Nobody was in good shape after the icy onslaught. Gio was especially covered in scratches, having taken the brunt of the assault to protect Chandrika so that she could keep up her domain.

  Panting, Hatra wiped down the red-hot nozzle of her implement with a cool rag that hissed against the burning metal. “That’s the second time I put us all in danger today.” She said, firming her jaw.

  The construct stood in a sea of vapor, head swiveling about as it tested the trident against the fog. A few eddies and whirls appeared, but it seemed that the group was safe from a vapor-based attack for now. Jean stood at alert, a lambent spear in his hands as he allowed Sapphire a moment to bind Gio’s bloodied arm with a medicated wrap.

  Sapphire finished ripping off a segment of bandage with her teeth, rushing to tie it off before the construct re-engaged. She flitted her eyes back and forth between her task, the threat, and Hatra.

  “You tried something that could have been a radical shift in the battle and it did not pay off. Don’t beat yourself up too much.” Sapphire said.

  “Yeah, just no more ice. Not a big deal. I’d maybe not do any acid either.” Gio added.

  Gio also watched the twitching construct out of the corner of his eye. It was currently gathering water into a cube and failing to launch a projectile that splattered hopelessly against a twirl from Jean’s spear.

  “Look alive. It’s testing our defenses.” Jean said.

  A mirrored bolt shot out of the water at the construct’s feet, aiming for the clearly sensitive gemstone. The construct reached out with the trident, capturing the bolt mid-flight. The shard, having shot through the water and taken on water-like properties, became a ball of liquid mirror in the construct’s control.

  Gio cursed.

  The construct formed the bolt into a whirling blade, sending it directly at Jean, who grimaced and prepared to deflect. Gio bolted out of Sapphire’s grip, ripping the blade from the air with his reflective magic and shattering the projectile into dust.

  He signed a message to Rio, catching sight of his reflection making a surly face in the inverted world of the water’s mirror.

  “It’s learning. I’ll try and make you some mirrors, but try to avoid shooting through water.” Gio signed.

  “Got it,” Rio replied, his hands moving quickly. “I just don’t know what else to do from here. [Prismatic Shape], maybe?”

  Gio reviewed their options.

  Let's see… the obvious contender for offensive options would be [Hairline Fracture] because the guardian is made of stone, but Rio cannot cross over to this world, and I don’t have a safe way to get that close without putting myself in danger and leaving the group open to attacks. [Reflective Shard] is doing a whole lot of nothing, and the construct finally figured out that it has water-like properties when it goes through water…

  “...Prismatic Shape is kind of our only other option.” Gio defeatedly signed.

  He summoned a flat disk of angry white light, tossing it at high speed toward the neck of the construct. The disk impacted with a puff, hardly drawing any notice from the stone horror, and leaving only a darkened mark against the stone.

  “To think that I beheaded an inkling the first time I cast that spell…” Gio huffed.

  “What about that shattering spell you have?” Jean asked over his shoulder. “Is that worth trying?”

  The construct summoned a crooked lance of water, sending it sailing towards Jean, who was far less distracted than he appeared to be. Jean parried the lance, retaliating with two flung spears of starlight that impacted the mask directly, drawing a creaking groan from the guardian.

  Gio used his light-based spell to send a haft of white light careening towards the trident’s aquamarine center, watching with dissatisfaction as it just went through the gem, turning blue as it did.

  Gio sighed. “I was just thinking about that… but I don’t know how to get close.”

  Jean batted away two more blades of water, dodging a third, a scythe of liquid longer than his whole body.

  “Well, we need to do something. I think that it’s learning. The weapons that it summons are getting more annoying to avoid.

  “My fire isn’t doing anything, and I have etching fluid that might work against stone, but for obvious reasons…” Hatra trailed off.

  Sapphire tapped her chin in thought. “What about explosives?”

  “Pardon?” Hatra said.

  “You heard me. I know that you probably have some stuff in there that doesn’t mix well… we saw a bit of it before when we had to get away from that huge swarm. What If we worked together to make a bigger boom?” Sapphire said.

