Taken Horizon Origin, volume 2, Descension

Episode 24 : recovering mind

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Spiraling twisters of shadows and black sand pushed into Strife's entire body, chipping away at the measly amount of aether he still had left.

Gathering his strength the homunculus ran straight for me trying to charge for me within the twister of ash in a desperate attempt to kill me. If he had not been so wasteful with his flashy shows of aether at the beginning of our fight he would of lasted longer but this works in my favor.

Crushing him into the black ground a cube of ash pummeled Strife down into a bloody mess.

Dispersing the cloud of ashes around the red meadow returned to view and the world tree was... getting further away? "Odd."

Coughing blood up Strife looked at me from the floor with a manic glare. Even if his mind was fractured to insanity he could still read other's intentions.

I didn't think he would be able to stretch the space in the illusionary world like this. I assumed it had a fixed state and didn't take assume much else. How stupid of me.

Getting up from the floor Strife's blood vanished from the ground and with wobbly legs and even whiter skin that nearly matched the colour of chalk the homunculus got up. Step after step the golden eyes showed a desperation for winning.

The paler Strife got the more aether he acquired. This must of been the [blood quanta] spell Thorn mentioned earlier.

"Hehe..." Strife's laughter had gotten tired. He had been laughing throughout the length of our brief fight but finally stopped as he clawed for aether at one point. Collapsing just short of my feet the dark-silver haired homunculus with his now albino skin fell onto the floor from anemia likely.

Without blood he won't be able to move his body and even if aether can continuously fix his body there is a limit to how far it can go for his immortality.

"You win?" Flying in a tiny version of Thorn similar to how i had first met him landed on my shoulder.

"He defeated himself. No matter how insane Strife was he would of never used such a dangerous spell without some restrictions to prevent... this." Stating factly i took no prestige feeling nothing from this feeble victory as i motioned at the blood drained homunculus on the floor

"Well, works in our favor then, shows that Strife was fighting himself on the inside trying to help you out. The last time he went insane Strife was coherent enough to control himself when using [blood quanta] but now it's serving as a good contingency."

"The last time?" Asking in a concerned manner as i directed black sand to pick up Strife, i walked towards the world tree as the space got closer shortening the walk to only 3 minutes while Strife was carried atop a floating black platform.

"It was right before we got thrown into <archon hold> by that stupid computer in the water basin. Because of a lying fucker's string of falsehoods some people Strife thought he was friends with betrayed him." Thorn complained loudly at the thought of this man as i walked right into my ear. "The audacity that guy has. Even if that weasel helped hatch me from an egg there's no way i could stick with him after he got me killed!"

"You were hatched from an egg and have... died?" Perplexed by Thorn's words given his ethereal form i waited for the tiny crow to explain

"Didn't i tell you before? I used to be a dragon before Strife used some voodoo magic to try and fix my body and well... this happened." Thorn raised his wings to try and show his diminished form to me

Halting in my steps i picked the small robin off my shoulder with my hand. Suddenly a lot of answers to a lot of questions i never asked revealed themselves about Thorn. If he was a dragon before that would explain his snide attitude and general arrogance, but if he's in this state then he's not an undead dragon or anything of the sort unless he was of that color. "What type of dragon were you before?"