For a moment, Stas had begun to worry that his display had attracted too much attention, but then the ground to his right shuddered from a powerful impact.
A mighty water tornado began swirling at an increasing speed right in the center of their formation, from which predatory-looking tentacles stretched out, swaying. Amid this natural disaster, the ancient yokai stood, exuding contempt for all around her.
Stas irritably looked away. He didn't even need to see her expression to know that condescension was permanently etched on her face.
Minoru had also shown her power, letting the enemy warmasters know that they must reckon with her presence.
The energy of the water technique she created instantly filled the surrounding air with moisture and an odd freshness, as if a storm had just passed.
And despite the power of the technique Stas had displayed, the force emitted by the water vortex was clearly superior.
However, Ordyntsev was not against it in the slightest. He had no desire to fight all the supreme warmasters at once.
Kenta arrived last. Since he couldn't rely on the power of techniques, he had to look for another way out.
The inability to continue being a full-fledged warmaster had hit Mari's father hard in the past. And even though he tried not to show it, it wasn't difficult for anyone with eyes to see.
Nevertheless, Kenta would not have become who he was if he had simply given up in the face of fate's blows.
Acknowledging and accepting his condition, he threw himself into training his body, honing his martial arts, and enhancing his muscles with prana.
In other words, he was forced to focus entirely on the art of close combat.
When someone with his level of strength sets such a goal, the result is truly monstrous.
In an instant, Kenta appeared on the right flank, but instead of just halting, Mari's father channeled all his gathered momentum into the ground, anchoring himself with prana.
As a result, the surrounding soil exploded in all directions, leaving him in a small crater.
It wasn't as impressive as his colleagues' displays, but it was just as deadly. The impulse put into such a strike could easily turn a human body into bloody dust.
There was also movement within the enemy ranks.
The ordinary warmasters had fallen far behind, leaving only four supreme ones in front of them.
And here, Stas couldn't help wondering how it had come to be that they were soon to fight with four invincible war gods of this world.
If Ordyntsev had been overly paranoid, he might have thought they were here because of him. Nevertheless, while his self-esteem was huge, he wasn't an idiot.
His significance within the scale of the Great Clan wasn't so great as to warrant such a complex operation and the summoning of such powerful forces just for him.
In the Sumada Clan, there were dozens of supremes whose life stories would have hundreds of assassins lining up for a chance at their blood. Such people had numerous tales, often even more bloody and grand than anything Ordyntsev had ever experienced in his life.
Oh no, the matter was much simpler.
These remnants of the Alliance had come here with one specific goal – to destroy the healers of the Sumada Clan, as well as their patients.
Ordyntsev remembered well the start of his acquaintance with this world, namely the extermination of all healers of the Sansa Clan, which led to them having to recruit him.
Being much weaker than full-fledged warmasters, the healers of this world were an easy target for fighters.
Kill the wounded now, and in the future, you won't have to fight them on equal terms – simple math of total war.
However, it was unwise to be distracted before the upcoming battle, as now it was the enemies' turn to show off.
From one of the warmasters, a genuine beam of red light shot up, spreading writhing psychic energy offshoots in all directions.
Supreme Rangiku - the very phrase could make one feel ill.
It was hard to even imagine the sheer power concealed within him at this moment. This supreme was a sort of living nuclear bomb, a boiling cauldron of pain and pleasure with a thoroughly screwed-up mind.
Next, without waiting long, the supreme Tokitoru introduced himself. The tall warmaster with a short grayish beard abruptly stopped moving, but he did not come to a halt.
As if someone had struck the ground four times with the sharpest knife, a ten-meter-sized flying cube of earth rose up, with the deadly serious Tokitoru standing right on it.
Meanwhile, every side of the cube was covered with seals buzzing from an abundance of energies. And every couple of seconds, new seals joined the existing ones.
'Creating and powering seals at a distance – one of the truly great arts, accessible only to such specialized clans.'
The third and fourth, two female supremes, showed something new. In the world of prana users, combined techniques weren't so common, as they required a profound understanding and synchronization of feelings and thoughts.
Yet, something similar was now being demonstrated by the twins of the Raigachi Clan.
