[Astral realm]
Silently overlooking the deck just a moment prior, Darganth watched as more and more early mythic ranks joined the enemy force as reinforcements. With each aura user among them that joined the fray, the already chaotic mixture of various domains only grew more unpredictable, while each mage that was added to the enemy forces meant more formless spells that would suddenly fall upon his allies.
Simultaneously, this was met with the ferocity of the dragons that accompanied him. With their physical strength and all of their abilities and spells that used draconic mana being less affected by the domains, they continued to match their enemies, who were suffering under their own allies' domains.
Under the combined influence of these factors and more, the fight soon stabilized with both sides being roughly equal. This situation remained even as the occasional fighter had to pull back due to injuries, stalling the attempted boarding without Vothos' intervention. And though this did have its cost as enemies had made it to nearly every corner of the deck and destroyed the majority of their cannons, they had yet to suffer a death, making all of the damage recoverable.
Amid this, Darganth suddenly caught mana surging in the enemy vessel. Still positioned parallel to their Starweaver, the other ship had free path to rain down fire with the astral capable weaponry they had already demonstrated to possess. Thus, he was on edge the moment he noticed the surging mana, allowing for his quick reaction when a sudden teleportation arrived after almost a minute of pause since the last new arrival.
Before everyone could even fully process the man's sudden appearance, Darganth was already unleashing a beam of space-time man with a light exhale. Striking his target's transformed form before it even fully emerged from the teleportation's spatial distortion, his attack tore apart the beast's body before it could react and forced it back into its true form at base size.
But this wasn't enough to escape the attack. Due to the beast's transformation, its presence and mana shifted around as they moved together with its partially disassembled transformed body to where its true physical form was taking shape. And with it, the fraction of the beam's energy that was in the immediate vicinity of its body curved upward as it was dragged along in the resulting pulling force.
While this would normally be no problem in all but the rarest of cases where a powerful surge of energy struck right at that inopportune moment, the power Darganth had already regained was simply too much for someone not even in the impact stage classification of mythic rank strength. So, despite only striking with a tenth of a second of energy output while the rest of the beam struck the deck between its feet, the beast's chest was carved in as the attack also tore through its true body and pierced its heart.
But even though this sight would've certainly elicited shock and fear from many of the invaders, amid the chaotic battle, the rapid series of events that led to the beast's demise were simply drowned out. In fact, some who were fighting further toward the sides of the Starweaver didn't even notice its death for a few seconds, though even those that did didn't have the luxury to care about it amid their own fights.
Thus, the only pair of eyes that met Darganth's scrutinizing gaze as his eyes wandered over the battlefield after his intervention were those of a woman who teleported onto their ship shortly after the beast. Glancing between the roughly five-meter-long corpse of her feline comrade and Darganth with a mix of rage and awe on her face, she hesitated only for a moment before lunging forward and transforming.
When her form finished shifting an instant later, the battle-scared female body had turned into a similarly battered-looking bird about six meters long. Sailing over the crowd with wings that stretched across almost half the Starweaver's width, her gaze narrowed in on Darganth with determination in her eyes.
Upon sensing her presence as she unleashed it during her transformation, Darganth's lips curled up in an excited grin. Without hesitation, he lunged forward and willed his mana to carry him through the air as he shot toward his opponent.
With her large form already only barely fitting into the small width Starweaver's barriers enclosed, the beast had no choice but to meet his charge in kind. Dismissing whatever attack she had charged with the mana that had gathered in her beak and closing it, she aimed its tip at Darganth as she accelerated with a swift beat of her wings that catapulted her forward.
Not intimidated by the response, Darganth didn't evade and only channeled more mana into his body before throwing his fist forward to clash with his opponent. With flesh thus meeting bone, the entire Starweaver was rattled as a shockwave erupted in the wake of their clash.
Thrown back by the collision, Darganth reached out to the surrounding space to stop his movement. Suddenly stopping in mid-air, he briefly reoriented himself before dashing forward again while letting out a joyful laugh that undoubtedly made him look mad to any observers.
Arriving faster than his opponent could regain her bearing, he appeared above the female beast in a flash. With his fist already reeled back, he slammed down with a punch that struck the back of her head.
