664 10/12 0:13 (Autumn, Sunrise, Midrar)
Silence filled the Domain at Luna's words, a complicated expression on each of her Mates at the contents of her explanation and, more precisely, what it revealed about her current sense of morality.
'Returning to our initial matter, why does this Orichalcum behaves so differently from other versions? Because it didn't come from a- from a Person?' Sabel sent back, trying to return to a less psychologically scarring point than what Luna casually shared with them.
'That is an interesting question but one I cannot answer properly in this location.' Luna smiled, her twin-layered Domain splitting in two, a layer narrowing to surround barely a couple of centimetres around her body alone and in so doing being able to fully replicate the conditions upon the lunar surface.
'Here, this way we can all communicate properly.' Luna gleefully nodded, her own voice alone being the only thing silenced, not that this would actually have a significant effect on her ability to hear or be heard.
Meanwhile the second layer of her Domain expanded to its full thirty-six meters Radius while being kept fluid, ready at any time to shift and change as she desired.
At the sudden change in the environment, Sabel started to breathe quickly, trying to compensate for the significant period without any air, her Aura flickering continuously and without her control now that she was no longer in a potentially deadly situation, the Human struggling to maintain it working at anywhere close to full power.
Similarly, Amber was rapidly intaking air, using it to fuel both the solid threads forming her body, thickening back up to their natural, unmarred size, and to fuel the flames inside her body, lowering the strain that her Pyrokinesis Skill would cause.
Mafel, seeing how her two Mates still needed a little bit of time to fully readjust to the changes before they could pay their full attention to the fight, decided to intervene before Luna could answer Sabel's question. "Before that, could you tell me how exactly that Innate Skill would secure a draw in your situation? A Ghoul, independently from its level of power would still be subordinated to a Vampire's Order."
'Simple, really.' Luna nodded, accepting the temporary change in question and deciding to postpone her answer to the previous one in favour of this last request of information, waiting for when Sabel could actually pay full attention.
'The relevant part of my Spirit Body is its activated Effect, obtained upon reaching C-Rank. Beyond just a Full Restoration, it also changes me, Racial Skill included, into a Spirit which would shatter any Bindings derived by becoming an Undead or similar situations while maintaining all the advantages of such a change.'
Having answered Mafel's diversion, Luna returned to Sabel's own question.
'The differences between what you imagined Orichalcum to be and what it truly is, are merely derived by an initial misunderstanding about its nature and proprieties. It is not a metal nor is it physical matter. It does not have the traditional physical states like solid and liquid, instead it is what Souls are made off, including the Souls of Planets. It's just that in certain situations, it appears in an ethereal state while in others it possesses a physical one.'
Silence stretched out at those last words, three different pair of eyes opening wide. "What? What do you mean that Souls are made of Orichalcum? Souls of Planets?!" Mafel let out, her disbelief caused by her experiences with said matters as first a Specter and later a Medium.
'Yeah, Souls are composed entirely of Attuned Orichalcum in an Ethereal State. It's why they are so valuable to all Immaterial Beings. Similarly, Worlds have their own Souls composed of Attuned Orichalcum, split between the Ethereal and Physical States and located mostly at their Cores with some being all over the planet underground functioning as relays for its consciousness. Gaea's Attuned Orichalcum is named Adamantium.'
Luna's last words caused a further, even more confused, silence to spread among her three interlocutors, her answer offering ever less security in their view of the World.
Amber, deciding that she heard more than enough, started accumulating solid golden flames between her hands, forming long strings between the two that soon rained down into sharp tendrils towards the Lunarian.
Seeing the incoming attack, this last one merely smiled, wind around her sharpening into blades that shredded apart the strings, the wind accelerating rapidly. 'Vacuous Collapse.'
At Luna's mental command, the combined Art-Spell took place, the wind blades solidifying and in so doing creating a second, three-meters wide sphere in which everything, including the dust and rocks returned to normal were soon torn apart repeatedly.
This way the golden flames that Amber was preparing to subtly take control of, were annihilated before she ever could, freeing Luna to go on the offensive.
The Lunarian dashed forward, Will solidifying around her forearms into two long tentacles emanating a constant shrill sound through the grinding of the sharpened scales that covered its surface and moved constantly.
