Lilith had used 'Blink' to get to Aric and it caught everyone off guard.
A lost magic from the early years of Narxuia. Lilith invented the spell as a way to get around the world but eventually perfected it enough for combat.
She teleported to Aric to siphon mana directly from him and to recover from Seraphina's blows.
"AHHHH!" Aric screamed as he was lifted into the air, her hand crushing down on his head.
"I'm going to use you nicely." Lilith smirked. "You'll give me the mana I need."
She hovered a few hundred meters into the sky, draining him with each second.
Aric's mana dropped fast. 30%, 20%.
"But don't worry… I won't kill you. I'll save you fo—"
BOOM! BOOM!
Aric detonated his mana inward, a move only someone insane enough would attempt.
"FUCK!" he screamed as his arm was torn apart from the backlash.
But he didn't stop. He forced overdrive healing into his body, patching himself mid-air.
Seraphina caught him just in time, leaping from her platform and using her tendrils to grab him.
"ARE YOU OKAY!?" she yelled.
Her eyes widened at the sight of his missing arm. "Oh my god! Your hand! Let me heal you!"
"Wait… I'm hea—"
"Shut up! Stop it now! I can see that your mana is running low!"
Aric, who knew he was on fumes now, decided to comply and stopped the healing magic. Seraphina placed her hand over his chest and poured in mana with healing magic.
But Lilith had recovered from the explosion and immediately went after them—only to be blocked by a cocoon Seraphina conjured around them.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Evelyn, who was outside the initial cocoon to help Aric, had recovered a good portion of her mana. She used ice chains to wrapped around Lilith's ankle and yanked her down to the ground.
"Your Grace! Focus on healing him first! I can hold her ou—"
But Lilith blinked right in front of Evelyn, her palm inches from her face.
"No, you can't."
She hurled Evelyn through the nearby forest. Evelyn crashed into a tree with a sickening crack.
"Ugh..."
But Evelyn immediately pushed herself up. She blocked the swing of Eclipse with reinforced ice chains, the weapon shrieking as it clashed.
She used the low ground to her advantage and tried to dragged the sword down to the ground but it didn't budge.
The new form Lilith had was her strongest form yet and Evelyn was already outmatched in everyway.
"You're not like them." as she now made Eclipse burn and melted the ice chains away.
Evelyn flinched from the wave of heat but didn't back down, "Winter's Wall!"
A thick barrier of layered ice burst between them. It wasn't perfect but it was just enough to buy her space to retreat to a better position.
CLANG!
Eclipse smashed into the wall, cracks spiraling across its surface. It held for three strikes but on the fourth, the barrier shattered and Lilith absorbed part of the collapsing ice as mana.
"You're not getting past me." Evelyn hissed. "Frozen Mirage."
A mirrored double of Evelyn erupted from the frost-covered soil, swinging a jagged ice blade straight at Lilith's throat.
Lilith scoffed and blinked again but Evelyn had already accounted for that.
She'd already cast a trap just in case she disappeared again.
Hundreds of ice spears rained from the sky, surrounding the area like a frozen meteor shower.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Lilith parried the spears, swatting them aside with blinding speed. But as she did, both the mirrored Evelyn and the real one rushed in from behind, blades drawn and ready to kill her.
SNAP!
Lilith spun in a split-second pivot, deflecting both blades with the flat of Eclipse. The force of her parry sent shockwaves through the air.
She was smiling now, "You're trying. I like that."
She blinked again, reappearing just above Evelyn and slamming her foot down like a falling meteor.
BOOM!
The ground cratered beneath Evelyn. She caught the blow with a hastily summoned frost shield but the impact knocked her off balance, sending her skidding backward.
But she didn't fall yet.
"AHHHHH!" Evelyn roared as she held her ground.
Lilith kept putting pressure on Evelyn but she is not budging out of sheer willpower,
"Why won't just you die already?"
The air warped around them as Lilith prepared for the next attack. This time, Lilith's attack will guarantee a kill onto her.
But then—
CRACK!
A bolt of lightning slammed into Lilith's side and a foot struck her straight in the balls with a brutal crack.
"You may be a woman," a voice called out, landing infront of Evelyn.
"but you're still in a man's body."
Lilith crashed into the ground, stunned by the pain.
"And I," Aric said with electricity around him, "just happen to be one."
******************************************************************
A few minutes earlier…
Inside the cocoon, Seraphina kept pouring mana into Aric in large quantities.
His flesh regrew back with his bones snapped back into place. But of course, the pain was still immense.
"AHHHHHH FUCK!" Aric yelled in pain.
"Stay still." she ordered. "You'll tear the tissue if you move too soon."
Aric grunted but complied either way.
"We're...running...out...of...time." he said. "You need to go help Ev—"
"You're not going anywhere until I refill your core." Seraphina placed both hands on his chest and closed her eyes.
"But also, you owe me an explanation. How do you have healing magic? I thought you only had Creation."
"Uh... well." Aric scratched his head awkwardly, "It is Creation Magic. I can create whatever I imagine with enough understanding hence the lightning bullets, fire spells, wind bursts... and, well, healing."
Seraphina opened her eyes to look at him, "That's overpowered. You're saying you just... imagined healing into existence?"
Aric looked Seraphina in the eyes, Well. I can't tell you that it was because of you that I tried to heal myself when you hurt me physically. But even so, I don't think I should bring that up now.
Plus, I don't know how I got the hang of it anyways. It just did with Ivy telling me I used it passively...
Let's just, not say anything dumb.
