The Guardian gods-Chapter 502

The wind-and-lightning mage, seeing the wooden walls erupt around him, didn’t panic. He gathered the swirling winds, not into a destructive cyclone, but into a tightly compressed vortex around his body. Then, with a focused mental command, he unleashed the built-up pressure outward in a series of concussive blasts. The wooden walls didn’t just splinter; they were ripped apart at the molecular level where the compressed air met their structure, creating gaping holes and momentarily disrupting their rapid growth. Simultaneously, he channeled lightning not for brute force, but for sensory input, the electric currents dancing along the wooden surfaces, mapping their structure and the speed of their growth in his mind.

The starlight mage, as the initial wooden strikes slammed against her hastily erected dome of radiance, didn’t just reinforce it. She polarized the light, creating a field that actively repelled the organic material. The wooden tendrils that struck the dome recoiled as if hitting an invisible, charged barrier, some even twisting away as if in pain. Seeing the earth shift beneath her, she didn’t simply leap. Instead, she focused her starlight downward, creating a temporary platform of solidified light just a hair’s breadth above the rising stone spikes, allowing her to maintain her position and keep her staff trained on Ikenga. Threads of pure starlight began to weave around her, razor-edged whips, ready to intercept any further attacks.

Ikenga watched their calculated responses, the near-effortless way they turned his own attack against him and adapted to his tactics. A faint smile touched his lips – a predator appreciating the cunning of its prey. "Ingenious," he murmured, his voice carrying a strange resonance despite the distance. The cursed markings on his body pulsing like a heart beat.

The ground beneath the mages rippled again, but this time, no wood erupted. Instead, the very concept of stability seemed to waver. The perfectly solid stone floor beneath their feet shimmered, becoming momentarily fluid, then viscous, then solid again in unpredictable patterns. The fire mage stumbled, his stance faltering just as he was about to unleash another torrent of flame. The wind-and-lightning mage, who relied on precise footwork for his agile movements, found his footing constantly betraying him. The starlight mage, her platform of solidified light flickering erratically as the ground’s nature shifted, had to constantly refocus her energy to maintain her balance.

This was a curse woven into the very fabric of their immediate reality – "Unsteady Ground." It didn’t directly harm them, but it eroded their precision and control. Ikenga found their vigilance and control troublesome.

Simultaneously, Ikenga shifted his gaze towards the fire mage. The air around the mage seemed to thicken, not with heat, but with a palpable pressure. It wasn’t a physical constriction, but a curse of "Suffocation of Will." The mage found his thoughts becoming sluggish, the crisp, clear mental commands he usually issued to his flames now feeling heavy and difficult to formulate. The intricate patterns he wove with fire became clumsy, the vibrant intensity dimming as his focus wavered.

Turning his attention to the wind-and-lightning mage, Ikenga extended a hand, palm open. A silent curse, "Echoing Vulnerability," washed over the mage. Suddenly, the sounds of his own movements – the rustle of his robes, the crackle of his lightning, even his own breathing – seemed amplified tenfold, echoing back at him with disorienting intensity. It was as if his senses had turned traitor, overwhelming him with internal noise, making it harder to track Ikenga’s movements or anticipate his attacks.

Finally, he focused on the starlight mage, her radiant whips lashing out with precision despite the shifting ground. He whispered a curse that was almost a sigh: "Borrowed Misfortune." A subtle distortion appeared in the air around her, and a moment later, one of her own starlight whips, perfectly aimed at Ikenga, flickered and curved inward at the last instant, narrowly grazing her own arm. It wasn’t a direct manipulation of her power, but a subtle nudge of fate, a momentary lapse in its otherwise flawless trajectory, sowing a seed of doubt and hesitation.

Ikenga watched as his layered curses began to take hold, a grim satisfaction flickering in his eyes. The mages, initially so confident, were now visibly struggling against the insidious erosion of their control and senses. However, even as he savored this shift in the battle, the familiar gnawing began within him.

The curse of "Isolation," while rendering him untouchable, was a double-edged sword. The very separation that protected him began to fray at his connection to the world. Sounds became muted and distant, as if heard through thick layers of cotton. The vibrant colors of the mages’ attacks and the environment dulled, losing their sharp definition. A creeping sense of detachment washed over him, making the urgency of the fight feel strangely abstract.

