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Even a casual glance would be enough to make it clear that the mansion had been utterly pulverized. The roof and ceiling had been ripped clean off, letting moonlight stream into the ruins. But still, Aisha stood. Her maid outfit was burnt beyond salvaging, and her body was covered in scales of darkness.
“It can’t be...” Izuna said. “Aisha, are those...Demon Eyes?”
Aisha’s eyes shone through the dust filling the air, two perfect circles of golden light. In the palms of her hands, she held what looked like shapeless light, the color of the night sky. “I’m sorry, Izuna,” she said. “I can’t control this power very well. It might hurt a little, but please try to bear it.”
Aisha stomped her foot loudly on the ground. Izuna could tell somehow that this gesture was a divine invocation. “O exalted wyrm, I dedicate this offering to you,” Aisha chanted. “O king of night, master of death and rebirth, enter my body and give me strength...” She stepped forward, dancing some sacred dance, and held her arms wide. Distance itself seemed to vanish. She circled around and around, her hands held in tight fists.
“Divine possession...?” Izuna said.
Aisha’s body began to glow with a dark light. It concentrated in her hands, shining like an omen of the end of the world. “Sorry. This is gonna hurt.” Aisha suddenly lowered her posture. Her body seemed to blur as she ran along the ground so fast it seemed like she was gliding. Her fingertips traced red afterimages as she closed the distance to her opponent.
“Gwah!” cried Izuna as Aisha’s attack tore effortlessly through her shining armor and sent her flying. She slammed against the ground with an agonized “Gh!”
Izuna wasn’t finished, though. She stood up and once again drew her shining blue bow. But she was too late.
“Rise from the earth, O thorns of everlasting darkness! Descend from on high, O chains of bondage!” Darkness followed Aisha’s invocation. Even Izuna’s feet were lost in inky blackness. “Bonds of Eternal Night!” Chains twisted around Izuna’s limbs, holding her fast in place.
“Nghhh!” Izuna strained, her Demon Eyes glittering with light. “Wh-Why won’t these chains vanish?!”
The chains, however, were not magic, but an adjacent skill. They were an ability spoken of in legend that priestesses of the great wyrms had used to seal away lesser dragons. Izuna’s gorgeous Celestial Armor and even the light of her Demon Eyes was swallowed up. Soon, she was in a world of nothing but darkness.
That was where the real attack began.
“No...” Izuna said. “What’s happening? My eyes...!” A shadow fell over Izuna’s Demon Eyes. She flailed desperately in her bonds, unable to tell right from left. Izuna had been inflicted with the status effect Blindness.
The true value of Bonds of Eternal Night was its ability to briefly inflict Blindness on a bound opponent. Aisha had already shown Izuna that her Demon Eyes were dependent on vision to function. If her eyes themselves were made unable to see, their power was effectively sealed. Nacht often neglected to use her special abilities, but dragon skills in principle could do just about anything from inflicting status effects to launching non-magic attacks. That was the true power of dragons and wyrms, and the reason they were synonymous in the game with physical attacks. They had all sorts of skills they could use depending on what the situation called for.
Nacht, however, had only the basic abilities she’d gotten automatically through leveling up.
Aisha had temporarily borrowed the merest fragment of her mistress’s skills and power, but it was enough. Magic should work now, she thought. But with the power of a wyrm flowing through her, Aisha was unable to use her spirit magic. “Red Dragon Claw!” Unable to move, Izuna was helpless to prevent her armor from being torn apart a second time. She was launched through the air and her white armor, formed from pure, concentrated mana, burst apart.
Freed from her restraints, Izuna glared furiously. “Aisha!” Her tattered armor glowed brightly once more and reformed itself. She took her bow in hand and aimed it at Aisha, drawing the string.
So it wasn’t enough after all... Aisha thought. Her powers as a dragon priestess were close in nature to magic, and her one and only mistress was a magic specialist herself. It wouldn’t be enough to stop Izuna, though. The golden rings around Aisha’s eyes flickered. She stood facing Izuna, her mana rushing through her body.
The two girls’ manas surged into the night sky. It was as if light and darkness themselves were facing off against each other. If she could have picked, Aisha thought, she would have liked to have been on the side of light. But no sooner had she had the thought then she decided that it didn’t really matter what it looked like. That darkness was the power of her beloved mistress. Far be it for her to insult its appearance. It was a power that had only ever been shared with Aisha. It could even be gentle. It had saved Aisha, after all. And now, she would use it to rescue Izuna from her prison of solitude.
“Izuna!” she shouted back, doing everything she could to control her wild mana. Her will was iron, her determination unwavering. Even as the mana seemed poised to go out of control at any second, Aisha focused it into a spell.
Nacht had once told her that magic was just a word for techniques that manipulated mana, that as long as she could control the mana in her body, there was no need to bother with the nuances of theory. In that case, what she had to do was simple: believe in herself and her mistress, and draw forth her power. This was a spell beyond what Aisha could cast on her own.