Ocular to the Dying Sun

Voices of Hurting; part 3

The timing was on her side when the edges of the tail end arced downward, pulling the rest of its midbody to open a pathway toward the head. Due to this, she had the chance to observe a part of its head she could target either to maim or distract it enough to redirect its course.

Crossing her fingers, she angled herself enough to curve her body and shelter a foothold onto a hind tendril, launching herself with enough force by adding magic into her body for agility and speed. Wrapping this up in a bow of split-second midair twirl, using this momentum to make use of the wind as sharp slashes.

Heavily pushing with a brandish, her wand swiped upward in motion to the speed of her flying body, grossly cutting at the edges of the tendrils and flapping gills near the head of the Dire-eater. Though wounded, it’s not severe to the point of rending its actions.

However, it was enough to distract it from its state of frenzy, turning its head to where she clung. After landing this wound, Yphemu pushed her body to let her presence fall meters away, towards a direction different from its previous.

Intently waving her wand to spread shard dust in the air, from the tips of her wand, grinding it to her rapier. Though the amount is not yet enough to fill their forever hunger, Yphemu continued grating her own wand's shard enabling her to collect more, collecting it via the winds. She could tell that even the supporting Dire-eaters following around this hunk of the leading piece of meat were getting attracted to her shard dust.

By instinct, the magicians from the inner walls of the entire place started to reestablish a force barrier that couples as an electric fence. Yphemu sensed that they wisely added further reinforcements to keep the barrier from losing its hold, making her thankful that their faction has been strict with upholding the quality of students. Now if only they were as proficient in using every kind of elemental magic besides wind and the ardor of water.

Black ooze covered the grounds below, showering over other small Dire-eaters that roamed the ground, spilling from the open wound of the largest Dire-eater. The Mother is the one that leads their flock, in full obedience.

But Yphemu still saw disobedient and unwilling ones within the Mother's hold that she knew the magic she sensed from the creature was an Alchemy-shard infused with a magic that extends manipulation. Influence not of their own but of a kind that attracts other Dire-eaters to follow them without considering their flock.

Her intention to see Verbasi and the residential is becoming more impossible at the moment, growing each minute in her mind as the frustration of wanting everything in this to be over. Compassion is damned as these almost mindless creatures become nothing more but a nuisance for every idea she thought of that would deliver them away from the grasp of conflict.

Once each small Dire-eater attracted by her dust-covered winds approached, she made sure to lead this dust away from where they are. Grasping the winds on the edges around her wand, she fans it farther behind her, opposite the direction of the establishment.

Half of this group escaped her premise and the remaining are ones surrounding the Mother, the largest Dire-eater as if they sensed its ever-growing distress. Blood from its wounds have stopped leaking but the magic embedded in its head had begun to crack. The leaking magic glowed bright, at least to Yphemu’s eyes.

Her sensitivity to the magic made her determine that there are distressing layers within the shard, spells that activated the more time the creature spent within this place. Yphemu could guess that it was intentionally embedded with levels meant to strengthen the Mothers hold on its flock. The second would be to strengthen its prowess of flight and comprehension, long enough to withstand any fight it does not usually do on its own accord.

The third layer is to succumb is not a benefit to the Dire-eaters but something a true terrorist would do to enable its purpose to come to fruition, the death of its intended target. The shard ceremony and the people concerned with fulfilling the end of the Ocular.

The vision of the night sky turned white in her eyes, not out of blindness from Slitark’s morning brightness. Just as she felt the last strands of her repressed anger about their predicament become thinner by the hour, she's now fully letting her reigns free.

The sight of the ruined residences that held people who she valued, ambiguous the safety of her child. Halting her hand to coming back to her child just so she could secure the supply of shards that their kingdom needs, and out in the cold winds looking at the pitiful manipulated creatures become weapons for those intending harm to them.

Fathoms of rung screams echoed in her mind at the anger she felt at being the Prime Magician who cannot do anything but become helpless in face of the several circumstances that bring down one's heart into shattered pieces. Bolting her soul in resolve, more to prevent any other damage, a wisp of light escapes her ears as she grips her wand.

The Mother has started to recover at this point, and watching with caution towards her actions will become consequential after the embedded Alchemy shard showed magic that might precede a destruction unnecessary. Counting down the seconds as she held her wand pointing upward, with the tip at the level of her head.

Blowing onto the shard, Yphemu’s breath brought a white color into the blue crystalline quality that occupied the inner workings of the wand. Spreading out to every corner of the shard, it soon covered with a dull powder sparkle that burst into particles that wrapped themselves in the breeze that surround her.

