664 10/11 3:12 (Autumn, Day, Midrar)
Sabel's Aura followed after each of her strikes, light illuminating her sword and forming a series of floating slashes all around her, their sharp sting making sure to minimize the angles from which Joule-Mark could attack her and in so doing trying to eliminate as many of their advantages as she possibly could, forcing her opponent to retreat.
Her sword gleamed even more sharply, light condensing around the tip before erupting together with her thrust in a sharp beam that left a stinging hole in the Human-Spirit Hybrid's stomach, their Vital Mana hurriedly accumulating to sear the wound shut, their breath stuttering for a moment before they moved left, dodging the vertical line of light that carved a line in the ground underneath their previous location.
Simultaneously with their dodge, the Human-Spirit Hybrid sent their own attack back, twin lightning bolts made of Light-Attribute Vital Mana erupting from their hands and striking at the Human's position, forcing her to destroy her magnetic sword to safely protect herself, leaving behind that sword and stepping back from the detonation that deflected most of the electricity away from her, Sabel more than able to dodge the last remaining sparks.
Her other sword flashed forward, accumulating Vital Energy and Mana alike, fusing them together and then unleashing it all in a wave of scorching heat towards her enemy, already in the process of retrieving another sword, already calculating how many other times she could use her flame-emitting sword.
And speaking of flames, somewhat far away from them, Amber was continuously releasing wave after wave of Blessed Flames to evaporate the Purification-Infused water jets that Flux was rapidly firing at the Phoenix, careful of protecting Mafel's form hiding within her mane and even now enhancing Sabel herself as much as she possibly could at their distance.
Yet the blazing golden bird was not stuck on the defensive, constantly launching her own condensed streams of Cursed Flames directed towards the Flowing Spirit, each of her strikes intent on stripping her from the Purification-Attribute itself, the division in roles between her two Composite Attributes being caused entirely by the fact that her Holy-Attribute one had more Resistance towards the Purification-Attribute in comparison to her Curse-Attribute one.
Her wings beat strongly, causing sharp gusts to fill the area around the two, both moving her and Mafel erratically outside of the range of any sudden change in the trajectories of the water spurts and destroying as many of them as possible, limiting the amount of attacks they could bring to bear.
Mafel herself was simply concentrating, trusting her defenses entirely to Amber while she was instead manipulating her Holy-Attribute Vital Mana within their Human, constantly healing the damage that Sabel was rapidly accruing to be able to match her opponent's movements, the black haired one's muscles tearing, her veins bursting and her bones bruising before the Spiritual Elf healed her again and again.
Thankfully she was able to use their Mate Mark as a way to bypass the distance between them entirely, relieving her of her harm almost before she could even recognize being hurt at all, the two of them having grown accustomed to healing and being healed this way, relaxing within the warm mane of her Mate.
Joule-Mark briefly looked towards the floating sphere containing Luna, seeing or feeling no change in it, before turning their gaze towards the faraway Phoenix, noticing that the only reason she was still distracted was because of Rose's remote intervention, the pink glow tipical of her Magic Eyes of Psychic Might melding with the glowing water and directing it with more power, speed and precision to harry their opponent.
Once done the Human-Spirit Hybrid concentrated fully on their own part of the battle, dashing forward and launching a merciless right towards her face, smashing through her crossed arms and sending her flying back, her bones realigning and repairing themselves in time for her to twist mid-air and land safely, a flaming slash being sent at the same time to distract them and buy time.
Her other sword smashed into the ground, causing it to spike upwards and aiming on impaling the blonde's feet on the ground, yet succeeding only in forcing them to jump upwards.
Her Ash-inspired sword smashed down, impaling on the ground before she Channeled its fire through the rising ground thanks to her Mana still filling it to cause it to erupt in a burning geyser aimed right at the one under the effects of [Avatar Manifestation], her own burns caused by the detonation of the sword in her hand having already fully restored themselves.
The flames she created soon went away, having exhausted the fuel that was her Mana and leaving behind only charred ground and no trace of her opponent, causing her eyes to rapidly scan the area around her, just in time for her to be able to see the rapidly falling Joule-Mark, their Shining Bolts enveloped arms slashing down to mow her apart.
