Orisa was staring at the reason behind the thin flow of Beasts of the past few days. The twice-evolved panther had been feeding on them in the background, smart enough to hide and not give away its presence while eating its kin to grow.
"Mana Flow!"
An upgraded version of her original Mana Source spell began to replenish her reservoir, while Orisa was glaring at the Beast. It felt the flow of energy and started to charge another attack. Unlike the previous strikes, this one looked and felt stronger, giving Orisa chills. She, however, couldn't move away until something could be done for Kanai and decided to stay in cover behind the barrier.
Five seconds had passed before her foe discharged its strike. The twilight around them disappeared in a blinding flash followed by a thunderous crack, and the spell struck her shield. The protection disappeared for a moment after being hit, slowly recovering its structure while Orisa felt a horrendous gap grow inside her. More than one-third of her Mana pool evaporated after the charged strike. 'I can't take these empowered attacks directly on this type of shield,' she thought, frantically looking for a way out.
The panther started charging yet another lightning strike. Orisa could distinguish through her Mana sense a pattern in the Beast's energy flow, letting her know that it was another heavy-hitter. Despite her decision to not take these hits head-on, she was too scared to move or use a different type of cover. Even her concentrated state didn't help much, suggesting only one thing - kill it before it could kill them. Without dropping the shield, Orisa targeted the still aiming Beast and chanted:
"Hand of God!"
The spell struck true, but the panther was completely unfazed and didn't even flinch, continuing to build up its attack. Orisa bit her lip and shouted again:
"Blast Shell!" - "Blast Shell!"
Two deadly projectiles able to annihilate unevolved foes struck its face, but it ignored them altogether. A tiny burnt spot appeared on its fur, but aside from that, the attack did nothing again. The Beast's lightning strike, on the other hand, roared and ate another chunk of Orisa's Mana pool. Sweat appeared on her face.
After unloading the spell, the panther began to charge another attack of the same strength, and Orisa dared to do at least something in this dire situation. With no time for subtlety, she grabbed Kanai's body and launched him into the tunnel using her slowest Wall Throw. She hoped for him to land on one of the Beasts' corpses to soften the fall.
"Safe!"
Four Seals activated at the tip of her palm and produced the strongest wall she could manage around the tunnel's entrance, giving Kanai at least some level of protection. Orisa doubted that the panther would go after an unconscious victim, but she couldn't be too cautious when thinking about Mirai's life. Having absolutely no confidence in her physical ability to dodge a lightning strike, Orisa quickly chanted:
"Five-Seal Barrier!"
"Five-Seal Barrier!"
"Five-Seal Barrier!"
"Mana Flow!"
Three multi-layered barriers appeared in a row between her and the panther, and Orisa proceeded to replenish her resources. Another white flash announced the lightning strike that broke all three of her barriers, throwing Orisa away with the blastwave. While flying through the air, her mind didn't stop working despite the overall terror that began to squeeze her body. She decided to use this time wisely and chanted another spell:
"Force Armor!"
A greatly empowered version of her Thickness barrier covered Orisa's body. She smashed into a tree and fell to the ground, escaping major injuries due to body protection. Only a flash of pain blinded her for a moment. When she opened her eyes, the panther was already halfway through towards her, rushing at an enormous speed. 'So fast!' she thought, throwing her hands up:
"Block Wave!"
Four Blocks flew towards the panther, forcing it to perform an elegant leap high into the air. It landed on the same tree six meters above Orisa's head, sticking its claws into the trunk. Without any preparation, it immediately launched a swift but weak lightning strike at Orisa.
"Safe!"
The quickest barrier spell flew from her mouth barely in time to block the spell. However, the Beast gave her no time to catch a breath, lunging downward at her and the barrier. The fact that it rushed personally instead of launching another spell sent another wave of dread through Orisa, urging her to flee immediately:
"Launch!"
She threw herself away, witnessing how the panther shattered her empowered barrier, barely slowing down. It landed on the ground and left a noticeable dent under its feet, immediately aiming at Orisa with another quick lightning spell. The thunderstrike caught her in midair, breaking her Launch sphere into pieces. While she was falling, a desperate and bitter thought coursed through her mind: 'I am too slow. Too slow! All this tunnel grinding was for nothing!'
Orisa painfully crashed into the rocky hill, and another swift lightning struck her, throwing her body even further away. The Force Armor weakened the strike considerably, but several spots on her body were already charred, a blinding pain tormenting her and making her wriggle on the ground. Feeling another surge of Mana, Orisa gritted her teeth and muttered:
"Five-Seal Barrier!"
