Chapter 67: The final Wave (Part 2).
(Lucas POV)
Dominions Blade is a type of skill used by our knights for hundreds of years and it was basically 1 of the 13 skill moves in Scattering Sword Art, a skill that was passed down to us by the founder of our Family which is Randolf Ditler Beaufort.
This sword art is also his original creation and is considered a masterpiece of his era.
This is also the one that helps him to become one of the four founding fathers of the Turox kingdom.
As this sword skill was unfathomable during his time due to its unique and powerful moves, but 800 years have passed and now it was only considered a High-rank sword art.
Since it imposes a strict requirement on a knight, if even one of this requirements was not fulfilled then it would be impossible to use this sword art at all. And although it might look simple in the eyes of others, it requires far more control on mental strength just in order to perform the first move of this skill.
To other people, it might look like Michael just simply swings his sword while releasing his aura at first glance, but if someone tries to do the same thing, and use their aura they would immediately encounter a problem.
Since this attack contains an immense amount of condensed aura making it almost impossible to tame, a knight must first suppress this huge amount of aura from rampaging without losing it's power and control. It might sound simple to do but it's not.
Because the user of this skill must first shape his aura into a blade before releasing it. This is not an easy feat to do at all, because a knight's aura is like gas in nature.
It naturally expands in all directions without the knight's control.
As aura must be shaped depending on our own needs and will, but it also requires precision to control. Without it, the efficiency and power of an attack would drastically go down.
We could compare it to a water hose, if there's a strong pressure it's understandable that we would have a strong flow of water. But if we cover its mouth with a cap that only had a small opening or in short a nozzle, the water won't have any other choice but to exit from this hole, creating a powerful gush of water that could reach out to further distance.
In the modern earth, there's even a machine that can cut through thick metals by using the same concept of water pressure, so it's like that, a sword made out of pure energy that doesn't go beyond the length of the actual sword under the precise control of a knight.
Controlling all this power at once makes it hard for a normal knight to display a sword skill, but thankfully, Michael have met all the requirements and also has enough training to do it.
Thanks to Michael's attack he managed to significantly reduce the number of incoming monsters on this wave.
Although this crimson blade of aura was eventually broken by a stray creature that suddenly appears out of nowhere.
It uses its thick black tentacles to block this attack and like what happened to other aura attacks, it also eats up all the energy of this crimson blade very quickly and destroys it in the process.
The unknown creature is a bird-like monster that has many tentacles on its back, it moves so fast that even with our sharp senses we could only barely follow it.
Although it only has two legs like a human its speed far surpasses us, even Michael is having a hard time keeping up with it.
"Damn! this thing is fast." Michael said with gritted teeth.
As a transcendent knights, our senses are far sharper than normal humans by several times, but even with our superhuman senses we still can't beat this monster when it comes to speed.
"Do you need some help-" I was about to offer my assistance to Michael when I suddenly felt something sharp graze my cheek inflicting a small wound on my skin.
"Damn it! What was that?" I said in surprise as I cover my bleeding face with my hands.
I look in the direction where the attack has come from and it was from the bird creature with ugly tentacles on its back.
I don't know how many tentacles it have but it must have dozens of them, and now all of its tentacles are currently pointing at us and each one of its ends glows crimson as it gathers power on the end of its tentacles and used it like a gun by hitting us with a barrage of energy attack.
Although I covered my entire body with aura as an extra armor its attack still managed to penetrate my aura barrier. It must be because of the residual power that it got from sucking Michael's sword skill since it contains the same sharp and restrained energy I felt on it.
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"This is?" Michael says in puzzlement as he skillfully deflected the bullet attack using his sword while and upon observing it his expression has suddenly turned for the worst.
"This is exactly the same as my power! It's using my own power against me." He said in alarm as he angrily dash towards it to disrupt it from attacking the soldiers behind our back.
Unlike us, our soldiers don't have an aura to protect them so they can only use metal armor as their strongest protection and although it can give them some sense of security, if ever they were hit by several of this energy bullets then their armor won't last long.
Even if we used strong metals to forge their armor, it still won't last from a barrage of energy attack of this caliber. Those metals aren't good enough for this, if it's just a few then it might withstand it, but not this kind of torrential attack.
Those metal armors of our soldiers are forged with 3 different layers making them bulky and thick causing a lot of them to complain about how heavy and hot it is. It uses 3 layers because each of these layers has different purpose.
The outer layer of their armor which is the shiny metal is the thickest and strongest layer. It is responsible for absorbing and negating all physical attacks that's why it was forged using an ore called "Leros" which is known for its extraordinary hardness.
