When the players of the two enemy factions saw Maria, many of them began changing targets and started attacking her since she was an important objective to defeat. She had suddenly appeared alone without her Summon so they thought it was an opportunity that couldn’t be missed.
“Attack her! She doesn’t have her Summon here!”
Even though many players were now targeting her, Maria didn’t pay them any attention because her true enemy was still alive underneath the pile of rubble. She knew that her attack earlier was only good enough to significantly damage her opponent, but not defeat her.
Just as the enemy players were about to send their attacks at Maria, the ground suddenly burst open as Hecate emerged. The aura wave she emitted at that moment effectively pushed back all of Maria’s would-be assailants.
“Hehehehe, that one kind of hurt~”
Maria glared at Hecate who was quite haggard this time. Her HP bar had only a third of health left so Maria needed to finish this off quickly. The best finishing move would definitely be [Shin-Zantetsuken] but the attack required her to use all of her resources and focus to execute.
‘Will I be able to do it?’
While Maria was thinking, Hecate got back on her feet and broke her train of thought, “Okay, my turn now.”
“Huh?”
Her opponent flew up with incredible speed and suddenly appeared in front of her. Hecate’s crazed eyes were now so close to her that she could even feel her opponent’s breath on her face.
‘Dodge!’
Maria instinctively backed off with her extreme speed just as Hecate threw a punch at her.
‘Okay, I dodged that, now let’s–’
“!!!”
“I got you~”
“AHACKKK!”
Maria couldn’t even finish her thoughts as she felt her abdomen seize up in pain as if someone had pummeled her with a sledgehammer.
“H-How…I dodged you!”
“Hihihi~”
“!”
Maria realized what Hecate had done. Her opponent had predicted her movements and fired off a long-ranged aura attack in the direction she dodged in. Normally, Hecate would fire these long-ranged attacks using her twin orbs, so Maria thought that was the only way she could use her long-ranged aura attacks. It was a misconception, however, because she could easily do it with her fists but just chose not to in order to take Maria by surprise just like right now.
“Have some more!”
Hecate launched a volley of long-ranged aura attacks at Maria which squarely hit her body with pinpoint precision. She did try to dodge them but the attacks would stiffen up her body, not letting her move at all. The only thing she could do was try to block the aura attacks with her swords but this proved to be futile since the attacks would just bypass her weapons and land on her body.
“Dammit, [Full Counter]!”
Maria used her [Full Counter] skill which nullified all of Hecate’s attacks. The attacks were returned back to Hecate but they didn’t hurt at all thanks to the aura dissipating mid-flight.
“Tch!” Maria clicked her tongue and charged straight at her opponent.
‘I have to kill her now!’ She thought.
Hecate only had a third of her HP left so Maria couldn’t just run away and waste this advantage.
“Why won’t you just die!” Maria yelled as she slashed her sword down on Hecate’s head.
Her opponent easily blocked the attack before grinning back at her and saying, “How can I die now when I’m only starting to have fun?”
“!”
Hecate began wrapping her body up in aura and Maria noticed that it was similar to the time when she had one-sidedly defeated Bob and ejected him out of the Realm of War. She needed to use everything she’s got because now, Hecate was fighting a bit more seriously.
Maria didn’t hesitate to spend her SP to move around at high speeds to launch her attacks but Hecate was able to keep up with her. Maria was still a little bit faster so she was able to pull ahead and occasionally land a few of her attacks on Hecate.
Hecate’s HP was slowly but surely going down. Maria depleted it by another 5 percent but all her opponent did was smile crazily at her throughout the fight even though things were becoming more and more precarious for her. In the other players’ perspective, it was like Maria and Hecate had become two bodies of light that flashed around the battlefield, tearing through anyone or anything that unfortunately got in their way. Their clashes would cause tremendous shockwaves to spread out which also knocked away any nearby players or NPCs, destroying their organized ranks. The two didn’t even pay any attention to where they were and only focused on their fight.
Maria did have the HP and speed advantage, but it was hard for her to block or dodge any of Hecate’s attacks completely. She was constantly losing HP but she still had the capacity to cast a [Regen] and a [Cure] or [Hi-Cure] on herself. However, despite being able to restore her HP all the time, Maria was losing more than she could recover so at this rate, she might lose all of her HP before Hecate did.
“Dammit, not like this…”
“Hahahahaha!!!”
Hecate wasn’t worried about winning or losing. She just wanted to keep fighting and continue having fun with her new ‘toy’.
“Once I defeat you, I’ll turn you into my playmate!”
“In your dreams, bitch!” Maria quipped back.
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“Hahaha!”
Out of nowhere, Hecate suddenly disappeared and reappeared behind Maria, completely catching the latter off guard because of the sudden speed increase of her opponent.
"Got you~"
"Let go of me!"
Hecate firmly held Maria in a tight hold using both her arms and legs reinforced with aura which completely disabled the latter from moving around. Even after struggling for a bit, Maria started panicking a little after realizing that she couldn't even move herself at all. Hecate's hold was just too strong that she couldn't even move her arms or legs an inch at all because her opponent was locking them down.
