Chapter 571
Without missing a beat, a sharp ice pick, sharp as a surgeon’s blade, shot like a crystalline arrow towards Vorenza. But halfway across the warped space, it was violently torn asunder by a scaling red web, strands of crimson energy ripping through the frozen projectile with ease.
The other mage, leveraging the chaos, made a sharp, grabbing gesture. The very ’earth’ of the realm seemed to lurch and groan, a sudden, violent displacement of space yanking Vorenza forward. In the blink of an eye, she was pulled directly into the path of another colossal ice pick, this one manifesting directly before her, its tip gleaming with cold finality. It plunged through her form with gruesome efficiency.
The mages, a fleeting flicker of triumph in their eyes, swiftly distanced themselves. Yet, the pierced Vorenza didn’t bleed or collapse; instead, she fractured into a thousand shimmering pieces, like a mirror shattering in agonizing slow motion, each shard reflecting a distorted image of the mages themselves. The next dizzying moment, they instinctively looked up, only to see the true Vorenza. She hung suspended upside down directly above them, her chilling smile still intact, her four eyes glinting with malicious amusement.
Back at the tent where the mage had been left to recover, a jolt went through him as he sensed his colleagues charging into the space gap. His eyes snapped open, his mind still thrumming with residual static but clearing fast. He wasn’t at his peak, but he was certainly better than before, the immediate paralysis having lifted. A surge of concern, mingled with professional duty, propelled him. Without a moment’s hesitation, he shot out of the tent, covering the distance to the shimmering rift in seconds. Seeing his comrades already locked in what appeared to be combat within the swirling portal, he plunged in.
But contrary to his expectation, the moment he dove through, he found himself not in a chaotic battle, but abruptly in a claustrophobic chamber filled with dense, silvery webs, which pulsed with a faint, disturbing light. A sudden chill, not of temperature but of profound isolation, enveloped him. Where are they? This isn’t right! he thought, his eyes scanning the impossible confines.
Meanwhile, back in the realm where the two mages and Vorenza had been locked in their bizarre duel, they were met with the startling sound of glass shattering, sharp and impossibly loud. Both watched with wide eyes, their brief satisfaction turning to stark disbelief, as the very fabric of the web-realm around them fractured and broke apart, cracking like a fragile pane of ice. In an instant, they were no longer in the alien space but were instead re-welcomed by the familiar night sky of their own world, the sounds of battle now roaring clearly, terrifyingly, in the background. They looked around frantically, their hearts sinking; the gaping space gap was nowhere in sight, as if it had never existed.
The two mages stared at each other, their minds reeling from the abrupt shift. It took only moments for the horrifying realization to click into place, widening their eyes. They’d been played. A cold fury ignited within them as they spun and rushed back towards their tent, every frantic step feeling like an eternity under the surreal, dream-like battle. When they finally burst inside, panting, the tent was empty. Their teammate was nowhere to be seen.
Without a second thought, both mages shot skyward, tearing through the air with twin sonic booms that echoed across the chaotic battlefield. Kaelen, amidst his own frantic efforts to understand and counter Phantom’s influence, snapped his gaze towards them. His tech-core spun, churning through possibilities for what could make two sixth-tier mages react with such desperate urgency, their composure utterly shattered.
Their faces still etched with raw, simmering anger, the two mages now hovered before the colossal, churning portal to the Abyss. The anger, however, visibly dimmed once they stood before its yawning maw, replaced by a chilling dread. She’s in there, they both knew, waiting. Their instincts screamed at them to plunge in, to save their teammate, to exact revenge.
"It’s a trap, isn’t it?" the taller mage, Lyra, rasped, her voice tight with suppressed fury. "She wants us to follow."