“Ahaha, Even we are. So how are we doing this, beautiful?”
With a petite frame and silver hair that seemed to sparkle and ruby-red eyes, this girl had not a single inhuman feature yet her blood was black with hints of orange-red color like the other Invaders.
She was caught very off guard by Chronos calling her beautiful, her face blushing profusely before she attempted to collect herself.
“Why did you help me? Aren’t you a Sentinel just like them?”
Chronos looked at the other two Sentinel who backed off slightly to regroup.
`They’re planning something.` Chronos thought.
“I told you, didn’t I? I have a grudge against that Disney princess over there. As curious as I am about what you are, they’ve been letting us talk for far too long without attacking. They’re prepping a big attack or something.”
Unsurprisingly, Chronos was correct as shortly after she spoke, Mana began circulating the area restlessly.
“Shouldn’t we run then?” The girl asked.
Chronos shrugged in response.
“I’m fully confident in taking whatever they have and still escaping. You can if you want. Speaking of, I think it’s time we continue fighting. If you have any big spells, I suppose you should start casting now.” Chronos chuckled.
Walking forward casually, Chronos kept her smile. Despite this being by far the hardest fight she’s been in since becoming a sentinel, she simply couldn’t take this battle seriously.
Even if the sample size was only 2 days, humans were simply too easy of a thing to deal with for her.
“Don’t kill them, okay?” She said.
||
Looking at the notification as she continued moving forward, her smile only grew more manic, much to the dismay of the two Sentinels who versed her.
“How much longer do you need, Musi? She’s coming!” Yuki questioned.
“A minute! No, 50 seconds!” Musi responded.
As if on queue, a massive magic circle appeared on the floor beneath their battlefield. Its complexity seemed unmatched. Even Chronos who was well-versed in creating magic circles couldn’t tell exactly what it did from looking at it.
Not wanting to take any chances, Yuki charged forward, her blade once again clashing with Chronos’ staff.
BANG!
CRACK!
“I won’t let you stop her casting!” Yuki exclaimed.
“That’s fine! I had no real interest in stopping it.”
They only exchanged a few blows yet their clashes could’ve been heard from the farthest edges of the Shadow World if anyone else was inside of it with them.
Any time Yuki tried to strike at Chronos, the latter easily parried or dodged and retaliated efficiently yet she could never get a good hit on the prior.
Chronos could already tell the reason. She didn’t think it’d be a problem this soon but she also didn’t expect to have a battle with something that wasn’t a mindless beast so soon either.
Her control over her body was completely screwed up. She moved faster than she wanted to and the force behind her punches was making it hard to reel them back and counter.
She was managing to fight to a stalemate only because she was immensely more skilled in actual combat.
She was confident in winning this fight if she used her lightning but refrained as it was still manageable. She wanted to see what kind of spell Musi was casting before she started wasting her Mana.
From the numerous runes that she could read, it was some kind of offensive spell with a constant output. Perhaps a beam or volley of some kind. It was unfortunate but there were several Glyphs that she had never seen before and even for her, deciphering something in the middle of battle was simply not possible.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“YUKI, MOVE! NOW!” Musi shouted.
Hearing the signal. Yuki didn’t miss a beat. She didn’t wanna be that close to Chronos in the slightest with how creepy she was acting.
“Orchestra” Musi continued shouting, her violin changing into a conductor’s baton.
The mana around the area suddenly sped up and converged around Musi. Constructs made of pure Mana appeared behind her.
“Manifestation?! Seriously?!” Chronos said in disbelief.
Behind Musi were dozens of rifles which all faced different directions.
Manifestation is an extremely high level of magic application where solid objects are created utilizing mana. It’s so rare and difficult to pull off that researchers think that not even a fraction of its theoretical limit in power has ever been seen.
In that regard, it was the same as Chronos’ Chronomancy.
‘Out of everything I was expecting, that was not on the list… Alright then, Since I’m planning to let him take over anyway, I might as well try one of Mom’s favorite spells. System, what’s my Mana?’
|
Despite her worrying tone, her expression remained unchanged. Rather than being worried, Chronos was actually quite excited. It’s not every day that you get to see such rare magic firsthand.
“After showing me something so amazing. I can’t just not return the favor… So until I run out of Mana, Let’s play!”
With a stroke of her Baton, music began to play which encompassed the battlefield like an omnipresent being. Guitars which everyone in the Shadow World could hear and for all it sounded the exact same. There wasn’t a single difference in how quiet or loud it was, regardless of how far they were from Musi.
With the second, it was a piano, as the rifles began to aim Chronos.
And with the third, bullets began to fly toward her along with the sound of trumpets.
“Lightning Fiend”
|
|
Vanishing from her spot right before the bullets hit her, she reappeared over a hundred meters away from her original location next to Musi, slamming her fist into the musical magical sentinel, sending her flying before she could even react.
Sparks of electricity jumped across Chronos’ body at high speeds.
“Accent!” Musi shouted out, quickly readjusting herself in the air.
Another volley of bullets fired from Musi’s guns which flew with her, on top of the bullets that previously missed Chronos began to converge on the Witch’s location.
Not only were the bullets racing toward her but Yuki also came out of nowhere to take another go at her.
Fortunately, the Yuki situation sorted itself out rather nicely as the human Invader slapped her out of the air with a… Massive puppet.
The bullets were also not a problem as the moment Chronos touched the ground, she once again vanished from her spot before doing the exact same thing to Musi again.
She couldn’t even react so Chronos using repetitive movements didn’t matter.
‘OW! AAAAAHHUGUH! WHY?!’ Chronos screamed inwardly.
|
Luckily this time, she hit Musi hard enough to where she couldn’t retaliate immediately.
Lightning Fiend was a spell that placed electricity into your body to strengthen your body far past its limit, causing one to damage oneself, increasing their own healing factor, and many other things depending on what specific part of the body you reinforced.
A spell developed by the Grand Witch, Chronos was curious how much Mana it’d actually take to keep active. She did not, however, take into account the amount of pain it’d cause her.
Falling to her knees, Chronos got rid of the notifications from the system with a chuckle.
‘I see. With active reinforcement, it actually drained me faster than double point. Without reinforcement, I could use it for maybe 3 seconds? Would I even survive that?’ She thought.
Forcing herself up from the ground, the sound of distant clashing could be heard from the battle between the Invader and Yuki.
“Are you… An idiot?” Musi scoffed, getting herself up while holding her side.
Despite having the Sentinel vest, she had sustained serious injuries and was holding her side.
“I am, but what makes you think that?” Chronos chuckled.
“Did you think I wouldn’t… Notice that you’re out of Mana? Even in this state of mine, I’m still fully capable of killing you. Why did you use such a mana-intensive spell?” She questioned, her magical constructs all aiming at Chronos.
The state of these two. It was rather amusing how they were both suffering from completely different issues.
Chronos was basically unharmed but had negative amounts of mana, and Musi had lots of Mana still but was on the brink of collapsing.
“If you’re confident in it, then shoot me. Pull the trigger.”
Chronos merely smiled as she pointed at her own forehead tauntingly.
“Make sure it kills me though, if it doesn’t you might be in danger.”
Musi’s eyes widened in fear and uncertainty. She didn’t understand why Chronos was so confident. It had to be a bluff. With Chronos being out of Mana, there was nothing more she could do.
Calling the bluff, one final word came out of Musi’s mouth.
“Beat.”