“Dear me… What a troublesome pair they are,” said the voice of Emilia as she walked to stand next to Lakshman.
“They are indeed silly to be arguing over who is better than who in prospect to love,” said the voice of Sumara as she followed behind Emilia.
“Emilia…” he said slowly as he turned to face her and Sumara. “Any ideas what I should do? I doubt I should let them continue, otherwise it might get out of hand.”
“It’s already out of hand. Just look over there,” said Emilia and she pointed towards Serabella and Ondine.
Lakshman turned and was slightly surprised when he saw the two girls exchanging nasty looks while radiating blue aura. Lighting bots were exchanged between them and the energy they were releasing was causing the wind around them to get blow faster around them.
“This isn’t good,” he said and he quickly turned to Emilia and Sumara. “You two, please focus your energies on healing the people around him and make sure they don’t do anything reckless. Meanwhile, I’ll go see what I can do to stop these two crazy girls from turning that fierce staring contest into a fierce battle.”
Sumara looked surprised and Emilia involuntarily chuckled, causing him to become confused.
“What? Did I say something wrong?” Lakshman asked them uncertainly.
Emilia shook her head and said, “No. Everything’s fine. It’s just that what you said sort of sounded funny.”
Sumara nodded and said, “Anyway, we’ll go look after these people and you make sure to get those girls into order.”
“Understood,” he said and with a nod at her, he quickly made his way towards Ondine and Serabella.
***
“You wretch! You dare call my beloved—!” Serabella began angrily.
“Just shut your trap, dammit! I don’t give a damn about that calamity trash!” Ondine said to her furiously.
“I’ll beat you down!”
“Just try me!”
“Gladly!”
With a shout, Serabella extended his hands out and magically summoned two swords. Gripping them firmly in her hands, she quickly moved to cut Ondine down, but Ondine was no snail. She whipped out her own swords and clashed them head on against Serabella’s swords.
The clash of their forces sent a shockwave in all directions and buffeted Lakshman into stopping in his tracks. The shockwave continued onwards and hit the buildings, along with the people near there. The two women continued clashing their swords against each other furiously at an incredible speed. Each clash of sword-on-sword sent shockwaves in all directions.
Lakshman had crossed his arms in front of him defensively to shield himself from the shockwaves. They did not harm him, but his feet got dragged on the ground with each other shockwave sent in his direction. The shockwaves were so strong that the trees were threatened of being uprooted from the string force of the wind.
As the battle continued, they began soaring higher and higher into the air while rapidly clashing swords. Several times, Ondine and Serabella cut at each other while furiously fighting each other. Lakshman slightly dropped his crossed arms and looked up with gritted teeth as he fought hard to keep himself from being blown away by the wind.
“Damn…! I’m always slow…!” Lakshman shouted angrily as he watched his wife and her enemy battle each other.
The battle went for several minutes and instead of getting weaker, the two were growing stronger while their speed increased steadily. They pulled back in mid-air and charged at each other once again to clash sword-on-sword. For a moment, the two tried to push their weapons forward, but they would not budge due to them being firmly strong.
At that moment, the clashing violently forces clashing suddenly erupted and blasted them back. However, Serabella quickly recovered and charge at Ondine without letting her enemy have enough time to recover. Ondine recovered slightly and saw her enemy charging at her at an incredible speed with her swords glowing dangerously.
“For insulting the man I love, you die!” Serabella shouted and she swung her swords at Ondine.
The two swords radiating lethal energy were swung across and smashed into each other, exactly where Ondine’s neck. However, she was startled when Ondine had automatically reacted and swung back in time to avoid the mortal blow. Clutching her swords tightly in her hands, Ondine slowly turned in mid-air as she prepared to launch her technique at Serabella.
“Demon Slaying Technique: Dark Slayer!”
Her two swords, which had been glowing dimly in blue energy, suddenly changed to that of pure dark colour. She swung her body around in mid-air quickly and swung her sword at Serabella, who sensed the attack and realised she was finished if she did not react quickly.
That was exactly what she did, reacting quickly, she pushed her whole body back to avoid being hit by the destructive energy attack. She made it in time as Ondine swung her swords around and released a lethal black wave of energy at exactly where Serabella stood standing. The black wave of energy cut cleanly through Serabella’s swords and rocketed into the air at high speed.
