Mammon and Winston kept shooting one magical projectile after the other, covering kilometers of the cloudy sky in chaotic mana and spewing magical energies. Fractured space, gargantuan bolts of lightning, tornadoes, alongside natural disasters that could destroy the whole school in a matter of seconds if let lose.
But, in the next second, an incredibly powerful and fearsome aura burst out of Anna’s body. The egg surrounding her curled-up body slowly cracked open as a torrent of mana and spirits swirled around her as if she were the center of a raging storm.
Winston hastily backed away upon sensing this change while Mammon ‘grinned’ widely. Inside his body, if one had a vision that could see through skin, they’d see an amalgamation of hand-like limbs doing strange motions, with symbols and sigils releasing a dense array of arcane knowledge that would leave any normal mage in a dazed state.
Anna opened her eyes lightly, which had gone from a normal brown to a colorful jewel of color. They shimmered and gleamed with an alluring luster as if it were a priceless gem that would capture the hearts of mortal men with a simple gaze.
Her long auburn hair flared up and slowly turned into a pristine snow-white color, while her skin turned pale-white as if lacking any blood underneath. At a closer inspection, they’d even find that the upper layer of skin had a translucent quality, allowing one to have a clearer look at the veins underneath.
Her aura rapidly rose, from a pitiful quasi-Grand Mage to a monstrous peak-arch level human. It didn’t stop there, however, as the ambient mana of the world itself rushed into her soul as if forcefully elevating her status to a whole new level.
Mammon appeared calm as usual, with one hand behind his back and another adjusting the glasses on his face. He wore a menacing ‘smile’ at the moment as his pitch-black face warped and morphed into a cartoonish grin.
“Tyr…” Mammon’s body was soon covered in a layer of black carapace-like armor covered in dense red lines glowing with an arcane light. “You’re finally here.”
His eyes glowed red and the sensation of a dragon’s might descended into reality. The air visibly quaked from his mere presence while the spirits surrounding his body, restricting his every movement, ran away from fear.
Anna gazed calmly at Mammon’s ghastly figure and said, “Mammon Heist.”
Her voice appeared warped like a stack of voices echoing all at once, but there was a bias to the feminity of her voice, unlike that of the world spirit. Then, with her as the epicenter, a burst of white light expanded out in a large sphere, surpassing the original range of the mystical barrier that covered the entire school and creating a more structural ‘fictional’ area.
Inside this place, as far as Mammon could tell, even if he went all out in his current peak state, he wouldn’t be able to land a dent in actual reality. The same could be said for Anna, whose aura had ascended far beyond the level of an Arch-level being, and going closer to the level of the true upper limit of this world.
A demigod.
An arch-level entity can also be said to be a kingdom-level being, whose power can bring terror to an entire kingdom with relative ease, which is the standard placed by apex predators like the dragons. At their power level, they’re like walking natural disasters, with each having the capability to raise up a storm and cause earthquakes.
On the other hand, a demigod is a level above that, an empire-level threat if you will. Of course, that’s simply a generalization of their strength and the gap between demigods is big.
For example, Pope Fernandez, the head of the holy church in the third century, was known for his ability to control an army of summons and was basically a one-man military. With that strength of his, he could easily decimate empires, but technically couldn’t do it on his own without his summons.
On the other hand, Empress Dravil was a fearsome knight who was also a legendary Dragon Rider who had made a pact with the ancient dragon of legends, Ruvru the Solar Flare. With her dubiously strong flame that can burn as hot as thousands of degrees, along with the innate strength of her dragon companion, she could destroy entire empires all on her own, and even take on multiple armies with relative ease.
Although her tyrannical rule eventually led to her assassination by unknown groups at that time, her strength had etched her name in the history of the world, and would forever be remembered as a legendary knight of burning flames.
At a glance, Mammon could already tell her raw power was at the literal peak of demigods, with just a step away from reaching the realm of actual gods. Well, that’s relative to the power system of this world, but that’s still decently strong in this universe.
Even though the gap between him and hers had just widened like the vast gulf of the abyss, he remained as cool as a cucumber. Eons of life experience had shaped him to be the person he is today, and fighting against a puny ant like her isn’t that scary compared to the true horrors that lie beyond the veil of ignorance that most would never escape from.
As his mind processed the next few steps he’d have to take, Anna raised her arm, and reality bent to her will. The terrifying power of millions of spirits followed her call and the world morphed to her desire.
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In a split second, pillars of light burst out of the land and sky, left and right, forward and back. No matter where Mammon looked, the burning hot light covered everything in his surroundings and didn’t give him any space to escape.
Winston gritted his teeth and flew through the sky hundreds of meters per second, appearing like a shadowy blur to the naked eye as a sonic boom constantly followed in his wake. He phased through one light beam after another as he tried to survive through this onslaught of attacks.
Mammon, on the other hand, snorted and clapped his hands. Space bent to his whim as the light rays went around his body.
Anna immediately reacted to his counter to her attack by controlling the spirits of space, fixing the spatial fabrics around Mammon, but his armor then changed into a deep green color and tanked through all of her light attacks like it was nothing.