The bluish prana-devouring liquid that emerged from them covered their bodies with two petals and hid inside a slowly forming "water" dragon.
The resulting magical construct turned out to be twice the size of Stas's snake and almost approached the size of the giant he had met years ago in the mountains.
'It's morphin' time. Dragonzord, Mastodon, and Pterodactyl, we choose you!' despite the situation, Ordyntsev chuckled inwardly as he involuntarily remembered something from his distant past[1].
In a flash, the blue dragon leaped towards Minoru's swirling water, whereas Tokitoru's cube slowly flew towards the grim Kenta, standing calmly with his sword lowered.
The ordinary warmasters all rushed away, intending to regroup far from the looming skirmish. Right here, they could only die senselessly.
'So that's who I've got,' Ordyntsev narrowed his serpentine eyes, observing Rangiku, who began to accelerate towards him, glowing in every shade of red. 'Well, at least it's not Tokitoru. Dealing with their barriers is real torture.'
"Shiro Sumada! My name is Nofu Rangiku," shouted the supreme, clad in heavy spiked armor, his mad eyes flashing from a conical headgear. "Feel and rejoice in the majestic pain!"
Not waiting for his opponent's sentence to end, the earthling's asp also came into motion, ramming its massive body into any obstacle in its path and accelerating ever faster.
The words of the pain-loving warmaster did not diverge from his deeds.
While ordinary Rangiku shot relatively small red spheres, the supreme unleashed a true wave of energy that engulfed the entire surrounding world and inexorably approached Stas's snake.
'Submerge!' At that very second, the man sank through several layers of prana-reinforced stone and found himself in an odd stone berth that tightly fixed his body, protecting him from stresses and impacts. 'Fire! Reinforcement!'
The ether fire, burning outside the asp's body, was also inside it.
Here, Stas repeated the amazing trick he had pulled off when developing ordinary devouring snakes. Namely, he created a rudimentary artificial intelligence that was supposed to react to various threats while controlling the serpent's body.
But unlike ordinary snakes, this giant hid within itself its own brimming energy source. The isolated and stabilized natural-etheric sphere diligently drew energy from the environment, powering the gigantic body.
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The most delightful thing in this situation was that nothing prevented Ordyntsev from creating another such construct, but this time, to power himself.
The downside was that the man still had to spend spiritual energy, but now on two spheres.
So now the asp's energy source was releasing a constant flow of ether, spreading throughout the reptile's elongated body, but especially concentrating at the head, which seemed to be covered with purple armor flowing straight from the fiery eye sockets.
With a surge, a stream of concentrated ether burst from the asp's open maw, acting no worse than acid.
Meeting the crimson glow of Rangiku's attack, it instantly destabilized it, leading to the only possible outcome.
The ether and red energy mixed together, creating a dazzlingly glowing sphere that turned into an expanding sea of fire.
EXPLOSION!
The resulting shockwave blew away the few pieces of debris that hadn't burnt in the explosion's flames.
Out of the black cloud burst a charred but swiftly regenerating serpent, coiling its rings for a new lunge.
Meanwhile, Stas was desperately searching for his opponent hidden in the swirling dust.
'From the side!' Levi's desperate warning was almost too late when a figure glowing with crimson appeared at a monstrous speed from the right side of the serpent's head and launched a barrage of explosive spheres in its direction.
Only at the last second did Stas manage to raise the tail of his puppet between himself and the series of explosions, taking the hit.
Even so, he felt the hottest flames burning through the sturdiest cubic meters of his golem's body.
Nevertheless, with his attack, the supreme gave himself away. Moreover, he ended up in such an unfavorable position.
The protective rings parted a little, just enough for a barrage of violet energy beams, unleashed from the serpent's slightly ajar jaws, to slip through the gap.
Stas did not attempt to hit the super-fast warmaster with one powerful attack; instead, he decided to try his luck with many smaller ones.
And it seemed his plan was successful. Despite all its dodges and speed, the figure glowing with crimson light could not avoid all the attacks.
Suddenly, one of the beams hit the man, frozen in an awkward pose.
A powerful explosion scattered earth, raising another dust cloud, but something still troubled Stas.
Something that gnawed at his mind on the edge of consciousness.