She waved her rapier under her feet like her wand and her other hand which held a wand hilt with no shard in sight, enter its sheath and let her hand cover in the dust. Closing her eyes to focus on the image of the dust light that entered each space within the dust of her wands’ shard, Yphemu entered a state of subconscious trance, arms wide open.

The light wisp that escaped from her ears hastily traveled the winds to the ears of her comrades with one simple word repeating in instruction. “Fire-brim,” the familiar name alerted Epiro and Sacr on their positions, a word that told them she needed their assistance.

Fire-brim is an immensely charged pair of shards contained by silver chains made by Yphemu with her hand and magic. She was guided by Verbasi learning from the previous Prime Magician taught by him at the time Verbasi was the first candidate successor.

This is the last item that not only destroys those it affects but contains the damage within the area of its effect, something innately embedded by Yphemu in hopes to create a method to control her outbursts during her training days. Built by the desire to hold her strength in the curb while learning to focus on her spell casting, these two shards are her accumulated use of light magic.

It also houses a strong kind of flame enough to perish those it comes in contact with if unleashed. The wisp of light brought them this message and by their agreement, followed their captain's command and entered the battlefield to deliver the pair into her hands. Since they aren't adept with any length of magic compared to honed magicians, Sacr rode her Sari-manok like the Vagaan of mythology.

Epiro was still on the ground, far from the walls, due to their desire to round out the field free of any other soldiers or whatever person they could save. This wasn't an act of chivalry he was built with but something he acquired after being second in command after Sacr and spending time with the footmen.

His belief and fondness for them is the same level of faith Yphemu has with both him and Sacr. That is why when he heard the wisp, he knew his team would know what to prioritize in his absence. Rushing towards Yphemu the best way he could, he jumped from one obstacle to another, watching the skies in awe as he watches the ongoing carnage of different magic blasting against the Dire-eaters.

He sights Sacr speeding with her Sari-manok, and he swerves in time for Sacr’s stead to reach over him and swoop for him to ride along. Flapping its wings in gliding flight, the Sari-manok flies in grace under Yphemu’s floating visage. Lifting quite into the branches of the still-standing trees around.

Yphemu’s still surrounded by the dust of her wand, at least the rest that was not sniffed and snuffed in a hurry by the youngling Dire-eaters. Her eyes are shut but the hands that held her rapier were poised with the rapier floating just inches from the tips of her finger, she was in a full trance as her eyes slightly opened with a glow that only happened when she let the light magic burst in control within.

“Lady Yphemu,” Sacr called and quickly reached out their share of the Fire-brim.

Each hand felt the cold touch of the light-infused dust of the magic wand's shard, all-enveloping their alchemy-ridden crystal. The two felt their breaths held when the shards rock and break from their chains, each lessening by the second.

Once done, a roar from the large Dire-eater rocked the ground and that’s when Sacr realized that what Yphemu was doing wasn’t just grating the crystals into dust and collecting them around her. No. Yphemu had already spread the dust into the winds connecting it around toward the direction of the creatures.

That was the reason that part of the Dire-eaters on their way had already disappeared or stopped moving. The particles of her shard must have disrupted each creature's perception that they had forced themselves to stay in place or go to where there are traces of the dust.

There was no genius in this kind of style, but Sacr knew that their Prime Magician tried not to use violence against Dire-eaters. The fact that she likes them free in the wild is not a truth other people appreciate if they know of it. Little know of how she is within the walls of the Academy, more so in the confines of the Militia, but her ability to work is what makes them consider her importance better than her personality outside.

Thus, the use of such magic, a violence swift in its judgment meant that there was a factor stronger in consideration than just her resolve to defeat the Dire-eaters. And this was not something Sacr and Epiro noticed, but the magic that originally controlled the Mother had begun to disrupt.

Yphemu made sure she controlled the air around them enough to reach the depths of the creatures', therefore giving her the leverage she needed to start "light pillars,” as she called Liwa’ng Sibat. Neither showed any movement but the ever-growing brightness of her magic from within reaching outward.

In a blink, spear-like lights showed one by one beside her, like marks of bright stars burning vertically. They started from the left arm and then grew in increasing amounts to the right, each one dutifully poising before being thrown into a specific direction.

Each target would be smitten in one swipe and deliberately burning in seconds, more either from bursting from the brunt of the light or the force it receives after being hit by the blight. Epiro had to hold themselves from flinching at the continuous hit each Dire-eater received, like a never-ending slew of arrows shot towards one body, each creature receives slight and all it took was a blink to realize their destruction.

Sacr’s Sari-manok shook from where they clung, the tree meters from where Yphemu hovered like a saint covered in flashing lights blinking to life once Yphemu motioned her fingers to go forward, shook nature around her for every strip of light she sends reeling into the air.

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