More disturbingly, the craving had begun. A deep, primal yearning to feel something, anything, beyond the numbing void of his self-imposed isolation. It manifested as phantom sensations – the ghost of a searing heat on his skin, the prickle of phantom lightning, the faint pressure of an unseen hand. These spectral sensations were unsettling, a constant reminder of what he was sacrificing for this untouchable state. The longer he maintained "Isolation," the more intense this craving would become, threatening to overwhelm his focus and potentially shatter the very protection it afforded.

Ikenga found such feeling annoying to enjoy his first real battle, with a silent act of will, Ikenga cancelled the curse of "Isolation" upon himself. The numbing detachment vanished, replaced by a sudden, overwhelming rush of sensation The vibrant colors of the battlefield snapped back into focus, the sounds of crackling energy and strained breathing assaulting his ears. The craving, momentarily roared back with renewed ferocity.

Ikenga found himself smiling as he stretched his body. He should have used the opportunity to attack but the plants evolving inside his body were coming closer to completion and needed more time and focus.

Meanwhile, the god-level mages, reeling from Ikenga’s unexpected and multifaceted assault, began to adapt with their formidable intellect.

They didn’t understand the nature of the attack but understood its purpose and with that understanding they acted. Instead of summoning their domain to expand across this planet, they shrunk it around their body, creating a different space for Ikenga’s curses not to work.

The moment they got rid of his curse effect, he noticed immediately. Witha flex of his will, the ground he was standing on opened up swallowing him whole.

His action was proven right because as soon as he was swallowed up, a huge arm made of flame holding a flaming sword fell from the sky piercing through where he stood.

Ikenga underground, safe from the attack, soon noticed the flames going rampant underground heading towards him, Like a root breaking through the ground, Ikenga surrounded by a huge petal broke through the ground heading for the sky.

The wind and lightning mage acted with blinding speed. "Chain Lightning!" she declared, her voice sharp as the air crackled with raw energy. Forked bolts of lightning erupted from her outstretched hands, not just striking but branching out like incandescent roots, forming a cage of pure electrical force around Ikenga, leaving no obvious avenue of escape.

In a display of his own growing battle instinct, two golden construct hands materialized from Ikenga’s back, their movements swift and precise. From each palm, a large lotus flower bloomed, the petals a luminous gold. These two blossoms superimposed upon each other, creating a mesmerizing, layered defense. As the chain lightning lashed out, the golden petals pulsed with an inner light, acting as conduits, drawing the destructive energy inwards, the complex structure of the overlapping petals somehow dissipating and redirecting the immense electrical charge.

Simultaneously, Ikenga’s two free hands began to manipulate the very earth around him. Jagged rocks sprouted and fused together, rapidly forming a crude but effective spear, the tip hardening to a sharp point. With a powerful thrust, he hurled the stone spear at the lightning mage, forcing her to momentarily break her concentration on the lightning cage to defend herself.

Instinctively, the lightning mage conjured a swirling vortex of wind, a shimmering emerald shield that intercepted the incoming spear. The stone shattered upon impact, but to the mages’ collective surprise, several small, dark seeds, almost invisible against the grey rock, had been embedded in its surface. Upon impact, these seeds instantly sprouted, rapidly unfurling into vibrant purple plants that began to spray a dense, green mist into the air.

The mist carried a deceptively sweet scent, an aroma that the lightning mage subconsciously inhaled. Almost immediately, a wave of dizziness washed over her, her vision blurring, her stance faltering. Ikenga, sensing her vulnerability, didn’t hesitate. A rough-hewn rock axe grew in his hand, the mineral structure shifting and solidifying, transmuting into gleaming iron with a flex of his will. He surged forward, intent on cleaving her in two.

But just as the iron axe began its deadly descent, a blinding flash of light erupted. The starlight mage, moving with ethereal speed, swooped in like a celestial comet, her form shimmering with incandescent energy. She intercepted Ikenga’s attack with a shield of pure starlight, a radiant barrier that pulsed with cosmic power, saving her fellow mage from certain death. The force of the impact sent a shockwave rippling through the air, pushing Ikenga back and creating a momentary separation between the combatants. The starlight mage then gently guided the disoriented lightning mage away from Ikenga’s immediate reach, her eyes fixed on him with a focused intensity.