"I have to admit that Kimo was right. You'll make an excellent asset." M'Rael nodded while unleashing two more Sunspots, one from his rings and the other weaved during their clash.

A one-handed battle hammer struck his head, barely making the elf flinch. The second one, however, hit the first hammer as if it was a nail, doubling its momentum thanks to the air magic that made them oppositely charged.

"Run, you fools!" Morok tried to recall his weapons, only to discover that M'Rael had trapped them inside a husk of earth and darkness originating from his armor.

"Insignificant fly!" One of the hands from Sunspot swatted Morok like a bug, two more grabbed Nalrond, squeezing the air and almost the life out of him, while the last one went for Quylla.

A silvery flash came from her sleeves as the Adamant chains of Bloodbind wrapped the hard-light construct long enough to allow Quylla to focus what was left of mana into a tier two Light Mastery spell.

The elf was already splitting his focus between his four constructs and three opponents so he couldn't react in time to a bolt of light faster than any bullet. The spell struck M'Rael right in the middle of his eyes, yet it dealt no damage.

Just like it had happened with Morok's hammers, the Devouring Nightmare spell infused within the armor protected the elf lord from any damage. Earth would block anything physical while darkness would devour even mana.

"What the-?" M'Rael attempted to say when he noticed with Soul Vision that the light beam actually carried something that was now engulfed in his own spell.

A silvery explosion cut him short and made him double over in pain.

Royal Forgemaster's wands were a state secret and as such, they were heavily guarded. To keep them from falling into the wrong hands, their owner could make a wand self-destruct after overloading its pseudo core with pure mana.

The resulting explosion would cause the mana poisoning of whoever was nearby and trigger a Clean Slate spell within the same area. M'Rael's equipment became nothing but a lump of metal while his focus crumbled and so did his constructs.

The Devouring Nightmare lessened the effects of the poisoning, but the elf had to stop his attacks until the pain subsided. His rings were temporarily dead and weaving spells while his core was tainted might have killed him.

"Get out of here, now!" Morok retrieved his hammers and kept at bay the soldiers that had come to help their captain.

Nalrond grabbed Quylla and extended his consciousness toward the barrier, leaving the Fringe.

"That's all, folks!" Morok had his back against the barrier, outnumbered and outmatched, yet he needed but a thought to go to the other side.

Some elves tried to follow him, just to meet Friya's blade while they were still dazed from the passage. Only people at peace with themselves like Morok didn't suffer from side effects after crossing a Fringe's borders.

Training made them last little, but killing someone who stood still with a rapier through the eyes took even less.

"We need to get away. Quylla's legs are rotting, Nalrond is not waking up, and I can't last for long." She said while more and more elves came out of the barrier.

"On it!" Morok opened a Warp Steps that led as far away as he could see.

Then, he threw his allies inside the dimensional corridor while picking their next destination. Friya pushed him inside and used the last bits of Dimensional Ruler to relax the space and delete every trace of their passage.

A couple of Warp Steps in a random direction later, Morok started to puke his guts out. Between mana abuse and the poisoning from the repeated uses of Tyrannical Eye, his body was on the verge of collapsing.

"F.u.c.k secrecy. I'm not letting my sister die here for those assholes." Friya took her communication amulet and called Faluel.

'Nalrond will be pissed off if you do that. It's still his home.' Morok wanted to say, but his mouth was filled with bile and emitted solely retching sounds.

"Better pissed off than dead. His flesh is rotting and with so many broken bones, without Invigoration it would take him days to recover, whereas we have minutes at best. If that elf finds us, we're doomed!" Somehow, Friya understood him anyway.

After receiving the distress call, Faluel needed a handful of seconds to reach them. The amulet provided her with their coordinates and she needed a single Steps to get there from the lair of Asphodus the Roc, her contact in the Desert.

"I knew that bringing Morok along was a bad idea, but I'd have never expected that he would piss off Mogar so bad that it would attempt to kill you. Once I report this to your master, Ajatar, you'll end up in big trouble, young man." Faluel said.

'Why does she assume that it's my fault?' Morok kept puking.

"Because usually it is." Faluel had to turn into her Hydra form to Warp around and heal them at the same time thanks to her seven heads.

Only after making sure that no one could retrace her path did she Warp back to Asphodus's lair and went back to Lutia.

***

City of Kolga, near the barrier.

After the soldiers had left with Khalia and Solus, Lith felt that something was wrong with his body. The cracks in his life force absorbed only part of the energy that the Forbidden Sun pumped into his body, while his mana core had now no protection.

Mana poisoning felt akin to having poison flow through your veins while small bugs slowly dug their way to your abdomen. Lith had a bright blue core which coupled with light and earth fusion made him the more resistant among the three disguised humans.

At least in theory.

Only a few minutes had passed since he had slipped Solus in the Captain's pocket, yet he could feel his whole body freeze while his brain burned. The plan was to infiltrate Solus inside the facility where the Forbidden Magic happened and so far, it had worked like a charm.

Tista and Phloria were looking for one of the flying cars while Lith focused on the bond he shared with Solus to never lose track of her. The good news was that until the very moment their link had broken due to distance, the guards had always moved in a straight line.

The bad news was that Lith felt worse by the second. He needed sheer willpower to not show his distress to the citizens of Kolga around him and blow his cover.

'This doesn't make sense. The girls withstood the Forbidden Sun affecting both their life forces and mana cores for hours whereas I got only half the poisoning for just a few minutes. Why do I feel so bad?' He thought.

'Are you okay, lil bro?' Tista asked via the mind link after noticing that he was already using Invigoration.

She felt like crap for handing over Khalia and for using so much mana during the battle, but she could still go a long way before needing to use the breathing technique. Lith's condition made no sense to her as well.