With the Second Princess of the Lenore royal family having fallen from the sky and into the dunes below, Marilyn was now faced with a dire problem.
Emotional distress detected, perception has been slowed down to allow thought processes to run.
The Eyes of Heaven slowed her perception to the point of near freezing, allowing her time to think over this newfound dilemma.
It was akin to a trolley problem in actuality, to either aid one person and sacrifice the cohesiveness of the rest of the group, or sacrificing that one person to aid the others. Marilyn did not know any of these people personally, she just met them several hours ago afterall, but still…why did she have this feeling within her?
Why did she innately want to choose to save the princess, instead of aiding the other four?
Was it because of an innate kindness? Or was it because Cecilia was the actual first person she was acquainted here?
She's facing quite the problem with no real effective solution here. Because if she did indeed choose this path, she would risk having the creatures she had diverted aiming for the rest of the group. But alas…
“I have to save her!”
Her heart chose to be selfish, her mind had made up its choice, choosing one person above the rest. She’ll apologise profusely for this afterwards, if they do fail.
Increasing perception speed to normal.
The Eyes of Heaven acted once more, and immediately she was caught off-guard. She was too deep in her thoughts to properly plan an action that would’ve made her more capable of defending.
“Hrk-!”
The three dragon heads that she had been observing, surrounded by its army, had ushered a triple lightning breath towards her. Marilyn’s barrier soon shattered and she was knocked out of the sky.
Her body was on the verge of turning to ashes by that strike, but her immortality kept her alive and regenerating. Still, she crash landed, not that far from the princess herself, just a few leaps and bounds away.
“Marilyn!!” And Adrian was the one to notice it first.
For him, this was the worst case scenario, for those two were the main factors of success in this trial of theirs. And since both are now compromised, he had to think of something new.
A sudden attack from behind he would manage to fend off, using his sword to slice the flying beast’s head off as he pivoted, kicking its corpse away afterwards. He noticed the crystal had been budged, but none of them really had the necessary criterias to try and pull it out fast, unless...
“Elysia! Can you take over and get the crystal?! We’ll cover for you!”
He voiced his request onto her, who had recently sliced open three griffons at once with her claws. Her head turned towards her, and with a confident smile and a nod she proceeded with the command, running towards the middle head to now force the crystal out herself.
“We’re really facing quite the battle here, aren't we?” Vincent said, as Adrian took Elysia's prior position.
He shot more bullets onto his targets, killing more and more of these larger-than-elephant griffon phantoms. And in response to his question, Adrian nodded with a bit of a worried smile.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
————————
Back on the ground below, covered in bruises and sand basically everywhere on her clothes, Cecilia managed to wake herself up with a gasp. She noticed her current surroundings almost immediately, with her sword by her side still.
She stood up using the sword as aid, its blade stabbed into the ground. She looked upwards towards the sky as the dragon flew away from her, its army orbiting it as sounds of battle could be heard.
There was little chance for her to actually get back in time.
“I failed, huh…?” She said to herself.
This was her first time actually getting wounded in battle. For all her life, in training, despite how tough they may be she achieved victory basically unscathed. But this trial, it was certainly harsh.
The academy was not joking when it came to that, but it almost made her laugh.
“No matter, I’ll try to find another way.” Despite the little chance of catching up, she would try to fly up there again. But—
“Huh-?”
She noticed something in the corner of her eye. A pitch black cloaked figure of sorts. Red eyes, its form vague, almost abstract, yet still humanoid. Her attention had been caught in full towards them.
She presented her guard, her estoc sword pointed at the enemy, her stance like a wasp that's about to sting. And with that, a stand off would begin.
“Who…are you?” She said towards the figure. There's little chance that this thing was part of the trial she guessed, but if it was, her question was still relevant.
The figure merely stood there, as if it did not comprehend her words. But it certainly did, the individual just did not bother.
“-!?”
Cecilia was immediately caught by surprise, for in a flash it closed its distance against her, presenting their own blade towards her.
The assailant’s sword was parried just in time, and the princess was forced to fall back to regain the initiative. She would try to counter attack with several strikes of her own, but they're all deflected.
