Time slowed to the young dragon. The chimaera master’s body vanished into thin air, but he already felt the distortion in space. It took less than a twentieth of a second for this teleportation to complete, and just as the body acceleration took place, that elven figure in a robe appeared right beside Jaren.
Merged with the spirit for just a few seconds, Icy rammed the demon at an unexpected speed. Body still sealed to a great degree, they fell sideways without any option for recovery. Or so it seemed, as the fingers prepared to snap again, a sight easily caught by Icy.
A tail swiped towards the hand, several wounds already littered it, yet pain seemed unrecognisable to the wizard whose body ascended beyond them. With Origin Force to compensate for physical weakness, the hand flew away and left the elf inept for a few moments.
Icy completed the meagre ten seconds of acceleration with a spell, only half-done, everything returned to its usual state.
Now against the floor, two arrows tipped in red and white glows began their descent. Both struck the elf’s brow simultaneously, even if fired consecutively, and two forces acted on him, enhanced by one another even if completely different in nature. One, a red light, struck his Mind palace but failed to even chip a single stone. The other, a white light, instead covered his body and provided a rapid impulse. A heavy force downwards, the already grounded body slammed against the nearly-impenetrable stone.
As the battle continued and damage accrued on what they knew to be a ridiculously durable foe, his reactions slowly improved. Not long after the grounded chain attack, he barely raised the sword once more and also revealed the bracelet on his wrist. At first, they feared the latter, but Icy quickly realised it purely activated defensive effects.
Incredibly weak ones at that, the entire pearl bracelet existed as a mass-monitoring tool in the first place. The already downtrodden yet enraged chimaera master finally lost it as they discovered this fact and ignored every attempt he made.
As for the sword? Another good joke!
What wizard practised diligently with a sword? He simply knew how to swing one, and played around with it for a few days when bored over the years. The last time spent on legitimate sword training happened… He wanted to say three years ago, maybe more.
They toyed around with the blade as though a child wielded a stick against a real knight. What ought to slash through every bit of defensive equipment and kill them in one blow couldn’t even halve their weapons due to his incompetence!
“Fine then! I accept my loss, you bested me thrice over,” he shouted valiantly as though stood on top of the highest ground, the true victor in a way. But no one’s attacks stopped, this already extended far beyond mere petty grievances and conflicts, both sides started this battle in full acceptance that the end came with another’s head. However, Icy soon saw that he never called out for this battle’s end… But rather, to simply end it. “Aphnafaleum. Temporary cancellation.”
Beneath the chimaera master’s robe, a blue silken belt slightly unravelled, just enough so that it no longer tightly bound his navel, and the gentle blue receded as a dull grey took its place. Within the grey silken belt, closed eyes appeared vertically across the whole length and slowly opened to reveal blood-red pupils.
All across the continent, or better yet, the world, Great sages and Sages suddenly realised that the one they searched for, now appeared under divinations. The gods, too, realised this instantly, and two major gods panicked when they realised what occurred. Those two, none other than Manus and Salvation, forcibly extended their sight beyond any cathedral to peer down on the forest where they found their target.
Icy, in fact, the whole group, stared at the change in their opponent. He was not just a Blossoming wizard, which they sealed, or a chimaera master without any chimaeras to use…
“While far from my own power, I quite like the title of progenitor. Come on then, I can feel it weakening by the second.” The fractured, torn arm which held the rapier, no longer tensed up with every movement, but instead lay it casually against his leg, seemingly casual but ready to react at any moment.
Five of them failed to glean any insights into what just happened. The powers granted by his demonised form made no sense, but Icy and Mala understood perfectly well what transpired. Except for both brown eyes changing to a dark red, the demon elf’s appearance underwent no modifications, something unnatural, as all demons possessed a bestial trait. All except for one group.
“Give him no time! Kill him NOW!” Mala reacted first, her experience and knowledge prioritised what mattered most.
But Icy found himself in a fair bit more surprise, and mumbled to himself, “They let a pure demon die for him? How did he do it?” Everyone else’s movements broke his stupor, and he jumped further away to safely cast more spells and feed the spirit more Origin Force.
However, whatever powers this demon elf gained clearly improved his swordplay to a ridiculous degree. Or rather, his senses rapidly evolved to the point where everything moved to his whims, he knew precisely where to move and how to do so in every little action. How to parry a sudden attack, how far to sidestep and perfectly dodge a strike, where to meet another for a maximised advantage.
His skill shot up to a degree close to a Starlite rank Swordmaster, but just through traded blows, they realised he acted purely off instinct bred by that bloodline.