Serabella felt the raw dangerous energy from the technique Ondine had just used. She quickly pushed herself back from her and stared at her with her broken swords as Ondine returned to hovering normally in mid-air.
She glared at Ondine and demanded, “You…! What did you just do?!”
Ondine glared at her fiercely and said, “You called my husband a ‘useless human,’ but you never knew anything about the swords I’m holding onto!” She pointed the swords at her enemy and said, “These are swords embedded with pure fighting power that has the capability of killing demons like you!”
Serabella was shocked by what she heard and she hovered back a little bit. She hated the person I front of her, but she did not wish to die before her love is fulfilled. There was so much that she wanted to accomplish in her life with the Calamity Titan, but she also wanted to kill the arrogant woman, which was Ondine.
Ondine firmly gripped her swords and looked at them with a small smile on her face.
“Three days ago, my original swords got destroyed when Lucky accidentally overreacted and took me seriously during our sparring match. After that, he used his magic and with the help from both Tetra and Silvera, he gave me these newly build and enhanced swords. I am truly grateful for him and now, I will put them to good use!”
With her thought process complete, she looked at Serabella and pointed her swords at her, which began letting out dark energy. Serabella saw the energy radiating and quickly began forming her magic to fight back now that her swords were destroyed.
“Now! With these swords, I will take your life, foolish demon!” Ondine shouted and radiating with pure blue aura and power, she flew towards Serabell at high speed.
Just then, Lakshman suddenly flew high and appeared in front of her, surprising her in the process.
“L-Lucky?!” she exclaimed in a very surprised voice.
Noticing the gathered energy in her swords, he realised he cannot stop her using his hands, which could get damaged in the process. Instead, he chose to use something else that would not cause him any harm.
“Elemental Coated Armour!”
With a shout of the technique name, he was surrounded by golden-ref energy that took the shape and form of a warrior with a phoenix head on his shoulders. Lakshman used his right hand, which moved the energy arm forward and grabbed Ondine’s swords, stopping her in the process. Sensing energy being gathered on the other side, Lakshman turned and saw Serabella casting several attack magic spells that were aimed at them.
Lakshman extended his left arm towards her, which extended the left arm of the energy before he said, “Maga Distrab: Chain Field!”
In an instant, a powerful counter spell from him got activated and flew towards her like a fast blowing wind. Upon reaching her, the counter spell caused her magic circles to get cancelled and they made sounds that sounded like several glasses got smashed.
“Kyaa!” Serabella screamed in surprise before her men soared into the air to come to her support.
“Madam!”
“Are you okay?”
Serabella took a few minutes to recover from the shock of feeling Maga Distrab as it disrupted the energy flow within her. Slowly recovering, she turned to glare at Lakshman angrily.
“Yeah… I’m fine… Focus on taking him down!” she ordered her henchmen.
Her henchmen bowed down to her slightly and said, “With pleasure.”
With the orders given, the henchmen soared forward to launch their magic techniques at Lakshman and Ondine. He did not do anything and instead, held his hand towards them and only defended, which annoyed Ondine. With the Elemental Coated Armour creating a protective shield around them, their attacks did little to penetrate through the armour of energy.
“Lucky! Why did you intrust me from just now?” Ondine demanded angrily. “You interrupted me and now look! You’ve giving them the chance to fight back and letting her recover!”
Without looking at her, Lakshman slowly said, “She… isn’t the enemy.”
Ondine was shocked by his words and she exclaimed, “What?! She isn’t our enemy? Have you gone blind or something, Lucky? She attempted to kill me just now! How can you think she’s not our enemy?”
Lakshman shook his head without saying anything as he stared at the line of magicians launching their magic attacks at him.
Earlier, when Ondine and Serabella were fighting, Lakshman’s Elemental Sight got disrupted due to the wild flowing of energy around them. Due to that, he stopped using Elemental Sight to stop his eyes from hurting. Once the battle appeared to settle a little, he reactivated his eyes to ensure that she really is an enemy and to his shock, he saw something he completely did not expect. Serabella’s body was coloured in blue, which was the colour that identifies his allies.