"Five-Seal Barrier!"
"Five-Seal Barrier!"
She didn't go for the Mana recovery spell this time. Instead, she took out three pills from her pocket and chewed them down immediately. A heavy lightning strike crashed through her barriers and threw her back again, but it was a small price to pay. During the flight, she also managed to charge the Regeneration Seal on her left glove, reminded herself to use it as often as possible.
Orisa landed on the rock and quickly got up just in time to see the panther rushing at her again. Switching her gears from defensive into offensive mode, Orisa dropped on one knee and pointed at the Beast:
"Shock Volley!" - "Shock Volley!"
She hoped that if not with damage, it would be possible to put the panther down with status effects. But what happened next Orisa couldn't describe other than in one simple word - unfair. Her stun darts flew towards the target, but mere moments before coming into contact with them, the panther turned into a ball of lightning and safely passed through the projectiles. It rushed past Orisa, turning corporeal again right behind her back. A swift slap of its paw sent Orisa flying like a baseball going for a home run. She felt her left shoulder crack as she rolled down the hill.
Her body stopped by the entrance to the tunnel where the fight had started less than one minute ago. The panther was on top of the hill again, looking down at Orisa and baring its teeth grimly. Orisa barely managed to get herself into a sitting position as her left hand went completely limp. The pain subsided because of the pills she took earlier. Three capsules at the same time were an overdose by a large margin and would later come back to make her suffer, but she might not live to see that moment either way, so it didn't matter.
For the first time since the training camp, Orisa felt genuinely scared. There were moments when she was afraid of something, but now a clear sense of dread and doom crippled her ability to think straight, and shackled her willpower.
Orisa absentmindedly covered herself with a barrier and took a look at her surroundings. Within the shield that she conjured lay two bags with cores that they had dropped earlier. She pulled out an evolved core from a smaller bag, spilling its contents around, and squeezed it tight with her right hand. It took some serious effort to get back on her trembling feet, but Orisa managed the feat and glared at the panther. Her foe was standing still, observing her movements indifferently as it apparently decided the battle was over. Resolving to go all out, she gritted her teeth and stubbornly shoveled the fear into the deepest corner of her mind.
"Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer, bitch," muttered Orisa and squeezed the evolved core even tighter. She stretched one of her Mana layers towards the crystal, sensing an enormous amount of energy inside. Compared to unevolved cores she had used before, the sensation was overwhelming. And scary. When her hand turned white and began to hurt, she bit her lip to clear her frantic thoughts and yelled a spell that she had practiced before, albeit with a common Mana cores:
"Fury!"
The crystal in her palm shattered loudly, and a hurricane of energy went directly into Orisa, modified by the intent of her spell. Her brain almost exploded from the information overload, and the world went blank. Her vision, hearing, and other senses shut down, leaving her alone in a world made of white. Since she felt absolutely nothing, Orisa couldn't even fathom whether she was standing on her feet or lying on the ground, or if there was any ground under her invisible feet at all.
An unknown amount of time had passed before she began to see shadows. In this warped white world, they were blue instead of black, with hints of other colors mixed here and there. She saw a massive shadow of cold blue in the distance, although it was hard to say how far away it was. Two more figures appeared nearby and in front of her, one looking like a massive dark-blue disk, another giving off a warm greenish-blue feeling.
Orisa thought of looking down, and her vision shifted in that direction to reveal her own color. Her figure was of the same dark-blue hue as the disk in front of her, solid and almost opaque. The puzzle assembled in her head. The shadow afar and above her was the panther's Mana flow, and these in front of here were Kanai's Mana and her Safe barrier.
Amidst the observation, Orisa finally noticed the movement of the Beast's shadow and saw how a swift lightning strike was born inside it. Since Orisa couldn't see or even feel her hands, she simply stretched her Mana layer forward and began to conjure Force Blocks. The process was mentally exhausting first and foremost due to the speed - everything moved too slow for Orisa to stay sane. She groaned and moaned internally, witnessing her Mana crawl outside, take the form of a Block, solidify it and move further to conjure another one. More than a minute had passed by her distorted sense of time before she conjured several Blocks, and the lightning finally stuck them, shattering six out of eight barriers.
With each passing second, however, the motions sped up. Either the effects began to wear down, which Orisa deemed unlikely, or her brain started to adapt to this new sensation and tried to return to a more familiar flow of time. One way or another, she was gradually returning to her usual self while also observing the Beast move towards her.
