Hey, Noelle, you can use [Polygoonic Armament] right?

“Yeah, but not for long.”

I made a very intense blue dragon and shot it toward her.

Catch!

Noelle expected this, took the hit with [Polygoonic armament] and got imbued with the flames.

“Hehe time to turn this bitch into ash!”

I looked by as the fight quickly became extremely unfair. Noelle was unstoppable, and more of my opponents went to try and save Red hair. Giana was also layering buffs onto Noelle by dancing and singing.

A guy got turned into charcoal who thought he could sneak up on Giana.

“Focus on that guy! This bitch can't keep up this fire god mode indefinitely! We don’t know what that guy can do! He’s not using magic, but still interacting with our spirit magic!” Red hair chick was ordering everyone around, but not being much of a help herself.

“How come Noelle can hit us in our spirit mantle?” The stalkers started throwing theories around.

I’m assuming that she found a way to match spirits with normal physical objects at the moment of impact. There were times when her attacks didn't do anything and it was quite inconsistent, which makes me think she is trying to get the timing right.

I thought that only spirits could deal with spirits, but maybe that was wrong, 7t are quite overpowered though.

I slipped Noelle’s target, which made it easier for her to land her timing. And small explosions blew opponents away, which would hinder her. At the same time, I made the fire dragons keep Red hair's sister busy.

They got some reinforcements because they already had 5 dead, oh 6, Noelle just blew a guy’s head off. She seemed to be getting close to dropping her [Polygoonic armament] so I removed the flames off her.

“This is our chance! Kill that bitch! And don't forget that asshole!”

Giana started singing another song. I noticed something interesting, the skills that should have been unavailable or didn’t have any of their conditions met, were available. I let my clones double up on the stuff they prepared, but this also meant that Noelle could use [Polygoonic armament] again.

Catch!

Some idiot tried to block it, but he just got fried. Noelle got a slightly weaker attack, but I don’t think that mattered.

“Haha! Who is dying now, bitch! Take a seven-tailed crystal wolf's specialty with some added flair! [Volcano stomp]”

Hey, hey Noelle, are you trying to kill us all?!

Noelle stomped, and the whole area got wide cracks, and the blue fire she was imbued with burst out from the cracks. It was basically an [Earthquake] with more oomph and releasing whatever she was imbued with. The fire then crystallized. Anything that got hit by the fire was stuck in my crystallized flames. I have no clue what the properties of these are.

What’s this? I knocked on a crystal.

“Don’t touch that! Oh right, stupid high fire resistance, it’s just your fire but crystallized, anyone stuck in it keeps burning inside it.” The captives were in agonizing pain, couldn't move and were getting consumed by heat.

Sounds like something you don’t want to get hit by.

“Jenna! This is bad, we found the identity of that guy! He is a B-rank adventurer that goes by ‘Silver Torrent’, he is very skilled but… the information here seems off, it says he’s a water user…” A random guy said who was holding a piece of paper.

Red head scoffed. “So what? He is a B-rank adventurer, we have A-rank and S-rank equivalents in our extraction team. The 5 elders that joined us are SS-rank.”

“Well, the thing is he got that name without participating in the grand tournament, also nobody has ever seen his skill ‘Silver Torrent’ which is odd. Also, another source suggests that he has a similar skill with the sword as Leefa.”

“That is absurd, if that was the case he would use the sword, but this all doesn't matter because he can’t win.”

Ooh very interesting, you guys aren't completely unprepared. Let me match your information, then.

My stance shifted and shifted to [Water dragon dance] causing all the fire brought forth by Dragonvein to turn into water. I also got Nilah out in sword form. The water dragons danced on the ambient leyline flow, and I took a stance to use a [Wintersbite] quickdraw. My blade sang, a cold flash went out, and half the reinforcements got cut vertically with deadly precision. The cut froze their bodies solid.

How about this?

Noelle’s [Polygoonic armament] fell off and I doused her with water, causing a steam explosion which sent those around her flying.

“Hey, Agnis, that was a cool combo!” Noelle created earth pillars for those that got blown away, to crash into, and locked them into that pillar.

She walked toward red hair chick and started to punch her with her bare fists. Noelle is brutal but it seems she wanted to get the most out of beating that red hair chick up.

One guy sent a flare up into the sky to indicate an emergency.

I swapped Giana, who was still dancing and singing, toward me to make her avoid a nasty looking lightning crow. I wasn’t sure about what type of bird this is. Not only that, but I couldn’t remember if crows having 3 legs, was a thing.

Giana started throwing attacks around but they seemed to almost do negative damage.

You are not healing them with those attacks, are you? They look like they do negative damage.