The long tentacles swung towards both Sabel and Amber, crashing into and destroying the light pane the former erected as a shield, the Human rolling on the ground to bleed off momentum before jumping back on her feet, the Anti-Luna Effect now deeply ingrained in her Unique Skill having further weakened the attack.
Meanwhile the Phoenix merely watched the blow, flames condensing on the edge of her Unique Arma, slashing right through the tentacle directed at her, piercing its 'flesh' and severing it in two before exploding towards the white-haired one.
As the sword was safely deflected away by Luna, Mafel looked towards the black-haired one, her armour briefly opening and letting the Spectral Elf leave it, her own Unique Arma closing around Sabel's left forearm.
Soon after pure Holy-Attribute Mana flowed through the staff and into Sabel, a very rough Spell that would accelerate her Recovery.
A red-hot edge slammed against pure black gauntlets repeatedly, the armour safely deflecting away the heat before Luna launched her own attack, her hand crashing into Amber's stomach yet achieving little because of the threaded composition of her body.
Dodging the answering blow and carefully observing the Phoenix's unstable movements, more specifically the way that the liquid flames were flowing inside the confines of her golden threads as judged from the way that her body was enlarging upon more flames filling those sections while other body parts instead became smaller as flames fled.
Guessing the Phoenix's next action from these semi-involuntary reactions, Luna leaned left, dodging her punch and observing the way that her Aura solidified to stop her own blow so that she could easily twist her momentum and launch a second one.
'You are too blatant with both your Aura and flames. You should make certain that your body doesn't distort at all, independently from the movement of your inner flames. Similarly, you should narrow down your Aura so that your opponent is unable to see you redirecting your movements.'
After her gentle chiding, Luna demonstrated her reasoning, grabbing Amber's left wrist and, taking advantage of its temporary solidity caused by the quantity of flames underneath the layer of gold to pull her inwardly, slamming her in the ground before aiming armoured hands downwards.
Amber's eyes would have widened in alarm if she had any at the moment, just in time for a freezingly cold wave of Water-Attribute Mana to slam into her.
Luna casually stood back up, turning towards her other two Mates, leaving behind a great boulder of clear ice that imprisoned Amber.
A sword of Light-Attribute laced with both Rebellion and Anti-Luna Effect was met by Luna's kick, the foot clad in both black-scaled armour and a layer of Condemnation-Attribute filled with her Bane.
The two Effects crashed into each other in a mutual annihilation, just in time for Luna to lighten her larger Domain's gravity slightly, just enough for the white haired one's kick to alter in trajectory and strike the Human in the chest, causing her to fly high in the sky.
Soon after the gravity shifted once more, Luna's second kick, an axe kick to be precise, slamming into the falling one's back and ramming her in the ground, driving her breath from her mouth with a groan.
The thirty-six meters of the Domain immediately collapsed inwardly to occupy only six, the gravity intensifying further and stopping the swordswoman from rising back up, especially considering that Luna was holding her down.
However this increase in the gravity further damaged the ice holding Amber, the Phoenix taking advantage of this to erupt in a wave of flames that shattered her very temporary prison before she exploded towards the Lunarian, blade crashing into gauntlet and sending them both away from the Human.
Mafel, having returned to within her armour and floating high in the sky, looked down upon her Mates, her mind immediately figuring out that Luna was doing her best to make sure she wouldn't fight both Sabel and Amber together.
Roughly feeling out the confines of the Domain, the Elf dropped to the side of Sabel, grabbing her stunned form and launching the two away from the Lunarian. "How are-?"
Her question to the Human in her arms was immediately answered by this last jumping down on her feet. "I'm fine." Black eyes immediately focused back on the fight between her two Mates, Aura flickering wildly around her body.
Seeing the level of her focus, Mafel intervened before she could just jump in immediately. "Luna is making sure that you and Amber cannot fight her at the same time." She shared her finding immediately, receiving a slow nod from the Human.
"It's probably because of our Unique Skills. Both Rebellion and Piercer would be able to ignore her passive defences, needing her to dedicate more processing power on how to deal with us." Sabel nodded at once, her Unique Skill, Vital Energy, Light-Attribute Mana and her Anti-Luna Effect melding with her Aura to form a new, stable but very temporary, whole.
Having said her own piece and carefully holding a newly made greatsword, she temporary left behind her tallest Mate, rejoining the fray.