Aric scratched the back of his head, "Honestly... kinda? I don't know how it happened but it just did. Happy accidents you know?"
Seraphina didn't look convinced but she let it go for now. She lifted her hands from his chest. His arm had fully regenerated and his mana core had been restored to about 60%.
She, on the other hand, had burned through half her reserve but she was already gathering her mana again from nature.
Aric flexed his fingers, testing the newly restored arm. "Feels better than the old one..."
Then he smiled. "Thanks, by the way. For saving me."
Seraphina blinked, a faint blush colouring her cheeks.
"...You're welcome." She cleared her throat. "Ahem. Anyway, you need to—"
"No." Aric said firmly. "I'm not sitting out. We can beat her if we fight together. I can create things that actually hurt her—like anti-magic bullets."
Seraphina raised a brow. "That was you...? Wait—how the hell do you create anti-magic with Creation? Isn't that, like... the opposite of what your magic is? Also, aren't you breaking the law of magic?"
Aric scratched his head, trying to condense centuries of sci-fi theory and fiction logic into one explanation.
"Alright, so. You know how mana flows through living things, right? Like blood, but for magic."
She nodded.
"Well, I just made a bullet that... screws with that flow. Think of it like this—"
He pointed at the air between them. "Magic is like a river. It flows smoothly, right?"
"Yes…"
"My bullet," he said, pointing to his temple, "is like throwing a big tree in the middle of it. It messes it up and stops it from flowing right. No magic, no spell, nothing."
Seraphina frowned, "But how did you make that with creation magic?"
Aric shrugged, "I just imagined something that cancels magic. Like… the opposite of it. A material that nullifies mana when it touches it."
He tapped his temple, "I've seen stuff like it in stories. Games. Sci-fi. You know, the 'anime', 'manhwa', 'games' and shows I told you about in bed?"
"Yeah..."
"And because I understand it, I can create it with conceptual crafting. A perk from my creation magic where I can just make it if I understand it enough."
Seraphina's eyes narrowed, "So let me get this straight. You imagined a fake material based on stories that you told me aren't real… and made it real?"
"Pretty much. Creation magic is a cheat if you know what you're doing. This ability from all the months I have been using can be explained in a single sentence."
"If I can imagine it, understand it and know how something works, I can build it with magic."
"So for anti-magic bullets, I imagined a material that cancels out magical currents—something like a 'nullstone.' Then I imagined how it could be shaped to break through mana circuits the moment it hits."
Seraphina folded her arms, "And this... 'nullstone' actually exists?"
"It does with me." he said with a wry smile. "I don't need it to exist in this world—I just need to understand how it should exist and my magic does the rest."
"Huh...how interesting...and powerful too."
Aric now stood up, "So now that you understand it, let me fight with you."
Seraphina followed suit, "But it's dangerous for you. She is easily the strongest person I have ever faced and I have never known what I am capable of yet."
Aric put his finger on his chin, "Hmm...when the FOAB detonated, how was it for you?"
Seraphina grimaced, "Stupidly strong. I had to burn through a huge chunk of my reserves just to survive the shockwave. I even… corrupted myself a little."
He raised an eyebrow. "Corrupted?"
She sighed deeply, "Dark magic feels limitless. But the stronger the spell, the more it pulls at me. Like it's eating away at something inside. If I go too far, I could lose control and lose myself."
"That's why I've held back. I've never pushed far enough to know my full power… because the cost might be me."
Aric nodded and crossed his arms, "Makes sense. So... what about that demon woman? How did the FOAB not kill her?"
She shook her head, "It should have but apparently she burned through at least half her mana to survive it. And now that your anti-magic bullet hit her, she's more afraid than ever to drag this fight out."
"The form you're seeing now is probably her final one. And she's most likely on a timer—she can't regenerate mana the normal way, like through nature or rest. Plus, her aura is unstable."
Aric nodded in understanding, "And that's why she went for me. She wanted to drain me, to take me out before I could hit her again."
Aric then snapped his finger, "If she's racing the clock... I know how to stall her."
"How?"
"She's still in a man's body. Doesn't matter how durable she is—there's one kind of pain that bypasses everything."
He grinned, "I need you to launch me like you did with the FOAB. I'll give myself lightning boots, cap the speed to what my body can take... and with enough momentum..."
"I'm going to kick the balls."
Seraphina look was in disbelief, "So your plan is to stall her until she's dead and in the mean time, give her a kick to the balls?"
"Trust me. This kick in the balls would basically make Sebastian a woman. Well, technically, a female demon is inside him if that's what it even is but yeah."
The cocoon disappeared and they were both standing on the platform in the open air. They both could see Evelyn fighting with Lilith where Aric immediately manipulated his boots into lightning shoes.
These lightning shoes would make Aric go faster than most cars on Earth when activated. Aric had capped the speed at around 230 km/h, the maximum he thinks his body could take without shattering every bone with his current durability being at B tier.
"No time to doubt me Seraphina. Yeet me!"
Seraphina looked at Aric while wrapping him with her tendrils, Again with this yeet...I should ask him later what that actually means.
A sonic boom echoed in the air as Aric was launched like a cannon shot, lightning trailing behind him aiming straight for Lilith's balls.
And three seconds later, Lilith was on the ground, clutching her balls and gasping like a dying fish.
Aric stood between her and Evelyn.
"How does it feel, demon? Gasping for air?"
Lilith choked out, "Y… you… fucking… coward...!"
Seraphina landed behind Aric, her sword already drawn and eyes locked on the demon,
"Let's end this."