178 Everything in white

The mage was carrying a staff that had been merged with a fake version of the living weapon himself and was now taking the form of a scythe surrounded by very deadly gusts of wind.

Lilith was dual-wielding two weapons made of blessed metal, a silver sword and a silver crossbow. One of these weapons was the son of her former boss, and the other was the niece of her very close friend.

As she kept holding the weapons, she started to feel power flowing through her body in ways she never felt before.

"This feels... Amazing..." Lilith commented while staring at her two transformed kids.

[Lilith... Are you ok!!??] asked a young female voice inside Lilith's head.

"Ellie?? Ellie is that you??"

[Yeah, it's me!]

"What are you doing here?? I told you to go with East!! This is dangerous!!"

[But... I wanted to hel-]

[Watch out!!] yelled Marcus, also inside Lilith's head.

The swordswoman observed the magician launching his wind scythe at her, and her first instinct was to activate her future sight to predict how to dodge that attack, but for some reason, her power felt much stronger than before as she not only could see the trajectory of the weapon, but it was also moving like it was in slow-motion.

Lilith could come up with twenty different ways to easily dodge that thing without a scratch. She adjusted her legs to prepare to run out of the way, but her speed was much stronger than before and she ended up almost smacking against a boulder.

"Whoa!!! Too fast!! Waaay too fast!!" Lilith gasped while doing her best to stop herself at the last second.

The magician recovered his staff by making the wind move the object back at him and prepared to launch it again.

[He can use magic even when he lets go of the staff??] Ellie questioned.

[This forest only projects the strongest warriors that try to enter it... This guy must be a master class mage...] Marcus replied.

Lilith kept observing her opponent and tried to predict the proper way to attack him after moving out of the way again and avoiding another attack.

She turned on her future sight but the ability was much stronger than she imagined as she kept seeing hundreds of hundreds of ways to proceed.

"Ugh!!!" she cried while closing both eyes immediately.

[Lilith!!] both Ellie and Marcus shouted, worried about her.

"Something is wrong... You two are boosting me too much... I can't control my power!!"

[Lilith!! Move!!] Marcus yelled again as he saw the mage flying at them and reading another blast of wind.

"Ugh!!" the mage muttered as he was struck.

[We landed a hit!! Keep going!!] Marcus encouraged.

Lilith followed his idea and changed her sword into another crossbow to double up the output of arrows.

The mage realizing he couldn't block these attacks decided to try and dodge them instead by making his wind magic move his body out of the way. He started to ricochet between the trees like a pinball while trying to avoid getting hit.

[How is he so fast??] Ellie asked.

[This guy is being boosted by my dad... I mean... My dad's memory... And, he uses the wind to increase his movement! Even if he's not as fast as us, he's still pretty damn agile...] Marcus explained.

"Then let's close our distance and strike before he can react!!" Lilith stated.

She then switched both crossbows into a pair of swords and began to rush towards the mage, who in turn started to unleash multiple waves of wind capable of slicing nearby trees into pieces.

Lilith used her future sight and saw how to dodge the waves, but she also felt her eyes hurting every time she did so. It seems like her super future sight provided by the power of two living weapons was causing some serious damage to her body, but she didn't care, protecting Marcus and Ellie was her top priority right now.

After she finally closed the distance she tried to stab the mage with both of her swords but the man was slightly faster and used his wind to raise himself towards the sky.

[Dang it!! So close!! How will we get him all the way up there??] Ellie asked.

[Maybe we can raise ourselves with your diamonds?] Marcus suggested.

"No way!! If Ellie goes back to her normal form, even for a moment, our speed will decrease and we will become an easy target for them!" Lilith declared.

[... Ellie... Can you still use magic while being a weapon...?] Marcus asked.

[!!]

"!!"

Both Lilith and Ellie had not considered that possibility. Ellie might be a weapon right now, but she's still a mirroring mage. Would she be able to use her spells in this form as well?

While the three discussed that idea, the mage started to prepare another wind spell to attack them with. Both of his arms were spinning the scyther at an incredible speed and making the clouds in the sky start circling his position as well.

A large tornado was taking place and the sky was becoming darker by the second while releasing small bolts of lightning. The mage was planning on dropping a storm on top of them.

"Guess we will find out!"

Lilith then aimed Ellie at the ground and changed her into a crossbow again. Ellie tried to focus and read Lilith's intentions and as the mage prepared to release his tornado on top of them, Lilith and Ellie shot the ground, making a huge pillar of diamonds appear that launched Lilith extremely high into the sky.