“How rude! I might not do much damage but I’m certainly not healing them!”

Good we don’t want you healing enemies.

“I’m not healing them!” Giana used [Frozen ground] and made some opponents slip.

That's more like it!

I froze their pants to the floor, and they couldn't move. The crow kept harassing me, but I kept him at bay by swirling the water dragons around me. At this point, Giana mastered copying my movements and giving them a spin, which would probably work great with leyline energy.she might be compatible with Dragonvein as she’s a dancer but teaching her will be troublesome and take way too long.

The crow discharged a wave of red lightning without any warning. Giana and Noelle were fine because they are tanky. I got hit, and it took a layer off my [Frozen skin], the assessment of my Elgards eyes told me that I would've been in trouble if I got hit by that.

“Agnis, are you ok?”

Yeah, don’t worry, I don't need healing.

Gianna still put a [Regenerate] on me.

The strange crow slanted on a thin [Lightning Pillar] it had made and started to talk in a high-pitched voice. “I see that you are struggling to secure the healer spirit fox, Caw! We will be joining you soon, we will get rid of this shadow clone first. Caw!”

One of my shadow clones had stepped in during its reconnaissance because these assholes tried to enslave an earth spirit.

“Shadow clones? But who…” This stalker couldn’t finish his sentence as Noelle punched him.

Right, I guess the fox is out of the bag.

I went into stealth and tried to assassinate redhead chick’s sister, but some guy next to her appeared to be having a spirit that could vaguely detect me in stealth. So, I ended up assassinating him instead, but this put everyone on alert.

It would be nice if I could stop encountering opponents that could see through stealth. First the fairies and now these assholes…

“Who are you?” red hair sister asked.

Me? Just a random guy named Agnis.

“Doesn't ring a bell.”

Good.

I smirked and impaled her with an [Ice spike]. I shifted my stance and started [Drowning pulse].

Giana really put her voice in the next song and all my water moves got a boost. It wasn't leyline energy, but her dancing created some sort of water barrier around her and some bulky guy, which reminds me of Boulder, was going at the barrier, but it didn't seem like he would ever break it. He wasn’t a pushover, either, the barrier was just extremely sturdy. I slowly started to flood the area, which fed Giana’s barrier.

Noelle didn’t seem too keen on this, so she raised the surrounding area to stay dry and keep punching red-haired chick. Red hair chick's face was even uglier than before the punches, although… I’m not sure, maybe this was an improvement.

Things went well so far, but then ‘they’ appeared. The rest of the people that were in the group trying to kill Giana. We had been trapped in a triple encirclement and the members of the innermost circle joined the fight.

This was obviously bad news as even if we somehow escaped or defeated this group, there were still 2 encirclements left.

A guy blocked Noelle’s punch and sent her flying while breaking red hair chick out of the pillar.

The people that arrived could be categorized in 3 groups; the trash, the ones that could put up a fight and some seriously strong members. Those were probably the elders they were talking about.

An elder with a tattoo on his face looked around. “We need to have a serious evaluation about our exams, 2 idols and a B- rank adventurer shouldn't be able to deal this much damage to our best fighters.”

If these are your best fighters you guys have a serious problem yeah.

I used a [Nine sided Snowflake] quick draw and one shot some of the weak reinforcements surrounding the guy that tried to catch Noelle off guard.

“Impressive, Ricardo, are you sure this guy is a B-rank?” Tattoo elder asked.

“Well, the information on this guy seems incomplete, it said that he is a water user, but I've seen him use lightning, shadow and fire and well they weren’t all magic.” I sent a slash at these elders to gauge how strong they were. 3 evaded and 2 got hit but blocked it.

So, 3 have the speed to evade this. Those that blocked the slash, started to freeze over.

“Very troublesome.” I snapped my finger and Nilah turned it into [Frostbite].

I’ll be taking those arms.

Nilah in sword form can do more than just cut and make copies, it’s just that few opponents are tanky enough to live beyond my cutting attacks. It’s time to capitalize on her frost nature.

I threw 12 frost daggers at the 2 elders that got hit, used [Blindside] and used a slow slash. This attack doesn't deal much damage, but the shockwave would cause the [Frostbite] to react and start freezing the arms of these elders.

The lightning crow flew at me which swiftly got cut in 2 with my sword imbued in frost magic, completely absorbing it and redirecting the energy to the [Frostbite].

“Shit if this goes on, we will lose our arms!” One elder counteracted the spreading [Frostbite] but the other elder failed to do so, which became my primary target.

