Shades of the New World

Chapter 95: Melt... down

"Eviendra, huh? It's truly a shame to kill you lot. I can see why my little brother wished to recruit you Oh, how rude of me. I'm named Galashin," The boy said.

At this point it was quite obvious that these people were from the Organization that caught Karan. Not to mention that the man himself was vehemently stating it inside Evin's head.

"Elashin was your younger brother?"

"Surprised? Well, I'd love to explain it to you all, but the things inside us really make life difficult for the talkative bunch like us, eh? Now tell me, why did you kill him?" Galashin asked.

Evin did not think that it was necessary to hide things, so he pointed at his Armor and said:

"We fought for Karan the test subject you speak of"

"Well, I suppose that's fair enough a reincarnated metal Skinshifter. I'd want one for myself as well. And he does his intended just much better than his human counterpart," the boy muttered lazily.

"Hmm It's such a shame. Not every day we get to find a Beast Lord's candidate And truthfully, the problem of loyalty can be solved with our Oath I've decided. You'll be part of our organization, as one might call it,"

"Can I refuse?" Evin said with a nervous laugh.

"The other kid's pretty good as well But sadly, I can only bring in one of you. It's my quota, you see?" Galashin kept muttering to himself, as if he didn't hear Evin's words. Gradually, a massive amount of Luminous World energy started surging from the boy.

The sheer amount of it frightened Evin to his core. Evin glanced at Rith, to see what she would do, but Evin only saw the Cosmic in an extremely precarious state. All her fur had evaporated into nothingness and the skin beneath was starting to get fried.

Evin could see the cat struggle to cast a spell, clenching her maw so hard that some of her teeth were shattering in her mouth. The Cosmic seemed to succeed, as a second later, a huge explosion of Space energy happened in the area, and a slightly-burnt, fresh carcass of a cat, just plopped down to ground with that disturbing sound of raw flesh splashing on something.

"I'm sorry" a familiar voice echoed in his mind before disappearing.

Some thoughts appeared inside Evin's head, but he didn't have time to mind them as he glanced at Ssatsko next. Thankfully, the old man was alright, and yet to be affected by the lethal Luminous spell.

Evin did not think further and extended his shadow underneath the shocked old man and had it swallow him. Ssatsko seemed like he wanted to protest, but was too shocked to react in time.

The next moment, Evin found himself in the same situation as Elashin's underlings. He could see that he was surrounded by portals from all sides which somehow emitted blinding light from all around Evin.

Galashin saw Evin slither into his own shadow inside the Dark Room, so he did not want him to get away. He could obviously find him inside his own locked space eventually, but he wanted less trouble.

Evin couldn't jump into shadows that fell on himself, as it was akin to entering oneself.

'I really hope it does something,' Evin thought and inserted mana into the ring that Iorn gave to him before.

The Dark bluish hue that the ring emitted naturally got much stronger, and a slight rumbling sound came out of it.

Evin glanced at the enemy and saw him making a shocked face at the ring.

'Good! It must be something good!' Evin thought with happiness.

Evin didn't know anything about the artifacts, magical devices and scrolls; so the only way for him to judge its effects were based on the reactions of the more knowledgeable.

The ring started scalding Evin's thumb and Evin thought it was a burning hot, but on the contrary it was freezing cold.

Evin debated to keep it on his body or not, since he didn't know if it was something that would power him up, or something else, but in the end he was forced to drop it to the ground.

The ring did not keep Evin waiting as it erupted into a dark-blue colored cloud-like mass of energy. It pervaded the surrounding atmosphere immediately, and the grey sky was painted dark-blue in a matter of seconds.

Evin felt that this dark blue energy was very familiar, as it was the one that consistently invoked fear inside him. Obviously, it was the World of Time energy.

The amount of energy that was contained in the ring was so enormous, that every other spell in the area started to dissipate into nothingness.

The portal prison with the blinding lights that the boy conjured was nowhere to be seen, and Evin could finally retreat into his shadows. But before he could disappear Evin was hit by the boy's spell.