But as her head shot forward, the beast had already started to twist her body and still managed to finish a strike with one of her wings. Catching Darganth with the limb's full surface, she sent him crashing into the ship's barrier while being flung across the deck in return.
Shaking the ship with the impact and causing chaos amid both her allies and enemies alike, she quickly recovered and shot up with a beat of her wings at the same time as Darganth launched himself off the wall of energy he had been flung into. Quickly narrowing his focus onto the spot just below the ceiling of the astral barriers where she hovered with light flaps of her wings, he raised an arm and conjured over a dozen projectiles that he sent her way.
In response, the four thin, tail-like appendages that stuck out from the wide fan of feathers that formed the beast's tail lashed out. Stretching to reach almost the same length as her wingspan, these whip-like parts of her body slashed at the shells of silver that surrounded a spherical, pitch black core of darkness.
But when she burst apart the first of these projectiles, the beast's eyes suddenly widened in shock. Barely processing the sudden pain that shot up along the striking appendage, she acted purely on decades of battle experience and weaved to the side in an inelegant maneuver.
Nonetheless, one of the projectiles found its mark in the form of her body. Impacting her left wing and again sending the same abrupt pain through her system, she at least could catch a glimpse of what happened this time.
Exploded outward from the impact area, a cloud of darkness briefly washed over the area before vanishing again, ripping apart space itself in the process. With it, anything physical in the area was disintegrated on an atomic level, whether that be air or an entire cluster of the beast's feathers along with some of the flesh beneath.
Watching this with a surprisingly calm and calculating look in his eyes compared to the previous ecstasy, Darganth acted quickly when it became clear that parts of his attack would miss. Sending another spatial spell after them, he quickly teleported the projectiles past the Starweaver's barrier. Only when the potential catastrophe of that impact had been averted did he turn his full focus back onto his opponent, though that brief moment in between was enough for her to act.
Though, surprisingly for him, acting didn't mean charging at him. Instead, the beast closed its wings and plummeted toward the teleportation platform, its claws stretched forward as it dove at the circular platform. With a swing of her legs, the woman tore into it before Darganth or anyone else managed to stop her. Flickering with a dark hue on impact, her talons cut across the spell formation inscribed in it, causing its glowing symbols to become overtaken by the same pulsing darkness that covered them.
Arriving merely a moment after this, Darganth's next strike caught the beast while it was still overextended from her dive. With her wings widely extended to catch the dive and her claws still fully outstretched and swinging backward, she had no limbs left to defend herself when his aura avatar manifested ahead of her. Grabbing hold of her head, he dragged it up and stepped forward before slamming her into the deck back-first.
Not stopping at that, he quickly pulled her back up only to slam her down a second time a moment later. But just as he then started repeating this for a third time, Darganth suddenly felt his aura avatar's strength waning.
With it, a shudder ran through his body. Whereas the suppression of an aura user's domain felt like one was squeezed in from all sides, whatever he was experiencing was a different and far worse discomfort. Despite normally not extending the user's sense of touch to its form like it did with the other senses, Darganth felt as if his aura avatar suddenly consisted of millions of minuscule nerve endings that were ripped out from beneath his skin one by one.
Shocked by the sensation, he weakly stumbled back, accidentally letting the beast slide out of his grasp. Though as he moved his leg back, his aura avatar gave in under its own weight. Forced onto one knee, Darganth's eyes widened in shock when he quickly pivoted and tried to shift his weight onto his lead leg, only to feel the aura construct lean to the right as the aforementioned leg simply sank into the ground.
Catching the resulting stumble with his right arm, his gaze snapped downward in alarm.
There, it froze in shock as he watched the aura avatar disintegrate at visible speeds. Piece by piece, the light blue mana construct was ripped apart, with its energy only briefly remaining visible before it suffused back into the surroundings.
His mind racing as he questioned what was happening, Darganth was too occupied with the shock to notice that he wasn't alone with this problem. All around, spells and external auras slipped out of their users' control and scattered, while domains flickered out of existence one by one, giving mages one last volley before the effect became too great for their spells to even manifest.
Amid this, the avian beast rose back to her feet, her physical strength unaffected by the loss of mana. Launching forward, her talons tore through the aura avatar that had by then trouble even lifting Darganth's physical body off the ground, scattering the last remains of the construct and slamming him into one of the vessel's barriers.