Rebecca’s stealth lost all meaning, he clearly couldn’t sense her yet dodged the sudden strikes with a fraction of a second to react. One time, she instead lost this exchange, and a hand caught her wrist mid-way through an attack, crushing it to fine dust with a single action. Jaren’s arrows lost most of their effectiveness, the demon elf knew that a single one knocked away ruined its elemental combination. In a minor positive, Korridan and Raccelline still pressured him in melee combat, as well as any spells sent out by the three casting at a constant rate.
“Why the fuck are you lot just watching? You want him dead far more, so do SOMETHING!” Mala shouted out to an empty sky, one in which not a single voice or trace responded, but even Icy knew that they watched above. From this demon elf’s reveal, he refused the idea that they ridiculously kept their heads down and ignored such an appearance.
They waited. What for, Icy couldn’t possibly know.
His eyes flashed white as though ghostly wisps appeared within, but this effect disappeared as he carefully observed the demon elf progenitor, “He’s not actually any faster or stronger, the seal just loosened a bit more. Only the body seal too, the only one too weak for an unbreakable effect. Anyway, where is it? Hand. It. Over…”
There! His chance he asked for!
Time came to a slow crawl, only the progenitor’s blade moved with any real speed, a rotation granted it immense velocity. But this half-completed action left him vulnerable, albeit for barely a fraction of a second.
But that’s all the time Icy needed. Mana poured into his throat as two steps with the spirit launched him beside the demon elf. The blade actually turned in a strange manner, as though suddenly diverted towards Icy’s body, but still so slow that he dodged such a strike merely by walking in this accelerated moment. A spray of brown erupted all around, blocking every exit as the sticky coat already bonded.
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Fine thorns filled with poisons of multitude debilitations also filled his breath attack, but all seven of them doubted that those affected such a body. This crystal body replaced the many weaknesses of flesh and blood, very few gold or mithril tiers possess toxins which destroyed it.
Time returned to its usual flow, and things eased immensely. Without access to mana, the sticky substance remained without a method for removal, and even with strength at the very top of Mithril rank, he struggled to tear it off. Meanwhile, the sealed body was still easily slashed apart under the force of everyone’s enchanted weapons.
But slower did not mean useless, he still blocked sudden attacks from Rebecca and Raccelline with great focus. Even if it meant that Korridan’s giant blade knocked him around, or another elemental effect suddenly reduced his options, those two girls endangered his life far more than any other attacker.
Even Darak, a healer that many targeted first, mattered far less, as his few attacks barely tickled.
The rapier-user ignored another dagger wound through his right crystallised lung, and instead swung out to cut a wall of yellow light in half before it touched him. Mala’s spell collapsed, as it began to sink into the ground like a wave split by a single slash.
However, in anticipation of this, the two halved sides suddenly surged towards him once more. The reinvigorated magic came from two sides, impossible to dodge, and at most, he could cut apart just a single one…
On impulse, he cut apart the one on his right, but it hardly mattered.
As the wave hit, it wrapped around him like a living carpet without the smallest option for movement. Chains with a golden glow flew from Darak’s hands and bound the already wrapped opponent, a bind strong enough to now withstand his strength and restrict the sword’s movements.
“Right eye,” Icy called out, and Raccelline answered, her figure disappeared only to immediately reappear in front of the demon elf, the Auric spirit coated her blade in a thin layer of gold as her mana enhanced its edge. And the tip easily pierced his right eye, stabbing all the way through his crystalline brain. At best, it weakened his Mind palace a bit, hardly a thing to care about.
What they all worked for was something far more important.
Korridan stored his blade, his hands, one metal and the other flesh, tightly wrapped around the progenitor’s head, now unable to twist or rotate on top of one destroyed eye. Meanwhile, in the other, Icy saw its dark red tinge transform to a lighter shade, precisely what he needed.
He retrieved his third soul armament once more, the crystal dart which critically aided his final attack against the behemoth. The dart never fulfilled duties as a weapon, rather, he loved it as another object for utility.
Attached to the needle of pink crystal was an empty chamber. Cube-like with sides an inch long, and all its corners and edges curved around smoothly. But on its back, a nest of blue crystals sprouted out in a jagged fashion. Supplied with mana, the tips changed from a brilliant gem to a luminescent cluster, ready to fire out.
Icy’s eyes stared into the locked head in front, that single red eye quivered and shook in fear of the soul armament.
Perhaps it realised what approached?
He fired off the dart, speed so great that many silent Sages furrowed their brows, and it penetrated the single intact, demonic eye. The pink crystal dart slid through like butter. It sank in as deep as possible, stopped only by the crystal chamber’s contact with their eye.
But for the progenitor, his senses screamed to dodge at all costs, while the lone red eye burned fiercely to warn him of pure danger. An attempt to speak met with a dagger stuffed in his mouth, every other method to re-activate the relic now cut off by an utterly insane seal which no gold tier dragon reasonably possessed the mana to activate.