Nilah drained mana out of this elder using the [Frostbite] causing the [Frostbite] to spread. He tried to defend, but this sapped the magic and spirit energy from all the defensive skills he had up. I snapped my fingers and used [Coldsnap] and his now fully frozen arm shattered.

“Aaagh!”

I suppose that puts a dent in your offensive capabilities, now Nilah has way more abilities that I never get to try out, who’s next?

I evaded various attacks and send [Water Blades] out every time I evaded. The One-armed elder was infuriated and queued up a skill that seemed to be an ultimate skill. It wasn’t easy to figure out based on the magic circle that appeared behind him, but some rune clusters suggested something big.

The other elders were backing off, reinforcing my suspicion. He grew twice his size and became relatively transparent. The wind picked up and I had to ensure I wouldn't get blown away by creating ankle weights out of water. I was still upholding [Drowning Pulse] so everything was happening on the surface of water.

Some of the stalkers were fighting Noelle on the dry patch she had made. Everyone else was standing on water; they could use basic water magic or by other means.

One-armed elder dashed at me imbued with wind. He was fast but not fast enough. I evaded and countered, trying to take his other arm, which was covered by a layer of whirling wind. The other elders prepared something. I had no clue what, but I wouldn't let them, so I used [Surface flip].

Because this elder was covered in wind, which is lighter than water, he got ejected out of the water and while he was still confused, I hit him with a [Winter Solstice] cut, and cut him into narrow frozen ribbons which caused frost projectiles to burst out of him, flying off and hopefully hitting any bystanders. It hit nothing as I flipped everyone within range below the water’s surface.

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Hmm that was a silly blunder.

That was an easy kill because I caught him off guard, dealing with the other 4 will be way harder. But everyone was quite wet now because they got submerged.

Lightning crow guy couldn't exert his full power, but I could. I used [Accel Step] and shifted my stance to [Lightning Dragon Dance] and started throwing blue, purple, and red colored dragons around.

Giana added insult to injury by causing everyone that was wet to get a [Slow] status. This means they were cc’ed, which means that my lightning dragons would do even more damage.

The whole area became an electrified death zone where nothing could freely move. I activated the magic circle my clones set up first, which amplified lightning-based attacks, and the lightning attacks were cooking the whole area. Giana started a dance that boosted my lightning damage to add insult into injury.

During all this, I took some hits because the elders marked me as a serious threat. I was down to 1 [Frozen skin] layer. One of the elders seemed to have an answer against continuous cc spam, but he could only share it with 2 others so one of the elders would be stuck in the cc chain while the other 3 could move freely.

I wondered if any of these people bothered with support spirits, if so, I would be seriously screwed, but so far there were only offensive and defensive spirits.

And then I saw something that made me very mad. Some guy that was fighting Noelle made objects act like water and after blowing bubbles at it, they would turn into water and memories of Cee Horze flashed by.

This guy is toast.

I gripped Nilah, which was in my sheathe, and readied for a slash. A lot of focus went into it as It was important that I didn't hit Noelle with this.

“Watch out! He’s going for a big skill!” The elders picked up on this, but there’s nothing they can do about it.

I concentrated, figured out how to slash and went for it. It took away my last [Frozen skin] stack, but sacrifices had to be made.

I drew my sword and used the [Eternal Winter] version of my quirck draw. Everything in front of me that was at chest height, besides Noelle, got cleanly cut in 2. The whole area in front of me froze over and most of the weaker guys froze solid if they were in contact with water.

The captured spirits get released when these guys die. A bit of spirit trauma, but nothing charging at a power spot or rest couldn't fix. I couldn't be sure but the spirit that got released looked like Cee Horze but a slightly different, did he get stronger or is it his cousin?

I wanted to confirm, but these elders and their lackeys were very annoying. They focused on keeping me busy instead of defeating me. I agreed with their assessment, but it was annoying nonetheless. I used another [Surface flip] to get them off me and started another form of [Drowning Pulse].

[Drowning Pule], normally forms a large body of water. I hardly used it for what it was meant for; drowning opponents. So I started to actively drown opponents by keeping them below the surface. I was multitasking because I was still sneaking movements in to keep up [Lightning dragon dance] but I would have to drop this soon.

Giana made some weird homing ice torpedoes that would freeze on a hit. 0 damage but it was of a great help.

I shifted to a more potent version of [Drowning Pulse], by adding something special. The water became more turbulent and slowly but surely a whirlpool formed. I attached some hollow frost balls with cold, dense water to them to make them sink better. None of these elders were used to fighting underwater, and I would abuse that fact.

One could use water skills but fighting underwater is a different beast. Everything was way slower underwater.