  “You guys aren’t going to blow us up, are you?” Jean asked.

  “I’m thinking more like… mining explosives.” Sapphire said.

  The beginnings of a plan were forming. Gio caught Hatra’s eyes, as well as Sapphires.

  “Wait… mining.” Gio said with glee.

  “I think we’re on the same trail.” Hatra impishly grinned.

  “But in order for that to work,” Sapphire bit her lip. “You would need to get close.”

  “I know, I’ll risk it.” Gio answered.

  “Okay,” Sapphire said. “We’re gonna need to do some fast Alchemy… and Thaumaturgy. Gio, you’ve got this.”

  The alchemist flung forth more seeds as her verdant magic sprang forth a line of bushes and vegetal scrub, grabbing Hatra and ducking inside the makeshift cover.

  “Shout if it does anything weird!” Hatra said as she disappeared into the weeds.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The construct cocked its head to the side, firing a bolt of water into the bushes that only seemed to flatten a small section.

  “Jean, do you think you can keep the construct occupied? I’m gonna try something stupid.” Gio said.

  “I’m… not as good at defense as you are, but I can give it a shot. Be safe.” Jean answered.

  Gio dove through the surface of the water and into the Between. He struggled to right himself amid the torrential currents of reflection, as every droplet of the waterfalls flowed in mind-bending columns of light that flooded the gray space and nearly carried Gio into the ‘sky’ below.

  Gio summoned disks of mirror under his feet, and the waves of imaginary space that unfurled rocketed him back to the surface of water. He angled himself at the construct’s exposed underbelly. He had to dodge razor-sharp reflections several times as the construct lashed out at Jean, who was doing an admirable job keeping the attacks from reaching Chandrika, who lit up the Between like a golden lantern with the spell-glow of her domain.

  [Hairline Fracture.]

  At his command, Gio’s hand glowed with arcane magic as the spell took form at his fingertips. The spell caused a faint grey outline to wreath his fingers, and Gio splayed his hand as he dove down into the image of the Guardian’s underside.

  With a burst, Gio painfully slapped his palm onto hard stone. The Between ejected him, and Gio unfurled into a pool of water underneath the construct. Instantly, a mechanical grating sound like tons of metal bending erupted as spider-like cracks began appearing around Gio’s handprint as he desperately tried to latch onto the flailing guardian.

  The water under Gio seemed to tense. Suddenly, he was all too aware of his proximity to the construct. Gio dragged his hand towards the base of the torso, grabbing one of the limbs with his legs and lifting his lower body out of the water just in time to feel an upsetting clunk as the water underneath the construct turned into a gaping chasm.

  “Aaagh!” Gio exclaimed.

  The beads of water clinging to his lower body painfully dug into his flesh like hundreds of tiny fingers clawing away at him. He lost control over the shattering spell as he desperately channeled raw fire mana to burn off what he could. Steam sizzled, and the construct bent down, further exacerbating the cracks in its lower half as it reconfigured itself to look at Gio, who was clinging desperately to its underside.

  A gaping maw of watery blades formed in the space between the construct’s feet. Lances of starlight impaled the creature’s backside as the cracks Gio had initiated continued to spread throughout its center chassis.

  As the droplets boiled off, leaving painful bruises and burns, Gio readied the spell again, reaching out to one of the legs he was not clinging to and pumping as much mana into the spell as it would take. Before Gio could see what he had wrought, the water underneath him began to rise as the creature quickly lowered itself into the water.

  Gio panickedly summoned a jagged sheet of glass underneath him. As the water hit, he managed to sandwich himself between the stony underside of the construct and the mirror as he tried to send himself back into the place between reflections.

  The mirror cracked before he got the chance, but his spell activated anyway.

  A jagged line of fragmented space tore into Gio’s side as he was flung into the cool gray abyss of the mirror dimension. The air was sucked out of his lungs in a flash of incredible pain as his consciousness began to fade.

  Gio sank into nothingness.

  _____

  Jean

  “NO!” Jean screamed.

