4 luxes

Choosing the lead by example, I opened the assault, digging into my Inventory for four Dust Crystals that I immediately used to return myself to full power. Not daring to hold back, I gathered power in each of my four hands, holding onto it even as I felt Bai Hu’s form waver as it was devoured. Thrusting my hands forward the moment I felt the pieces click, I unleashed a full quartet of Lux Aeternas.

The light seemed to devour everything. Though I’d gotten used to the darkness that came with the light attack, this was something different—something cold and hungry. It consumed everything it could to fuel its own power, sucking away every trace of heat and light until I felt frost forming on my skin and in my eyelashes. But it went beyond even that, pulling at my soul to devour spare MP, and it was only through careful control that I kept it from emptying my reserves and leaving my vulnerable. The darkness felt thick, too, if that made any sense; I was pretty sure it was drawing away energy even from my movements, if only just a little. It certainly seemed to swallow its own noise, because I didn’t hear the usual sounds of devastation.

When the lighting returned the normal, the world before me was a study in contrasts. As I’d thought, frost had crept over everything near our battle, turning the now-blasted wasteland silver-white, except for the area immediately in front of me. Everything that had been caught in my blast had been erased, cut cleanly away as if by a surgeon’s knife. I could saw with a fair bit of confidence that that had been the strongest attack I’d ever used.

And it still wasn’t enough. In the distance, where it had been thrown by Lux Aeterna’s power, I could see a single red sphere, a bit larger than I was in size. The Hydra’s so-called core.

But the core wasn’t what I was after; it was just the shell that protected the portal through which Malkuth fed his creation—a portal that was now wide open. Though I’d badly cracked several dozen layers of the sphere, matter was already pouring out of its center, not only repairing the damage but spurting from the sphere’s surface like blood. Except blood didn’t twist and take shape, didn’t immediately harden and solidify. Even now, with my Acceleration pushed to the limit, I could see it healing, faster than ever.