To Orisa in her empowered state, the panther looked like a cat on the night stroll, moving slowly and lazily. Orisa knew what to expect now and launched the Shock Volley at the Beast, who predictably turned into its lightning form and passed through the darts. As it was about to appear behind her back, Orisa constructed an empowered Palm Push Strike exactly where the Beast thought to materialize. The spell exploded and sent its target flying away.
While the foe was still mid-air, Orisa conjured several further empowered Blast Shells and launched them forward. A moment before the panther fell, she threw a chilling blast shell and another Hand of God. All these spells struck the panther almost simultaneously, crushing everything around the spot where it landed.
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The panther jumped back on its feet and shook its body. There were two small wounds on its back, and the Beast licked them after a short angry growl. To Orisa, its movements still looked comically slow, and a surge of hope warmed her fear-shackled soul. 'I can do it!'
The foe rushed towards her again, and Orisa met it with a barrage of empowered Blast Shells. Her six Mana layers worked like slaves, conjuring Seals and sending projectiles, and she even started to worry about her Mana pool again. The Beast was jumping left and right, dodging the shells. Despite its agility, Orisa's mind was now faster, allowing her to predict its movements and aim at these spots to catch it mid-jump. The panther was advancing regardless of the damage, and when it was about ten meters away from Orisa, she launched another Shock Volley.
Her enemy lunged at her, changing into the lightning from, and passed through the darts. When the electric ball was inches away from Orisa, she activated her right wrist blade. Her mind was sharp, unlike her body that moved slower than a dead snail. It took her hand an eternity to raise, but Orisa still managed to prepare the blade on time and plunged it into the Beast's materialized body. The moment it became completely corporeal, she also used the rest of her Mana layers to launch two empowered Palm Push Strikes.
The panther's body flew away, while Orisa was happily observing its blood on her hand. She turned into a stationary turret, launching numerous Blast and Chill Shells at the Beast's body.
A bright idea formed a blinding bulb over her head, and Orisa used the Flip spell under the Beast's motionless body, launching it back to Orisa. While the body was mid-air, she prepared the Mana blade to skewer it and finish the fight. Suddenly, the Beast came to life and spun, sending a quick lightning strike at Orisa. Now it was her time to roll away and cough in pain.
A piercing howl paralyzed Orisa, making her blood freeze. She looked up at the panther in time to witness its body glow blue, lightning arcs shooting in all directions. Its fur stood up, sparkling with power and life. Orisa was now looking at a completely intact Beast, no marks of previous combat visible anywhere on its frame. All of the might and joy she had felt after using the evolved core quickly drained away, replaced by dread and crippling fear once more.
The panther looked at her for a moment and moved forward, thrice quicker than before. Orisa rushed to conjure another Shock Volley, cursing at her Mana's almost lethargic speed in comparison to the Beast's newfound agility. 'I'm so slow again. How is this possible? How do you even fight these creatures!?' she panicked inwardly as her projectiles crawled towards the running panther.
The Beast could have easily dodged them, at least that was how Orisa saw it at that moment. Instead, it turned incorporeal again and suddenly split into three balls of lightning. The first moved to Orisa's right side, the second ran to the left, and the last flew into the air. 'Decoys!' she thought, trying to perceive the difference between their Mana flows. The fear slowed her mind once more.
It wasn't easy, but she managed to find a subtle detail in their patterns, looking at two identical copies and a slightly different origin. Her Mana moved out of her body to form barriers, but it was extremely slow, too slow to make enough protection in time for the upcoming attack. She managed to conjure only two shields when the copies disappeared, and their owner turned corporeal to her right. The panther's paw shattered both barriers and slapped Orisa's right arm, sending her into the woods again.
A crushing pain blinded Orisa, breaking her concentrated state and letting Enrage overtake her for a moment. Her left arm was completely limp. She could barely squeeze her right palm now as the hand was also broken in two places, causing even more pain with every movement despite the painkilling pills. Ignoring all that, Orisa jumped back on her feet and screamed at the top of her voice, overcome by rage and mad from fear:
"I DON'T NEED HANDS TO MURDER YOU, FUCKER!"
The shout helped her partially regain her composure, and the calming cold of concentration veiled her enraged mind, letting Orisa think straight again. She saw the Beast charge up the heavy lightning again. From their previous exchange, she understood that it couldn't move while preparing the spell, and muttered:
"You are so dead."
"Zap Seal!"
"Support Seal!"
"Attack Seal!"
"Blast Shell!"
The thrice empowered projectile flew forward like a bullet, accelerated by the Zap Seal. Orisa followed its path with a vengeful and triumphant gaze, grinning in mad excitement to see an immobile foe take an artillery strike equivalent into its face. 'Even if you are that strong, you can't come out of the attack like that intact!'
