Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

But Zorian wasn’t listening. Now that he knew Oganj was taken care of, there was no reason to keep this in reserve anymore. He reached into his pocket and threw a palm-sized metal ball on the ground in front of himself and Silverlake.

He then immediately withdrew to a safe distance. The contents of the pocket dimension prison inside that ball were less a controlled weapon, and more a bloodthirsty maniac you pointed at the enemy and hoped for the best.

Silverlake’s eyes widened in fear and shock when the grey hunter materialized in front of her, and all confidence seem to drain out of her posture. She started screaming a long string of curses as she desperately fought to keep the killer spider away from her.

Zorian kept himself well back from the two combatants, somewhat unsure if he wanted to involve himself. Although he had managed to capture the grey hunter and stuff it into a pocket dimension, he did not actually control it by any measure. It was a feral magical beast released off its chain, and if he wasn’t careful, it could easily shift its attention to him instead. Thus, he mostly stayed on the sidelines and watched the battle.

Eventually, though, Silverlake started to use the giant ooze she had at her disposal to take control the grey hunter’s movements and Zorian decided he had to intervene. As amazing the grey spider was, the giant ooze was huge and could keep the spider away from Silverlake through sheer mass alone.

He never got the chance to involve himself, though. Before he made his move, the giant ooze suddenly froze, shuddered slightly, and then collapsed into an inert puddle of acidic slime. Well, more like a small lake, but still. It was dead.

"What!? Who are you? How do you know how to do this?" Silverlake said, looking left and right for the perpetrator while running from the grey hunter, who now had an open path towards and wasted no time in going after her again.

The other person did not answer at first. Instead, a crude but effective warding circle suddenly sprung around the area where Silverlake and the grey hunter were fighting, trapping her with the murder-spider.

Zorian suddenly realized what was happening. He could recognize this ward easily enough, and there was only one person he ever saw using it. He had to say, he didn’t expect this…

Soon, Zorian’s unlikely ally stepped out from the shadow of a nearby building, dropping her stealth spell in the process.

It was Silverlake. Old Silverlake. The same annoying witch that Zorian remembered from the time loop, her body slightly hunched and raved by old age and her face was covered in wrinkles.

"You!? What the hell do you think you’re doing!?" Young Silverlake yelled, outraged.

The old Silverlake did not answer her. She slowly began to walk around the warding circle in which she trapped her copy, tapping the borders with her staff and methodically reinforcing the ward so it was harder to break. Her expression was grave and serious. There was no cackling this time, no stupid jokes or attempt to throw her opponent out of balance with words. It was actually kind of eerie to see Silverlake behaving like this.

"Don’t you know who I am?" Young Silverlake protested. "I’m you! I’m you from the future! I know that brat over there already told you this, so why-"

"If you’re really my copy, then you know what happened the last time we made a copy of ourselves, and let it do as it pleased," old Silverlake said calmly, not stopping her work or even glancing at her younger self.

The young Silverlake seemed to be momentarily at loss for words and remained silent.

"Exactly," old Silverlake concluded. "It’s only a matter of time before you come for me. My home, my connections, my life … you want it all, and you clearly outstrip me in power. This is my best opportunity to remove you as a threat. I must take it."

"You ungrateful withered bitch!" young Silverlake screamed angrily. The grey hunter took advantage of her emotional instability and managed to sink its fangs into her forearm, pumping it full of shaping-disrupting poison… unfortunately, Silverlake reacted quickly and immediately slicked her own arm off at the shoulder with a severing spell. Her regeneration immediately started growing it back. "I should have killed you immediately after coming here!"

"Probably," old Silverlake said, shrugging her shoulders.

Zorian took one more look at the situation, thought about it for a moment, and then decided to let the two Silverlakes deal with each other and move on to other targets. He could see that Jornak’s mist was starting to thin out and evaporate, which probably meant his battle with Zach was close to ending.

It was time.

He jumped into the air, his defense cube dutifully following after him, and used a fast flying spell to quickly reach the Hole. The cultists were still holding their own against the combined forces assaulting them, but they were exhausted and unprepared for Zorian’s arrival. He immediately started scything them down, butchering the whole group of them with a severing whip while trusting his cube to protect him from retaliation.

Simultaneously, he took closer control over Mrva again, and the golem’s attacks suddenly became a lot more accurate and strategic.

After only handful of seconds, most of the cultists realized they stood absolutely no chance against Zorian and his golem, and their discipline fell apart. They started to panic and run, ignoring the threats their leaders spouted at them.

As Zorian suspected, his actions provoked an immediate reaction. In the distance, Oganj shouted a bunch of expletives and then separated himself from the angel he was fighting in order to rush towards the Hole. He received a deep gash in his flank for turning his back to his opponent like that, but he bore it with barely a grimace. Then, not far from where Zorian was cutting down the hapless cultists, a huge blast of magical force leveled an entire section of the city and a pitch-black skeleton suddenly flew out of it, flying at Zorian at maximum speed. Zorian quickly scanned the area Quatach-Ichl left and breathed a sigh of relief. Xvim, Alanic, and Daimen were in extremely poor shape, but they were still alive. Xvim was unconscious and Daimen was severely wounded and bleeding, but Alanic was quick to administer aid so they should both survive.

They should …

But no, he couldn’t get distracted. Oganj and Quatach-Ichl were both coming here, but the lich was closer and would be here sooner.

Although he was just a mindless golem, he couldn’t help but glance at Mrva looming above him a little sadly.

It was nice knowing you, Mrva…

Being a mindless construct, Mrva did not answer him. He simply turned towards rapidly approaching Quatach-Ichl and spread his giant arms as if offering the incoming lich a hug.

To his credit, Quatach-Ichl immediately understood that something was wrong and tried to swerve out of the way. It didn’t help him. There was no dodging this. Mrva’s chest opened up like a metal flower, exposing a complicated magical device with a glass tank acting as a centerpiece. Trapped within the glass tank was a large soulseizer chrysanthemum, which immediately woke up from its stupor and focused on the only target his current prison allowed him to perceive – Quatach-Ichl.

Normally, the flower wouldn’t have been powerful enough to threaten the ancient lich, especially from this distance, but its current housing wasn’t just a prison. It was an amplifier and a focus device, vastly increasing the flower’s range and power.

Without reservations, Mrva immediately started burning through his entire internal supplies of mana, amplifying the flower’s attack more and more. It still wasn’t enough to actually seize Quatach-Ichl’s soul and draw it into the flower, but that was okay – Zorian did not actually expect it to be able to do that. All he needed it to do was incapacitate Quatach-Ichl for a little while, just like the chrysanthemum had done to Zach and Zorian the first time they had encountered it.