Glee swelled within her, replacing the anger that had consumed her moments before. She held him in place, savoring the moment as the mana drained from their ship. For her, the weaklings who relied on it as a crutch to compete with her glorious self lost their sole strength along with it.
'And to think that Krovlaw thought he was even remotely my equal when even these ants could kill him. Though now I do have to find a replacement, how annoying.' She thought, the fight already having been won in her mind when she had seen the remaining crew back on her ship finally fire the second volley moments prior.
Erupting in a wall of blinding flashes just as the earlier volley was finally noticed as its effects started to set in, dozens of spells burst forth from openings in the ship's hull and tore through the astral. The moment they left the protective bubble of the other Starweaver's shields, each of the light blue beams started erupting with energy around its edges as its form became eroded as the mana holding it together dispersed into the astral realm's expanse.
In these circumstances, the first spells soon fully faded. Though with their dispersion, mana temporarily flooded their surroundings, briefly slowing the astral's corrosion. Thus, while the majority of attacks vanished before reaching them, about one-third managed to pierce the defensive shields she had weakened with her earlier strike and slam into the so-called realm shields that protect the Starweaver from the eroding effect of the astral and many of the common ambient dangers found in some realms.
Feeling the barrier quake behind him just as he turned back to the beast with a snarl, Darganth immediately sensed the change this time as mana started flooding through the barriers at an even faster rate. Briefly impressed by the ingenuity of this tactic and the ability to design a spell capable of enacting it, he only momentarily thought about whether to recruit the mastermind behind it, especially if he or she created the spell themselves, only to be interrupted by the beast's beak approaching.
Sighing at the fact that he had barely even gotten to fight and frustrated that they'd probably have to waste at least a day repairing their ship and recharging its barriers, his eyes narrowed in on his opponent. Around him, the world slowed down to a crawl, his gaze briefly lingered on the incoming attack as he thought of a way he could prolong his fight, before flashing with frustration when he found none.
Finally resigning himself to ending the fight just as it had become exciting, his body erupted in a burst of silver and azure green as he took on a version of his true form. Though only standing at a fraction of his full size, with almost fifteen meters from head to tail, he dwarfed the beast before him.
Now freed as the sudden growth had thrown his opponent back, Darganth then grabbed the beak that was still thrusting toward his head in one hand. Easily restraining the beast even as it started to frantically flap its wings to get back, he then slammed her onto the area of the deck that his companions had cleared the moment they saw him transform.
Stepping onto her right wing with one of his hind legs when she still continued to use it to strike at him, he dug his claws into the wing's bone as he stared down at her and spoke.
"I sure do hope that you're infamous enough so that the reward we get for turning you in is worth the trouble you've caused." He growled.
At his words, the beast's defiance only rose. And with his claws threatening to tear off her left wing at even the slightest of movement from it, she instead put all her strength into lashing out with the front of her right wing.
Barely phased by it when the resulting strike struck his shoulder, Darganth nonetheless reacted with ruthless brutality. Curling in the toes on his hind leg, he severed her left wing's muscles while bringing one of his front legs down on her torso. With his fist closed, his fore-claw cracked her rib-cage as it slammed into her chest.
Feeling her suddenly vanish from beneath him as she transformed back into a humanoid form, Darganth quickly thrust after her with his other forelimb. Piercing through her abdomen with one claw before she could move away, he pinned her on her back and against the deck.
"Don't make this worse for you than it needs to be, considering I suspect that the other ship recognized your crew, I don't doubt that we'd still get a reward for turning in your corpse." Darganth said.
Hesitating a brief moment during which Darganth saw fear flash across her face for the first time, the woman answered, "Not from my family, and they'll probably pay the most to get me back."
"Really? That's good to know." Darganth said before transforming back into his humanoid form.
"See, cooperating only has benefits in your situation." He added when he heard her sigh of relief as his claw vanished from her abdomen, "Now then, wait without causing trouble while I deal with the rest of your crew, and then we'll see what else you have that can be of help to us."
With those words, Darganth turned his gaze across the deck, studying the remaining invaders with a grin as they slowly backed away from him in fear.