In fact, it seemed that he even absorbed the rays of light as the dark green lines surrounding his green-colored armor hummed vibrantly with newfound power. The next moment, antlers sprouted off his head as the illusory image of a gargantuan deer with leaves and grass sprouting off its body erupted behind him.
The green deer then absorbed every ray of light in the sky into its body while Mammon’s armor rapidly changed form once more. This time, only his arms change, turning from a shade of green to a white, fragmented, shattered-glass-like appearance.
Spider silk spewed out of the tips of his nails as he weaved his hands rapidly. A web of silk then formed all around Anna’s figure as she found time coming to a surprising halt.
By combining the ability of a Verdant Forest Deer’s light absorption and a Temporal Silk Spider’s time-stopping web, he managed to land a demigod-level blow that even affected Anna’s unstoppable might.
This didn’t do a lot for long though, as the spirits of time proactively helped her get out of the sticky situation she found herself in. As soon as time resumed around her, her whole body immediately disintegrated into dust as Mammon released the full might of his alchemy magic.
Looking closely, he inspected his liquid-like soul that pulsated with a colorful rainbow-colored light. Then, by going through the memories of Anna’s previous interaction with the world spirit, he thought, Philosopher’s Stone… Philosopher’s Soul… The power of a world spirit artificially recreated through the act of plagiarism and stealing!
Now this is more like it! Rob laughed mockingly as more time passed.
Then, sure enough, just like he had expected, time looped back as dust gathered to form blood, flesh, veins, and bones. Eventually, her whole body was recreated like brand new, and the surrounding spirits transmitted their memories to Anna to remind her of what happened in a near instant.
Anna immediately encased herself in a domain of mystical force, interrupting any form of alchemy magic on her body and surrounding area. It’s like she had taken full control of her body, making her the sole controller of her state.
This did astound Mammon as he praised positively, “Smart move. Astounding growth from the protagonist indeed!”
“So…” Anna coughed lightly, modulating her voice to normal. “You know.”
“Of course, I know.” Mammon laughed as his figure disappeared from where he stood, reappearing right beside Winston who was basically missing half of his body.
“I assume the same could be said for Winston?” Anna asked calmly.
“Yep…” Winston mumbled as his body rapidly changed from a cellular level, causing his healing factor to explosively increase and allowing his lower half to regrow back to full. “I’ve known it all along.”
“…” Anna remained silent for a moment before she decided to ask. “Who are you guys exactly?”
“Us?” Mammon chuckled and a pair of uncanny eyes popped out of his pitch-black skin, glowing brightly with a golden light. “You can call us… Golden Clover.”
“Golden Clover…” Anna mumbled the name as her mind connected with all of the world’s free-flowing information in an instant, trying to extrapolate any bits where the word Golden Clover was ever mentioned, but unsurprisingly, the only bit she saw was the one that had passed just a second ago, and it only came from hers.
The bit didn’t even reveal that Mammon had just uttered the words Golden Clover even though he just did right in front of her.
“What do you guys want?” Anna asked with an authoritative tone as her aura explosively burst out in an attempt to intimidate the duo.
“What do we want?” Winston laughed hysterically and wiped away a tear from his eye. “What we want is pretty simple, really.”
“And that is?” Anna asked while waving her hand slightly, causing the clouds to swirl around them as thunder rumbled in the distance.
“Should we tell her?” Winston asked and turned to look at Mammon.
“Yeah, we can tell her…” Mammon chuckled and swept back his nonexistent hair. “We’re so cool anyways that she wouldn’t understand a thing.”
“Well, you said so!” Winston coughed to clear his throat as Anna felt her sixth sense screaming loudly at her to run away at the moment, but the thought of finally nibbling at the truth caused her to keep still and listen, but not before taking a few extra measures to make sure no funny business will happen.
“Our goal is…” Winston paused. “The super mysterious goal our organization wants to achieve. A goal that directly goes against the interest of this entire world and even kinds of supports the descent of the Demon Lord… An incredibly evil goal that the world is directly going against us…”
“Our goal is basically stealing everything this world has to offer!” Winston raised his arms to the side, while his eyes gleamed with a deep golden luster.
“Stealing…” Anna mumbled confusedly. “Everything?”
“Yes, everything,” Winston confirmed and nodded his head, while Mammon snapped his fingers playfully.
“And stealing everything… will start with me becoming a Demigod just like you!”
In an instant, like a dam breaking open, the fictional reality they were in shattered like broken glass as an overwhelming amount of information flooded the world spirit’s mind at this instant, which caused a severe headache for Anna.
Like a strike of lightning coming from nowhere, information about the weird arrays that had popped up all over the world, arrays with terrifying levels of mana on par with those of Demigod-level mages or ancient dragons, ran through both the girl and the spirit’s mind.
Then, with a gleeful grin, Mammon shouted loudly like an anime character screaming out with their heart and soul their finishing move — “ACTIVATE! BILLION SOUL AND SPIRIT SEIZING PHILOSOPHER’S ARRAY!”
Stretching out his arms to the sky, a burst of golden light formed a gargantuan pillar that pierced through the clouds and across the entire school, the entire kingdom, and on and on for hundreds of meters.
Then, with a maniacal grin, Mammon looked straight into Anna’s eyes and murmured, “Greed… Cataclysm.”