The Leviathan seemed surprised by the intrusion of a new wave of enemies. As the walls of the temporal prison collapsed, dozens of new eyeballs flickered into existence and scanned all of the reinforcements that had entered the area. Then, dozens of eyeballs narrowed in irritation, before a wave of essence surged through the creature’s wall of eyes.

The eyeballs glowed red, before they spat an array of red lights at the mages.

Most of the Mages didn’t even flinch at the attack - the air in front of them rippled, before the red lights were deflected into the air. However, a few Mages had wide, panicked looks in their eyes as a surge of red essence tore through their bodies and reduced them to dust. I noticed, with some horror, that the deflected beams of light weren’t harmless either. Wherever they landed, they quickly spread like a flesh-eating swarm of nanobots, tearing and devouring whatever they came into contact with. It took several seconds for each of them to stop devouring their surroundings.

The Mages who had survived didn’t seem fazed by the deaths of their comrades. Instead, a wave of magical attacks poured out of the rear ranks, and began mopping up the swarm of monsters on the ground. The monsters on the ground, which had begun charging towards their first viable target in the fight, died en masse as row after row of spells ripped them to pieces. However, the ones that died were merely a drop of water in the ocean.

Even though time had been slowed down over tenfold within the prison of time, the swarm of monsters the leviathan had created was simply too numerous to deal with quickly.

I felt a twinge of anxiety as I saw allied Mages start to fall.

Felix had said we needed to draw out a magical attack from the monster. Hadn’t that been a magical attack? Why hadn’t the council responded or saved the Mages who had just died?

Felix, what’s going on?

We need the monster to use one big attack if possible. It’s preferable if it’s aimed at you, although if it isn’t, we can still work with it.

Got it.

If I needed to bait the monster into using a strong ability and aiming it at me, it was simpler. The monster had seemed irritated when I used an eldritch ability last time. If I used another one, and then Anise helped my clone hit it with an empowered extinguish, hopefully the leviathan would toss another powerful attack my clone’s way. I could only hope that it would work, because I didn’t have any other great ideas.

I created another clone. I felt my soul weaken a little bit as I did so, and I felt like the air around the leviathan was… odd. It somehow felt like it was harder to create a clone than usual. Perhaps the creature was somehow resisting my attempt to use an eldritch ability?

Combined with the fact that I had already created a clone earlier, I felt the damage to my soul was worse than usual when I overtaxed {Eldritch Soul}. I lost nearly two thousand Achievement activating the ability - but my clone still appeared.

The leviathan whirled back towards me.

Creating a clone and using an eldritch ability had definitely got its attention.

Anise, power up another extinguish! I said, as Anise dropped another carpet of flames onto the monsters below us. Anise halted her attack, and obliged. My clone followed with another extinguish that used up 80% of its essence.

The leviathan barely even flinched when the extinguish landed on it. Even after being empowered by Anise, my clone’s essence pool was nowhere near large enough to really harm the eldritch abomination. However, combined with the fact that I had summoned a clone right next to it again, it was seriously ticked off. Several eyes, mouths, and claws materialized around us, and I felt a stir of essence in its body.

The eyes and mouths lit up, before I felt a surge of essence leap towards me. The eldritch part of my vision helped me realize that this surge of essence didn’t wholly exist in the physical world - instead, it was at least half conceptual. It was like the creature had literally opened its stomach and was trying to fold me inside of it, using a spell I didn’t understand and which relied wholly upon the creature’s eldritch nature to function.

I hoped that was a big enough attack for Felix’s plan to work.

A moment later, my vision blurred as I saw Sallia snap into place right in front of me, carried in the arms of another, much faster flying mage. As the strange eldritch spell of teeth and hunger closed in on us, Sallia activated {Mirror’s Edge}.