Her held Earth-based sword trembled, shaking and cracking apart, as she slammed it on the ground causing it to crumble apart into nothing and forcing the ground underneath her own body to erupt in a grand column that sent her high in the sky over the falling Human-Spirit Hybrid, already having retrieved a new pair of swords for the fight.
"Luna is going to be pissed with the amount of swords I broke." The Human lamented outloud, her Mana already starting to fill one of them as she nevertheless prepared to destroy even more of them, her muscles repeatedly tearing and then melding back together while the only reason she had any Mana at all was because of another Artifact connecting her to a vast Energy Well.
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664 10/11 3:13 (Autumn, Day, Hidden base)
Aler's long ears twitched slightly, his eyes seeking the source of the soft steps he heard and finding them to belong to Rose, meeting her glowing pink eyes briefly before focusing back on his own role in the battle, casually feeling the way that she was physical moving everything not in use to her Storage Rings.
"How much time do we have?" He casually asked, no trace of realinterest present in his at the moment feminine voice.
"I would say a couple of minutes at most." Came the matter-of-fact answer from the pink-haired one followed by her own question. "How is Flux doing?"
"Shouldn't you already know? You are currently helping them." Aler.
"Nah, I wouldn't have the processing power to be this active nor are we this good at coordinating together. They are just borrowing my Magic Eyes and some of my processing power to augment and use at their leasure." Rose.
"I see. In that case they are able to hold their own for now. But this cannot last long. Changing arguments, what do you think about Mark?" He asked, trying to hear a different perspective on the Regressor.
A silence stretched between the two, the Human's eyes examining her Party Member briefly. "You mean the fact that he knew exactly what to do to make us join him? Or the way that he feels guilt when he looks at us?"
The Elf fell silent at her question, his eyes moving away from the Human and his fingers poking the ground underneath him. "All of them. We all know that he turned back time at least five times and considering his knowledge and actions, it is evident that he studeied us deeply enough to be able to manipulate us."
"True enough. Yet this alone would not change as much as you believe. Whether he is using us or not, the more relevant factor is the intention behind this in the first place. And his guilt does not prove this. He could feel guilt because he used and sacrificed the previous us, sure, but he could also feel it because he failed. It probably is both." She nodded calmly, truly indifferent to the notion that another version of her may have been betrayed and possibly killed by her current Party Leader.
"I see. The two of us are fundamentally different after all." Aler closed his eyes briefly with a sigh.
"Right?!" Rose affirmed, her eyes narrowed happily. "Your issues with other People are derived by the distance between what you fell like you are and how others see you. Instead my own are caused by everyone around me wanting to use me in one way or another all my life without reguard for my own wants or needs. Our points of view differs at their core." She affirmed casually before stretching, covering her mouth for a yawn.
"Grug already secured Lilze and they are moving to our safe house so tell Flux to prepare themselves to cover mark's retreat." Rose finished her task, waving briefly to the green-eyed one and leaving this last one with more questions than before.
"Why are Spirits so much easier to comprehend than People?" This last one lamented to himself, concentrating back in the fight and trusting his future self to deal with the many issues of their Party.
-
? ?/? ?:? (?)
Luna's will grabbed onto the Crafting, Bladesmithing, Blacksmithing and Artifact Mastery stars, pulling and then smashing them together, condensing them in a single star, creating a new Skill for her use, Skill that she instinctively, even without any notice, was able to activate despite her inability to use any other Skill and inability to access her Energy.
And as her newest Skill, Creation by Annihilation, activated, invisible flames expanded rapidly in both sides of the mirror that split her Soul in two, the flames rapidly consuming all of the stars underneath her and, as evident by the name, they proceded to annihilate all of her Skills and Oaths.
The wave of flames intensified, melting and then reforging every single part of herself, condensing back into new stars shining in the other half of the sphere, the only things remaining more or less the same being her Lunarian, Singularity, Familiar Summoning andher two Enhancement Skills.
All of her other Skills were compressed into just 14 Skills, most of them at E-Rank at that, yet her power was significantly higher than ever before as Luna was able to guess by judging the intensity of the stars reforged from her transparent flames.
Luna stretched briefly, her Will immediately filling her Soul and overflowing from it until she was able to command herself to return back to Gaea, surpassing the gravity of the singularity entirely and devouring it whole, leaving only herself.
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