She managed to completely bypass the tornado but now she was free-falling with no means to save herself.

[I don't think we planned this very well!!] Ellie yelled.

"No... This is exactly how I planned!!" Lilith corrected her.

The mage spotted Lilith dropping from the sky and started to charge at her with all the speed he had. He assumed that in the middle of the sky, he had the advantage.

"Marcus... Ellie... I trust you two..." Lilith whispered.

[...!!] x 2

"Do you two trust me??" Lilith asked while turning on her future sight one last time and feeling like her eyes were about to burn.

[Of course!! Always!!] Marcus replied instantly.

[...] Ellie,  however, took a bit of time to think about her answer. She thought about all the times Lilith tried to protect her, the times she jumped into fire to save her, how she traveled to another world to fight by her aunt's side, how she heard about Lilith doing everything she could to save Evlin's school, and how she followed Ellie all the way into this dangerous forest just to be by her side when she needed her.

She then gave her reply, [How could I not trust you!!??]

Lilith's body began to glow with an immense light that blinded the entire sky for a moment, and once it was gone, her two weapons had disappeared and Lilith's hair was completely white.

The mage realized that Lilith's weapons were gone and dashed at her with his scythe ready to impale her.

Lilith saw the man coming at full speed and using her shinning golden eyes that could stare into the future, she saw exactly what she needed to do.

She waited for the right moment, mere seconds, mere inches away from the mage reaching her and stabbed her heart with one move.

Once the time was finally right, she formed a single sword out of thin air and, while feeling like she had both Marcus and Ellie by her side holding the blade alongside her, she moved her weapon in a perfect arc that managed to cut both the mage and his staff at the same time.

The memory warrior began to vanish after being cut by the blade and disappeared into nothingness.

Lilith then formed another crossbow and shot the ground to create a huge diamond ramp to make her slide safely into the terrain.

"Ugh!!!"

As she rolled on the ground after finally reaching the soil and being unable to stop herself from moving at such great speed, the two kids that were beside her finally undid their transformations .

They all fell on the ground from complete exhaustion and barely unable to move after combining their energies like that.

"That was crazy..." Marcus mentioned while trying to stand up by supporting himself on a rock.

"That was awesome!!!" Ellie corrected while having her arms and legs open on top of the grass like a starfish.

"That was something alright..." Lillith added while also trying to stand on her own. Her eyes were burning a little after using so much of her super future sight so she tried to keep them closed for a while.

And then, maybe it was because the adrenaline was affecting their heads and they were finally getting some room to breath again, but the three just started to laugh out of nowhere from not being able to believe that they actually managed to win that fight despite there being so many injuries on their bodies. It felt like the first actual victory that they've had in ages.

Lilith still had her eyes closed, but she was glad to finally be able to hear Ellie laugh. She can't remember the last time she heard the sound, or if she ever heard it at all.

She then felt Ellie pouncing on top of her like a panther and giving her a deep hug that almost made her heart pop out.

"E- Ellie!!! Too... Tight!!!" Lilith declared while giving small taps on the girl's shoulder so that she would let her go.

"Sorry, sorry... It's just..." Ellie tried to say while releasing Lilith, "You rushed off saying all these things... I thought you were going to die or something!! And... And... After all the things I said... I just thought... I just... I-"

"I thought I would..." Lilith admitted.

"What!!??"

"Yeah..." Lilith continued "I tried to use my ability to see further into the future... But for some reason... Every time I would try to see things that happened after today... All I saw was pure black..."

"Pure black...?" Ellie repeated while looking worried.

"At first I thought it was some kind of consequence of there being so many gods and champions around... But it just felt different somehow... Like I couldn't see the future anymore... As if... As if there was no future to see..."

Marcus came closer, looking rather worried as well, "wait... does this mean... something will happen to you today??"

"Maybe...? I don't know... But maybe the future changed!"

"Yeah!! Maybe if you try to look one more time, it will work this time!" Ellie insisted.

"Maybe... Let me give it a try!" Lilith replied.

"Wait... Are you sure that's a good idea? You used your power quite a lot today..." Marcus asked.

"Just a small peek won't-" Lilith finally opened her eyes to try and see into the future one more time, but something was wrong. She started waving her hand in front of her that made her two companions approach with concern.

Marcus then started to lose the color on his face and Ellie began to get teared-eyed. They both looked at Lilith and noticed that her pupils were completely colorless.

Lilith had her eyes wide open, but the reason she couldn't see into the future wasn't because she was going to die today, but because she couldn't see anything period.

Lilith was completely blind.