Supreme warmasters didn't die so easily. Yet his victory was just... and the movements were somewhat strange...
'It was a clone,' the terrible realization came like the brightest flash: 'I didn't kill him!'
That was the moment the supreme, as if out of nowhere, chose to appear right above Stas, clutching a large, burning sphere in his hand.
The worst part was that he was right above the head of the asp, and the earthling had no time to cover himself.
The only thing he could still do in this situation was to gather all the available ether on the forehead, hoping to somehow survive this attack.
And then, obeying some inner inspiration, Stas decisively left the safety of his golem, choosing the exit point on the opposite side of the serpent's head, under its lower jaw.
And it turned out he made the right decision.
From this battle, it became clear that the supreme Rangiku was capable of delicately controlling his prana at a distance, forming explosive decoys from it. The red energy covering him successfully concealed his real body, making it impossible to discern the original from the clone.
As soon as the burning sphere touched the asp's forehead, causing a massive explosion and draining the etheric shields, another Rangiku popped out from below, like a jack-in-the-box.
If all the others had been clones, this one, unlike them, was real. In his hands, he held a narrow rod emanating swirling prana, which he thrust with a forceful swing through the joint of the stone serpent's scales.
And although the locals didn't even suspect the concept of a shaped charge, his technique worked exactly like that, sending forward a molten, high-speed stream of stone particles.
Had Stas not left his berth, he would have been instantly pulverized by the supreme's pinpoint attack. What more is there to say when the remnants of the jet even came out on the other side, making the head of the serpent look something like a whale?
But to the misfortune of the Alliance warrior, at the very moment he was inserting the "rod," Ordyntsev was emerging from the scales just a little to the side of him.
The almost beheaded asp's body began to fall slowly, as if the air had turned to jelly, while Ordyntsev's ether-glowing spear struck Nofu on the side.
Explosion!
Sensing trouble, the supreme managed to detonate his prana at the point of impact.
Yes, he himself was hurt by such a maneuver, but at least the partially deflected blow from Stas only sliced through abdominal muscles and part of the intestines rather than plunging deep into the body.
Using the momentum from the impact, Rangiku performed a turn and hit Stas with a kick, flinging him directly into the stone scales, shattering them into numerous small pieces.
A flash of red prana, and the supreme applied his hand with a hiss to the wound, cauterizing it and at least somewhat stopping the profuse bleeding. In the same instant, he had to sharply dodge to the side, as the converging burning violet coils of the asp almost crushed him in their tight embrace.
However, this did not prevent him from blocking a spear thrust from Ordyntsev, who tried to deliver a covert blow, swimming through the body of his golem.
On his part, the supreme managed to create two more crimson clones, which rushed at the battered asp.
The golem had lost almost all of its upper jaw, and numerous deep wounds covered its body, but the animated magic chunk of stone didn't care about its injuries.
Nofu tried to escape the giant serpent's cordial embrace but was hindered by Ordyntsev and the shifting golem.
Stas pressed with all his might, combining snakes emerging from the golem's body, stone techniques, and simply unimaginable speed.
Rangiku responded with barrages of powerful explosions, dispersing all techniques flying at him, and a speed that was in no way inferior, as well as a much more sophisticated mastery of close combat.
Thus, failing to keep track of the opponent's weapon, Ordyntsev suddenly shuddered with pain when the blade glowing with destructive energy pierced his lung and emerged outside, also shattering a couple of ribs on the left side.
The pain was hellish, but Stas managed to stay conscious.
'And now is the moment to test this technique. Though I hoped to go without it for longer.'
"Ether technique. Emergency Revival!" mumbled Stas, hiding from the approaching Rangiku behind new and new coils of his golem.
The body flared up with heat, and at the site of injury, it felt like a whole colony of Asian hornets had crawled in.
However, whatever Stas felt, his creation was working perfectly well!
And it did so successfully that the advancing warmaster even slowed down, staring with all his eyes as the torn and scorched wound, peeking through the broken armor, began to close right before his eyes, emitting a purple mist into the air.
There flashed contracting and expanding lungs, ribs, muscles, and finally, whole skin.
Stas hit his chest with a powerful blow and, with a directed exhalation, spat out the accumulated internal blood and shrugged his shoulders.
