"Celestia!" Luna yelled, "We can't hold it much longer!"
She was right. We could hurt it, sure. But for every tentacle we blasted apart or burned to a crisp or cut off, another... two or three others... took its place. Meanwhile, the hole in reality just got bigger and bigger. Big enough that at times you could glimpse... things through it. Eyes. Mostly eyes.
So many eyes. Nothing could possibly need that many eyes!
I slammed another spear of ice through the portal, aiming for the eyes whenever I could, but Luna was very much right. We couldn't keep this up. For every tentacle we cut off, three took it’s place.
I ducked beneath another tentacle, just barely shielding against a third one but then then it knocked me back several hoof steps across the wooden floor.
The monstrosity was getting bi-shit!
I ducked and spread my wings for balance, ducking and then lashing out with my magic, running a blade of magic along the tentacle swinging towards me, cutting along its length, ichor spraying through the air before a second blast from Luna cut it in half.
"Everypony! Get out of here!" Celestia yelled.
"If we leave, it'll overwhelm you!" Sunset yelled, her side against Celestias as she sent another jet of burning flame towards the closest tentacle and it retreated, bursting into flames.
I jumped over a low sweep, "Everypony! To me!" I yelled, casting another cutting spell straight across the room, not really aiming. I didn't need to, I couldn't miss by sending it into the mass of tentacles, "Get ready to shield!"
Sunset was the first one there, teleporting from Celestia to me, sending a piercing spell towards the mass the moment she landed. Luna dropped down from the air, wings spread next to me, "Sister! Do it!"
Celestia's horn were already burning with energy as she shot a firespell towards the closest mass of tentacles, but she nodded and spread her wings as her horn seemed to take on an entirely different kind of glow, her mane starting to shift from a ethereal rainbow effect shifting, turning brighter, more orange and yellow as the energy expanded, flowing through it towards the tips… something that started to look disturbingly like a flowing solar eruption,"Everypony! Close your eyes!" she yelled as the glow started to intensify.
The Goddess of the sun was about to come out to play.
Oh shit.
Almost in a panic I threw up the strongest shield bubble I knew, overlapping with Sunset’s and Luna’s. I closed my eyes and looked away, covering my face with one wing, the other I put over Sunsets.
The next second... it wasn't violent. There wasn’t really a loud explosion. I couldn’t even hear it really other than as a whump kind of sound.
I just felt a kind of full body pressure and a heat, almost like standing in the midsummer sun, or perhaps suddenly opening a forge was a better comparison, and things went bright but then it was silent again.
I slowly lowered my wing and opened my eyes, blinking the sunspots out of my eyes as I looked around. Luna had one wing around both me and Sunset as it to protect us, but our shield bubble had kept us safe.
The air was filled with smoke from burning wood and ash, but the portal was gone and so were the tentacles. It didn't take more than a second or two before I spotted Celestia. She was standing right where I last saw her, her white coat gray with ash as debris rained from the sky still, her spectral mane flowing in the bright sunshine.
Bright sunshine through the drifting smoke.
I blinked and looked around. The library was... gone. Just gone. The entire tree was missing, just the base of the walls and roots still stood, smoldering in place, small fires burning.
The only piece that remained was the small circle of floor inside our shield bubble. Ash and small burning pieces of shrapnel still rained down from the sky. The rest of the village seemed intact... ish. The closest houses looked a bit scorched and there were a couple of burning bushes, but none of them looked outright flattened.
Sunset suddenly dropped her shield bubble and struggled out from beneath my wing, "Twi!" she yelled.
Oh shit, Twilight!
"Go!" I told her, dropping my shield as well at the same time as Luna did, "I'll check on Celestia!"
I was worried about Twilight too, but I had to check that Celestia was okay too. Just because she was standing didn’t mean she was anywhere near okay right now.
I shared a look with Luna and we quickly made our way over to Celestia.
"Sister? Are you well?" Luna asked with a frown as we reached her.
Celestia flicked her ears and sighed, "...I'm fine," she said before she took a step back, her right hoof trembling slightly but she put it back down, "But look."
I turned in the direction she was looking in.
The stone table... It was broken in half and looked like it had half melted. Parts of it still glowed a soft red of molten rock..
Well, fuck.