Book 3. Chapter 22
“One less.” Part 2
[The skill Dark Mana Creation has leveled up to level 26!]
Twelve of blasts of darkness were expelled from Kalysto’s body, creating a wave of violent wind that destroyed some of the surrounding terrain.
But Mhiralla simply walked away from her, completely intact.
“Ahhh!” Kalysto ran after the goddess as she screamed, filled with rage. But seeing that she couldn’t catch up with her despite running as fast as her stats would allow, she decided to change tactics. “Dark Mana Manipulation!” Then, she started to imitate what Persephone had done and four huge black tentacles emerged from her shadow.
[The skill Dark Mana Manipulation has leveled up to level 39!]
Kalysto ignored the notification window that appeared to her left.
“Dark Mana Manipulation!” She conjured again, creating a black crystal short sword in her right hand, just as the demon king had taught her to do, using the dark mana residue she had created upon returning from her mental world.
Though unlike her training, this time it was much easier and faster for her to conjure the weapon. It even felt much more familiar than when she conjured the ice daggers.
[The skill Dark Mana Manipulation has leveled up to level 40!]
Now that she was no longer officially a wizard, she could feel how the mana expenditure with each spell cost more than double, while the effort and level of concentration she had to maintain while conjuring also doubled.
However, at that moment, she didn’t care.
All she cared about was tearing apart the woman who had taken her father from her.
Just fucking die! She thought, pure rage ruling every part of being, but despite her continued efforts to harm Mhiralla, she not only avoided each of her attacks with excessive ease but also kept well away from Kalysto, preventing her from any chance of getting close to her and retrying to absorb her power as the goddess slashed her tentacles again and again.
“Is that all you have?” Mhiralla scoffed, noting the sudden difference in the power of Kalysto’s attack, comparing it to the previous dark mana attacks, unaware that it had not been Kalysto who had performed them.
But the saintess did not desist, and continued creating more dark mana tentacles and attacking the goddess, looking for an opening in her defense.
Though nothing she was doing seemed to do any good.
Damn it!
[The skill Dark Mana Creation has leveled up to level 27!]
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“Then do it!” replied Kalysto as she launched a new counterattack.
<<...I need you to get rid of that annoying white glow, it weakens me.>> Persephone admitted reluctantly, not wanting to have to admit it out loud, but she had run out of options after seeing that even when Kalysto was making all her effort, it wasn’t enough to kill the annoying goddess.
... Curious. In my case, it seems to me that the opposite is true. She thought, noticing how all her dark mana related attacks were much more powerful and resisted better the powerful light of Mhiralla or her continuous attacks when the soft white glow surrounded her body.
As the case the part of the tentacles that were closer to her body and uncrystallized.
Maybe when I level up my dark mana manipulation skill, I’ll be able to better control the crystallization of the tips. She thought, half annoyed that the most she could crystallize was a short sword.
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“You’re right, I don’t understand how she thinks she’s so pretty when Alice is so much prettier than her,” Kalysto muttered under his breath, not realizing that Persephone had heard her while dodging another attack from the goddess’ annoying light spear.
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Kalysto didn’t deign to give her an answer, which annoyed Persephone.
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“Less talk and more action!” she scolded her, at the same time as she continued to attack and block Mhiralla’s attacks, much to the annoyance of the goddess who was beginning to lose what little patience she had. At the same time the soft white glow disappeared from the body of the saintess, allowing Persephone to take full control of the left side of her body and from her left hand sprouted ten two-meter-long tentacles, which transformed into crystals from the middle to the tips, adding to the attack against the goddess, whose smile of superiority was erased on the spot. At the same time Kalysto conjured: “Creation of dark Mana!” a wave of dark Mana spread across the ground at least ten meters around her, coming to where the goddess was. “Dark Mana Manipulation!” Kalysto took advantage of the black mist almost one meter high to create dark mana stakes and bury them in the bare feet of the goddess and limit her field of action while Persephone continued with her attack.
But Mhiralla threw the spear she had been using against the mist, causing the place where the tip of the spear touched the ground coated with dark mana to evaporate the darkness Kalysto had created.
Hundreds of spears of light followed the first one, vanishing almost all the conjured dark mana, and it was Kalysto’s turn to retreat.
