The Ascetic's facial expression became stern as the sun near Mathias Calypses' true body became brighter, the fact that he wasn't directly under the sun was becoming increasingly more useless.
At this moment the Ascetic then grabbed Mathias' illusory clone at the speed of light. Of course, Mathias Calypses' clone could not react on time.
The Ascetic shattered the clone he grabbed into aether and absorbed it but sadly it wasn't a lot of aether. Mathias had designed it that way, so that this clone had even less aether than a normal illusory clone.
But unbeknownst to Mathias, aether absorption was not the main purpose the Ascetic had in mind when seizing his clone.
A beam of light struck Mathias Calypses and shot him out of the building he was residing in. It was sent through the connection between Mathias and his clone, something which is normally of an abstract nature.
The beam also sent him outside, as in it applied force. One of the most notable weaknesses of Solaris sorcery is that it can't directly apply force, only apply heat and accelerate things in the direction they are already moving.
A domain's law alteration!
Mathias Calypses had severely underestimated what was meant by that.
He immediately looked towards the sun as it blasted him at literal lightspeed.
0.3 seconds.
That was all the time it hit Mathias Calypses for before he swapped his location with his body double's corpse which he had originally created to fake his death with.
At first he tried to teleport away but was blocked from doing so by the sun. It seemed that the Ascetic was starting to properly use his domain against Mathias now.
Appearing in the underground morgue which held his body, Mathias looked up surprisingly at the makeshift sunroof above his head.
A trap!
Once more the sun blasted Mathias Calypses at the speed of light.
0.5 seconds.
That was the time Mathias spent being blasted by the sunlight this time. This discrepancy in time was due to Mathias Calypses being unsure of where to teleport to, since teleporting using his usual method was prohibited under the light of the sun.
Since the restriction was placed in, 'under the light of the sun' Mathias Calypses created multiple illusory clones in an area of shade, one of which he had created a weak independent mind for and had them teleported into the marble jade underground sanctum.
Upon reaching the sanctum, the seven illusory clones immediately used the characteristics of Astris to phase into the ground,
Astris Phase!
The main counter to sorceries which use light are sorceries that utilize powers of hiding, the best are Nix, Umbris, and Geo. Night, Shadow, and Earth respectively. Through this lens, Astris, which holds a minor specialty in concealing things, actually somewhat counters Solaris. Although such a counter would be more soft, with the advantage only showing when sorcerers of the exact same sub-realm went against each other.
Mathias aimed to use the natural earth below the marble jade sanctum to shield his illusory clones from the destructive power of the Solaris light.
The Ascetic's calm voice then ensued throughout the entire domain, "Everything here is of my creation. Trying to hide in rock means nothing."
But Mathias was not trying to hide his clones in an unreachable location so that he could teleport his true body there, no, he was trying to obtain. To obtain the thing the Ascetic supposedly cared so much for.
Mathias believed that what the Ascetic was hiding was indeed under the rock where the Ascetic was standing. This was because he assumed that at least one of the surrounding Hua Ascetics possessed the Solaris affinity also. He came to this conclusion because of not, there would be no reason for the Ascetic to have a place his sorcery didn't allow him access to.
The fact that the Ascetic called out at Mathias for this hinted at him that he should probe more in this direction.
Mathias considered the Ascetic's actions so far be lacking, not really that all-powerful. Ridiculously powerful but at the same time, extremely conservative with his power.
His original plan was to eliminate all the things that the Ascetic could take aether from and then try to tire the Ascetic out, killing him shortly after.
His new plan was different, since the conservative, patient and calm nature of the Ascetic was preventing Mathias Calypses from tiring him out, he opted for a new strategy. He would force the Ascetic's hand by coveting whatever he was protecting and trying to run off with it. Under the new situation Mathias expected that the Ascetic would shift his conservative and patient nature and fully attempt to kill him. Allowing Mathias to continue with his original plan.
The Ascetic clicked his tongue as the sun above the Hua Tai estate burned with a velvet red.
Every building within the estate spontaneously caught fire, Mathias Calypses' true body which has long been in the darkness of the underground morgue also caught aflame.
Shadows receded inwards as trees shriveled up like sun-kissed raisins. Their exterior bark peeling off them as their interior forms became enamored by crystallized sap.
All of the wooden buildings were completely incinerated.
Mathias, despite being in the shade realized that he could not use his teleportation. This circumstance meant that things were different than before.
Originally, Mathias Calypses had got around this by having his clones go in the shade before initiating the teleportation sorcery.
But now it seemed that he could not teleport while even in this shade. Mathias assumed that was because the Ascetic deepened the control his domain had over the surrounding area. How he did it exactly Mathias had no idea, after all, he was not an Ascetic.
Instead of the sun shining down on me it's influence it's like it's literally on top of me now, Mathias thought.
It was at this point that Mathias realized that his protections were no longer worth the aether expenditure and cancelled his heat and light dispersion sorcery.
The danger that was held back by the sorcery instantly erupted in the form of golden flames which aimed to incinerate Mathias' body.
Beneath the marble jade sanctum, the seven illusory clones, which had one with weak consciousness, ventured further into the rock below until they came to a golden barrier.
These clones instantly knew through the information and common sense imbedded into them by Mathias Calypses, that trying to phase directly through the barrier would be disastrous for them.
They quickly conjugated around an illusory clone and turned him into aether, using this aether, they, through instructions imbedded in their information started to cast a sorcery of triangulation and came to the consensus that this barrier was a perfect sphere, they couldn't get in without additional aether.
Giving up on this plan the clone with a limited intelligence transcribed two of the sorceries his intelligence came with into two separate illusory clones, with each clone having a different sorcery.
These clones immediately headed to the surface of the marble jade sanctum upon the intelligent one's request.
In the marble jade sanctum the Ascetic was impatiently waiting while acting patiently with a visible frown painting his face.
Sensing the clones approaching the surface of the sanctum, the Ascetic put his hand downward, preparing to smite the clones the very second they appeared from beyond the rock.
If he had concentrated his domain more he could have destroyed the illusory clones even when they were phased into the rock but doing that would make it impossible for him to suppress Mathias Calypses' teleportation.
The Ascetic feared that if Mathias could teleport he would leave and contact the other Hua forest clans, in which case they would say he killed his own clan and all 3 surrounding Ascetics would siege him.
This would make it impossible for him to keep what he wanted safe.
Hence the Ascetic's domain covered the maximum distance possible where the Ascetic could still restrain Mathias Calypses.
The illusory clones then immediately appeared beside the Ascetic. This gave momentary shock to the Ascetic, he had seen the clones travel in a straight line so he assumed that they would continue in this direction.
But instead, just before they got the surface they decided to teleport 6 feet. The Ascetic had seemingly forgotten that the actions of Mathias Calypses cannot be predicted with common logic.
Within that same instant beneath the marble jade sanctum, the intelligent illusory clone activated a sorcery he had primed.
Mathias Calypses' sun-charred body then replaced one of the illusory clones!
This sight truly shocked the Ascetic, he had absolutely no idea how Mathias had done this.
Mathias had relied further on the principle of 'under the sun'. Since it was no longer working above ground he'd do it below ground, in the ground.
By implanting a teleportation marker connected to him in a certain illusory clone and having another illusory clone activate the marker from the confines of rock, Mathias had subverted the restrictions present within the sunlight and surface of the domain.