"You fucking brat!" Galashin was shouting and Evin could feel his skin peeling off, hissing all the while.

Evin felt like he was being boiled alive, and vague visions of his twin sisters, covered in bubbling pus and lesions, appeared in his head. Then, as if mocking Evin for having such carefree thoughts in such a moment, the torturous pain came in trucks. Evin began to lose his vision, as his eyes melted down. He tried to cry in agony, but only gurgling sounds came from his deformed throat.

His body should have ceased to function already, but Evin used the World of Life to keep his heart and brain working, hoping to prolong his life for at least a second longer.

[Hang on for a bit longer! Something's happening!] Karan's voice sounded in Evin's head. Evin didn't know if the skinshifter really did see something, or if he was simply telling a white lie to prolong Evin's life, but thanks to that second he managed to buy for himself, toughing through the pain and despair, something else happened on the battlefield.

A thin, silverish metal rod, covered in glowing pink runes, appeared from underneath Evin and stabbed through him, which Karan tried to block with panic. But with the slightest touch against the rod, Karan's metal body disappeared into nothingness, like it didn't exist. Frightfully, the skinshifter looked at Evin's body, but contrary to his grim expectations, Evin's dying body was slowly fixing itself.

The rod that stabbed Evin fed the boy's disfigured body its much needed Life energy and the deadly effect that was happening on Evin's body ceased at once. Evin couldn't know what was happening around him, as he was solely focused on staying alive.

On the other side of the battlefield, another rod covered in white runes appeared beneath Galashin and tried to stab through him as well.

The boy dodged easily, but the metal rod dutifully followed behind him. The rod did not follow physical or magical laws, as it moved like a living being, easily bending and performing sharp turns.

The lesser-imposer created portals in its way to impede its movement, but the metal rods smashed through the portals like they were made of paper, and dutifully following behind him.

And it was getting faster and faster with each passing second. Galashin tried many different methods to destroy the rods, he tried locking it in Earth, making it heavier, freezing it with ice all of these methods had enough strength to kill a dozen Evins in a matter of seconds, but against these metal rods, these deadly spells would disappear into nothingness at first contact.

"What...?" the Lesser-imposer was having a hard time comprehending the situation.

But the thing that startled him the most was not the fact that none of his spells seemed to work on the rods. There were many things that could be described as nigh-indestructible among the peak personnel in the World of mages.

It was, instead, the fact that the rods could penetrate his World domain. He had surrounded his body with the Luminous World domain, which protected him from all and any attack that was not from that specific World.

There were only two ways to attack someone who was holing up inside their World Domain, to use that World against them, use a different World domain, or to completely overpower them with raw power, throwing so much mana that the sum would surpass the amount of energy that was contained in the World Domain itself.

But the lesser-imposer did not feel such a huge amount in these thin metal rods, in fact, the amount was barely comparable to an average Half-core.

As he tried his best to dodge the metal rods, the lesser-imposer saw a silhouette of a masked six-armed creature, wrapped in a white cloak, ascend in front of him from under the ground.

Looking at the Cobfolk, the Lesser-imposer's face paled. It was the one person who he tried his best to keep away from this matter. Galashin lost three half-cores who were trying to buy time for him to finish stabilizing the Space lockdown, so that he could avenge his idiot little brother.

Since he wasn't a Cosmic, he didn't have the genetic talent to stabilize a Space lockdown in a few seconds. The process would take at least 10 minutes of unbroken focus, during which Galashin couldn't use any other spells, other than keeping his World Domain active.

The three half-cores' job was to distract the enemies long enough, so that the enemy Cosmic, Rith, couldn't focus on the barrier. Given enough time, Rith could definitely drill a hole through the space barrier, since it was basically her own home. At that point, Galashin would need to focus on Rith.

If he used his World Domain and big spells without locking down space properly, it would surely attract unwanted attention on themselves.

It was a simple plan, and it worked in the end... even at the cost of the three mages. The space was locked and there was practically no hope for Evin's group.

So why was Galashin now facing a former Authority?