Shocked by this, he thought to himself, “What? She’s my ally? That doesn’t make sense! She’s clearly my enemy, and yet… the world thinks he is my ally? No… Elemental Sight cannot lie to its caster, so does that mean she’s going to be my ally in the future? I don’t get it…!”
Due to this and not wanting to let someone preserved as an ally by the Elemental Sight, Lakshman quickly interfered with Ondine, stopping her in her tracks and using Maga Distrab: Chain Field to destroy Serabella’s magic spells and cause an instability within her that stunned her for a minute. Now, he stared at the line of enemy magicians with his Elemental Sight still active.
Stolen story; please report.
“Yes. These magicians are all coloured in red, which means they are my enemies, but I wish I knew what it meant by Serabella being my ally and all…” he thought unhappily. “Anyway. Its best I take these bastards down!”
With his thoughts finished, he pulled back his right arm, which made Ondine back away a little in surprise. Gathering energy there, he threw the multiple small energy balls towards the line of magician enemies.
The magicians attempted to take them down with their magic beam and blast techniques, but a few made it to them. The magician automatically activated their defence barriers for protection, but nothing happened as the seconds ticked by. Realising that nothing had happened, they thought their enemy had failed in whatever attempt and dropped their magic barriers to launch more attacks at Lakshman, surrounded by his Elemental Coated Armour.
Lakshman noticed that his enemies had dropped their guard by making his technique appear to have failed. This was exactly what he had wanted and he smiled slightly as he activated the magic technique by shouting the technique name aloud.
“Scatter Bombs!”
In an instant, the scattered balls of energy grew dynamically big in a second and exploded. The enemy magicians screamed before instantly getting vaporised by the energy blast released from the numerous explosions. The explosions buffeted Serabella back as he finally recovered from the earlier Maga Distrab attack. She was taken by surprise when she saw all of her henchmen destroyed by mere small blasts.
Getting angry at Lakshman and Ondine, she pointed a finger at them and shouted, “Black Star Blast!”
In an instant, a large magic circle formed in front of her and a dark energy, that had the shape of a four pointed star, was sent towards them. Lakshman realised this technique that she fired at them was strong and crossed his arms in front of him defensively, which his Elemental Coated Armour copied. The black star of energy rushed towards him and surprised him as it went right through the Elemental Coated Armour and himself before smashing hard into Ondine.
“AAAAH!!!” Ondine screamed in shock and pain before she plummeted towards the ground.
Lakshman whipped around and shouted, “Ondine!”
He rushed towards her and caught her just as the Elemental Coated Armour deactivated due to him losing his concentration on keeping it active. As he slowly descended to the ground with her cradling in his arms, Serabella laughed heartily at the sight.
“Good! How does it feel to have your believed wife wounded in your arms? I suppose it is painful and that’s how exactly I felt when she insulted the man I loved dearly! I hope you like the pain, lowly human!” she shouted at Lakshman in a loud carrying voice.
Lakshman gently descended to the ground and held Ondine in his arms, who was badly wounded. If she had put up her defences, she would have been totally fine, but taking the full brunt of the attack caused her to get wounded quite a bit. Lakshman watched her groaning slightly from feeling the pain, which made him slowly widen his eyes at the growing anger from inside him.
He did not know that, at that moment, the last seal on his remaining power suddenly cracked. A sinister energy began seeping through the cracked seal and merged within his powers. He suddenly felt hatred like never before, a hatred that knows no depth and a hatred that wanted to destroy all that had hurt his wife.
Laying Ondine gently on the ground, Lakshman straightened up and said quietly said, “Max Power.”
In an instant, he began surging with violent power that sent several powerful shockwaves in directions. The people of the village, including his wives, desperately stayed on the ground, which began to shake a lot. Serabella widened her eyes slightly in surprise and her grin faltered as she felt the lethal energy radiating from him.
With his power reaching maximum output, he turned his lifted his head and glared fiercely at the woman that hurt Ondine that badly.
He extended his left hand out and said, “Movement Zone: Stop!”
In an instant, a large magic circle appeared beneath and above Serabella much to her surprise. The next instant, her movement became locked and she could not move a single part of her body. Her eyes were fixedly looked down at him and a strange expression was fixed on her face, which she had been in the process of changing into wearing a fearful expression. With her physical movement completely stoped, she looked down at her enemy fearfully while being able to do nothing.
