This fight, made Caster's weakness all too clear.
He was too dependent on his memories, and external source of powers that his personal power remained weaker than it could have been.
Despite being a titan, he was struggling against the devil physically due to the rank difference.
Despite having incredible memories, he was struggling against the reflection because it copied his memories.
All the advantages he had against others were taken away from him against the reflection.
But a lot of the reflections advantages over others were also taken away by Caster.
The only bad thing was that the reflection seemed to be able to abuse his aspect without getting crippled by his flaw. Perhaps its because the reflections don't particularly age, and thus annulling the flaw.
Currently, Caster was stuggling due to the loss in momentum he had.
He was on complete defense, with a barrage of blows constantly coming at him, making it nearly impossible for him to fight back.
Caster didn't know the extent of the reflection's reflected abilities, so Caster wasn't even sure if he would be able to destroy its soul using Nameless Sun now. Because it had shown to have copied the fourth wall.
Still, Nameless Sun was his best bet, after all it was an ascended tier six memory enhancing an ascended tier one memory.
It was likely on par, if not better than even transcendent memories in terms of pure damage, even if we disregard the soul damage.
But he wasn't the only one who had it, the reflection did too.
Barely ducking under the said blade, Caster used the moon's hymn enchantment of the Moon Sabers to create some space between the two, using his aspect at the same time to go further.
The reflection didn't just sit around as this happened.
It knew that its best bet in this fight is to abuse the speed, because it could, while Caster couldn't. Not to mention, its top speed is higher than Caster's top speed by far.
Giving up the momentum of this fight would be detrimental to the reflection.
But that's where it messed up, it was exactly what Caster wanted.
Using the Moon's hymn again, Caster lunged, not away from the abominations, but towards it.
It created a moment of startle in the reflection, in which Caster used Evermelt to turn into its hot liquid form and launch itself off from Caster's body onto the reflection.
To the reflections horror, the damage from Evermelt on the reflection was insane. After all it was wearing an awakened's form on its body, which was being attacked by a transcendent devil.
In the skirmish, it had no choice but to turn into the echo itself. It was borderline impossible to escape without literally breaking through Evermelt after it surrounds someone.
'That's it!'
This was the moment he had been waiting for. As long as the reflection turned back into Evermelt, the soul damaging property of Nameless Sun would obliterate it.
It was exceptionally hard for him to get the reflection to turn into that, but luckily... or skillfully, he made it happen.
As soon as the devil turned into bright, liquid, golden figure of Evermelt, Caster rushed towards it with full force of his Aspect.
He couldn't miss this golden opportunity, literally.
Instantly, Caster reached the skirmish between Evermelt and the Mirror Beast wearing Evermelt's form.
Unfortunately, he had no way to kill the Mirror Beast withough destroying Evermelt in the process too.
Because both of them were currently in liquid form, completelt mixed with each other.
But so what?
He could just dismiss Evermelt.
Or...
He could use the Flood Unbound enchantment of Aquifer's Gift, the water memory he had.
The enchantment could create a small flood at the expense of essence, which is why he never used it in the forgotten shore, but here, it could be used to entrap the Mirror Beast.
Which is what he did.
Without dismissing Evermelt, he unleashed a major floor.
It didn't take long before the entire area was drenched with water, making it harder to move for Caster. But for the echo and the mirror beast, who were in liquid form, this would have been much more detrimental to them, because they would start solidifying.
However, Caster had summoned hot, boiling water to keep their solidification to the least.
As he did, tons of liquid metalic bursts seemed to be happening simultaneously at multiple places.
Evermelt, and the reflected Evermelt, were under a constant change of state, causing the implosions.
The area was hurting Caster too, due to the hot water everywhere, and the implosions randomly bursting from the water.
But it was bearable.
As soon as that happened, Caster used his aspect at full throttle which cause lightning to spew out of his body. More lightning than ever.
The lightning spread to the water, to evermelt and mirror beast immediately, causing the two to burn.
The lightning was anything but mundane as well, so it cause a decent amount of damage.
But it wasn't enough.
The mirror beast had spread apart on the entire flooded part.
The squirmish between Evermelt and Mirror Beast continued, without giving Caster a way to enter the fight to assist Evermelt. It was frustrating him, but he didn't let it affect his thought process.
He had prepared more ideas after all.
His main plan had failed, his backup plan wasn't working, so he brought out the back up of the back up.
Using the Book of Books.
Since the Mirror Beast was in the form of Evermelt, it couldn't reflect the Book of Books right now, allowing Caster to get way more offensive.
After summoning it, Caster hurriedly turned over to the page on which lightning strike is at and used it immediately.
"Leodero."
Fueling it with 15 ascended shards, Caster used it at full its full might.
He didn't use the single lightning strike one, but rather the one where it rains lightning everywhere in the vicinity.
He did that because both Evermelt and Mirror Beast had spread themselves apart on the entire flooded part of the island.
One strong strike would not be enough.
He had just gotten confirmation earlier from the lightning of his aspect.
Caster had not stopped Aquifer's Gift even now.
The island would keep getting flooded until it could no longer hold more water, or Caster runs out of essence.
He decided to start churning out cold water instead of hot water now.
The water had already reached a quater of the length of the tree trunks surrounding the area.
Everything just kept getting messier.
His essence was also being used rapidly, more rapidly than it should have, for some reason.
The simulataneous and consecutive lightning strikes in the vicinity lit up the entire sky and let out thunderous roars, alerting everything on the nearby islands.
