Chapter 399: Level Difference
Nina didn’t waste the opportunity she had created.
The very instant the explosion subsided, she exploded forward in a straight line, extending her flaming longsword directly before her as she aimed to drive through the damaged manifestation while it hadn’t properly recover.
But even in its battered condition, the manifestation still reacted.
With remarkable desperation, it thrust out a hand and caught the blade between its palm and fingers just before it reached its chest.
The two were locked together for only a second until Nina let out a powerful roar, pouring her full strength behind the blade.
Right then, an explosion of flames erupted directly from the sword itself.
Nina seemed to have possessed an overwhelming advantage in her own battle.
-
Arael was having her own battle, high above the ground.
The Angel and her own Dark Nova manifestation streaked through the skies, constantly changing directions as they fought across the air.
Arael repeatedly extended her hands as projectiles of different forms erupted from the Runic Chroma tattooed across her skin.
Different constructs of colored energy and ink crossed through the skies toward the manifestation, but Dark Nova’s tremendous speed allowed him to weave through almost everything she sent his way.
But at some point, she changed tactics.
The runic chroma separated into countless droplets that scattered around the hero, occupying virtually every direction.
The manifestation turned its head, quickly observing the strange formation to see that there was no clear path left to escape through.
Then the droplets began moving.
These thousands of droplets stretched towards one another, connecting and merging until the spaces between them rapidly disappeared.
Within seconds, Dark Nova had been completely enclosed inside an enormous sphere of multicoloured ink.
BOOM!
His fist punched through one side and a hole exploded open across surface, but the surrounding ink immediately flowed into the opening and sealed it instantly.
Another punch tore through a different section and the same thing happened.
Dark Nova increased the speed of his attacks, hammering the inner walls repeatedly as openings appeared across the sphere one after another.
But the Runic Chroma continuously flowed back into place.
Then her lips slowly parted slowly, "Explosive Artistry."
The sphere’s color began changing into red as the temperature surrounding the sphere rose drastically.
Then, a nuclear explosion erupted inside, expanding the sphere violently.
Its surface bulged in every direction as light escaped through momentary fractures, only for the flowing ink to repeatedly seal them again.
The skies trembled but the Runic Chroma had contained the detonation, forcing the tremendous destructive energy to remain concentrated upon the target trapped within it.
Explosive Artistry was Arael’s ultimate attack, requiring every quantity of Runic Chroma on her body.
The ultimate technique also used a unique the magical element; Explosion Magic. And by combining that element with the entirety of her Runic Chroma, