Aksha's hand moved across the surface of the mirror. "All this time, I wondered where this went," she spoke in her emotionless voice. "It was a good tactic cutting off our retreat. With no mirror to escape and the swiftness of the dragon armada's attack, we were all but surrounded. So many of my sisters died because of this. We could've used the mirror to call for aid from our allies." Now, she turned towards the cultists. "Kill them."

  Aksha's daughters descended on the cultists like a pack of hyenas. Thanks to Meera and Kalrina thinning the herd, the daughters' number was more than three times theirs. It was an utter bloodbath. The cultists' screams echoed into the clearing as the daughter's poison dissolved their limbs or burned them like acid, leaving terrible boils.

  Aksha had done all of this to Kalrina in her torture sessions. Kalrina stood still as a statue. Her face had no emotions, but Meera could guess at the storm raging inside her.

  Meera's plan of confusing the enemy and then running for the mirror was but ashes, with the real Aksha standing guard over it. Unless they could somehow draw her away, then they might live to see another day.

  But will the witch want to escape? Her expression had changed slightly. She was watching Aksha's bloody work with anger and hate. Something told Meera she would not make rash decisions once Aksha's daughters turned on them.

  The cultists who ran were bathed in poison or got poison daggers in their backs. Some fought well, but they didn't last long, as each cultist fought two or three daughters who fought like banshees.

  One of the daughters gripped one cultist by the top of his head and turned him around towards Kalrina. From her hand seeped out a poisonous sludge, making the cultist scream and writhe as the poison dissolved his skin. Kalrina looked away, and Meera noted that her eyes were lined with tears.

  Meera frowned at the reaction momentarily before her eyes widened in realization. That's how she killed Eston. Her fists clenched around her chakrams so tightly that if they weren't made of enchanted mirrors, they would've shattered in her hands. Aksha was doing this on purpose, making her relive her worst memory in some twisted way.

  Not on my watch, you bitch.

  She hurled a chakram at the cultist and cut off his head, leaving the daughter holding onto his head as his body fell to the ground. Then, to satiate her anger, Meera turned her chakram around and cut off the daughter's head as well.

  Kalrina looked to Meera and nodded with a smile as she blinked her tears away.

  The last of the cultists fell not long after that. The final tally was the utter decimation of the cultists with only seven daughters dead, who Aksha could raise at any moment but didn't. Pools of poison that released toxic fumes lay everywhere, dissolving some of the poor cultists.

  The real Aksha finally moved towards them, and her daughters fanned out to make a circle around Meera and Kalrina, who huddled closer together.

  "Looks like we come to this at last," Kalrina said softly.

  "We can't take her, witch," Meera hissed in a whisper. "Not even together. Even my training with Veridiana will not help me put this one down."

  "There is no way we leave this place without putting this cunt down."

  Hearing Kalrina swear openly gave Meera pause. She was always smiling and polite, even when it was clear she was angry.

  "I trusted you with your archdragon plan," Kalrina said. "Knowing it would surely lead to our deaths. I need to know…can I trust you not to run?"

  Meera glanced at Aksha, who was walking through the carnage as if taking a leisurely stroll in a garden. Her eyes were glued on them, not even bothering to give the cultists another look. The daughters had them surrounded, and they laughed and chatted amongst themselves about how their mother would kill them.

  "Not like there is a place to run," Meera replied. Then, in a whisper, she added. "Though, I still think we should run to the mirror when we can."

  "There is no running for me anymore," Kalrina replied. "I will either avenge Eston today or die in the attempt."

  "You will die today, that is all," Aksha said, stopping a couple of yards from them. "I should've put you down in the dungeons."

  "We only did what we did because you wanted to keep us prisoners," Meera replied. "If you had let us go none of this would be happening right now."

  Finally, Aksha showed some emotion. Her eyes belched fire, and her nostrils flared. "You…After all my mother did for you, and you repaid her by bringing her death…by bringing the death of my sisterhood."

  "You forced my hand by sending your sorceresses after me. I was content to go my way."

  "We were protecting you!" she roared. "The dragons wanted you. My mother went to war with them for you! And you did this." She snapped a finger towards Zerodra and Akhessai, dueling it out.

  It was a sight to behold. Marvelous skills the size of small hills flew at each other. Ice and stones rained down, crushing whoever was underneath. Meera would've stopped to watch their fight if she had the time and if a deranged sorceress wasn't breathing down her neck, ready to execute her.

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  "Why are you here, Aksha? Shouldn't you be protecting your dear sisters?" Kalrina laughed and clapped slowly. "I think we outdid ourselves here, dearie. You know, Aksha, I had made a promise to Eston that was the man I loved, the one you butchered…" She paused, her face twitched in utter rage, but then she smiled again. "I made him a promise that I would bring this place down stone by fucking stone, and I've come through on my promise. Look what Raxor is doing to your home. Even if you survive the night, you sorceresses will have nowhere to hide. The dragons will hunt you to extinction, which brings me to my second promise. The second promise I made him was that I would destroy your precious sisterhood before your very eyes. I may not have my friend's seeing skill, but I can tell the dragons are filling their bellies with your precious sisters." She laughed some more before stopping abruptly. Then she spoke in a cold voice. "That is my second promise completed. And before I depart this world, I will butcher you like you did my Eston, piece by fucking piece."

  Even Meera could see this was a bad idea. She was poking an angry bear. A bear that had them surrounded with her cubs, who were equally as mad as their mother. This was not a fight they could win.

  Aksha shook with controlled rage. "I, too, had made a promise to myself that I would so utterly destroy anyone who would dare bring harm to my home that the worlds would shudder in remembrance."

  Surprisingly, it wasn't Aksha who made the first move. It was Kalrina. A mirror shard that lay at Aksha's feet shot up to pierce her neck and came out the back. The poison sorceress didn't even flinch, though all her daughters cried out, and some ran for Kalrina, but Aksha stopped them with a raised hand. The hole in her throat closed up as a purple ooze dripped out of the hole.

  "No!" she exclaimed. "These two are mine."

  "This is not going to be good, witch," Meera exclaimed as she got ready to put her training to the test.

  Kalrina gave a vicious smile. "No, my dear, it is not for this evil bitch. Remember, love, she's mine. I get to kill her."

  It was like that carefree, likable persona was just a mask that was slipping now that Aksha was here. Meera couldn't even imagine how much hate she had carried for so long. The hate that had forced her to murder and use people, all so she could avenge her love.

  Kalrina jumped into the fray by shooting what looked like a Mirror Shard Fury, but the shards were thicker and longer and looked more like daggers. Aksha side-stepped so fast that she left an afterimage.

  She chucked a blob of green poison at Kalrina, but the witch raised a Mirror Shield. The poison easily ate through the shield, but the shield slowed it down enough that the witch teleported to the side. Aksha ran for her at alarming speed, but the witch laughed in her face as she used Mirror Step to jump away, always just out of her reach.

  Kalrina then filled the battlefield with her phantoms. All the phantoms thrust their hands towards Aksha, whose eyes surveyed them to figure out who the real one was.

  Can she do it on her own?

  Several of Kalrina's phantoms formed a massive six-sided star. At least that was what it must've looked to Aksha, but in essence, it was the witch hiding amongst her phantoms who had created them. All of the stars spun like circular saws and shot off towards Aksha.

  Meera had to credit the sorceress of rebirth, who didn't even move from her spot. Instead, eight poisonous green arms shot out of her torso, and she caught all the mirror stars as if they were nothing.

  Meera's eyes widened in surprise, as did the witch's. Meera quickly let her Ambush Tactics do its thing. The good thing was that she had fought enough daughters to know precisely what sort of skills Aksha had and how to counter them. It took but a moment for a plan to take form.

  She still had two shadow warriors, so she sent them to attack Aksha. She had to dissipate her phantoms as they ate up too much Mana. Then, she coated two level 2 chakrams with shadows using Shadow Coating. She was about to use Dusk Veil to obscure the battlefield, but then the witch would be as good as blind, and she was doing quite well.

  Meera sent her two shadow warriors to keep the sorceress busy, but they were far too slow for the likes of Aksha, who moved like a blur and buried a poison-covered fist in Kalrina's gut—the real Kalrina. The witch cried out and teleported away, holding her stomach.

  Meera teleported to her. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine." Kalrina struggled to her feet, groaning and clutching at the hole in her dress at her abdomen. There were hideous boils around her navel, which must've been painful.

  "How did she know?" Meera asked, but Aksha didn't give them another moment.

  She shot poison balls the size of basketballs. Meera and Kalrina teleported in different directions to confuse the enemy. Meera also let her chakrams fly to keep the sorceress busy, but somehow, she was faster than them. No matter how much she propelled them with Mirror Wing, Aksha was faster.

  Then Aksha stopped suddenly, thrust her hands outwards, and hundreds of poison pellets exploded out of her. There was no dodging or teleporting them. Meera raised a trio of shields, and the witch had a similar idea, but to no avail.

  The pellets blasted through the mirrors, shattering them as if they were made of glass. They showered Meera with poison, which ripped through her armor and burned her. She cried out as she fell to the ground and activated Vitalize right away. The witch was in even worse shape, having no healing skills.

  She was practically dripping with poison, as if she had taken a shower with the stuff. She cried out and writhed on the ground as she quickly tried to clean herself, ruining her hands in the process. Puss oozed from the boils on her hands. She whimpered and flinched at each attempt, but it was either that or the acidic poison would eat through her. Then Meera needed to give her the time to recover using one of her healing potions if she had any remaining.

  "Aksha!" Meera shouted. "I've had enough of you."

  She was about to activate Dusk Veil, but then an earthquake shook the ground so violently that many trees quaked and splintered as they sunk into the ground. A massive fissure raced through the forest and formed a crack in the land between Aksha and Meera.

  "Get up, you devious witch," Zerodra's thunderous voice roared. "I'm not done with you yet."

  "Mother!" Aksha cried.

  Akhessai's statue had been toppled to the ground, and many massive icicles were sticking out of her torso and head. As it turned out, Veridiana was losing the fight with the archdragon, who looked none worse for the wear.

  Kalrina laughed despite the monstrous pain she must've been in. "Your mother is about to die. Now, you'll know what it's like to lose someone you love."

  Aksha glared at her and, with a wave of her hand, unleashed a poison wave that would've engulfed her, but the witch teleported away to safety.

  "Capture these two," Aksha commanded her daughters. "I'll be back shortly."

  With that, she rode away on a wave of green poison that killed everything it touched, whether it be grass, leaves, or trees.

  The daughters tightened the circle, uttering many threats. Meera looked at the witch. "You rest this one out, witch. I need to let loose a little bit."