And then something caught my eye through all the chaos of battle.
Bubbling.
The lava was fucking bubbling.
Lashes of midnight blue shot through it.
And then it started rising.
The ground thundered.
It was erupting!
Ruxnoth was forcing the volcano to erupt!
“Get back!” I yelled over to Remnant, Rhyza, and Lazriel. “Clear out!”
Just as they all blurred back in one shot, toward the arched cave doorway that led outside, the two dozen remaining soldiers of Ruxnoth’s dropped abruptly, then dissipated into nothingness, not even ash or liquid left behind. The lashes of the psycho’s magic through the lava cut out as well.
“Got him,” Ambrose told us. “Ruxnoth is now unconscious. Temporarily.”
But it was too late where the eruption was concerned. Ruxnoth had already set it in motion, now nature was taking over.
Zayn grabbed my arm. “I can unleash a Wrath Surge to hold the eruption off long enough for them to finish their work.”
An Ifrit Wrath Surge involved using intense emotional fury that could boost his Ifrit fire in a mammoth way and send out a sustained rush of power that had the means to hold back dragon fire for a time.
“No,” I told him.
For one thing, he’d come so fucking far with stabilizing his emotional state, and this could undermine that.
And then there was the physical impact of unleashing such a thing. It could burn him out and even put him in a long-term coma.
“Evira—”
“Zayn, no,” Vaxan rumbled.
In the next moment, he stopped the vibrational resonance from emanating from his right hand, then his citrine magic sparked and he materialized the river rock I’d given to him a while ago.
It was a shimmering pastel-blue object fused with glacial magic. When activated, it enveloped the wielder in a dome of the strongest dragon ice-frost fusion, which could hold against pretty much anything. Aside from Celestial magic, but Ruxnoth’s Celestial power had just tapped out.
He grasped Ambrose’s shoulder, Ketheron already holding Ambrose’s as it was while Ambrose channeled him, so the three of them were briefly connected as he then slammed the river rock down. As it shattered, a glacial dome shot up, enveloping the three of them.
“Go,” he told us, and signaled Remnant and the others to get clear as well.
At Remnant’s resistance to leaving, Ambrose shook his head at him. “There’s nothing you can do against this. Leave now.”
Remnant ground his jaw.
But then in several rapid-fire bursts, they all cleared out.
“Zayn, go with them,” I said.
“Why aren’t you including yourself in that?”
Vaxan and me exchanged a look.
“Guys? What is it?” Zayn pushed.