When the burning shell was a moment away from hitting its target, the panther stopped the preparation and casually swung its paw, slapping the shell. Orisa's projectile exploded on the spot, leaving the Beast unscathed.
"It was toying with me..." Orisa muttered in disbelief, paralyzed. The panther tricked her into thinking it couldn't move. Judging by its behavior, it didn't even need to intercept the Shell. The panther did it just to show how insignificant and futile Orisa's attempts were. The folly of her struggle crushed Orisa's spirit. "Impossible... Impossible..."
She looked at the Beast lunged at her from afar, flying through the air in its lightning form. Despair clutched her insides and squeezed her heart. She imagined the creature tearing her apart, ending this misery swiftly, but something jolted inside her in protest and yelled: 'The hell are you whining about, pussy!? Sober the fuck up already!'
Orisa snapped back to her senses using the remnants of her trampled willpower and conjured several Five-Seal Barriers. An instant before the Beast crushed the last of her shields, she used Launch to jump towards the tunnel.
She noticed after landing on the ground that her foe was already casting its heavy lightning strike, and proceeded to put more barriers between them:
"Five-Seal Barrier!"
"Five-Seal Barrier!"
"Five-Seal Barrier!"
"Five-Seal Barrier!"
"Mana Flow!"
Orisa was almost out of Mana and desperately needed a breather to resupply. The attack broke three Barriers and almost shattered the last. As if there was no need for it to rest for a single moment, the Beast began to charge the same spell again. Orisa broke her channeling and restored the walls, returning to her recovery process as well. They had gone back and forth twice more before another lightning strike suddenly went upward instead of its usual forward direction.
"Safe!" - "Safe!" - "Safe!" - "Safe!" - "Safe!"
Muttering like a madman, Orisa barely made in time to block the thunder strike, but the Beast was already in the process of casting another one. Using this time to gather some more Mana and grab several moments of rest, Orisa dropped on one knee. While focusing on the flow of her energy, she lowered her gaze and noticed the same bag of cores she grabbed earlier to use for the Fury spell. It was half-open, and its contents partially spilled outside. Her attention immediately snapped to a familiar form. It was the evolved core that Rita gave her on the day of their first parting, Orisa's first haul, and one of her most prized treasures. They now possessed several more evolved cores, but this one was so precious to her, because it was associated with her mentor, her generosity, wisdom, and her might. It gave Orisa a surge of hope.
Orisa grabbed the core with her barely functional right hand and squeezed it with all her might, causing another spike of horrible pain. 'Not letting go of you, no matter what.'
The panther released another lightning attack that crushed Orisa's barriers, and then lunged forward, splitting into three non-corporeal forms again. Orisa immediately knew which of them was original and prepared to guard since there was absolutely no chance for her to strike it with the Mana blade again. She knew her normal defense wouldn't block the attack, or the Beast would simply change its position and strike an unguarded spot if Orisa were to erect barriers beforehand. Aside from blocking the attack, she had another goal in mind as well, so she used a Status spell on one of the copies to understand its mechanics of mimicking Mana flow.
The panther reverted right above Orisa's head and swung its paw downward. Orisa used four Mana layers simultaneously to conjure and compress two empowered Force Blocks. After this modification, the blocks shrunk almost tenfold, turning book-sized but that much tougher and stronger. The first Block cracked and shattered under the mighty strike of the Beast, but the second one managed to stop the attack, making the foe rebound and take several jumps back.
After witnessing the effects of her empowered defense, Orisa got some of her lost confidence back. She proceeded to replenish her Mana while waiting for the panther's next move. It wasn't the time for going on the offensive yet.
It didn't take long for the panther to strike again - it swung its head, releasing three balls of lightning that slowly moved towards Orisa. Two spheres headed directly at her one after another, and the last one's aim was slightly off. Orisa conjured more barriers to block the projectiles and went back to her Mana regeneration. With a loud hissing, both spheres broke and dissipated after coming in contact with her walls, and the third ball slowly drifted by, at least two meters afar from Orisa.
She finally understood the trap when the panther suddenly dashed towards her. The last sphere blinked wildly and discharged a lightning strike at Orisa, electrocuting her. The moment her mind went blank from the pain, her foe appeared behind her and clawed her waist, sending Orisa into the forest once more. After at least thirty meters of flight, she loudly crashed into a tree, both its trunk and her waist cracking loudly.
It hurt so much that she thought she was going mad. But the pain went away almost immediately along with any sensation below her chest. She lay in a growing pool of her own blood gushing from a deep wound on her back, and her lower body was paralyzed. The left hand of hers broken and limp, and her right hand barely functional, still miraculously squeezing the crystal.
