Chapter 33 - Let them come

Nyx summons her sands near her and Jasmine. The way she uses her hands is much more accurate and aggressive than Shamir. When Kislap and Kulog tried to escape by vibrating the sands around them, Nyx caught on. She closed her hand with such force that the quicksand holding the siblings began to squeeze them harder.

"Nyx, you're killing them!" Jasmine begged her to stop, but Nyx won't listen.

"They will kill us first if I don't," Nyx replied. Despite the impossible task of taking all the guardians alone, she remains collected. And a few more moments, a pink flash emitted from the cloud and began to rain fireballs on them. The sand around them shoots up to meet the Tala's attack. Glass began to rain from above, showering the field with shiny sharp shards around them.

Jasmine wasted no time and used the White Chronicle to search spells that matched what Kislap and Kulog were experiencing. Brainwash, fueled with blind anger and red eyes, checked in one spell, an enchantment spell from the land of Ruks-Bel. She was expecting local magic from Tymar, not from the most neighboring place of Ruks-Bel. But still, she pressed on and searched how to remove such magic from her friends.

Atlas and Gil came at them with full speed. They were charging at them like madmen yelling with rage. Nyx knew a quicksand could not stop them. So she decided to fight their strength with hers. She created a sand golem to attack the two guardians. Its strength is evenly matched against the two guardians and manages to distract them.

Jasmine and Nyx hear the wind blowing in their direction. Amihan's gathered a gust to blow them away, but Nyx managed to build a dome to protect them from her attack.

"It says here that the caster can reverse the spell or let them get exhausted to wear off the spell," Jasmine yells to Nyx. Both knew they could not go on against all eight guardians simultaneously, so Jasmine suggested making them sleep. The only way they can be taken down without harming them.

Nyx agrees to the plan but cannot do it while Tala and Amihan fly above, providing aerial bombardment. Once she brings down the sand dome, they must move quickly to make the siblings sleep.

Jasmine, still hesitant to trust Nyx, has little choice but to follow her lead. Nyx made the sand dome grow to fight off the fireballs and the wind surrounding them. Tala and Amihan are dulled by the magic enchantment that blinds their mind. They didn't see that Jasmine and Nyx had already escaped. All they knew was to destroy the sand dome and everything in it.

Nyx rushed towards Kulog and Kislap, then summoned the purple sands from her pouch to make them sleep. But nothing seems to be working. Something was countering her magic. She tried again with a more powerful spell, but nothing made them asleep.

"Vines!" Jasmine shouted as giant thorny vines came at them from outside of the town to their location. And above the vines are red and blue colored frogs leaping towards them. Jasmine knew those frogs had some venom on their skin. And this one she is sure is the work of Juan.

Nyx gathered more sand and crushed the ground underneath them. The ground began to dry up as her sand absorbed its nutrients and water. The vines halted their movement with her quick thinking.

Jasmine then instructed Nyx to use the sand with vinegar and scattered it among the frogs as for the frogs. Jasmine reasons that her grandmother would spray vinegar in her backyard to discourage frogs from entering their lawn back at her home. And she was right! As soon as Nyx scattered the sand with vinegar around them, the frogs began to shake and turned around. They retreated from the town and gathered on a hill outside.

"Nyx, don't attack that hill. Knowing Juan, that is just one of his tricks. He likes to engage with us in hand-to-hand combat where he is the strongest." Jasmine summons her courage to act as a leader and study surroundings to calculate a tactic to fight off the guardians.

At that moment, something inside Nyx stirred. Jasmine's composed nature gave off a familiar feeling within her. She began to feel nostalgic and reminisce about her past.

A vision of her past began to flood her mind. Nyx sees herself standing before the Titans of Tymar, rampaging across the land. It was the ancient days when Cronos, the leader of the Titans, was waging war against his son, Zeus, the leader of the new generation of Titans, the Olympian. It was chaos everywhere as the battlefield filled with gigantic dead Titans toppling over their smaller descendants.

The vision switched to another time—a time of peace. Nyx found herself standing atop a palace, and beside her was a woman she considered her friend.

"Don't you want to explore the world?" Nyx asked her friend.

"I cannot, but I could not." the woman says as she tightly grips her cane.

"Me too, Phronesia. Our responsibilities are too great." Nyx fidgets her fingers as feignedly hands Phronesia a drawing.

"Oh? Are these the infamous Hades and Persephone?! They look cute together. And is that the Cerberus?! What a big puppy!" Phronesia was happy to see Nyx finally made a picture of her family.

"Maybe one day, they can come up here."

"Or I would down there instead." Phronesia jokingly said.

"Oh, come on! We all know you cannot die. Not with that thing you got there." Nyx laughed as she pointed at her friend's cane.

