Taken Horizon Origin, volume 2, Descension

Episode 24 : old summer greets the autumn

As the insane Strife readied to jump off from the golden trunk of the world tree, three golden and crimson belts of energy appeared around the tree and tightened around Strife holding him in place as they shrunk in size.

"aghhhh!!!" Screaming in pain Strife's body glitched into two, one glowing silver the other gold in colour.

"How'd you two get in here?" Spotting us the massive hawk that was roughly 30 feet in length from beak to tail spotted myself and Invoker standing at the red and gold forests edge.

"The Strife placed in reality forcefully flushed out the aether in his body after regaining some mild amounts of sanity. I gather that somehow the right conditions were met for him to craft a regalius breaker that can merge the physical and mental realms." Thorn and i both gave perplexed looks as Invoker gave us the conclusion without evidence to his theory. "I'll explain why later, for now, we must deal with that!"

Invoker pointed his finger at Strife as he gradually started to break free from the three rings that arced around the world tree, shrinking their sizes down to hold Strife against the tree but it looked as if he would soon escape when the golden and silver bodies re-merge. "You think this can hold me forever? Laughable!"

"Forhorn said we need to get Strife to make another blood-ring to stabilize his mind. How do we do that and what even is a blood-ring?" Questioning Thorn the oversized raven looked at me full of confusion.

"I'm surprised you didn't know. You know what a mana-circle is?" Thorn asked and i nodded. The large phoenix then pointed his wing at the three rings that currently had Strife held back against the world tree, "it's like those but meant for beasts and other fake-humans like Strife."

Raising a brow i made it clear just how surprised i was. "How is that possible? A beast's crystal heart is needed to even provide energy to create a mana-circle."

"That's news to me." Shrugging my words off Thorn swivelled his giant hawk head back around to prepare for when Strife attacked. "Despite that, the blood-rings are basically just optimizers for spell's. The less aether being wasted into Strife's brain the better. Currently there's only a few i can think of that we can forcibly turn into blood-rings. Strife will not make it easy however."

"What are they?" Invoker asked while i spotted one of the rings confining Strife had dispersed leaving only two left.

"[Ashreaver enhancement], that's basically an overdrive for power. [blood quanta], where Strife sacrifices his own blood to create more aether, and finally [fragarach] his magic stick that can multiply and explode nearly endlessly." Thorn huffed loudly sounding tired.

"None of those sound like good options. Isn't there something else?" I quizzed, asking for an easier alternative.

"Maybe two more but one of those will freeze us in fear, and the other i would prefer to make into a blood-ring since it's what mainly stabilizes Strife's mind, but, how to do it is a mystery to me." Thorn stomped forwards as the second of the three rings dispersed around Strife

"I may be of help here then." Shooting around to the female voice's presence i shielded Invoker with my body to then be pleasantly surprised to the angel-like woman. "Forhorn told me you visited, Pettel."

"Hello Seririna..." relaxing myself i saw that i overreacted while Invoker on the other hand was over come with bad memories of the destruction this woman once wrought to <soldered penumbra>. "Still as ghostly as ever i see. It's a miracle that lizard ever managed to hold you."

Giggling to the small barb the angelic woman stroked her long black hair with it's magenta highlights back before speaking again. "As much as i would like to catch up, it's time you helped my son recover." Extending her pale hand out, Seririna offered me a platinum-silver ring with a crimson inner ring just like the final ring that held Strife but it seemed... powerless. "This is an incomplete blood-ring. I took the liberty of crafting it in Strife's stead an age ago in case the current situation ever happened. All it requires is a spell to be inserted then it will activate."