As they went, the speed of their duel went from something that sound could not intrude into, to the a point where even light itself was having a hard time catching up. Only distorted blurs of light appearing in multiple places at once could only be seen for an average person viewing this.
But from their perspective, keeping the theory of relativity in mind, they're not exactly moving that fast in comparison.
The pressure was on her, and the assailant, no, assassin’s strikes were becoming too aggressive and overwhelming. She had been keeping up in the brief moment of their duel increasing in speed, but she knew that this could not last forever.
Unfortunately for her however, she was given no quarter to actually counterattack, forced into the defence.
She tried to conjure fire into her blade to gain the advantage again, to try and catch them off guard.
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“No-!”
But it was for naught, the flaming blade was grabbed, extinguished, and flung away from her hand. The assassin’s own needle-like sword would then try to stab into the princess' heart.
“Vis Propulsiva!”
But they were knocked back to the point of skipping across the ground, several times, by a sudden pushing force. Marilyn had arrived, staff in hand, her body seemingly healed after that death-inducing strike and fall.
“It's you!” Cecilia exclaimed to her.
“Get your sword! I don't think I can fend this one off alone!” Marilyn quickly ordered, causing her to dash for her weapon and get into position.
The princess readied her stance again as the figure stood up. The assassin was not wounded at all it seems, even after being knocked back by a force equal to Elysia’s own.
Marilyn’s eyes turned into a starry azure, the Eyes of Heaven activated to scan her target.
Analysing...
Name ??? Race ??? Titles ??? Discipline Essence Magic - Path of The Blade Dancer Strength Level 32 Willpower Level 30 Essence Aptitude Level 35 Esoteric Traits
Attentive Senses
Dark-vision
Spiritual Body
Equipment List
Mithril Blade
Cloak of Obscurity
Not enough information to understand the target, even with the Eyes of Heaven. Perhaps this was because she had yet to actually master it, or that she didn't know what she was exactly looking at either. It could be both.
But those statistics…they’re akin to her father, almost, and she had fought him before. And despite her losing a bunch of times, the experience was crucial.
“Who…or whatever you are…don’t you dare hurt her!”
————————
The battle in the skies were getting more and more dire, with more enemies in the surrounding vicinities of both Adrian and Vincent coming for them. They were keeping up pace with the army, but time was not on their side.
The dragon itself had tried to force Elysia away from its middle head, but so far she’s doing a pretty good job at fending for herself, kicking them off and dodging their blasts of lightning.
“You know, I’m really running out of ammo here!” Vincent would exclaim, now resorting to using the butt of his shotgun as an improvised club to beat the head of a nearby enemy.
“Really now? You ought to get an actual melee weapon after this, maybe something akin to a rope!” Adrian responded, grabbing a griffon by the neck with his whip before breaking it with the sheer strength of his pull.
Their battle was one of two versus many, and despite the odds they're holding on. But...
“Oh no…” Adrian had noticed something.
The dragon’s entire body began to crackle with energy. To both of these young men, it was clear that the beast was aiming for an omnidirectional attack.
“Elysia, get away from the head!” Adrian ordered.
“Huh!? You get away first, damn it!” Elysia defied him, it seems she's doing this on her own. Or perhaps she's confident enough in tanking the attack head-on.
Adrian turned towards Vincent after that. Even without words, both of them knew what to do. They faced some of the griffons that have landed, the entire army was numbered around less than 80 now, but it was still too many.
But that was not what they aim for. As both Adrian and Vincent charged right on ahead and forced themselves to climb up towards the flying creatures that were above them, riding them like—
“A gods damned rodeo! Hell yeah!”
Vincent seemed to be quite happy with this development. Adrian wasn't as happy, but the adrenaline was getting to him.
The chaos of their action was apparent, but through sheer luck they managed to somehow ride the griffons away from the dragon, with the army following them in pursuit. They were forced to leave Elysia behind as the three-headed beast unleashed an explosion of black and purplish waves of crackling dark energy, accompanied by its terrible roar.