Lightning crow guy stopped caring and started throwing attacks at me. They stung, but I kept enough distance to limit the damage. I could completely prevent this, as this needed to come as a surprise. I needed to get rid of this guy that could negate cc and this would go easier if they felt like they had the upper hand.

The magic runes of the skill he continued using suggested that he could negate effects directly brought forth by magic and leyline energy, but not those caused by physics.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t use my tails for more speed and maneuverability, but this was good enough. I had taken quite some damage from the lightning attacks, but so did they and their demeanor suggested that they thought they had the situation under control, perfect.

I got behind my target and hit him with [Vacuum Punch].

Although not as powerful as I hoped, this guy got temporarily knocked out. My fingers and hands were starting to become a bit numb from all the lightning attacks I took, and would have to make a decisive blow before I lost my ability to control the leylines.

My focus slipped, I took a punch to the gut and got sent flying upwards out of the water.

Giana fixed me up, but it had something to say about it. I paid no heed and dealt with the attacks flying at me.

I could freeze this water and the elders would be the only ones to survive or I could continue attempting to drown them and zap them and potentially take out an elder. My mana and stamina were fine, but I had the feeling that I had already hit a wall.

A huge hand made out of lightning appeared out of the water and tried to grab me. I was about to get hit when some odd crystalline armor appeared around me. Noelle winked at me and made an odd gesture.

I shifted my focus toward Giana for a translation. “What she means is that she can use her [Polygoonic Armament] again!”

Oh, Catch!

I shifted to [Lightning Dragon Dance] and sent a huge red lightning dragon at Noelle. She was a bit beat up, which meant these guys were quite strong.

Giana was trying to keep the creeps off her and her barrier had minor cracks in them.

Suddenly, the water started to boil and Giana and I backed off.

I wondered that, if I left them alone, would they kill themselves and self-destruct? One guy electrocuted everyone, and another one was boiling the water and turning everything into a soup.

A large figure burst out of the water, ejecting steam everywhere. It looked like an enormous fire golem.

“Call for more reinforcements, this guy isn't necessarily strong, but he does know how to manage crowds and annoy us!” Tattoo Elder said, who appeared to be the leader of this group.

Some random guy used some funny magic that pulled me toward him, and it broke my movements. He grabbed me and attempted to throw me at the fire golem, but my weight threw him off so he fell over trying to balance against my weight and threw me down into the water. “Kshiv, something is off with this guy, he hardly has any weight!”

The lightning elder responded. “So that’s how he moves so fast! Some form of gravity magic! Where is Huffard?”

Some guy pointed at another guy that was getting his ass kicked by Noelle. She was in a way better shape than she was the last time I saw her.

Giana, our healer, was on top of this and it was unlikely these stalkers would get anywhere if they didn’t do anything about her. A strange water veil appeared around me as I stared for a bit longer than I should have.

“This will heal you for slightly more damage than you get hit for, it only works 3 times and doesn't protect you from getting killed in one shot, please be careful…” Giana turned around and started singing louder. Water vapor condensed and started to bombard the fire golem.

Again, 0 damage, but the golem was cooling off.

I’m impressed, Giana had nailed down being useful while doing 0 damage. Even if she couldn't heal, she would be very useful with her limited move set.

She made a huge [Waterball] that rolled over the surface and just ran over opponents. Not a lot of damage, but it created chaos. Some people that got hit got pushed down into the boiling and electrified water.

The golem was throwing fire at Noelle and me for a while now. I ignored the fire flying at me and neutralized those flying at Noelle. She noticed, stomped and put this cool crystalline armor on me even though she knows I won't take much damage from it.

Ooh how cool! I don’t need it though.

She frowned at me and gestured to Giana. “I’m not doing it for you, I'm doing it for her.”

I looked at Giana, who didn't seem to like that I let myself get hit even though I know it won’t hurt me.

Right, I guess I have to take that into account.

The lightning elder started to attack Giana and cracked her shield. She endured a [Thunder Charge], [Lightning Beam] and a [Teranova Blast] before I could get to her and get her out of that situation.

Those attacks seemed like they would do a lot of damage, are you ok?

“It’s not that bad, but I feel better now.”

She genuinely seemed fine, that attack would have sent me packing and deplete my lives by 1 or 2. How tanky is this chick? We are the same race, why is there so much difference? It’s as if she put all her skill points into defense and hit points on character creation.

I noticed reinforcements coming from far, those must be from the second encirclement ring. The longer this battle went on, the more I understood why they put so much importance on catching Giana.

Say, why don't you go tailed mode on them, they already know you’re one might as well go ham.