The second layer is a thin sheet of skin from a magic beast called cold-blooded bear.
It's a rank two magic beast that is considered to be one of the smallest among them they can only be seen and hunted down during summer as they hibernate during winter and summer is the only time they are useful because their skin changes their properties when it starts to get cold and it's no longer useful in this state. As they already lost their most important function, which is the capability to absorb a certain amount of damage from an energy attack whether it was an aura or mana.
Their hide is also one of the popular products of Florentine city although it wasn't the best material out there as there's a lot more magic beast skin that has a stronger effect than this.
Nevertheless, they are at the bottom of rank 2 magic beast the only reason why they even qualified to be categorized at this rank is because of their ability to remain unaffected by energy-based attack since their skin served as a good insulator keeping them unharmed from our aura swords. If you want to kill this creature then you must use a sword made out of certain metals as normal steel sword can only make small wounds on them.
But still, our soldiers like to hunt them down not just for their skin but also for their delicious meat, as a rank 2 magic beast they aren't just powerful but they're also beneficial for us, soldiers or knights as they contain a lot of nutrients and even mana that can help us restore some our energy.
You might wonder if they would go extinct with hunting but rest assured they aren't.
They're like pigs since they produce so many offspring that they can easily replenish their population in a short period of time but they are also quite difficult to hunt as they aren't fond of leaving the territory of the enchanted forest they only leave that place if they really need to seek out for more food.
In fact, we can only hunt them down at a certain time of the year because of their strong reproductivity their numbers easily get out of control once in a while causing damage to our property by attacking the villages and farmers while looking for more food.
Although not all of them would successfully transition and become magic beasts as some would remain as normal wild animals but were still powerful enough to kill a grown man.
Author's note: Remember magic beasts are just the evolved form of animals due to certain exposure to mana granting them the power to use and utilize it. The more powerful they are the smarter they become.
And the 3rd layer of their armor is made from the soft fur of a deranged rabbit. A low-rank magic beast that doesn't even have a magic core on its body but just a broken fragment of it. We called them the pseudo-magic beast and their fur is a really soft, and good material for cushioning our soldiers from strong impact. Since they can absorb huge forces of kinetic energy and distribute it evenly throughout their fur.
The reason why they got this named derange rabbit is because of their strange behavior of attacking other creatures within their vicinity that isn't their species even though they aren't strong enough, it doesn't matter they don't care. even if you kill a bunch of them they won't stop, unless you get out of their territory.
Out of this 3 material, the third layer is the hardest part to get as it is the most challenging and dangerous, deranged rabbit doesn't care if you kill a bunch of them, but other creature does.
It's the giant snake a rank 3 magic beast that served as their guardian. Once it senses that something is wrong then be prepared to face its wrath. They take care of this rabbit like their own property as they farm this creature to have a lot of food.
I'm not talking about a snake of several meters in length I'm talking about a big snake that has a meter-thick body, just imagine how huge is that. Their previous nest is also located at the entrance of the frozen cave but it seems like they already abandoned that place after the parasitic fog appeared allowing us to discover the secret within it.
I was about to continue my thoughts regarding our soldier's armor but I was brought back to reality by Michaels scream of frustration.
Although Michael managed to get close to the bird tentacled creature, his attack didn't even touch it, as it has immediately banished from our sight, leaving behind an after image of it's body as it hides itself in the middle of the monster wave.
"It must have used the remaining energy behind your sword art and converted it, into its own weapon." I gloomily said to him as I immediately follow behind his back.
"Young master you should fall back, you haven't mastered any sword art yet aside from that experimental skill of yours, you won't be able to defend yourself if it decides to attack you." Michael said worriedly.
"Don't bother I have no plan to hide behind you I'm not a coward, and besides seeing your current condition I doubt it, if you would be able to deal with it." Although Michael can still function normally and even used his sword art it still can't fool my eyes.
His steps are definitely heavier than usual and his speed is much slower than before, he didn't even use any drastic movement to attack it but instead used the most basic footwork, unlike the time when we were sparring.
Due to our boredom from being trapped in this situation and from the desire to become stronger we've spent most of our time fighting each other, sharpening each one of our techniques. From normal sword skills and even using our aura to attack, and defend from each other's tricks.
Because of this, Michael was able to familiarize himself with my strange movement and he even adapted some of it like using one hand to do consecutive back flips while avoiding each of my sword attacks mid-air but now that he was injured he can't even use it properly.