  His eyes burned like angry suns as he began driving spear after spear of hot starlight into the construct’s body. He simultaneously scanned the surface of the water underneath for any sign of Gio, even blood. He caught sight of Rio, who dove headfirst into the water, causing an illusory ripple to disrupt the reflection of the water underneath for an instant before it returned to normal.

  Okay, Rio is… going to go help him, maybe? Please be okay, Gio.

  Hatra and Sapphire burst out of the bushes.

  “What’s going on? Where’s Gio?” Hatra asked.

  “I think he got knocked back into the mirror dimension. His reflection disappeared a second ago. Please tell me that you came up with something, because Gio just majorly pissed this thing off.” Jean tersely said.

  Even as he spoke, Jean was flinging spears into swells of water, detonating them before they could form into long arcing scythes and blades. The movements of the construct had become erratic and worrisome as it began firing a non-stop stream of attacks.

  Hatra furrowed her brow. “He’ll be alright. He has to be alright. Did he manage to get a hit on the thing?”

  “Yeah, he was under it for a few seconds-” Jean began, swatting away a long-bladed tentacle of water that lashed towards Chandrika. “-and it looks like he managed to crack it.”

  The construct began to consolidate water and energy into a ball at the end of the trident once more.

  Jean cursed. “I can’t move and risk it firing that at Chandrika. Go now if you’ve got something!”

  Hatra and Sapphire grunted a silent affirmation as they knelt beside Jean. Sapphire loaded something in Hatra’s Sludge pump that made the glass side panel begin to glow with an angry blood red light.

  Hatra cackled as the light intensified. Sapphire hastily wrapped a vine around everyone, including Chandrika, who reached out seamlessly to grab the vine, incorporating it into her sedate dance.

  “Is it just me, or is she starting to look tired?” Sapphire asked, looking at the decorated girl.

  “Well, we really need her to last a bit longer. I felt it, and you don’t want to be under whatever curse this thing has.”

  They were both interrupted by Hatra.

  “This one won’t wash off, buddy!” The crazed thaumaturge yelled.

  The end of her chemical thrower seemed to expand as it retched up a glob of purple slime that glowed with an inner light. They watched as it sailed through the air in a bombardier’s arc, landing with a splat against the stomach of the divine construct.

  The construct seemed to pay the glob little to no mind as it finished charging the beam, aiming the pulsating mass of magic directly at Jean.

  “I really hope that-” Jean began, intending to question the girls.

  Sapphire responded by dragging him down by his collar as the red glow consumed the purple goo, just as the beginnings of the high-pressure beam were beginning to erupt from the tip of the trident.

  Light poured out of the goo, and the viscous substance began to boil, finally drawing attention from its wearer.

  The initial detonation blasted the construct up and out of the water. The churning waterfalls were all blown outward from the center with a whoosh, like the flame of a candle against a hurricane wind.

  For a split second, all was silent.

  Then came the blast wave.

  A wave of heat and dense chemical smoke erupted outward, buffeting the group and causing Jean to grit his teeth.

  Jean sat in stunned silence. The deep basin was nearly empty, giving him a chance to see the crystals in its depths gurgling as they rapidly began to refill the arena with water. Already, the first drops of water were beginning to fly skyward as the waterfalls began to flow once more.

  Hatra mouthed something, and it wasn’t until Sapphire shoved a potion in his face that he realized that he was deafened.

  After downing the bitter liquid, sound returned to him.

  “-bit more powerful than what we had planned, but hopefully that did the trick.” Hatra said.

  Jean blinked at the girl. Her short-cropped silver hair was disheveled, and her face was covered in soot.

  “A bit? Any stronger and you might have brought the building down.” Jean retorted.

  Chandrika stepped forth, dusted herself off, and resumed dancing on the surface of the water as her procession drummed a more upbeat tune.

  “Our task is yet unfinished.” Chandrika said in a melodic voice.

  Hundreds of watery pseudopods sprang forth from the pool as they searched out bits of stone. In the depths of the pool, the largest section of the construct began to reassemble itself.