They spread through the entire flood, bursting water everywhere they landed. The entire area was filled with steam.
The charges from it dispersed on the surface of it rapidly, not going too deep into the water. Basically leaving both of them completely unharmed.
This plan also failed.
Evermelt and Mirror Beast were still fighting it out, whilst being nearly dissolved into the flood.
Looking closely though, he saw that the entire flood had turned golden yellow. Not just the parts where Evermelt and Mirror Beast were fighting it out, though those parts were obviously more saturated than the rest.
It seemed that the Mirror Beast and Evermelt both had unleashed the Golden Tide enchantment. Which was the reason why his essence kept decreasing at terrfic rates.
Luckily, he was a titan so he had a lot of it left to spare.
The water had gotten to the point that it brutally started to burn Caster as well.
He didn't have the protection of Evermelt around his body right now, after all.
He had dismissed the Ashveil Tunic and summoned Vivienna's Armor for better protection against it, but it just made everything worse, because not only was it heavier, it also had gaps inside it, causing the liquid to get inside it, and not protect him at all.
But after he used its enchantments to lessen its weight, it was overall better than the Ashveil tunic.
Using the rope memory, Celestial Cord, he caught onto a tree and climbed it.
Aquifer's gift was still floating at the center of the flood, continuing to flood the island more.
And Caster was going to watch all of this unfold.
'This is so ridiculous... the entire island is going to flood at this rate, well it already has to a large extent I guess...'
Evermelt and Beastie were still fighting it out. How they were still continuing was beyond him.
Caster's reserves were cosntantly being drained by Evermelt using its Golden Tide enchantment, Aquifer's gift flooding the entire island, Vivienna's armor lessening its weight through its active enchantment [Burden].
He could feel his reserves tap out at insane rates.
He was only hoping that the Mirror Beast would run out of essence faster than him, but that was largely unlikely.
It was an ascended devil after all.
Caster tried using Puppeteer as well, but it didn't work. The Mirror Beast simply shrugged it off.
"Fuck..."
It wasn't that Caster wasn't strong enough to kill the Mirror Beast, it was just that he messed up and provided the Mirror Beast with near perfect conditions to not die.
He hadn't expected it to turn the flood to its advantage.
At this point Caster wished to just floor the entire island completely and wash it off of its edges. But that would likely not work either.
Evermelt as well... it in its liquid form is just so unbelievably hard to kill... as long as their's water nearby at least.
This would have been incredibly useful on the shore... but alas it was an active ability which required essence to use. And sleepers can't utilize essence.
Caster's mind was continuously churning, trying to think of a way to kill the Mirror Beast.
By now, the water had reached over seventy percent of the length of the tree's bark Caster was on, and he was near the less flooded areas.
He was running out of time, he needed to do something, and fast.
He climbed to the complete top of the tree to look around.
An area of radius of nearly a whole kilometer had been flooded, with Aquifer's gift at its epicenter.
The outer edges of it were obviously less flooded... water wasn't that deep over there, but it was ridiculous how fast water was being churned out.
The water that was flooding the area had long turned into cold water because of the continuous churning of... well, cold water of course.
Caster had hoped that a mystical water would be able to solidify Evermelt, and its reflection.
But it didn't.
The situation just kept on getting worse and worse.
In an urgent choice of action, Caster decided to use the [Daybreak's End] Enchantment of the Nameless Sun.
It was something Caster had never even tried, because of its massive essence consumption, and the fact that it could only be used once ever hundred or so hours.
Because of that he was hesitant on testing it out, not knowing when it would come out to be useful.
Upon awakening it fully, The Nameless Sun manifested as a burning halo above the its host weapon, the moon sabers, instantly illuminating the entire flooded island.
A solar cataclysm descended upon the drowned island where the flood itself lives and attempted to kill.
A low hum rippled through the air, deeper than thunder, purer than light. The clouds ignited first, splitting apart as a sun was born in miniature, descending like a judgment given form.
The sky inverted, the day consuming night in one violent heartbeat.
The ground shook with enough force to crumble the nearby trees he was on, causing him to fall into the flood.
The halo had take away all light from the surrounding, illuminating itself from it all.
The sea of gold turned white, then gold again, and then... nothing.
Vast limbs of solidified golden water reached upward, thrashing against the falling light, only to dissolve into steam and silence.
Its soul was eroding.
Caster hurriedly dismissed Evermelt, not wanting to risk losing it.
If not for the fourth wall, perhaps he would be dying as well.
The flood convulsed, writhing as its own radiance was unmade. Golden waves shattered into shards of burning light, rising, twisting, melting back into colorless vapor.
Suddenly, all the gold disappeared fromm the flood and turned into the figure of a tall young man with brown hair and a gentle, handsome face.
The figure was floating on surface of the flood, looking at Caster.
It seems that the Mirror Beast had turned back into Caster to better endure the soul eroding effects.
However, the damage to its soul persisted.
The reason why Daybreak's end ended up being so incredibly effective on the Mirror Beast was that it was a light based attack. Once it absorbed all the light from the surrounding, the reflection seemed to have gotten weaker, untill it had to lose the skin of evermelt.
The radiance had faded, and the silence returned.
The golden sea was now... gone, leaving behing a massive pool of cooled water.
However, the fight was long from over yet.
Despite the immense soul damage that the Mirror Beast took, it was still alive. And Caster had burnt thrown nearly all of his essence.
But so did the Mirror Beast.
Now, it was just going to be a battle of attrition.
One of them is going to die.
And it won't be Caster.