Following after Hiiro, Mia stepped over the bloody puddle of what was left of the three blue blazing, the part of the mass of water they were in dissolving into the air and leaving the puddles after Hiiro had cut them. She watched him slowly walk in one direction, stepping over and navigating around any debris “He has to be going somewhere…” she mumbled.
She had the begginings of a plan forming but she needed to confirm a few things. Hiiro walking around things in his way instead of smashing through everything was already a positive towards her plan, but she needed to know his destination.
“Woah! What the hell happened here?!”
Looking up into the sky towards the voice, she saw the member of Rising Stars, the one with the gigantic sword. He looked between the bloody mess behind Mia and Hiiro, drawing his sword.
“We miss one?” He raised his sword to strike.
“Wait!” Mia yelled out, noting Hiiro had stopped, slowly turning towards the man.
He stopped mid swing “Huh?” and looked at Mia “What? Oh, you were in the meeting. Don’t worry this will be quick.” He then raised his sword again.
Mia shook her head “No! stop! He has a skill that makes him invincible!” She shouted, desperately trying to get him to stop so he wouldn’t potentially mess up her plans and trigger Hiiro to go on a rampage.
He stopped mid swing again “…invincible?” he lowered his sword and stared at Hiiro, who just stared back at him, then started breaking out in laughter “Invincible! Ha! If I had a copper…” he shook his head “look kid, there are some strong skills and titles out there, but when the level difference is THIS big it doesn’t matter.” He pointed his sword at Hiiro “Sure, he is evolved but he isn’t even halfway to his second yet.”
Mia pointed back to the puddles of blood “What about them? He killed them easily.”
He paused, looking back “Oh yeah, was sent here to see what happened...” he thought for a moment, scratching the back of his head then shrugged “Eh, didn’t know their levels. A-rank is so scattered.” He groaned “look kid, I’m five evolutions in and up for S-rank evaluation soon. I seriously doubt this abomination can block or dodge one of my attacks.”
Mia shrugged “Your death.” She then spun around and took several steps away from them, noting that Hiiro hadn’t moved ever since this guy had shown up wanting to kill him ‘interesting… what is going through his head?’
“Open the portal, crush those who oppose.” Hiiro said.
‘Right…’
The man raised his sword again “now if there are no further interruptions, I would like to avenge my co adventurers.” He then smirked “let’s see just how invincible this guy is.” He then swung his sword down, cutting the space itself and sending it flying, the space around the slash warping as it flung towards Hiiro.
The slash flew towards Hiiro, cutting threw the sky and homing in on him. In response Hiiro raised his sword and slashed at the cut, and with a sickening *TWANG* sent it flying back towards the attacker.
“HE PARRIED IT?! HOW THE FU-“ the cut flew back towards him, he raised his sword to intercept but the cut flew through the sword and him, cutting the two in half and sucking them up as it, leaving no trace and not a single drop of blood behind as it flew off into the sky, slowly dissipating.
“…Break Through…” Mia glared at Hiiro, who muttered his phrase again before continuing straight on his path towards his destination “Didn’t seem that strong before.” She muttered, following him.
[I do not believe he was trying to kill anyone before.]
“True.” It was all about escaping last time. “What was it… things just go his way?” she rolled her eyes, wondering what kind of recoil he would get for killing someone that higher level than him.
Mia followed him to the opposite side of the camp, where a massive circle was drawn on the ground, but cleaved in half “Hm… open the portal, right?” she looked around, seeing the destruction and scattered bodies “can he even do that? The circle is destroyed, and they are blocking teleports, right?”
[He did force his way here using the other circle.]
Hiiro knelt next to the broken circle, reaching into his inventory and pulling out a strange metal box.
“Oh, he had inventory.” Mia summoned her weapons; she got what she needed and really didn’t want to find out what he was trying to bring here.
“What’s going on?” “Didn’t boss take care of this, where did he go?”
Mia looked behind her, the other members of Rising Star were on their way “…time to go.” She had to deal with them later anyways, she launched her weapons at Hiiro, who quickly reacted despite being busy, parrying the weapons towards her, impaling her face with all of them.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
[Slot 3 Loaded]
“Banana!” Mia shouted, encasing the circle in a large box of ice.
“Eh?” Ria stopped what she was doing, jumping away from the cube of ice “What? What is going on?”
“Go tell the others to not interfere or else they die. Invincible skill.” Mia started freezing the floor and blasting away the tent “Actually invincible, tell them about my time powers, don’t care, emergency.” She had replaced the tent with a room made of ice, leaving 4 entrances on each side.
Ria stepped out of one of them “This is a lot of ice… that bad?”
“Yes, go.” Mia shooed her, lifting herself up into the air on an ice pillar “make sure they don’t attack him.”
Ria glanced at the box at the center of the ice room, sparks now flying off it “r-right!” She then sprinted away, towards the mass of water.