Her head was spinning, and corners of her vision grew darker. Despite losing the feelings of her lower body, the rest of it hurt like hell, her hands included. The painkilling pills were not designed to work with such damage. Tears slowly streamed from Orisa's eyes, leaving marks on her dirty face. Tears of pain and despair, of this feeling of impotence that the twice-evolved panther instilled deep into Orisa's heart.
Each of her moves and every type of defense was mercilessly crushed by the Beast that apparently didn't even use its full strength, pulling out new attacks every time Orisa tried to think creatively. How many more tricks were up its furry sleeves, she didn't care anymore. She wanted to close her eyes and rest for a bit. Maybe then she would be able to do something, but now her eyelids were too heavy and vision dark. Her wounds and fractures hurt so much, making it harder to sleep, so she closed her eyes and prepared to wait for what was coming.
With her vision shut, Orisa's Mana sense heightened and drew pictures of her surroundings inside her mind. She saw a panther slowly moving towards her, its Mana thinner but still strong, coursing through its body in a cold-blue color. Scrapes of dark-blue scattered all over the area, those were the remnants of her spells. And at the edge of the field, she felt another shadow of warm greenish-blue. A voice immediately popped up in Orisa's mind: 'If you feel yourself hitting up against your limit, remember for what cause you clench your fists! Remember why you started down this path, and let that memory carry you beyond your limit.'
Orisa didn't need to open up her eyes, for she saw everything she needed to see with her Mana sense. She conjured three different supporting Seals and launched the Fog of War thrice. The cover was thick and powerful, but Orisa knew better than to rely on it completely. Its goal was to mess with the panther's senses just enough to fool it. She wasn't afraid of missing the enemy since the fog was made of her own dark-blue Mana, and she wouldn't miss anything inside it.
After releasing the smokescreen, Orisa used the Blood Blockade and proceeded to conjure multiple barriers everywhere around her in a chaotic manner. More and more various shields and walls appeared nearby, creating a massive blob of Mana and energy, mixing with the fog as well. While waiting for the panther to come closer, Orisa channeled the Mana Flow to replenish her resources, and one thought coursed through her mind: 'I'm never losing Mirai again.'
The Beast slowly and carefully crawled towards its victim, sensing a Mana clot amidst the trees. It didn't want to waste any more Mana on attacks and decided to finish the play in melee, resupplying its reserves with the fresh and powerful Mana of the prey.
Orisa felt the panther close the distance and began to gather her Mana into one tight knot in front of her, supplying it with two specific intents. The clump grew thicker and darker with each passing moment, eating away the remnants of her Mana pool. But Orisa knew how much energy she needed for the final step, so it didn't bother her in the slightest.
When the Beast entered the fog, it sensed a huge chunk of Mana rapidly moving in the opposite direction. Her prey had finally decided to run, but it was too late to escape the hunter. In one swift motion, the panther lunged forward and caught the thick and juicy mass of Mana, sinking its fangs right into it.
Orisa watched the Beast's shadow jump at her cloned Mana. The sphere exploded, activating its second intent to turn Mana around it into a freezing torrent. The panther stopped in its tracks, chilling bite and shock shackling its body for a moment.
Pushing the scrapes of her willpower, Orisa clenched her teeth from the pain and raised her right hand with the evolved core tightly clutched in her fist. One of her Mana layers was connected to it. The remaining five layers she pushed outside to conjure the Seals:
A-ssault Seal. Penetrating power increased.
S-upport Seal. Mana potency increased.
U-tility Seal. Stored effects multiplied.
R-otary Seal. Speed and penetrating power further increased.
A-ttack Seal. Power increased.
"ASURA STRIKE!"
The core cracked, releasing a torrent of Mana that rushed through the Seals, following Orisa's intent and direction.
The forest in front of her cried.
The ground in front of her cried.
The air in front of her cried.
Her mind blacked out for a second, losing to immense stress. A moment later, she finally opened her eyes.
The forest to her right and left was burning.
The ground in front of her had melted and turned into an ash-filled cavern hundreds of meters long.
The air was distorted as if from immense heat.
And in front of her hanging in the air was a semi-transparent pale silhouette. Despite its lack of substance and weak presence, it was still clearly visible in the twilight, colored in yellowish-red from the burning forest. The silhouette lingered for several more moments, and then Orisa heard a lifeless voice:
"On the achievement of slaying a foe of two evolutions alone and without a Lantern, I commend you, Orihara Satoru."