Phronesia held out her hand and asked Nyx to join her for a walk around her palace. Nyx accepts her invitation, but as she takes her hand, the vision changes to a time where she is at Tartarus with Hades and Persephone standing before her. The gleaming feathers of Persephone's wings and the dark shadow of Hades surrounds her as she hands them a note.

"Do it. I upheld the end of my bargain." Nyx says as she upholds a paper- the contract of the Ritual of Power.

"Once you do this, there is no going back." Persephone clutches Nyx's hands to reconsider what she is doing. But even with Hades' words, Nyx will not change her mind.

Hades and Persephone then provided a part of them. A feather from's Persephone wing and three strands of hair from Hades. She gathered all the ingredients and placed the lotus flower in the middle of her room.

"I promise you. Everything will be alright." Nyx says as she begins to light the coals on fire. She then placed her hand in her chest and began to smile. "We will be exploring the world soon, Phronesia," she whispers to herself as she begins the Ritual of Power.

Nyx then returned to her sense. As Jasmine stands in front of her, it reminds her why she decided to be a guardian.

"I see why you like her, Phronesia. Maybe it's time we let her know the truth about Shamir and us, eh?" Nyx says to herself as she readies her sand.

Jasmine recalls that Shamir was able to dive into her mind when the Priest scattered the dark mist to make them sleep. Since Nyx and Shamir inhabit the same body, Jasmine reckons she can do the same.

"Nyx! Since we cannot put them to sleep due to the powerful enchantment, can you dive into their minds and try to dispel the magic from there?" Jasmine says as she closes her book.

"Not bad. But I cannot do it from here. I need to touch the guardians physically for me to do that." Nyx points two Tala and Amihan from above. They need to find a way to make them come down, and as for Juan and Leshin, they are yet to make their appearance.

But before they can continue. Nyx senses the ground movement below them. She detected hundreds of tiny feet from beneath them began to make their way below the cracks of the soil. Nyx grabbed Jasmine, and she summoned her sand to slide across the town. It was a good thing she was fast as the venomous frogs began to leap from the underground.

Not deterred from Juan's attack, Jasmine took that idea and hatched a plan that they could use against the guardians. Finally, a master plan!

"Back in my world, there is the news of frogs raining in the sky. I think we can use that to our advantage here!"

"How can raining frogs help us?!"

"The frogs are connected to Juan. They are his eyes and ears. Suppose we remove them across the village. Juan will be a force to come out of his hiding place. Use a sandstorm to gather the frogs. Build it up. Then once your ready, throw the frogs towards the cloud where Amihan and Tala are hiding." Jasmine smiled.

Nyx was bewildered by her plan, but it is effective against Juan, but she is still unsure how this will work against Tala and Amihan. She has never seen such an event happen before.

"And if Leshin uses his plants against us?" Nyx asked as curious how this plan will also cover Leshin's attack. Jasmine smiled and replied, "I got that covered too! Just follow my word!"

With curiosity still lingering on her mind, Nyx followed Jasmine's instructions. She conjured a sandstorm to cover the whole town and began to pick up the frogs from the ground. The dome that Amihan and Tala were trying to destroy dissolved with the sandstorm. The sand golem that Gil and Atlas are fighting also dissolved and joined the sandstorm.

With sand getting in their eyes, Gil and Atlas wandered across the town, blind searching for Jasmine and Nyx. The sandstorm picks up the frogs, and as instructed, Nyx makes another sandstorm and directs toward the cloud where Amihan and Tala are hiding.

As the frogs began to rain on their area, Amihan and Tala desperately tried to dodge them to avoid their venom. And with the numbers of frogs falling and the sand storm obstructing their vision, they were left with no choice but to fly towards the sandstorm and search for Nyx and Jasmine.

Juan's original plan was to lure Jasmine, and Nyx would go to the hill just outside the town and ambush them from behind. But the circumstances have changed, and now he is forced to attack them directly. All this time, he is also a frog among those thrown into the sky. He transformed back to his original form and began to fall back to the town.

As for Leshin, he finally grew his plants across the arid and dried soil. But when his vines begin to rise from the ground, they are immediately cut off. He knew that Jasmine had a knife, but he could not fathom how Jasmine could cut all of his growing vines across the town.

In reality, Jasmine instructed Nyx to use her sandstorm to pick up every glass made from the clash of Nyx's sand and Tala's fireball. If Nyx's sand detects the vines of Leshin, she will send the glass towards the vines and cut it before it grows to a bigger threat.

"Simple and effective. I like it, Chronicler!" Nyx smiled as she spun the sandstorm faster to cut every plant Leshin tried to throw at them. With his vines ineffective as an attack, he arms himself with his spear and heads towards the town. His hiding location was just beyond the hill where frogs gathered.