“I have all my tails as you can see on my ears, but I don’t know how to do that, I also need to gain full control over my last 2 tails.”

Oof, I guess then that wouldn't be smart yeah, and I guess without someone to teach you or the environment forcing you to it’s hard to get that all done.

“Can you? Can you show me one day?” She said while coming closer.

If we survive this, then I will. One day…

I tried to keep a healthy distance, which failed spectacularly as some assholes were bombarding us, forcing me to hide behind her barriers.

“Don’t say that! We will get out of this, somehow…”

Bad news, they have more people coming, I think I made a mistake and should have stuck to the escape plan.

I dove underwater and pulled Giana with me to dodge fire golem shenanigans. Giana formed a bubble and used 3 of her tails to move in the water.

Your tails, look a bit odd actually, what type are you?

“Well, my mother is a golden nine-tailed spirit fox, so I assume I’m one too but my fur has been getting lighter lately. I inspected her tails, and it seemed like it was getting gray, wait not gray it was turning silver.

Right, Giana, we have an even larger problem. You might be a silver fox like me. You’re either a good mix between gold and silver, or what sometimes happens is your tail was just your hair color but is now turning into its real color. My mother said I was born with black hair and my tail was black too, but it turned silver after a year.

“I’m like you?” She said happily.

That’s the part you decided to listen to?

I decided that this boiling water served its purpose, turned it into steam and blasted it at the golem. I activated another magic circle my clones set up, and it returned the last lightning attack it got hit with.

Giana clung on to me and Zen Agnis tried to leave again. “So, what is bad about being a silver fox?”

Ugh, this is difficult. Nothing inherently bad, but this means your fur is in high demand and that you have an affinity for frost magic, which you don’t seem to have discovered yet. Especially, frost magic rubs gods the wrong way.

“So that’s why the gods kept harassing you guys…”

Yeah, abyss magic falls also under the magic that rubs them the wrong way so Greg also has crosshairs on him.

“I’m sorry, I didn't know...”

That’s fine, it's good that you know it now rather than when it’s too late. Now as you know frost magic is a pain in the ass to deal with.

I froze the fire golem with frost magic and disconnected from the leyline currents after putting all my active skills to dance on the ambient leyline currents.

I used the energy I got from it to drop a boosted [Flare] on the opposing team andI felt a sharp pain in my shoulder shortly after.

“Agnis!”

An elder got a laser off and pierced my shoulder. Giana started healing me, but the follow-up attack came at us.

Ugh, I hate lasers.

I blocked the laser with a [Frost wall]. I wanted to use foxfire to get rid of the energy I had absorbed, but this might be a bad idea, so I sent the energy to Nilah. Giana noticed that my body temperature had dropped, put her hands on my back and gave me a buff that invigorated me and raised my temperature.

“Just focus on blocking that attack, I will make sure you don’t turn into a popsicle.”

I didn’t expect her to react this way, she must have switched into serious mode. I guess I should go into serious mode too.

Wait I can’t go 9t mode. I can’t go into serious mode… pseudo serious it is, then.

I used [Lightning Umbrella] and hung upside down from it. It sent out lightning attacks in all direction while spinning and slowly ascending. I hung upside down from it and shot [Frost Arrows] with Windglass tips at my targets. All went well until more reinforcements arrived and the situation changed. I swapped Noelle with a water droplet, grabbed Giana with wires, and ran away.

“Don’t let him get away!” Tattoo elder shouted.

I activated the last 2 magic circles, which were 2 huge lightning cages.

“Still can’t teleport?”

Nope, We have to find out which person is responsible for this.

We got some distance in and it was time to send these idols to safety.

Ok, I’ll cover you 2 in illusions, you keep running while I find out who is responsible for the teleport block, then I’ll come back and teleport us away.

“Absolutely not!”

Ugh, why?

Giana made a pained face. “Because this sounds like a situation where you would die!”

Do you have any better suggestions?

“We go with you!”

So, the same thing we did just now, which didn't work…

“Hmm, Giana he has a point, if you say it like that it doesn't sound like a good idea…”

“I'm not letting him go to die!”

Hey! Who says I will die!

Giana pointed at the stalkers. “Those strong-looking reinforcements!”

I disagree!

“I’d rather us die together than you going out there and dying alone!”

I expected this, so I had already made an illusion prior, and they were talking to my illusion while I went back. I took extra precautions with these 2 and put down a very strong 7-layered illusion.

Both of them have great intuition. If I mess up against these stalkers I just die, if I mess up with them, I’ll never hear the end of it, it’s instantly clear what's preferable.

Zen Agnis can finally take a break and I can get a bit more serious in addressing these stalkers.