"Damn you! Let go!" Maria yelled while continuing her pointless struggle. She didn't know where Hecate managed to suddenly get all this strength to lock her down like this, but the both of them were getting nowhere because neither of them could move.
Maria thought that she had gotten a good grasp of her opponent's stats after fighting with her for so long, but that wasn't the case at all. From the start of the battle, Hecate had been holding back and not using all of her skills so that she could catch her opponent off guard like right now in order to deliver a finishing blow to her.
Not willing to lose, Maria activated her [Angel's Rage] skill and was just about to turn Hecate into a porcupine, but her opponent acted first.
"Time to fall~"
"Huh?"
Hecate suddenly struck Maria's wings and she immediately cried out in surprise at the sudden shock coming from her back. Maria had been keeping the two of them in the air because of her wings, but after the sudden shock they received, the two of them immediately started falling from the sky. Taking advantage of that, Hecate swung herself around along with Maria and plunged down to the ground.
"Y-You crazy bitch!"
"Vaya con dios, my darling~"
In a sing-song voice, Hecate smashed Maria into the ground head-first, completely burying herself and her opponent into the ground, but unlike her opponent, she had a somewhat transparent barrier of aura protecting her body from any damage she took from her suicide-like skill.
She picked herself off the ground and began laughing like crazy thinking that she had killed Maria, but unfortunately for her, Maria's life-saving skill, [God Save the Queen], had activated and she was now immortal and invincible for the next five seconds.
Passive skill: [God Save the Queen], has been activated. As a Queen you are not easily killed! You are now invincible for the next 5 seconds!
Maria immediately got herself out of the ground and charged at Hecate. The latter wasn't expecting this, so she was caught off guard and the former managed to grab her by the neck and then fiercely slammed her head into the ground.
"You bitch! How do you like it if I smashed your face into the ground?!"
In an angry rage, Maria savagely began to slam Hecate's face repeatedly into the ground, but to her dismay, her opponent only continued to laugh and make kissy faces to her despite all of the abuse she was taking.
"AAAHHHHHH!!!"
She let out a rageful cry and kicked Hecate into the air before slamming her back into the ground and then activating [Angel's Rage], [Gehenna's Eye], and [Dark Ray] simultaneously and sending a beam of feathers and fiery death towards her enemy, burying her even further into the ground. After letting loose such an attack, Maria charged down and grabbed Hecate from the crater she made from her skills and began to wrathfully slam her into the ground repeatedly.
Maria and Hecate’s incredible fight along with the current savagery that was happening was being broadcast to the real world and this caused the Unitale exclusive channel to spike in viewership from how amazing and theatrical it was. Naturally, a viewer discretion announcement was broadcasted after Maria's rather unsightly and wrathful display.
The broadcast began focusing on their battle without either one of them being aware of it, so Maria didn't stop her savage attacks against Hecate because she was completely angry at her. This was the first time since starting the game where she had gotten genuinely frustrated at her opponent and completely lost her cool.
To think that she had nearly lost because of this wicked woman and her trickery, Maria couldn't stand it, so during this 5-seconds of immortality and invincibility, she was using every attack she had to completely bring her opponent's HP down to 0 and just as she was about to lose the life-saving skill's buff, Maria heard a crisp notification bell ring in her ear as the density of the aura she imbued in her attacks suddenly increased.
*DING*
Aura Mastery’s proficiency has increased! Lv. 4 → Lv. 5
Skill Name: Aura Mastery Lv. 5 (0/5000) Rank: B Aura is the energy formed from converting one’s Mana through extreme mental focus and control. You can use this power to increase your natural abilities, attract and repel other players' or NPCs’ aura, sense aura, and even project it. It is a flexible resource that has a wide range of applicability.
You are currently able to attach, imbue, and emit your aura onto any objects within 5-meters of yourself as well as emit and imbue aura directly from or to your body. Conversion rate: 10MP:0.05AP Cost: 50 SP/Second Note: If you consume all of your SP while using Aura, the penalties will be tripled
The skill window flashed in front of her face for only a moment because there was a change to the description, but it was enough for Maria to read through it all. It was Maria’s first time seeing the skill’s description window and she had to say, it was quite abstract. If she didn’t see how Hecate used Aura, she might’ve been lost if she learned this skill only through a skill book and had to develop it herself.
From the skill’s description, the most important part was the last bit which showed her that she could emit aura from her body now instead of only attaching it to her weapons and armor.
'Finally, I should be able to emulate what this bitch is doing!'
Using the momentary lapse in attention thanks to Maria’s skill leveling up, Hecate found an opening and got herself out of Maria's hold before quickly punishing her opponent. She kicked Maria right in the stomach and sent her flying away with a yelp.
“AH!”
The kick knocked Maria a few tens of meters away as her body skipped on the ground like a pebble. She didn’t stop herself just yet until she was sure she was at least 50 meters away from Hecate.
‘Dammit, that kick hurt like hell…’
Once she was quite far away from her opponent, Maria quickly got up and started healing herself after seeing that her invincibility buff was gone. At the same time, she then began concentrating aura into her body and wrapping herself up in it to form the aura barrier that her opponent had been using earlier. It was because of this damned barrier that Hecate was still alive even after taking all of the abuse from her.
