Maria and Hecate’s battle resumed but things were still the same. The two were stuck in a stalemate as Maria refused to engage her opponent in close combat. What she saw earlier further solidified her decision not to take the battle against her opponent head-on for now. The power Hecate displayed when she ejected Bob out of the Realm of War was boundless and threatening.
One wrong move and she could be the next to be ejected. Maria’s approach in this battle was to fight aura with aura. However, her [Aura Mastery] skill was still low leveled, so she needed to raise her skill level and rank during the battle.
It was going to be tough, but Maria welcomed the challenge. Facing an opponent like Hecate truly opened her eyes and made her a bit more humble. She thought that with her power, she could trample all over the regular player base, but there were freaks of nature just like her hiding around waiting to strike. She also wondered just how many more people out there, who were just like her and Hecate–individuals that broke the power balance of the player base through their stats and skills alone.
While Maria was busy dealing with Hecate in the sky, the battles down below continued to rage on. Lizzy had returned to Sky’s side and worked together with her to pressure Arthur and his Summon into a corner. With Bob gone, his Summon, Hermes, was also gone as well. With the disappearance of his only ally and the maximum amount of faith his Summon could absorb, Arthur was put back into a precarious situation which soon devolved into his ejection from the realm once Lizzy came back and rained hell on him alongside Sky, who didn’t let the poor guy retreat to his allies.
“Nooo!!!”
Those were Arthur’s last words as he was ejected from the realm. Just like that, the battle on the Goddess Faction’s side was over. Lizzy and Sky wanted to go help with Maria’s fight but their friend asked them not to help her.
Maria wanted to take on Hecate alone and, besides, they had something more important to do, which was to kill as many Celestial Order and Pantheon Summons as they could. Helping her battle Hecate would be a waste of time because Hecate’s Summon was a Primal, so it wouldn't provide them with any aether.
Lizzy and Sky saw the logic behind her words and seeing that Hecate was only interested in fighting Maria, they took this chance to head over to the battlefield where the Celestial Order and Pantheon players were squaring off with each other. From the looks of things, the two sides no longer held back and were gathering faith from the players and NPC in their factions, so the Gods and Astrals were firing abilities and spells at each other, making a great spectacle of their fights.
All of the audience tuning in to watch the grand battles between the 2 factions were astounded and on the edges of their seats. It became even more incredible when the 2 girls from the Goddess Faction came and interfered. The broadcast focused more on the 2 factions, so not many people saw Maria and her friends’ battle.
“You mind if we cut in?” Lizzy asked as her Tiamat fired a large particle beam from her mouth at Caedes and Eos’s Summons, who were fighting.
The sudden interruption put a stop to the two factions' battle as they had to avoid the [Tsunami] that soon followed Tiamat’s attack that was launched by Leviathan. Sky also enhanced her Primal’s [Tsunami] by casting her own [Tsunami].
These overlapping [Tsunami] skills completely flooded the entire battlefield in water. Only the area around the faction castles was okay because the castles had a barrier around them which prevented the waters from coming in to drown all of the players and NPCs inside.
Sky had nearly forgotten about the negative impact her skill would have on her allies, but seeing that the Goddess Faction’s castle was okay, she released a sigh of relief. She had been so caught up in the moment that she had completely forgotten about those still on the ground. The water from Leviathan and her [Tsunami] began to flow away and this caused many of the players and NPCs inside of the castles to collapse in relief. They all thought that they were about to die earlier when they saw the massive wave approach them.
“Sky, looks like we don’t need to hold back. The castles can withstand all of the environmental changes that our Primals' abilities create! Let’s go all out!” Lizzy quickly said.
“Gotcha!”
Leviathan began unleashing the full extent of his powers as the weather began to change. A tremendous downpour began to rain on the battlefield and, before long, a massive storm was already brewing.
“Dammit, what happened to Arthur and the others?!”
Caedes quickly looked through the active player list of his faction and saw that “Arthur’s name was no longer there.”
“They took him out? Shit, Bob too?!”
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He had only taken his eyes off the battlefield at Arthur’s end, but now his ally was dead. The same for their faction’s hidden trump card, Bob and Hermes.
“That useless mercenary. I can’t believe we paid him upfront just to fail!”
Lizzy and Sky picked their opponents and immediately rushed towards them on their Primals. Naturally, the two chose the strongest players present, which were Eos and Caedes. Lizzy had a debt to repay to Eos from the IGC so she naturally chose to fight him. This time around, things would be different and she would be the one to emerge victoriously. Last time, he had the advantage of being an Awakened Player, but now, she was one as well.
With a leveled playing field, Lizzy trusted in herself that she would win. As for the other players, she wasn’t going to think about them since she planned on pushing Eos and his Summon far away from their current position so they’d be in a spot that was suitable for a one versus one battle. Sky similarly had the same idea as she had Leviathan wrap itself around Caedes and Jupiter before they flew away into the distance.
The 4 players that remained on the battlefield didn’t give chase because the two Primals and their targets had moved far away already. Instead, they began fighting each other because each side trusted that their leaders would emerge victorious from their battles.