Lakshman glared at her angrily and said, “I don’t care if you’re an ally or enemy… You hurt my wife! You’ll pay for it with your life!!”
He pulled his hands back and quickly formed a large swirling ball of energy between the palms of his hands. With the energy gathered, he brought his hands forward and fired it at Serabella. The energy got released into a mighty blue wave of destruction that soared into the air at high speed. Serabella watched the attack coming and inside, she felt a dreadful feeling and a sense of loss as she realised she had failed her goal of marrying the Calamity Titan.
Lakshman wore an extremely angry expression on his face as he gave off a murderous intent from releasing the energy wave. Then, all of a sudden, his head hurt dramatically and he momentarily closed his eyes as he heard words spoken to him by a familiar voice.
“Annayya-garu… Memu Ellappudu memalni gurtu petukuntamu,” said a familiar voice in his mind
He flashed his eyes open and felt a strange sensation as all murderous intent escaped from him. Looking up, he was surprised to see Serabella frozen in the air by his magic circles hovering above and below her.
Seeing whom the target of his powerful blue wave of destruction was, his eyes widened in shock before he shouted, “D-Divert!”
His wave diverted away from Serabella just in time and soared high into the air before exploding. The mighty force unleashed by the explosion released a powerful wind and energy down to the ground and buffeted everything around the area. Once everything began calming down, Lakshman was seen holding his head while standing still.
Serabella suddenly realised the magic keeping her frozen like a statue suddenly disappear. She moved out of her frozen predicament and stretched her muscles to ease the pain in them. She looked down at Lakshman with narrowed eyebrows.
“What is up with that guy? He diverted that attack at the last second? Why…?” she asked herself in her mind while looking at him. Then, becoming slowly angry, she thought, “Don’t tell me that bastard felt sorry for me and spared my life? How could he…? I’ll make him pay!”
She pulled her arm back and prepared to gather for one of her most powerful lethal attacks, when, all of a sudden, she heard a familiar voice speak in her mind.
“That’s enough, Sera. You can come back now.”
Instantly recognising whom the voice belonged to, a wide smile spread across her face as she telepathically spoke in her mind.
“M-Master! W-What a pleasant surprise? Um… Would you please give me a few more seconds? I have this lowly human to finish off!”
“That won’t be necessary, Sera,” said the voice of Calamity Titan as he telepathically communicated with her. “I’ve watched everything from here and I’m quite impressed by your performance. Now, return to the kingdom so that I may reward you appropriately.”
Serabella became really excited by those words and she telepathically said, “Yes! Thank you very much for such amazing words, master! I will be there shortly!”
“Good,” said Calamity Titan telepathically and that was the end of his message to her.
With the communication cut, she looked one last time down at the man and said, “That human is unnaturally strong, but I’m angry that he spared me when he could’ve finished me off! Whatever! I hope you don’t regret leaving me alive, foolish lowly human! Warp!”
She said the technique name out loud and instantly vanished from them by warping the space around her. Lakshman lifted his head to watch her warp out of there instantly with a pained expression on his face before thinking to himself.
“There’s no doubt about it… That voice I heard in my mind belonged to that demon girl, but why…? Why did I heard her voice and what were those words she said to me? ‘Brother-in-law… We will forever remember you.’ I don’t remember related to her in anyway and who does she mean the ‘we’ word? More importantly, she spoke in a language that I didn’t know about, but I somehow understood them. Are they perhaps the ancient language or something…? It doesn’t make sense at all…
Anyway, she said those words in my mind, but she appeared to not remember me at all… Was it all just an act or perhaps she really is my enemy? There’s a problem with that already… Using Elemental Sight, I confirmed her colour to be blue, which represents my allies as perceived by the world. Yet, she clearly was our enemy here as he hurt my wife.”
Lakshman shook his head slightly and closed his eyes before muttering, “I don’t get it… Why…? Why…?”
For all the questions that he got, there were no answers to be found while he knelt on the ground with his hands clutching his head.
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Author's Note
Ah... My head is feeling a little sluggish from writing this chapter. Well, serious chapters always give me that sort of feeling, but this one was like that due to some of the elements being crazy!