Edward advised his teammates through telepathy in the short lull. ‘Adotinus you are the physically strongest among us. I know that Nephelin can teleport but you will have to confront him as much as possible. Ignis, you stay in the rear and focus on limiting his movements and dealing damage when you can. I’m the most mobile, I’ll adapt to the situation, either offering my support or seizing opportunities to stab him in the back.’

Nephelin shot straight at them, not letting them have any more time to discuss. Adotinus moved to intercept him, an armor of lightning forming above his regular armor. When Nephelin’s scimitars struck his sword, lightning crept up to injure him. Edward teleported behind, swirling with his daggers in hand. Nephelin took a step to the side, one scimitar blocking Adotinus’ sword, another parrying Edward’s attack, and the last two coming right at Edward to impale him.

Edward teleported once more, his daggers hitting Nephelin in the back, his long-range teleportation had a cooldown, but this wasn’t the case within his domain. Nephelin grunted, Edward’s daggers leaving a small indentation on his body. Fire chains were already coming for him to restrict his movements. Nephelin glared at Ignis and fired a ray of energy in his direction. The ray was too fast and pierced right through his body which exploded in a fire spray. It had been but a distraction.

Ignis had been the one to teach the shadow spell to Edward and he knew how to best use it. With his long experience, he had a few tricks up his sleeves and he knew cunning monsters would try to kill the damage dealers first. He had no reason to stand in the open as an obvious target. The time it took for Nephelin to fire his attack was all that the chains needed to catch up to him. Nephelin didn’t let the chains reach him and he swung his scimitars furiously to repel them, Edward, and Adotinus all at once. This was an impossible situation and he knew it, he teleported away before the chains could overwhelm him.

Nephelin probed the surroundings with a sweeping wave of aura, he teleported once again having spotted Ignis’ real body. Ignis took a step back with a ball of air exploding between him and Nephelin, stopping his advance and pushing Ignis backward to open the distance. Edward teleported to assist him. He appeared in front of Nephelin blocking his path, and lunged, aiming his daggers in the center of the monster’s chest. Edward had to prematurely cancel his attack to avoid getting his arm chopped off by Nephelin’s scimitar. He had just regained his posture when another swing of Nephelin sent him flying away.

Adotinus was rushing in their direction but he was still too far to be of any help. However, Edward’s intervention had given the opportunity for Ignis to retaliate. A tornado of fire formed around Nephelin, the strong winds attempting to restrain his movements and flaring the flames further.

Nephelin teleported once more determined to remove Ignis from the fight. And once again he found Edward on his way. “I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU! Each step that I take I find you in my feet trying to make me stumble,” Nephelin snarled. He swung his scimitars in swift succession sending a barrage of energy blades at him. Edward teleported behind the blades and kneed Nephelin in the head. The monster reeled back more from surprise than from the force of the hit.

“YOU!!”, his scimitars joined together and formed into a massive war hammer that he wielded with all four of his hands. Edward teleported five meters higher avoiding Nephelin’s swing. However, as the hammer hit the ground a swirling mass of aura grew from the impact point. It hit Edward in full force sending him tumbling away, disorienting him enough that he wasn’t able to correct his trajectory before hitting the ground and bouncing several times as if he was but a skipping stone. This didn’t end there as the energy strangely clung to his aura armor damaging it and forcing Edward to dig in his reserve to repair it.

Adotinus reached them by that time, and he immediately engaged Nephelin. The monster swung his war hammer once again, but for Adotinus it was easier to avoid than four scimitars. In a clean sequence, he rotated on himself avoiding the blow, and sliced Nephelin, earning him a nice cut on his upper left arm. The fire chains hadn’t stopped following their target and Nephelin had stayed in place long enough for them to reach him.

Before he could teleport away runes activated under his feet and four balls of plasma surrounded him before exploding in blinding flashes of lightning. The intensity of the electrical current would have been enough to fry a lesser monster to death, but here it only managed to char his body and paralyze Nephelin’s body for a short period of time. This was the intended effect, and it was all that the fire chains needed to fully shackle the monster.

“Now!” Ignis urged them.

Adotinus squatted with his sword held horizontally in front of him and the lightning covering his form gained in intensity. Ignis formed a fire spear in his hand, the spear quickly turning from a red to a blue glow, and then slowly changing to a violet hue. The air shimmered around him due to the increase in temperature. Edward teleported high up in the air and dived down while amassing more and more energy with each step he took.