Blasting forward and mostly ignoring the increased gravity through a mixture of active enhancement and sheer momentum, crossing the distance between her and Luna before launching a merciless strike between Amber's owns.
As heated trails illuminated the Vampiric Entity, she was nevertheless able to Sense the incoming strike, flipping the second layer of her Law of the Cosmos from one that increased gravity to one that caused the air resistance to rise in its Radius.
Amber flinched, the sudden change and the surprise dulling her reaction for a moment, long enough for Luna to bat her Unique Arma aside and launching a precise, open-handed blow to her shoulder.
Thankfully the attack that would have been enough to cut through the golden threads slammed instead into Sabel's thrown greatsword, the black-haired one having adjusted to the change immediately, enough to intuit a path without any issue.
This slowed the white-haired one's attack just enough for Amber to dash back, her body returning to her original form of a giant bird made entirely out of flame, moving away from the Lunarian.
A pillar of Blessed Flames, the Composite Attribute between the Holy- and Fire-Attributes, soon surrounded the red-eyed one, trapping her inside while continuously Damaging her and trying to overcome her Status Alteration Nullification to inflict 'Burn'.
At the same instant Sabel crossed the distance between the two, impaling her feet in the ground by sheer force to fully shift her momentum, Shaping a new greatsword in her joined hands before swinging horizontally at full power.
While normally Luna could just Channel her Bane to mutually annihilate itself against the Anti-Luna Effect filling the sword, this process required the Potency of the two Effects to be roughly equivalent, not regarding the Damage that they would inflict in general but their relative Intensity depending on their Fields.
And here the problem of her situation fully presented itself.
Amber was simply able to recreate and manifest the Anti-Luna Effect through her Unique Skill Rebellion while Luna instead needed to use either the Purification or the Condemnation Attribute as a Medium, with the latter having to face the purifying nature of the golden flames currently eating away at her.
Knowing that, someone else could have chosen the Holy-Light Combination as the medium for the Effect, fighting the Light-Attribute filled attack with the Purification-Attribute.
This however would be a grave error.
The Purification-Attribute was terribly inefficient against either of its Components, being specialized to fight their two opposing Attributes.
It was so ineffective, in fact, that despite the Blessed Flames tormenting her body, using the Condemnation-Attribute would be the correct choice in this conundrum.
A layer of chaotic, writhing darkness enveloped the Lunarian, fighting back against the golden flames that surrounded her, radiating, if it could be defined as such, Luna's Bane.
This darkness, the physical form of the Condemnation Attribute filled with the later Effect, was soon met by the ethereal white blade in Sabel's hands.
The column of golden flames was immediately cut in half, the sharpened shockwave severing it and striking the Lunarian right in the chest, carving a line through pale flesh.
Yet the Vampiric one succeeded, Anti-Luna and Luna's Bane mutually annihilated each other in an instant, at the cost of exhausting an immense quantity of Astral Ichor.
Luna licked her lips, her eyes narrowing in focus before her left ear twitched once, her body immediately springing right and dodging a long stake of solid grudges.
Yet she had no time to rest, Amber taking advantage of her momentaneous distractions to reactivate her newest Skill, once more turning in a statue of golden threads, falling upon the pale one and trying to cut into her body with her Unique Arma in her left hand and a reproduction made of flames and augmented with her Piercer in her right one.
A laugh escaped the lips of the Lunarian, malicious glee clear in her eyes. "In that case! I am going all out!" Her laugh was immediately followed by her Domain, Law of the Cosmos, to collapse inwardly completely, both Layers converging with her Will into covering her body and her body alone.
Under the cautious gaze of her Mates, Luna's body melted completely into Astral Ichor, the silvery liquid maintaining her shape.
The only reason why none of them panicked was because they were fully able to feel through their Mate's Marks that she was still fully aware of herself and the situation around.
One eternal instant passed and the next, two eyes of the purest crimson formed in that liquid much more valuable than platinum.
Two flawless eyes boring into the World itself and finding it lacking.
Luna's bet was a tremendous success, more than able to match her expectations.
*Luna's Racial Skill "Lunarian" Increases from D-Rank to C-Rank.
*Through "Lunarian", Luna Gains the Innate Skill "True Sight" E-Rank.
*Through "Lunarian", Luna Gains the Growth Skill "Orichalcum Essence Conversion".
*Luna Gains the Title "Child of the Moon".
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