Hecate chased after Maria when she saw that and just as she flew within range, the latter immediately discharged the aura she had imbued inside of her body and knocked her away.
“HAH!”
"Ugh!"
"UWAAHHH!"
"What the hell?!"
"Shit!"
Hecate wasn't the only one pushed back by a red aura wave. The two of them had been fighting without regard for their surroundings, so when Maria was kicked away by Hecate earlier, she had landed herself in the middle of the battlefield and her aura wave blew away everyone around her. Hecate smiled when she saw that Maria was now able to do what she was doing and yelled excitedly, “Finally, this will be even more fun!”
Maria was emanating a red aura from her body and it was enhancing all of her attributes. For every 10 Mana Points she used, all of her stats would rise by 0.05 as per the skill’s conversion rate. 1 Aura Point, or AP, was equal to 1 Stat point so if she used 10,000 MP, Maria would be able to increase all of her stats by 50 points each. Now she understood why Hecate was able to grow so powerful just from using this skill. The SP consumption was a problem though and with her current amount, she could only sustain this power-up for around 10 minutes.
However, that was if her SP was at full. She had consumed quite a bit of it thanks to her ongoing fight with Hecate so, with her remaining amount of SP, the effects of her Aura could only last for around 3-5 minutes now.
It was a make-it-or-break-it situation so Maria didn’t hesitate and used the remaining 500,000 MP she had to raise all of her stats by 2500 points each. She then had the clever idea of using her Blood Energy, which quantified to around half of her total MP–so around 350,000–and thankfully enough, the conversion was acceptable and she was able to increase her stats by an additional 1750 points. The increase was amazing and the pressure she emitted from her aura caused Hecate to frown for a moment before her usual crazed grin appeared again.
“Hehe, this could be bad for me~” Hecate said as she popped a high-quality health potion in her mouth and restored her HP to three-quarters full. “Now, let’s continue this fight!”
Maria didn’t reply as she charged at Hecate once again. She appeared in front of her opponent and nearly collided with her due to the sharp increase in her stats which she hadn’t grown accustomed to yet. However, she managed to narrowly stop in time right before she swung her sword at Hecate’s chest.
Hecate was caught off guard by her incredible speed but she still tried to block the attack, however, Maria’s overwhelming STR stat lifted her off the ground and knocked her back while taking away a sizable amount of her HP.
Maria wasn’t finished as she continued her assault. She only had 3-5 minutes with this power boost and if she couldn’t finish off Hecate in that time frame, she would lose the battle after incurring the penalties from completely exhausting her SP. With her newfound powers, Maria wasn’t only able to increase her stats with aura, but she could also shoot aura out of her weapons so because of that, every single attack she made with her swords would send a red sword wave out that sharply cut into the ground and tore through the air while leaving behind some lingering aura in their wake.
The players and Summons around Maria and Hecate had to get out of the area or they would become collateral damage to their intense clash. This time around, Maria was fully on the offensive and didn’t give Hecate any openings to do anything else but defend herself.
“Damn, just how much Mana do you have?!” Hecate exclaimed excitedly as she too ramped up her stats by pouring more of her mana into her [Aura Mastery] skill. “Hahaha, it’s actually getting hard for me to keep up so let’s take things up a notch!”
Maria replied to her words with a roar as she increased her slashing speed and continued to batter her opponent with a variety of basic sword attacks that she learned from Odin. This was the small downside to using Aura. To increase their stats to this extent, both Maria and Hecate had to use up quite a sizable portion of their MP so they didn’t have any to spare for their skills and spells. She could only rely on her basic attacks but that was fine since her Aura more than enough compensated for the lack of damage her usual basic attacks did in comparison to her skills and spells.
Hecate’s HP continued to steadily decrease and when Maria was lucky enough to land a clean blow, a large percentage would be erased. The area around them was battered with numerous sword scars and just when the timer to her power-up was finished, Maria stabbed her two swords into the ground and manipulated the remnant aura from the battlefield around them before impulsively yelling, “Sword Grave!”
“Huh?”
Hecate thought that she had finally found an opening since Maria stopped attacking but numerous golden chains suddenly appeared out of nowhere and locked her body in place right after Maria yelled out her skill’s name. She felt the aura from the sword scars around them begin acting up uncontrollably and she immediately understood what Maria was trying to do.
“No, what are you doing?!! You’ll die too!”
“...Fuck off, bitch.”
“No, stop!!!”
The aura in their surroundings exploded and the light of Maria’s red aura shot into the sky, forming a cross with her at the epicenter. The explosion hit both her and her opponent so it was basically a suicide attack as Aura didn’t discriminate between friend and foe.
The light of the red explosion engulfed a large portion of the battlefield and it practically melted away Maria’s body in almost an instant. There wasn’t even enough time for her [God Save the Queen] subclass skill to activate so she couldn’t survive the explosion.
*DING*
You have died! You will now be ejected from the Realm of War!