The three of them rushed over to the fight scene. Well, to be honest, the fight was too one sided to be called a fight.
Ludwell could not even compare.
If not for the metallic property of his skin, he would have died multiple times by now.
It was ridiculous.
'How is an injured awakened capable of this much?'
Laylah was terrfied.
She looked back and saw Eleanor and tracker, ready to take action as soon as they need to.
Laylah took a long breath and looked forward, to the terror inducing figure of Caster and shot an array of arrows at him, trying to save Ludwell, as well as injure him further.
But like always, he would intercept every single arrow before it even got to him.
"How?"
It was ridiculous though, how could one intercept a dozen arrows in just a few swings so effortlessly while fighting another master, a strong one at that.
Before, doing that at least created an opening, but this time it didn't even do that.
Caster was improving.
And Laylah didn't like the sound of that.
Laylah was terrified, terrified of inviting him to her mind, terrified of being destroyed from inside by him... but she was also furious at Ludwig's death.
So she pulled herself together.
Just then, Ludwell managed to create some space between the two by landing a hit. It threw Caster away dozens of meters before hitting a tree, causing it to fall over.
Caster didn't have the golden armor he was wearing at the start of the fight, so the attack did a lot to him.
He looked to be wearing just a tunic type of memory, it was nearly broken as well.
Only now did they all notice how bad of a condition Caster was in.
And they were struggling against this, half dead version of him.
Laylah let out a nervous, crazed laugh, she even forgot to shoot.
Eleanor slapped Laylah's back, snapping her out of it.
"We'll hold him down, do it when the time's right."
Laylah simply nodded to that, and as she did, the two master's left her alone to hold Caster down.
Caster simply laided down there, barely moving. Ludwell reached him first about to stab his sword down, right into Caster's heart, but before he could the golden armor returned and captured Ludwell in the spherical liquid trap.
Then, Caster got up.
'No! Ludwell!'
The golden liquid disappeared, freeing Ludwell from it.
But then, he was freed out of his life too.
His heart, pierced by the soul destroying Nameless Sun.
Eleanor and tracker reached there, just a second too late.
"You bastard!"
Tracker swung her sword, which Caster nimbly dodged, and as he did, the golden armor returned to him.
"If you're prepared to kill someone, then be prepared to be killed by someone!"
Ducking down, ruthlessly, Caster launched another attack. Again, it was intercepted by Eleanor.
The two weren't capable of killing, or even stalling Caster by themselves, but together the two of them complimented each other enough for Caster to not be able to swiftly kill them.
Laylah looked the fight from just barely a few meters away.
She didn't launch arrows as often because she was afraid her arrows would go through her friends to reach Caster.
That had happened before.
The fight seemed to continue on, Caster was fending off against the two masters, but due to his immense mobility he wasn't being tied down.
The two master's weren't blatantly attacking his legs either, so as to not alert him of their plan.
Laylah had no choice but to join at close range.
She used her dormant ability to lauch herself from the tree branch she was standing at and practically flew over to Caster and landed on him from above, sitting on his shoulder.
She grabbed his head and began pulling it upwards with all her might, but as she did, she began burning. The armor had got immensely hot.
'This damned armor of his!'
Caster shook his head violently to get her off, but failed to.
Laylah held on.
She dismissed her charm, the charm that supressed her flaw.
She was stabbed by Eleanor.
'W-what?'
It seemed that Caster used Laylah's weight as leverage to fall down and intercept one of the stabs that the other two master's did with Laylah's body.
'A-almost...'
Caster moved away from her and engaged tracker.
Suddenly, the view around her changed. Now she was in her soul sea.
Along with Eleanor.
This was her flaw.
Her flaw invited the closest human to inside her soul sea.
It would leave the bodies of both Laylah, and the guest very vulnerable.
This was why it could be used as a weapon, as long as Laylah trusted her allies.
It was also why it was easy to supress this flaw, as all the memory needed to do was to create a barrier of sorts around the soul sea. It was a rare kind of memory, but not something the sword clan wouldn't have.
Getting back to the fight though, their plan was to get Caster to come to Laylah's soul sea. Laylah would be at an advantage in her soul sea but, she would have to fight Caster for as long as she could. Because then, the other two Master's outside could finish Caster off since his body would be unable to move.
"Leave."
Laylah spoke to her hurriedly.
And that is what Eleanor did. Hurriedly, Eleanor left her soul sea, they didn't have time to waste after all.
Only after Eleanor left was Laylah allowed to leave as well.
Anyone that her invited could leave at will, as long as they knew how to.
Though, there was another method to leave, and that was to kill Laylah, but Eleanor didn't want that, and Laylah had taught her companions the way to leave her soul sea in the past.
When the two of them got back to their senses, they saw that tracker had lost a hand and was barely holding on.
'No! Not you too!'
Laylah launched forward using her dormant ability and grabbed onto Caster, flying away from both of them, but Caster kicked her and the two of them fell onto a tree.