Zero visibility. That's what the guardians have experienced as they enter the storm. If they were at their most mental capacity, Amihan would blow this away, or maybe Gil would create a powerful water spout to block the dust. If this were a real battle between Nyx against the other guardians, she would be overwhelmed, but luckily, the spell that clouds their minds limits their capability to think. The guardians began to spread out, searching for Jasmine and Nyx.

From a distance, Tala can see a silhouette of a girl. Without hesitation, she let off a fireball in its direction only to see nothing was standing there. Jasmine's voice began to taunt her as her silhouette appeared a few meters away from Tala.

"Poor aim, is that what you can do?" Jasmine's voice filled the area. Tala will not take this beating and hurled another fireball at the figure. Like the last time, the figure appeared as it was about it hit Jasmine and appeared a few meters away from her.

"I thought your magic is the best among the guardians."

This infuriated Tala, and she began to shoot her fireballs wildly to wherever the figure appeared.

Her attacks manage to hit Juan and Leshin. The fireball wasn't enough to kill them, but it was painful enough that it caught their attention. Juan and Leshin run for cover from the Tala's attack. Unbeknownst to them, Jasmine and Nyx's trap has sprung. The sands underneath yank the weapons away from Juan and Leshin. Then the sands began to shift; it turned to a giant hand and dragged them into the quicksand.

"Nice work Jasmine. We got Kislap, Kulog, Leshin, and Juan. Only six more." Nyx says to herself.

Amihan also spots Jasmine above one of the houses. She leaps into the air and tries to take a stab, but just like Tala, she doesn't hit anything. The figure of Jasmine vanished before she could attack.

When Amihan looks down from above, she can see more silhouettes of Jasmine all over the town. All of the figures of a little girl standing across the town. But both Tala and Amihan can hear the voice of Jasmine taunting all around them.

Jasmine leaped from one of the rooftops and began to attack Amihan! Only then that Amihan realize the silhouettes were fake, made from the sands of Nyx. She was about to warn Tala that those are fake Jasmine, but the real Jasmine kept her busy.

Although Jasmine knows that she cannot beat Amihan, she got a plan to take her out. Jasmine engaged Amihan in a sword fight. The clash of their blades reached Nyx's ears. Nyxunderstood that was the signal for the next part of the plan. Nyx then dissolves all of the sand visages of Jasmine back to their granular form and begins to converge on Jasmine's location.

Amihan might be the superior fighter, but with Nyx's sand blocking her Ginunting from reaching Jasmine, her moves are slowly being limited. If Amihan moves behind Jasmine, the sand covers her back before the blade hits her.

While was this is happening. Tala then sees that the sands of what she thought was her target began to vanish and fly off to the wind. Tala followed the sands' flow and came to a building to see the sands converging on a silhouette on its roof. With sandstorm still raging, Tala's limited vision can only focus on this figure.

Tala hesitates to waste another of her fireball until she is sure what she is looking at is the real Jasmine or not.

Knowing that Tala is emotional among them, Jasmine then yelled another insult and exploited her hot-headed nature. "What a poor aim. I wonder what Leshin sees in you? Maybe both of you are that blind!"

Hearing enough, Tala summoned an immense fireball and hurled towards Jasmine! But before it could hit her, Nyx's sand blinded the eyes of Amihan, then grabbed Jasmine out of the roof and into the ground. As Amihan struggled to remove the dirt in her eye, the fireball hit her. The explosion was strong enough to knock her out. As Amihan was about to hit the ground, the sands caught her and carried her to the quicksand.

Three more guardians stand. This is where Jasmine and Nyx need to move with precision. Jasmine's plan hinged on using Tala's anger and causing her to fling more of her magic. She will ride Nyx's sand and make Tala chase her around town. Then they will dodge those attacks and try to repeat what Tala did to Amihan to the last two guardians, Atlas and Gil.

But before Nyx and Jasmine could make a move, Atlas and Gil were around the corner. Hearing the fireball that Tala made earlier, the two figured that is where they would find Jasmine. And it looks like they are right.

Nyx began to form the sand underneath Jasmine to take her away from there, but then she felt the sands around Jasmine were heavy and cold.

It was Tala's magic! She switched from fire to ice magic and began to freeze all the sands around her. Her magic was intense as her emotions that even the sandstorm around them began to subside slowly. Now powerful ice magic was holding most of the sands below Jasmine.

Atlas and Gil began to pick up the pace and began to run at Jasmine at full force. Tala raised her wand and began to charge ice crystal toward Jasmine.

But even with the odds stacked against her, Jasmine remained calm. Blade by her side, she breathes in and readies herself from their attacks. Jasmine kept quiet and began to recollect what the guardians thought of her when facing an enemy. Like fighting the spinning dummy, she must always be on the move.

"Let them come," Jasmine says as she poses for a defensive stance.