Edward was the first to land his attack, he fell on Nephelin like a meteor, his daggers piercing through his body, the tip of the blades visible from his back. The ground sunk a good meter from the force of the impact, and chunks of dirt were sent flying into the sky. The next moment Edward teleported away so that his friends could target Nephelin without having to worry about hitting him. Adotinus was the next one to make his move, he swung his sword in an arc, and all the lightning he had gathered flew along the blade and cut through Nephelin’s body in deafening thunder. Ignis was the last one to act, he threw his spear air spinning in front of it to enhance its penetrative capability. It spiked through Nephelin, engulfing him in raging fire at the same time.

A few seconds of tense silence ensued which broke when the runes above what used to be Pescara exploded in a space wave. The disturbance passed through them, shaking them even more than when they had detonated the bombs along with Edwards’ clones. Even with the intensity of the wave there was no damage as the wave wasn’t physical, it was space itself stretching and bouncing back.

I underestimated those runes’ power. The spatial disturbance is such that space has been scarred. It’s the first time I’m feeling something like this. There are leftover creases and wrinkles wherever the spatial wave passed.

Nephelin materialized in the sky above them with a self-deprecating laugh. “You lot are really something,” he told them with his voice lacking his usual ferocity. He was in a pitiful shape, with two holes in his chest and a deep gash from his right shoulder down to his left hip. Enough blood was leaking from his injuries for it to drip down to the ground.

How is he still alive? I don’t know any creature that could have survived the combination of our three attacks, us included.

“Few can claim to have pushed me so far,” Nephelin continued. “Even causing me to fail my mission. But is time to end it.”

Nephelin lacked his usual verve but it only made him more chilling.

Failing his mission? The runes above Pescara self-destroyed and the spatial wave ensued.

“Were you perhaps attempting to create a portal to your world?” Edward taunted him.

“I was,” Nephelin admitted, “but it doesn’t matter now”.

“Yes, you failed, no reinforcements will come for you. It’s just you and us now. The ones you disdained so much will be the ones ending you.” Edward retorted trying to sap Nephelin’s determination. The sequence of major attacks that had seriously wounded Nephelin had strained them heavily and although injured, Nephelin was still as deadly and had nothing to lose anymore. If Edward could spare himself a dangerous fight he wouldn’t hesitate.

Nephelin laughed softly. “Oh, that remains to be seen. But whatever happens, know that your end will come soon enough. My attempts to open a portal may have failed, but the nearby space is distorted so much that it is still possible for powerful individuals to tear through it. You won’t face any army but that won’t make a difference, you will just lose your life at her hand.”

Edward, Ignis, and Adotinus’s faces paled hearing that. “Why…Why must it be like that…Every time I fix a problem another one pops up…” Edward muttered disillusioned.

However, this didn’t shake Adotinus. “It sure sounds like the words of a loser,” he told Nephelin while laughing jovially.

This was enough to shake Edward of his dark thoughts, his anger taking over. He gritted his teeth. “Yes. No matter what or who comes I will defeat them like the others! I will fight until my enemies themselves will flee hearing my name!!”

“Wishful thinking,” Nephelin let out a breath as the temperature suddenly dropped.

The fight resumed, new fire chains throwing themselves at Nephelin.

However, the temperature continued to drop until it became freezing cold, and it started to hail as the air humidity directly went from vapor form to ice. Before the fire chains could even come near, they were extinguished. More and more chains came for Nephelin only to disappear before reaching him as the temperature continued to drop. An ice layer formed on the ground under Nephelin.

Ignis, Adotinus, and Edward cautiously took a few steps back but the ice continued to expand. Their breath came out as white air with the decrease in temperature. Ignis fired several streams of fire but that only served to slow down the ice progression without stopping it.

“Do you know how much of my power was tied up in those runes?” Nephelin asked as his injuries stop bleeding, a layer of ice forming above his body, shaped in such a way that it didn’t hinder his movements.

“The ice is under his control and he is using his power to form it. We should be fine as long as we maintain our aura armor. He can’t affect us directly.” Ignis declared after having witnessed how Nephelin was creating the ice.

Edward and Adotinus nodded, Adotinus charged at Nephelin stepping into the ice domain without freezing. Edward teleported to ambush Nephelin from behind but he appeared twenty meters away from the spot he had wanted.

What?! Edward thought in shock as this was the first time that his power had failed him.

Nephelin laughed. “Space is already in such a state and you are still counting on your teleportation. Keep dreaming.”

Edward gritted his teeth, his teleportation was the first power he had obtained and was an essential part of his fighting style. The only silver lining was that Nephelin wouldn’t be able to rely on it either.