Icy’s dart activated, but no sound filled the forest.
A fearful, endangered progenitor spasmed recklessly within the tight bindings. No longer under control of his own body, the rapid and forced movements fractured and shattered limbs without care.
But no one dared let up, Mala and Darak used whatever focus remained to throw a soul recovery and soul protection spell onto Icy, respectively. Raccelline’s golden blade gathered mana on the end and released microscopic explosions to further grind down the broken brain. All because Icy now fought a brutal tug of war as the dart drained soul power and mana without a moment’s rest. While this armament lacked any innate ability like the pocket watch, its incredulous ability somehow did everything and nothing at the same time.
‘Extract and compress magical components from a target.’ To think he gained this one simply because he deeply desired a way to gather bloodlines from those far above him.
The Nexus played no part, just that immense and cautious greed for power.
But in this battle, the winning side only pulled ahead more by the second. From within that progenitor’s eye, drops of vibrant red dripped into the crystal chamber. A rose-red which bloomed with patterns of the thorny flower for every extracted drop. His struggles weakened as the chamber half-filled, and finally, the progenitor couldn’t even stand up on his own as the dart ended its collection and retired to Icy’s soul. However, within the demon elf’s eye, a tinge of red just barely remained.
Long white hair, which flowed down into his robes, suddenly shrivelled up and turned grey as its lustre vanished, some strands pulled off merely on touch. Fairly young skin aged greatly, spots appeared as well as dryness. It lacked wrinkles, but the loss of such a core part destroyed a massive chunk of his innate vitality.
Victory indeed seemed so close…
But his broken and strangely bent left arm flexed and pushed. Both sets of chains shattered instantly, and the yellow sheet wrapped around him tore like paper. Mana spewed from their injured foe, and the layer of sticky vanilla extract and caramel blew away without any resistance. While everyone took stances, exhausted.
They prepared for the next round of combat, nonetheless.
Except it never came.
“How did I learn so little in so much time? Why do you hold so many secrets? WHAT ARE YOU?!” He stared and pointed to the young dragon, and on his face was… Fear and horror. His mind tried, and failed, to comprehend the existence before him. What should have been a mere child when compared to a powerful and wise wizard like himself.
The pointed finger released a beam of mana so fast that Icy’s mind acted on instinct and summoned another soul armament, the liquid armour.
Fortunately, his beam continued in a straight line after release and struck his silvery metal plate. Scales beneath cracked slightly, and he wheezed from a surprisingly forceful hit. Normally, direct damage only occurred when an attack broke this armour completely. On sighting of this additional never-before-revealed ability, the already stricken demon elf actually took a step back. The ever-increasing number of Sages and Great sages who surrounded the battle just nodded at this sight, impressed that such a young dragon already possessed three soul armaments.
Even so, none of them moved forward. Fifty elven Great sages occupied the front and blocked others of their kind from a closer approach, let alone human Great sages whose numbers barely hit ten.
“What are you truly? Take off that childish facade and show your true form! Or maybe we can test how fast ice cream melts?” The face switched between fear, anger, and something like an arrogant smirk but filled with far too much of a psychotic stare.
The rapier vanished into an unknown dimensional storage, and at the same time, a dagger’s form appeared near his head. Ready to stab out that last eye completely. “Enough!” He spoke a single word even as the blade’s tip sat inches away.
But his less broken right arm shot out, its speed at a greater height than ever before, and his hand tightened as it reached his target. To catch a snake… They kept its head grasped securely, right?
Rebecca’s form lost its stealth as he held her by the neck, an immense strength within that blocked every breath. Her weapon fell, but she immediately pulled out a backup to cut off a finger or stab out that eye, but cuts on his flesh broke skin at most whilst a crude wall of mana blocked her dagger from reaching that final eye. She only evolved days ago, adapted to her heightened stealth and senses but not enough to cull the overconfidence such a boost brought about.
Now she suffered immensely for that decision. But others were still here, the battle was far from over!
At the same time, four arrows flew through the air, the released bowstring quieter than a breeze, yet a vortex of wind instantly diverted all four away. One of them intentionally redirected to Rebecca’s dagger-wielding hand which pried open his grip. Or cutely tried to, at least.
Mana gathered in the progenitor’s aged, tensed hand. And it took a single twist, just one. But its effect weighed so much more…
A crack broke the silence.
And a limp body dropped to the ground, soundless, like a leaf.
The half-dead progenitor looked down, through his chest, a sword cleanly penetrated his heart and poked out, yet a smile rose on his face. Before the blade retracted, the extended arm grabbed the tip and bent it. Raccelline’s figure behind his head faded away and now stood next to her group of humans with tears in her eyes.
“Yes. A final test will do,” his smile brightened, not from what lay beneath, but as his eye met with that rage-swept dragon.