Item: Mirror’s Edge

Effects: 

Wielder gains the ability to ‘hide’ within mirrors and reflections, becoming very difficult to sense for creatures or people without specialized skillsets. While hiding within a mirror, wielder may not change their ‘exit point’ at all - the wielder will always exit the mirror at exactly the same spot they entered the mirror.

They must be touching a mirror or reflection to activate this skill. Destruction of the mirror or object used to make a reflection will result in the wearer being forced back out of the mirror.

This sword may absorb rays of light and darkness, and store them for later. Upon mental command from the user, stored rays of light and darkness may be summoned to harm enemies (these will be equivalent to light or darkness based elemental attacks from a manifestation magic system).

Once per day, this sword may reflect a magic attack, so long as the attack is below a certain threshold of power. 

This item will be repaired each time you return to the Market, so long as it isn’t completely destroyed.

Maintenance cost - 76.1 Achievement per life

Normally, {Mirror’s Edge} could only reflect attacks below a certain degree of power. But I saw that Sallia was holding on to a metal orb - one that looked exactly like something Felix would make. It had the essence of hundreds of mages working together stored inside of it, and the moment Sallia activated her blade, the essence in the orb surged through her hand and into her sword.

The beast’s stomach tried to enfold us, only for space and reality to reverse. It didn’t feel like a spell was being reflected so much as reality itself was bending to reverse the spell. The monster’s stomach failed to envelop us, and instead, for a split second, the creature’s stomach engulfed itself.

The monster’s biology stopped functioning. For a moment, it was as if someone had ripped out its heart or its brain - its body simply wasn’t built to work this way. Eldritch though it may have been, but its body still operated off of some form of logic - and this was not a viable design

The creature’s body struggled to realign itself, and its incredible vitality quickly got to work reverting this bizarre and incomprehensible change. However, the sanctuary’s defenders had been waiting for this moment. A great beam of sickly green light ripped into the new creature’s body as it struggled to reorganize itself. This was followed by a beam of fire, and then a great golden spear of crackling energy. I could feel the absurd amount of essence each attack used - these were clearly the sanctuary's trump cards, reserved for the most dire of threats. One after another, powerful Mages and items were unleashed upon the monster as it struggled to realign its biology.

By the time the monster recovered from enveloping itself in its stomach, I could see that the candle of life inside of the creature had gotten much weaker. It was over two thirds of the way dead - and the council hadn’t let up on their attacks at all. They were clearly determined to kill this thing now, before it could inflict any more damage.

The leviathan was no longer unfazed by everyone’s attacks. The monster roared in pain, and then gazed at Sallia. I didn’t see what happened next - there was a ripple of essence, disjointed fragments of reality, and something filled with rage and hate.

Sallia screamed in pain, and I blinked in shock as blood started pouring out of her left side. The leviathan bellowed in pain as another round of attacks poured into its dying body, and it didn’t spare us another thought.

I dove towards Sallia, and dumped the last remnants of my alteration essence into her body to heal what I could. The flying mage holding Sallia grabbed me, Anise, and Sallia, before dragging us away from the fighting.

I continued to inspect Sallia, until a moment later, I relaxed.

Sallia was badly injured. Her side was bleeding, and she was missing an arm. However, since I had gotten to her immediately after her injury, the dangerous wound in her side was mostly closed already. Her missing arm might have caused her to bleed out - but I knew how to make a basic tourniquet. I could always regrow her arm later. Sallia’s injuries would be painful, but she’d be fine soon enough.

After finishing my assessment of my patient, I turned back towards the leviathan, and relaxed further.

While I had been inspecting Sallia, the eldritch abomination had clearly unleashed some sort of trump card. A few of the powerful mages had died, and the essence of the mages besieging the monster were flagging. However, the monster itself was also flagging. Its life had dwindled to a mere ember, where before it had been a raging inferno.

A few moments later, another powerful item was activated - and the leviathan’s last bit of life force guttered out. I got a reward for assisting in killing the monster a moment later. There were still some monsters left on the ground, but the main threat was dead.

We had won.