He was losing health any second. In just a few minutes, he would die.
Though that would never happen. At the end of the day, there was an elder overseeing the trials. Realistically, if he did not recover soon enough, what would truly happen is that the Black Tortoise would begin to launch another attack.
Then it would come short of doing so, and it would be marked as his defeat. He had to circumvent that outcome.
And yet he could not move.
His wand was in his hand, frozen together with it. Though he could not move, he could do something else.
Lance of Light.
The spell generated at the top of his wand, and immediately exploded against the ice entrapping him. Ice went flying out, and the very hand he held his wand with was lacerated further than it already was.
He did not cease. He only cast it as much as he possibly could.
Lance of Light. Lance of Light. Lance of Light.
Each spell brought him closer to freedom, but more importantly, there was a tiny detail that had to be remembered. Most people would have forgotten it, but for Lumi, it was not a string of text he had to remember.
It was a self-evident fact every time he even remotely thought about how the magic worked.
His Light Mastery Passive had an interesting effect while he was in light mode. And being in Convergence also counted as light mode being on.
All light magic attacks will inflict an additional hit at 50% strength. All light spells cast will heal the user for ~1% of their max hp per cast, efficiency varying on the exact spell.
It healed him.
And thus he continued to cast Lance of Light over and over.
Lance of Light. Lance of Light. Lance of Light.
The ice cracked further with each blast. His HP ticked upward with each cast. Not enough to matter in a single moment, but enough to matter across many moments strung together. That was the entire point of playing the long game.
The ice shattered.
Lumi stumbled forward, gasping, his body screaming from the cold and the damage and the sheer accumulated exhaustion of the fight so far. He forced a health potion to his lips before the next attack could find him, gulping it down as fast as his frozen throat would allow.
The Black Tortoise was watching him with a curious gaze Lumi couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t fear like before, more like respect? Or maybe it was frustration. With a creature that old and that immovable, the difference was probably small.
Lumi checked his Convergence timer.
Barely any time left. Seconds, maybe.
He raised his wand.
"Torment."
The orb materialized directly inside the tortoise’s foreleg. The beast’s leg buckled, and its entire massive frame tilted, scraping a long gouge into the dirt as it fought to keep upright. It didn’t fall, but it staggered.
For the first time, the serpent wasn’t visibly lively. It just lay on the tortoise’s back while every scale leaked blood. It was still alive, but it was no longer the threat it had been at the start of the fight.
The tortoise itself was in better shape, though it was still clearly injured..
"Push!"
The orb shot forward, slamming into the tortoise’s exposed face. The beast recoiled, letting out a low groan that vibrated through the ground. Its head swung back toward Lumi, and he could see the calculation happening behind those ancient eyes.
It was deciding whether to continue or retreat.
The serpent made the choice for both of them. It lunged from its resting position, faster than Lumi had expected, fangs bared, aiming directly for his throat.
Lumi teleported south.
The serpent adjusted midair, tracking him, and Lumi considered his situation.
Torment? No, the serpent clearly had an idea in mind. Torment was harder to hit if the serpent could abruptly change speed or direction. Likely, it had found a way to do it.
"Lance of Light!" The lances caught the serpent across its midsection, driving it back, and it crashed against the tortoise’s shell with a wet thud.
Lumi pressed the attack. "Torment!"
The orb appeared inside the serpent this time, and the creature convulsed on the shell, limbs twitching, and for a moment, Lumi thought it might actually die.
It didn’t, but it stopped moving.
The Black Tortoise looked at its partner. Then it looked at Lumi. Its eyes were unreadable, but Lumi understood the message anyway. Something had shifted in this fight, and both of them knew it. It could no longer fight Lumi. Not when he was like this.
"Torment." The orb materialized inside the tortoise’s shell, and the beast groaned, its legs buckling slightly under the weight of the damage. It didn’t fall, but it was close.
Lumi stepped forward, ready to finish it... and then his Convergence died.
The power drained from his limbs like water through a broken dam. The twilight in his eyes faded, replaced by the familiar cold glow of Dark Mode.
The tortoise noticed.
Its head lifted, and there was satisfaction in its ancient eyes. It took a slow, deliberate step forward. It may have been weak, with a damaged limb and bleeding internally, but it was still standing, and Lumi was no longer in Convergence.
Lumi’s mind raced. He had Dark Mode active. That meant his Light meter was empty, and he needed to fill it again by casting dark spells.
If you thought it would be easier than before, you would be wrong. Because as injured and weakened as the Black Tortoise was, it understood one thing clearly.
It had to finish Lumi off now before he entered that strange state again.
It would be hard, but it was doable.
The tortoise took another step forward. The serpent stirred weakly on its back. Neither of them was in good shape, but neither was Lumi.
"Void Sphere." Lumi channeled the dark spell, feeling the familiar pull of destruction.
...
Across the field, Eden was having a considerably less controlled experience.
The Vermillion Bird was enormous up close in a way that hadn’t been fully apparent from a distance. Its wings spread wide enough to blot out a meaningful portion of the sky as heat rolled off it in waves that Eden could feel against his face from several yards away.
"Okay," Eden said, mostly to himself. "Okay, that’s a lot of bird."
Sol did not share his hesitation. Sol was already airborne, fire trailing off his wings in long streaks, screeching at a pitch that matched the Vermillion Bird’s own cry note for note. It was an act of pure aggression that had nothing tactical about it and everything to do with what Sol apparently considered a personal insult to his existence.
"Sol, wait, don’t just-"
Sol dove, and performed the first serious attack of its entire life.
Fire wrapped around Sol’s talons as he raked across the Vermillion Bird’s wing. The larger bird shrieked, swinging its head around to retaliate with a beak the size of a war hammer. Sol banked hard, narrowly clearing the strike, and looped back around for another pass.
Eden ran forward, drawing on the bond between them, pushing power through Sol from a distance.
"Ember Wave!"
A wave of fire rippled outward from Sol’s position, amplified by Eden’s contribution, scorching across the Vermillion Bird’s exposed chest. The bird recoiled, talons digging into the earth, wings flaring out in obvious irritation.
It retaliated with a blast of its own flame, a column of fire that Eden barely cleared by diving sideways, rolling through the dirt and coming back up already casting.
Eden struggled to find the right way to cast, but under pressure, the bond between him and Sol was strong enough to facilitate his first time truly fighting. "Wingbeat!"
The combo skill surged through Sol, and he closed the distance again, faster this time, raking across the Vermillion Bird’s flank.
The Vermillion Bird answered with a sweep of its wing, sending a gust of superheated air that slammed into Sol mid-flight and sent him tumbling sideways. Eden’s heart jumped into his throat, but Sol caught himself a few feet off the ground, wings snapping back into formation, and screeched in pure indignation rather than pain.
"You good?" Eden called.
"CAW!" Which Eden could roughly translate into ’obviously’.
The Vermillion Bird lunged forward on the ground this time, talons the size of Eden’s torso slamming into the dirt where Sol had just been. Eden cast on instinct.
"Ember Wave!"
The fire caught the bird across its foot, and it screamed, yanking back, off balance for half a second.
Sol used the half second to swipe it with its talon, achieving a direct hit across the side of its head, which left the Vermillion Bird staggered.
It retaliated immediately, snapping its beak forward in a strike Eden hadn’t anticipated. Even if Eden didn’t anticipate it, Sol was in the zone, and barely twisted clear, feathers scattering loose from the near miss.
Eden took a breath to calm himself. Now wasn’t the time to hesitate. He had to support his partner!