At first, everything went according to plan. Lith could see via Life Vision that the highly compressed forces stored inside the spatial crack were progressively weakening.

But then, he noticed its edges turning white hot, just like had happened to the previous one before exploding.

– “Dammit, I was too naïve. In this situation darkness magic is a double-edged sword. It allows me to erode the energy just as I predicted. What I didn’t take into account, is that at the same time it accelerates the destabilization of the crack, making it even more volatile.” –   “Quylla, I did all that I could. Time for you to step in!”

Lith let the darkness fade away, hoping she had still enough time to complete her spell. At the same time, his hands moved rapidly, forming random signs, pretending to cast one spell after another, creating strong and thick multi layered barriers in case something went wrong.

Lith could only count the seconds, watching the fissure becoming more and more unstable, inwardly wishing for Quylla to hurry up and finish. Just when the crack was about to collapse, the Restoration spell took effect, making it disappear with a small bang.

“One down, one million to go.” Lith didn’t find any joy in succeeding. There were still too many spatial distortions, and only a handful of seconds had passed since he closed the conversation with Linjos.

Time wasn’t on their side.