With Leviathan moving, the changes to the battlefield receded, so the faction players and NPCs exited from their castles before charging once more towards the center of the battlefield. This time around, there was no ganging up on one faction, as the 3 factions just collided at the center of the battlefield and struck at any enemy that came in front of them. Things became even more chaotic when the Summons returned again.
“Take out those Summons! Remember our true goal!” One of the elite team leaders of the Fallen Angels Guild said as he roused his guild members and those around him to begin attacking the Summons that had once again appeared on the battlefield.
Remembering their true goal, all of the players from the Goddess Faction began behaving like they had been injected with chicken blood and started attacking the Summons from the other 2 factions in reckless abandon, completely ignoring the players that summoned them.
“These crazy Goddess Faction bastards!”
“They are targeting our Summons again!”
“Push them back, we have to get rid of them!”
“Fight! Fight and kill them!”
“Don’t charge out recklessly, we have to work together to defeat them!”
The strongest members of each faction were each fighting in a place far from the battlefield, but the shockwaves from their clash were felt even from where the other players were fighting. Each of them was giving their all in this fight so it roused the morale of the players and NPCs on the battlefield. No one was going to back down or run away from this battle. The original goal of this Main Story Quest stage had completely been forgotten as each side just wanted to triumph over their adversaries at this point.
Up in the sky, Maria and Hecate’s battle continued to rage on as the two girls fought each other to a standstill. Maria had managed to level up her [Aura Mastery] in the short time since Lizzy had left and it was now at level 4. Copying what Hecate did and clashing with her occasionally at close range greatly increased her skill proficiency and the blessing from Gaia also helped her get even more EXP for her skill.
It was thanks to this that Maria was able to progress so quickly. Soon, her [Aura Mastery] would hit level 5 and she didn’t know this, but level 5 [Aura Mastery] was like a threshold. At that level, she would be able to attach her aura onto remote objects and eject aura from her body or weapons that were imbued with her aura.
Hecate could see through what Maria was doing, but instead of being serious and using the power she displayed earlier when fighting Bob, she accommodated Maria and even helped her raise her skill’s mastery level.
“Hehehe, this is fun, fun, fun! This is so much fun!!!” Hecate cried out maniacally as she traded blows with Maria.
Every time her adversary progressed, Hecate would slowly increase her power accordingly so that she continued to stay on the same level with her opponent. Maria could feel this and this caused a sinking feeling to grow in her stomach.
‘She’s…she’s too powerful… I won’t be able to win at this rate!’
It was painfully obvious that she was completely lacking right now. She still hadn’t achieved her Second Class Advancement while her opponent was already on that level and was probably close to obtaining her Third Class Advancement.
She was fighting this insanely strong opponent with a handicap, so Maria couldn’t see any way for her to win this time. Even when she and her 3 clones attacked Hecate in tandem, her opponent was able to dodge and weave through her attacks while also having the capacity to send counterattacks at her.
'No, I can't think like that! If I hesitate now, I'll definitely lose!'
"I won't lose to the likes of you!" Maria roared as she steeled her resolve.
Maria couldn’t rely on Bahamut right now because he was being tied up by Chaos. All she could do was give it her all and not back down from this fight even though things seemed hopeless. With her strengthened resolve, Maria began fighting Hecate with even more ferocity than before. The only thing she thought about right now was that she was going to win. Those were her only thoughts as she traded powerful blow after powerful blow with Hecate.
Hecate saw the ferocious, unbreakable fire in her eyes and this made the crazy girl even more enamored with Maria.
“Yes, that’s it. Don’t give up, fight with me and give it all you’ve got! HAHAHAHAHA!”
“Shut up!”
At this point, Maria’s familiars were no longer usable so she had them return into her shadow because they would just needlessly use her Mana and SP. The same went for her clones. Once it was just her on the battlefield against Hecate, Maria’s focus sharpened and her attacks became even more precise and powerful. Her opponent no longer had the leisure to talk as Hecate had to focus herself as well or else one wrong move and she might be the one to lose this time.
Instead of waiting for an opening, Maria decided to create one on her own. She pressed her attack on Hecate and breached her defenses. With her stance finally broken, Maria didn’t waste her time and quickly spun in the area as she kicked Hecate right in the face just like her opponent had done to her earlier. It was payback that was returned 10-folds because Maria had imbued a lot of aura in that kick.
Maria’s attack sent Hecate flying towards the ground. She didn’t waste her words and gave chase to her opponent. Quickly catching up to her, Maria wrapped her aura around her weapons and began slashing at Hecate’s body.
“GAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”
Hecate roared in pain at her relentless assault but Maria didn’t falter one bit. She showed no mercy and continued to slash at the girl’s body. One slash, two slashes, three…Maria’s combo attack continued until she finally slammed her opponent into the ground. The final hit smashed Hecate into the ground in the middle of the raging battlefield that the NPCs and players were at. The area Hecate fell in cracked open and sent a shockwave out which pushed back the players there.
Some of the ones with low HP were even ejected from the realm because they had died from the powerful shockwave. Maria was panting heavily in the sky and she glared down at Hecate’s unmoving body before quietly saying, “Good riddance…”