“Fire creation!” She tried, trying to search the meager repertoire of skills she had left for something to hurt her with.
But it wasn’t enough.
She barely managed to burn half of her face.
[Warning! User has lost 10% HP.]
Shit! Get the fuck off. I don’t have time for that stupid curse! She thought with annoyance, but as she closed the window that had appeared right under her nose, a gigantic jet of light almost a meter wide smashed into her body, disintegrating half of her left arm.
Regeneration! Regeneration! Regeneration! She rushed to conjure, but the goddess in front of her didn’t give her time to finish. She barely managed to pull a bottle of holy water from her inventory and take a drink.
“How dare you harm my beautiful face! You are nothing but an insect that my parents created to kill their boredom!” Mhiralla shouted, as she created another gigantic spear of light, at the same time that the glow surrounding her body increased in size and intensity. “Die at once! “She added, hurling the spear directly at Kalysto’s head.
The fairy champion barely had time to transform into a pile of shadows when the tip of the spear pierced the spot where her head had been less than half a second before.
“Do you really think you can stop me?” mocked the blonde. “I’ve been going easy on you for fun, but it’s too risky to leave you alive...!” Then Mhiralla stretched her arms upwards and immediately the sky began to shatter as if it were made of glass, leaving black spaces in its place that began to appear both in the sky and at the edges of the sub-dimension they were in. “Die like the insignificant insect you are!” The black spaces within the cracks that formed in the walls of the sub-dimension began to suck in everything around them, including the heavy walls of what was left of the castle along with the huge collection of corpses.
At that moment, two violet-colored windows appeared before Kalysto, and her blood ran cold as her face paled at the sight of what was written on it.
[...I expected so much more from you Kalysto, but you have disappointed me.]
[Mission failed!
Penalty: loss of contract.]
Just like the sky, the violet-colored notification windows shattered as if they were made of glass that began to fall as if they were small pieces of broken glass that vanished into thin air before touching the ground, along with the collection of notification windows to her left that Kalysto had forgotten to close.
“Wait! Nooooo!” the ex-saintess shouted in desperation, stretching what little she had managed to regenerate from her left arm that was still missing fingers, at the same time as the golden tattoo on her wrist vanished as if it had never existed.
And behind the broken window in front of her, a gigantic jet of white light, almost a meter wide, attacked her. Kalysto didn’t even have enough time to flee and her left arm was completely disintegrated.
So was her left leg.
Pain exploded throughout her body, robbing her of air. At the same time she noticed blood gushing from her new wounds along with several tentacles of darkness.
[The passive skill Pain Resistance has been activated.]
A strong dizziness made her lose her balance as Persephone used tentacles of darkness to replace the missing limbs, causing her to stumble rather than fall to the ground as Kalysto’s consciousness began to fade.
“Regeneration! Regeneration!”She began to conjure, but she could feel that she would soon run out of mana at the same time she felt weaker and weaker as Mhiralla mocked her situation and continued to destroy the sub-dimension she had worked so long to create.
“You will die along with my hiding place!” she gloated, at the same time as a pair of black tentacles from Persephone along with another from Kalysto pierced the eye that the ex-saintess had burned earlier. “You filthy rat!” she roared, but in that instant, gigantic pieces of the sky began to fall to the ground and the violent wind that sucked everything inside the sub-dimension became stronger, making Mhiralla’s body transform into a ball of light that suddenly disappeared without a trace.
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****
Her head seemed about to explode from immense pain and her consciousness went back and forth for what seemed like hours, switching between bouts of deep pain to small moments of utter weakness.
Where the hell am I? she thought, but could only see immense darkness all around her.
“Persephone?” she asked, but no one answered her. “Let me out Persephone!” She insisted, suddenly recognizing the place where she was trapped.
<<...No>> replied Persephone, who had taken possession of the brunette’s body again.
“Are you out of your mind? Let me out! I need to get stronger and finish that damned goddess!” Kalysto shouted, rage serving as fuel for her to sit in the middle of the vast emptiness. “Are you planning to interfere with my goal?”
<<...No>> She muttered, but Kalysto could feel a sea of emotions fluttering near the seal where Persephone was contained.
And she began to distrust her.
<<...You don’t understand... only he has the power to help us get rid of her.>>