The force of the attack was enough to part the sparse clouds for about a few dozen miles or so, and crack the ground below and collapse any nearby mountains and rock formations.
“You're going to pay for this, you sorry joke of a dragon!!”
Elysia had forced herself to tank the attack, and she had tanked it quite well.
————————
The 2v1 on the ground, despite the numbers advantage, had its advantage remaining on the lone assailant. Despite their efforts of flanking and pressing onwards in attempted offensives, again and again the assassin forced them back.
Marilyn had attempted to overwhelm the assassin with dozens of light lances, only for them to again and again slice them. Even a simultaneous barrage of light-speed attacks did not work, for every beam was sliced, dodged, and destroyed one by one through sheer skill and speed of the assassin.
She really ought to try and be more creative with her strategies, truly.
“Lancea Lucis…Magna!”
And Marilyn flew herself backwards, landing and pointing her heirloom staff as she conjured a double layered glyph formation of her own making, her emblem of a star surrounded by an ouroboros present upon them. With the incantation having been said, a massive wave of light was fired trying to engulf the assassin.
The blast was so large, if it was targeted at the dragon she had encountered when she was six years old, it would’ve vaporised its head completely. The light lance spell at its most powerful setting.
Yet that did not occur. Instead, the assassin presented its hand and split the blast of light into two separate waves, away from the target in question.
The blast soon ended, and they were left unscathed. “What…?”
Instinctively, in an attempt to understand the failure on her part, her eyes glowed a starry azure once again.
Perception speed has been slowed. Perceived action analysed. An act of rewriting magic had occurred.
“How…?”
The assassin did not simply absorb the energy into their own person. While it's similar to her father's talent of controlling essence, the enemy had instead used its control over essence to shut down spells directly.
That feat alone does not require just the capacity to wield essence energy on a significant level, but also a deeper understanding of what the target spell was and how it worked first hand.
Perception speed normalised.
“Don't let yourself be caught off-guard!”
In an instant, the assassin closed their distance against Marilyn, in an attempt to take her life, but instead their blade was met with a burst of flame by Cecilia, forcing the assassin to be knocked aside.
Their cloak was now burning because of her action, but with the now understood tactic at hand, they proceeded to extinguish it almost immediately.
Cecilia went to Marilyn's side, her face focused on the enemy in front of them. There was no chance for victory here, every tactic they have tried so far has failed.
But still, they must try.
“You alright?” She asked the girl.
“Yeah, I am. A bit dazed, but fine.”
It was an odd thing for the princess that so far Marilyn suffered no wounds on her end, while Cecilia herself had sustained injuries throughout the fight. But both were getting exhausted by the assassin, especially because they’ve been fighting so many enemies at once from the sky above, and also having been recently struck down from the same sky and into the ground below.
Nonetheless, she smiled. “Glad to hear it.”
Their eyes were fixed upon their common enemy now. And for a few moments, another stand-off occured between them. However, it would soon end.
“-!”
“Huh!?”
The assassin disappeared in an instant in front of their eyes, and quickly enough they appeared behind the princess herself, about to decapitate her.
The world moved in slow motion as the two turned their heads around. Marilyn pushed the princess away as a self-sacrifice, putting intense fear into the girl’s red coloured eyes.
And in the sky itself, the dragon maiden Elysia Natsuki, in that same moment managed to get the crystal out and jumped down from the sky in celebration. Adrian and Vincent were forced to land after losing control of their rides as well.
And before Marilyn's head could be cut off, the false world had turned white.
————————
“Adrian Hunt, Marilyn Althorn, Cecilia Lenore, Vincent Morales, and Elysia Natsuki. You have succeeded in your trials, welcome to the Royal Academy.”
The black and white haired woman, who they knew as Hilde, said those words to them. The five-man team had appeared in what seems to be a crowd of students that were victorious in their own exams. The rest that failed were on the other side of the great hall that they're in.
As a matter of fact, they were teleported out. But Marilyn was quite in disbelief, as she touched her own neck in the process, no apparent contact was made by the blade there.
All that she could say was…
“...what?”