Uncharacteristically, wizards were proving to be apt combatants – stronger and far better trained than any average Cultist. Using their magic only as an assisting asset, they were relying on their fists to attack the Martial Artists. This was unsettling. The Eye compatriots were finding it hard to counter them.
Underneath the shade of trees, Ella and Marcus were struggling to fight eight of them at once. They were trying to get some distance between themselves and the wizards but to no avail. Ella attempted to use teleportation portals. But her enemies were too close. They were following her through the portals before she could close them.
Marcus tried pushing them away by force. But together, the wizards were able to counter his strength and stand their ground.
"We have to find a way to put a dent in 'em fast," Marcus told Ella via Faris's mind link. "At this rate, we'll exhaust ourselves, man!"
They were pushed back once more and came and stood shoulder to shoulder. The tall Martial Artists were sweating. Ella took her robe off.
Marcus smiled. "Now you get why I didn't wear my robe…"
"Would you cut it out?!" she replied. "We have to undo their defensive charms first."
These eight, just like the others, had enchanted their attire to absorb and nullify Ki attacks. And they were also equipped with charmed weaponry.
Marcus whipped out his staff and said, "I can counter their weapons. Do you think you can find an opening?"
"I've got a better idea." Ella charged her Ki. "Let me try something I felt Master Naji use earlier…"
The wizards charged once more. Marcus moved ahead and engaged. But he only managed to occupy five of them. Three got through and attacked Ella.
With her Ki charged, the young Mystic widened her stance and closed her eyes. The approaching wizards felt confident. They were moving in for a kill shot. She stretched her right arm out. Merely inches from her was the first wizard when she swiftly moved her stretched arm to the other side…
The other two stopped immediately and skipped back. Wide-eyed, they stared at Ella who opened her eyes and took a deep breath. She had sucked the attacker into the Continuum of Sempiternity. The young Mystic was not skilled enough to enter and return from the Continuum. However, she was able to send someone in to wander endlessly or fall into a wrong timeline or universe to get erased from existence.
She smiled. "You guys are lucky you didn't attack together."
Marcus smashed his staff on the ground forcing his opponents to leap back to avoid the shockwave. The two standing in front of Ella with their backs to the Sokidu also leaped up after hearing the sound and feeling the incoming wave of Ki. Ella, however, leaped forward and joined her partner.
"Could you repeat that trick?" he asked. "I can keep engaging them like that."
She shook her head. "It's risky, Marc. I need a lot of focus, and I barely managed to get one… repeated use… I don't know…"
Elsewhere, taking on half a dozen wizards alone, Faris punched the air. It felt as though the atmosphere got cracked. The three caught in the cracks were left unable to move. The others rushed at the Mystic. He engaged them together. A punch from a witch got through and struck him right in his jaw. It threw him off balance and every hit from then on was a clean one. But suddenly, the three suspended in mid-air received swift, strong kicks on their backs and were thrown to the ground. And the beaten up Faris slowly faded and disappeared.
"A clone," said a wizard. "This one's tough…"
They turned around to find three Faris Najis standing there, smiling. With an arm extended in front, the one in the centre curled his fingers in a beckoning gesture, daring the wizards to strike.
The three who had fallen were helped back up. And the Devil's Hearth sextet began moving closer.
A witch mused, "Cloning divides your strength, Mystic. You've just signed your own death sentence."
'So, this bitch is the leader of this pack,' Faris thought. 'Apart from their charms, it feels like they're using black magic… let's break them up.'
Black magic users drew their strength from the Demonium itself. By taking part in vile practices like sacrificing the blood of innocents and chanting unholy, dirty psalms, these people summoned demonic energies and used them to enhance their magic and overall strength.
But Mystics specialized in defence against such filthy sorcery. All three clones of Faris brought their hands up in a boxer's guard and began charging up their Ki.
The six wizards attacked together, glowing maroon.
'Yup,' Faris thought as he braced for combat. 'Maroon's demonic…'
Faris Naji, divided into three, against six experts of black magic – it was a balanced bout. Faris was no ordinary Mystic. Many called him the Mustaqeem of his generation.
Both sides were landing and taking hits of equal intensity. However, what the wizards had not accounted for was how efficient their opponent was. In the blink of an eye, two of the clones merged back into the third one. He punched a wizard hard and then, just as quickly, got split into three. And in the next couple minutes, he repeated the process many times.
"He should be running out of Ki by now," one wizard said.
"Why is he not tiring doing that?" another asked, worriedly.
But Faris was barely using any Ki. His splits and mergers were very efficient without any Ki loss. Every merge was like inhaling, every split like an exhale.
The Cultists paused. Out of breath and frustrated by the Mystic's antics, they stared in anger with a narrowed gaze.
"Makes you furious, doesn't it," Faris taunted, smiling. "But you're not fighting a rookie here, are you?"
The two women and four men had understood that much. They needed a new trick. But Faris had anticipated it. They all leaped back at the same time.
The Mystic whispered to himself, "Come to papa…"
The wizards chanted, "TAMARUM-PARA!"
Moisture in the air and plants around them began to get sucked out. It turned into hundreds of tiny ice needles. They shot the needles at Faris. However, along with the incoming needles, the Mystic disappeared. It was as if all had been sucked into a vortex.
Wide-eyed, one wizard exclaimed, "What was that?!"
The senior witch replied, "I'm not sure but keep your guard up. He's up to something… that was no teleportation I've ever seen."
Suddenly, two hands emerged from a similar vortex inches away from the witch. They grabbed her throat and broke her neck in one jerking motion.
"What!" another cried watching the dead witch fall to the ground.
The hands went back into the vortex disappearing once again. But just as they disappeared, a flame rushed out of a new vortex which appeared in front of another wizard. The flame was strong. It burned the man to a crisp. He too died on the spot.
A wizard shouted, "Circle pit!"
All four gathered in an open flat area covered with grass and well away from any tree. They pressed back-to-back, eyes scanning every direction.
"Moment that vortex appears, we shoot!"
Vortex appeared.
An ice ball was fired at it.
It came rushing back at them from a different direction.
A Vortex appeared again. One of the wizards rushed at it and attempted to jump inside. He was only halfway through when the vortex vanished.
The top half of his body disappeared along with it.
The lower half fell to the ground, blood spilling across the grass as it twitched once before going limp.
The others froze – horror dawning in their eyes.
Faris jumped out from a different vortex and took a deep breath. "Now, that was fun," he said then chuckled leaning forward. "Effective use of the Continuum of Sempiternity. Handy, isn't it?"