"It means nothing," grimaced Nofu, looking into the mocking eyes of the Serpent. "I just have to kill you in such a way that not a drop of your blood is left!"
"Try it," exhaled Ordyntsev, launching into the next attack. His entire body swiftly grew covered with stone, yet very deadly snakes.
Each spear thrust was accompanied by a non-stop barrage of treacherous snake strikes from the most unexpected angles.
Stas did not hesitate to use even a smaller version of destructive beams, firing them from his free hand.
Additionally, from time to time, he did the same from the mouths of the snakes.
Meanwhile, the fight between the giant golem and the new Rangiku clones was not abating. More and more explosions disfigured the asp's body, but it, too, managed to explode the clones of Nofu attacking it. Amidst the chaos of snake coils, explosions, shards of stone and steel, the two supremes circled and clashed.
Whatever the supreme of the Alliance thought of him at the start of the fight, he now took the Serpent extremely seriously.
Nofu had never seen such a terrifying ability to regenerate in a living person. No matter what wounds covered the opposing Sumada, they soon healed effortlessly.
While his own wounds were not about to disappear and with each second of the fight they were making themselves felt more and more.
Considering the speeds at which both opponents acted, even a second could mean a lot.
Yet their fight continued and continued.
As if that wasn't enough, Nofu had been a sensor since childhood. This talent had helped him many times and saved him from death.
Now, it was playing a cruel joke on him. No matter how hard the supreme peered, to his horror, he didn't see that his enemy's prana was running out at all.
No, it certainly decreased after particularly costly techniques, but then it began to rapidly replenish.
Moreover, in Nofu's opinion, the reserve was frankly small for the level of strength that his opponent demonstrated, but at the same time, the speed of recovery was truly monstrous.
Rangiku was afraid to even imagine how many elixirs or pills this mad Sumada had eaten to activate such regeneration.
On the other hand, one could assume that if he did have such regeneration, he might not be afraid of a lethal dose of enhancing drugs.
Considering all of that, the supreme began to realize that they clearly misallocated their forces, assigning against this scoundrel only himself.
After all, while the damned Sumada knew no fatigue, Nofu had to become more and more cautious.
The cauterized wound had long reopened, and by now, he had lost a lot of blood, causing a slight weakness in his head, and panic was beginning to take over his senses, which was a real disaster.
Since the lineage of their clan was closely tied to emotions, he had to maintain a precise balance.
However, he could no longer do that now, as thoughts and feelings raced through his head like mad rats in a burning house.
When the explosive prana he created refused to detonate, he realized it was time to make a run for it, but the tightening stone coils of the giant golem crushed that hope to pieces.
And then a violet flash engulfed the hesitating, weary supreme, plunging his world into night.
Exhausted, Stas, with hands trembling from adrenaline, awkwardly unsealed the restraining shackles, almost dropping them down.
The barely breathing body he caught was "carefully" bound by the strongest stone and adorned with the best restraining seals.
Stas had no intention of giving his future captive even a shadow of a chance to escape.
Despite trying to appear invincible in front of Rangiku, in reality, Ordyntsev was close to his limit.
There wasn't much spiritual energy left, which would mean the end of the natural-etheric sphere and the "endless" prana.
Fortunately, the supreme from the Alliance grew tired earlier.
Still, it was too early to relax. His golem was barely holding together on a wing and a prayer. Most of the tail had vanished in the explosions, and what remained was so battered that it was pitiful to even look at.
Nevertheless, the asp proudly withstood all the hits by the supreme techniques, which was its intended purpose.
Ordyntsev quickly looked around to check how his people were doing and was pleased with what he saw.
Raigachi's blue dragon was no longer as big as before, systematically retreating under the watery blows of an unleashed Minoru.
Tokitoru also had to descend from his flying platform and almost completely encase himself in a barrier, around which Kenta circled like a shark sensing blood.
Stas planned to catch his breath for a moment and then help them finish the fight.
Thin lips twisted into a triumphant smile.
He had just, for the first time, defeated a supreme warmaster one-on-one, and he intended to remember this day for all his immortal life.
Because this feeling was truly sweet.
[1] Translator's note: this is a reference to "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers."