
"It's- it's not our f-fault!" Sabel could only let out, her hands covering her red face yet doing nothing to stop her eyes from peeking in between her fingers.
"We are not the ones that stripped mid-battle!" Amber protested heatedly, the red in her ears obvious to the Lunarian considering how she was facing away from her entirely, if one didn't count the way that one of her eye was repeatedly moving to examine her body.
"Surrounded by prudes." Luna rolled her red eyes once, her fond amusement clear from their Mark. "Sunless Mantle." She commanded firmly and, responding to her intent, her Artifact briefly returned into a fluid before solidifying back into a thin layer covering her chest down to around her thigh.
"Can you concentrate on the fight now?" She asked aloud, rolling her eyes upon feeling the intensity of the gazes of her three Mates, even from Mafel flying hidden above, not abating at all.
"This may actually be worse." Amber let out, gulping slightly while her eyes roamed all over her. "It's way too tight around your muscles and curves and it does nothing to cover your arms and legs." She explained, her tongue subconsciously darting out to lick her lips.
With an even deader expression on her face, Luna looked towards Sabel, sighing once she saw the way the Human was not even bothering hiding her face anymore, her eyes wide open.
After rolling her eyes, the Lunarian's left hand closed around a now solid mass of wind, the sharp edge flashing forward and aiming on bisecting the black-haired one, causing the latter to instinctively jump to the side, dodging the line and causing her to refocus on the fight immediately, sweat covering her back.
Amber barely raised her Unique Arma in the way, deflecting away Luna's second attack, releasing a wall of fire to try and mask her movements from the Vampiric one only for her ankles to be grabbed firmly.
Looking down, she was able to see a pair of pale hands emerging from her shadow, hands that soon started to pull her downwards, the soles of her feet passing through the border of her shadow and starting to sink in the suddenly fluid substance.
Alarmed, the orange-eyed one immediately activated once more her Form: Living Flame, transforming not into her golden threads but directly into a wave of flames that rapidly retreated from the Lunarian's hold.
Seeing that her sneak-attack was unsuccessful, the original Luna dissolved completely before re-emerging from the orange-eyed one's former shadow. "Let's see if I can't force you two to concentrate properly." The silver-haired one's tone was as sharp as her gaze.
Amber, having reformed in her Humanoid Form high in the sky, kept her attention fixed towards the pale one, her blazing wings opened wide while small embers of Blessed and Cursed Flames alike floated around her. "Sabel, what do you think her Artifact is capable off? I doubt its ability to change shape is the central one." She asked aloud, uncaring of being heard from Luna.
"Well, her Skill allows her Artifacts two Extra Effects, right? In that case, the other one is probably the ability to share her Artifact's defensive ability." Sabel responded, keeping an eye on the still Vampiric one while pinching her left arm a couple of times, mentally noting the increased force she needed to apply.
She had, after all, noticed the change in her defensive ability during her hasty retreat from Luna's previous attack, her mind working overtime to find the reason and how she should take advantage of it.
"You are correct." Luna finally nodded, satisfied. "The first Extra Effect lets me freely change its shape and colours. The second, shares its defensive Bonus, the ten points increase to all Resistances, a small Damage Mitigation and the ability to apply ten percent of Damage Mitigation to True Damage, to all of my Mates. But you don't need to worry, my Artifact's Primary Ability requires spending a Charge to activate and it currently has none."
Not said was that her Artifact could hold a maximum of two Charges, each requiring one hour to be created.
A very strict requirement that was however needed for the creation of her Ability, in this case the Ability to Cast a Spell that she knew how to Cast, skipping all requirements and preparation, a Spell Casted with Virtual Energy equivalent to 100 Units of her Astral Ichor.
An incredibly important Effect considering how she no longer had access to her False Domain and its ability to Channel her Spells.
The smiling disaster had not even time to make her move that Sabel's Aura flared violently, slamming into her own shadow with a spike of Light-Attribute mixed with both her Rebellion's Anti-Skill and her own version of the Anti-Luna Effect.
The Human's shadow writhed violently briefly before returning to normal, Luna's sneak-attack that she was preparing to launch during her explanation, having been seen through and neutralized in advance.
In response, the Vampiric one merely clapped a couple of times in approval before blurring into place, countless sharp waves of air flying towards both Amber and Sabel.
Amber roughly smashed her way through the current, explosion after explosion emanating from her as she cut in half the wind blades and closed the distance to her Mate.
Meanwhile, Sabel was much more careful in her approach, moving the least possible to evade the strikes, swinging her greatsword only when strictly necessary to maintain as much of her rapidly draining stamina as possible while maintaining a proper vigil on her shadow.
It wouldn't do for her to be attacked from behind.
As Amber's golden and red curved sword slammed into Luna's black gauntlets, Sabel took advantage of the white-haired one's momentaneous distraction to rapidly close the distance, impaling a stake of light into their crossing shadows and then pulsing a wave of Anti-Luna and Anti-Skill.
As she did, the shadows immediately lost cohesion, Luna's subtle working to entrap the Phoenix's feet having been foiled by the Human.
The black-haired one's eyes widened in alarm, seeing the white-haired one's opened right-hand flashing right towards her face.
She barely was able to squeak out in alarm, a blast of light striking herself and sending herself away from the red-eyed one's reach.
At the same time her greatsword flashed out once more, stalling Luna's advance.
And that pause was enough for Amber to strike, amassing Blessed Flames in her left hand while her right was enveloped in a large twister of Revered Winds, the second Composite Attribute fuelling the first and raging towards the Child of the Moon.
Luna calmly regarded the attack, rapidly calculating its destructive power and correctly judging it incapable of overwhelming the combination of her Resistances, Ash's protective Effect, Warden's Barrier and her newest Artifact's Defences.
Yet before the Lunarian could reach the Phoenix, her eyes widened in surprise.
The cause of her disbelief was Sabel that, upon seeing the inefficacy of Amber's countermeasures against her, decided to join in the assault, impaling her sword of light into the burning wind and resonating the Holy-Attribute imbued into them with her own Light-Attribute, forming the barest traces of the Purification-Attribute.
Immediately after, she Channelled her Anti-Luna and her Rebellion into the newly created Composite Attribute, creating a blaze of flames specifically created to surpass the Lunarian's current defences.
At the same instant as Luna was distracted to deal with the flames that suddenly were able to ignore her Skills entirely, Mafel plunged from the sky, shattering the transparent dome and crashing right into the Lunarian, slamming her in the ground, thing only possible because she discarded for one hour all of her Artifact's defensive ability in favour of an overwhelming physical enhancement.
Luna tried to rise a couple of times but between the flames that constantly ate at her and the incredibly enhanced Spectral Elf holding her down, she soon gave up on brute force.
Considering the lack of natural shadows around her and the way she was surrounded by an Anti-Luna Effect, she could not escape the place in time without bringing out something that could seriously hurt her Mates.
And finally, feeling through their Mark the way that Mafel was struggling heavily due to the heat despite the way the Anti-Luna Effect was filtering the flames away from her, it was obvious she currently had no defensive ability, rendering the way Luna could escape a death sentence for the grey-haired one.
Luna expanded her two-layered Domain to its six meters width, increasing the humidity with one and creating a short-lived vacuum with the other, briefly destabilizing the flames. "Let's end this here." She couldn't help but sigh out, well aware that doing beyond this point would be too dangerous.
And so the fight ended, with Luna laying on the ground reviewing the fight mentally, Sabel having fallen down in exhaustion and barely keeping her eyes open, having burned through all of her Energy, Mafel sitting down on Luna to smugly show off how she was the one least exhausted and Amber watching her three Mates with a dead expression on her face, incapable to properly explain what she was currently feeling.
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