Der was going to reach Atem soon... Well, he was supposed to. Atem disappeared once again into a shadow. The speed of his wheels brought Der into a position in which the teleporting of Atem was rendered quasi-ineffective. While he was still unable to breach the gap, the forced depletion of the Magic relating from his numerous escape was costly.

Atem reacted shortly after recognizing that his spikes were inneffective. He began to float upwards and diagonally. Since the speed was earned through a ground-type movement, it was better to leave the ground altogather. It would likely not be enough though and as expected, spending some Magic, the green ball began to roll on air still going after him.

Atem began to create illusions, distortions and mirages as he flew around, dodging Der's approach. Hiding behind and through the confusing spells were magic bombs of the shadow element with properties of fire. It was enough to inflict some damages and burns upon the creature but nothing very considerable.

Der began to use Wind magic to propel himself even faster. The difficulty of catching becoming higher as the aerial battle gave the opportunities to dodge in many more directions to his opponent. Tired of the pursuit, he also began to throw out his own projectiles, blades of Magic imbued with a mix of both wind and thunder elements.

It forced Atem into an even more defensive approach as he now had to create barriers to protect himself from those numerous blades flying at him. The numerous tendrils of Der giving him the advantage to send those blades in unpredictable patterns.

Atem and Der were thus chasing each other through the air, using the overgrown trees as covers and bombarding themselves while at it. Needless to say, the ecosystem was being destroyed at a scary speed. Every seconds of battle, trees fell or exploded.

While the situation seemed to have reached a stalemate, it was actually in favor of Der as Atem did expand a lot of Magic beforehand in his two gigantic spells and it turned out that Der was truly fast. The advantage he had from using wind and thunder elements was considerable too.

Atem was a specialist of darkness and mind elements. His darkness element was countered by the thunder and the mind element was not extremely effective considering that the creature knew how to protect itself from it, most likely due to it being a melee specialist and as such, a reinforcement specialist.

Regardless of all this though, Atem was still calm. It wasn't the first time he was in a desperate situation and, more than anything, he had yet to be closed-in on. The ennemy was a pain to deal with but he was managing.

And long minutes later, after they had destoyed miles and miles of the forested islands, a third figure jumped at top speed from a branch on the side. It went straight for the creature who noticed it. However, noticing and dodging were two different things.

Tempest had finished dealing with the rabbles. And he had ambushed Der. It would have been foolish of him to try to get all the way up close to the ball considering all the tendrils. As he reached a few meters from it, he brought both palms of his forward and sent a powerful shockwave into Der. It was a direct hit and it sent the ball tumbling hundreds of meters away, crashing through trees and leaving a gash into the earth.

Atem: Took your sweet time.

Tempest: You only got a few bruises, don't be such a bitch.

They both went down to the ground. Now, it was a two against one situation. There were no reasons for Atem to flee around.

Der moved slowly and silently towards the two who waited for him. Until there were no more than a few dozen meters or so between them. It was time to take out the big guns.

Atem was the first to use his greatest card, his own Domain. He called its name aloud as darkness began to cover the entire area over hundreds of miles.

Atem: Eclipse.

Atem's domain had many abilities in itself. The first one was obviously to encompass everything into a pure and total darkness in which seeing was impossible. That was nothing to Der though as the creature never had eyes to begin with, he had been seeing through his Magic and other senses.

The second abiility of the domain was a curse-type one. It erroded at the ability to use one's senses. In time, the beings inside it would lose all sense of touch, smell, sight, sound, taste...and all other different senses they could have depending on their races.

Finally, the third ability was to boost the power of the darkness element and mind element. Which seemed obvious but not to be overlooked.

Once Atem had activated his domain, Der was forced to enlarge his protective barrier that surrounded his entire body, he also kept up the lightning circulating through his tendrils. He was capable enough to find ways to cope with the situation and protect himself. His Magic consumption probably close to Atem's.

But he was perfectly aware of the problem.

Domains were the sole kind of Magics that couldn't be overcame by any other spells but a different Domain. The reason was that the Domains were a manifestation of the soul of the caster through the usage of Magic. Everyone's Domain was unique but they all had one thing in common: they granted incredible advantages to those who mastered them.

The reason he knew all this was a simple one. He was capable of creating his Domain too. And he was not going to give up on using it. With a creepy voice produced from vibrating his tendrils, he spoke the name of his own Domain.

Der??: Pandemic.