“…really hope I don’t have to explain that a bunch.” Mia gulped, moving the pillar to the side “Hope I’m right about this…” she glanced at her mana pool, confirming she had plenty to spare she set out to work. Quickly she started erecting a maze on each side of the cube, making the one in the direction of Hiiro’s goal a long winding hallway, the rest being looping dead ends.
Her plan was simple, stall him out.
Not a single person here could attack him while that skill was active, and thankfully what ever the church did to him gave him a one-track mind, if you didn’t get in his way and attack him, he wouldn’t attack back… she hoped.
Her only examples of this being how he ignored her unless she directly did something, and even stared at that guy for a few minutes and only retaliating once he was attacked. Now it just depended on how much was considered getting in his way.
He did attack her last time she put him in a box, but this time she was high up in the sky and planned to hide, she hoped this was far enough away not to count, as with the Blue Blazers he didn’t attack until he saw them.
She brought her attention to the box as it just started to spark lightning, she then looked at the starting bits of her maze “Hope this works.” She said, just as the box was cut apart, Mia hiding behind her pillar as she stared down into the starting room of the maze.
She saw him glance around, staring at each of the four exits before turning to the correct path and exiting through it, proceeding down the hall. Mia sighed “Would have been nice if he went down the endless loop.” She said, annoyed, He picked the path that wasn’t just a dead-end trap. She was glad that he didn’t instantly turn to her and kill her though, that was a plus, and even though the maze was just a long hallway zigzagging back and forth, he wasn’t walking straight and busting down every wall in his way.
Just like how he had navigated the camp.
“I wonder if…” At one of the corners she made a T intersection, the right turn going down another long hallway towards his goal, closed it off, and then made the left turn lead away from it.
Hiiro walked up to the corner, stared at the path leading away, then destroyed the wall blocking the correct way and continued.
“Darn. Have to make the hallways longer.” Tricking him on the path wasn’t an option, she just had to make the sections long enough.
“What in the world are you doing?”
Mia jumped, momentarily losing her balance on the ice pillar before catching herself, she turned her head to see the same guy from before, the apparent leader of Rising Stars “…Stalling.” Mia said, pointing to Hiiro “Waiting for his skill to run out.” She carefully tried to avoid the word invincible with this guy.
“Oh?” he stared at Hiiro, who had stopped walking through the maze and stared at the pair “He doesn’t look that tough, barely evolved.”
[Trying to save to slot 2, ::ERROR::]
‘come on!’ Mia cried, trying to save in rapid succession, but each time failed.
“Has a skill that’s dangerous.” She said, inwardly begging he didn’t attack “Really dangerous. Lasts for 55 minutes, max.”
“Hm?” he drew his sword, the long blade pointed at Hiiro “You sure? No matter ho-“
“Level difference doesn’t matter, even if you evolved five times, skill passes his limits and he can do whatever he wants and is only not killing everyone cause church did something and made him dumb. Please please please please don’t attack, he can parry your sky cut space sucky thingy” Mia spoke rapidly, pleading with him.
“…how high is your appraisal?” He glared at her, then looked at her in stark surprise “You don’t have appraisal?”
“No, time magic.” she bluntly said, the situation too important to care about revealing it “knew him, before, skill is a hidden skill, Break Through. Complicated, simply can do what he wants for an hour.”
“I, what?” he shook his head, putting his sword into his inventory “Ok, back up, time magic? that doesn’t-“
“Your cut space thingy cuts things and then sucks them up, watched you attack him before, he parried it and you tried to block, failed, cut in half, and sucked into it.” Mia bluntly said, She hoped her poor explanation on something she should have no idea about would get him to believe her, if only by a bit. She then noticed Hiiro started walking again once he put up the sword,she went back to extending the maze, clicking her tongue as she was getting closer to the mass of water.
She snapped towards the man, still trying to process this “You, name.” she asked.
“Name?” He perked up, shaking out of his thoughts “If you ti-“
“Name!” Mia yelled, not sparing any patience.
“…Roy.”
“Roy, tell Blue Blazers to move the water, want to make longer hallways, they are in the way.”
“Ok, stop.” Roy threw his arms down “I don’t know about this time stuff but I am higher level than you and higher ranked, I do not ta-“
“If you want to die, again be my guest! Hiiro is right there, go poke him, see what happens.” Mia snapped “If you don’t want to die and be helpful, tell them to move the water!”
He glanced at her from top to bottom, seeing how desperate she was, he smirked and took his sword out of his inventory.
“…” her ear twitched “If you really want to fight something go fight that.” She pointed towards Hiiro, who was mindlessly walking the path. “I won’t go back in time to save you, dumbass.” She turned away from him, ignoring him as she went back to extending the maze.
After a few minutes, she heard him click his tongue, and when she looked, he was gone, flying off towards the center of the water “…phew…” she exhaled, it was bad enough dealing with Hiiro, she did not need them fighting her.
“Don’t worry Hiiro…” she looked at Hiiro, her eyes falling on all the additions the church had put him through “I’ll stop you.” She took a deep breath and slowly exhaling attempting to calm herself “And next time, I’ll save you.”