It was a really messy fight.
Laylah was bleeding out a lot, but so was Caster.
The two were the closest things to each other, and that was when Laylah's flaw activated again.
But... nothing happened.
'What?'
***
[The fourth wall has annulled the attempt at pulling your soul body.]
Seeing that Caster was confused for a moment before smiling.
He was wondering why the two master's suddenly stopped attacking Caster just a bit earlier. It turns out it's because she used her ability on the wrong person.
"Protect me Evermelt."
Then, Caster turned off fourth wall and immediately the scene shifted.
He was inside of the archer's soul sea now.
"Whoa. Nice place you've got. Wow, you barely have memories. I would have expected a legacy like you to have more."
The archer spoke up, slowly, as if to buy time.
"Is that what you think of this? So casual... I don't have a lot of memories, simply because—"
Caster realised her attempt and realised that he doesn't have control of his body outside, so he needed to hurry. He interrupted her sentence and lauched an attack at her.
In this place, he didn't have his memories, he just had his physique and aspect abilities.
However, the archer would have everything.
Which also meant that Caster was naked. Unfortunately, the archer didn't even bat an eye to that.
The reason Caster turned Fourth Wall off and take this risk was for one simple reason.
Using his awakened aspect ability which could only be used in soul sea's for some reason.
Immediately, Caster targetted the archer with his ability and activated it.
'Graze.'
As soon as he did that, Caster felt his soul tremble.
He felt his soul split into two.
It should have been excruciating, but for some reason it wasn't.
He felt his soul core split and get out of the manifestation of his soul body.
After that he noticed Laylah, who was doing everything in her power to resist it. However, she wasn't able to do a lot against it.
'Wait, why do I know her name?'
Soon, the soul core flew over to Laylah's soul body and entrapped it.
She just couldn't resist it.
She couldn't even let out a grunt as it happened.
She didn't anticipate such a threat.
An array of memories flowed... they were Laylah's memories.
Caster was now a terror.
Suddenly, he was kicked out of her soul sea. He was on the ground, being protected by Evermelt desperately from the other two masters.
Then he heard the spell speak again.
[You have created an ascended graze: Unnamed.]
'Sweet.'
Laylah's body laid on the ground a dozen meters away.
It seems that creating grazes doesn't do anything to the physical body.
He summoned his runes for a moment.
Soul fragments: [5950/6000].
It seems that it took a whole core and fifty more fragments to form the graze.
Caster wanted to look at the runes of his newly obtained graze as well, but didn't have the time for it, unfortunately.
Closing the runes and getting up, startling the two masters, who looked back to look at Laylah, Caster stabbed towards the leader, Eleanor.
Well, almost. She realised that her friend is dead very fast, since Caster got out of her soul sea. She parried the sword away.
'How cold blooded...'
Caster wanted to finish her off as fast as he could, but unfortunately he failed to do that.
Tracker on the other hand, who only had one hand now, was in shock.
Their cohort was almost entirely dead.
She looked to be in despair.
Utilizing that opening, Caster attempted to behead her. Eleanor stopped him again, intercepting Caster's sword with her own.
"Annoying."
Caster didn't have any soul shards in the book of book, so he couldn't just blast everything up.
He couldn't use his aspect as often now either, his charm is about to run out of the fake time.
He had [Starhoarder] summoned on him at all times, so he could utilize it aswell, but it would consume a decent bit of essence.
However, now he had no choice.
It had a really good enchantment for combat.
Memory Enchantments: [Infinite Vault], [Stillroom], [Hidden Firmament], [Singularity Rend], [Warp in Silence].
Singularity rend.
He could, with just a thought willed into the ring, collapse a stored object into a miniature singularity, hurling it outward as a black mote.
Which is what he did.
He collapsed a dozen carcasses of fallen abominations into a singular black mote.
It took a bit of time though, which allowed for Eleanor to get offensive.
Caster deflected and parried the barrage of attacks Eleanor was launching at him, but missed just one.
It was a stab.
It pierced his liver, hurting him a lot. But he didn't let the opportunity go. He held onto the sword with his dear life, raised his hand forward and launched the black mote which formed itself at the tip of his fingers at Eleanor, point blank, right at her glabella.
It pierced her skull, killing her instantly.
[You have slain an ascended human...]
A flood of essence poured into him, stunning him for a few moments.
His titan core was forming again.
The familiar pain came again, but now he was used to it.
Evermelt was handling the last weakened master. It seems that she had pulled herself out of the shock.
The sword that was stabbing Caster had now turned to dust, as the Master was now dead.
It made Caster bleed out, fast.
Clutching his stomach with his one of his hands and using the sword in his other hand as a crunch, he walked over to the last Master left.
She was barely hanging on now, it seemed like she was almost exhausted of all her essence. She looked like she could fall unconcious at any moment now.
Then she spoke up, her voice full of disgust... not in Caster, but seemingly in herself.
"Please... spare me... I'll do anything."