Chapter 222: Chaos
A flash of heat and energy burned long strips of Coop’s Fog of War away. For a few moments afterwards, his domain was divided into three individual parts. Wide channels devoid of any mists were carved in between each section, and for Coop, it felt like he had gone cross-eyed. A very confused Presence of Mind fed him information from three different domains in unison.
Luckily, the strange feeling didn’t linger long enough to interfere with his concentration. The split domain faded shortly after he noticed it, but he could feel the strain on his mind behind his eyes, like he had barely avoided a harsh migraine.
His mists were severely diminished by the blasts, but Fog of War formed a far more robust domain than when he first received the skill in the days before the siege event. The individual sections didn’t disappear after being sundered from the rest. Instead, they expanded into the empty space, filling the gaps until they recombined into a single proportionally reduced domain. He could practically taste the seared air that was left behind as the normal functions of his fog were restored.
A pair of circular laser beams, each four feet across, had sliced across the top of Chakyum’s temple, charring the top layer of stone before disappearing in the distance. The lasers didn’t make any noise themselves, but whatever they touched couldn’t help but react. The air hissed with a steady sizzle that was punctuated with pops and bangs as it burned. The entire battlefield was saturated with the scent of an electrical fire after the energetic discharges subsided.
One laser was aimed at the Swarm Priest who had drifted out of the way of Coop’s charge into melee, off to the side by herself. The other laser caused Coop’s skin to develop a sheen of sweat as it blasted toward the Champion of the Yucatan, nearer to his own position. While Coop was thinking of the beams as lasers, they were really more like simple blasts of shockingly powerful thermal magic. They didn’t move anywhere near the speed of an actual laser. In fact, Coop thought they might even be slower than his thrown spears, but they were pure energy that had been generated by mana rather than physical objects.
Tzultacaj and the man Coop assumed was the other Jaguar Elite, Mateo, had joined the fray with an exceptionally dramatic entrance. Several things happened at once afterwards.
The swarm of insects that erupted from the body of the High Priestess in order to dodge the laser reformed. The insects coalesced into the incomplete outline of a person. The High Priestess screamed in horror once her leather clad face reappeared from beneath a cloud of mosquitoes. Her entire left arm, a large portion of her torso, and the lower section of her left leg had been vaporized. The laser beam had cleaved straight through her swarm and disintegrated half of the mosquitoes. Apparently, that translated into significant injuries to her actual body. She collapsed to the floor, howling in shock, with the swarm still buzzing around her broken form.
Simultaneously, the Champion of the Yucatan was forced to release the restraining spell that had ensnared Coop’s mace as she defended against the second of Mateo’s attacks. She revealed another similarly shaped sphere of void in the path of the laser, which bent the beam around her as if space itself was warping, completely avoiding any damage from the devastating blast.
The way the abilities of the Elite High Priestess simply manifested in their positions caught Coop by surprise. She had no lead up time in casting her spells, they just appeared as if they had been hidden in advance, merely waiting to be exposed. He noted that she had dismissed one sphere before another appeared. Perhaps he was reaching for a tiny bit of good news, but he wouldn’t ignore his observation.
A portion of Coop's Fog of War was pulled around the edge of the sphere as well, becoming a slightly visible shell of gray around the black void without being drawn inside. The rest of the arena was coated in a calm layer of mists, invisible to the naked eye, but the sphere was like a stone in a flowing river. It created its own current and Coop’s fog responded by condensing along the surface, establishing a miniature example of rapids before thinning out on the opposite side. The void spheres diminished his hidden domain with their presence, further shrinking the total size of Fog of War as they manipulated space. Despite the improvements to his domain skill, the thin layer that he had established wouldn’t survive the skills of the High Priests for too long.
At the same time as the blasts, Tzultacaj had one of his legs kicked out from underneath him by the Colossus, staggering him and interrupting his fierce assault. Though the leader of the Jaguar Sun remained upright without toppling over, the Priest used the brief opportunity to roll away from the intense warrior and get his own legs beneath him.
Tzultacaj planted his foot to pursue the High Priest even while stone reformed along the man’s skin. Tzultacaj had honed in on a target and refused to let up, lifting his axe above his head as he roared unintelligibly. The hunt was on.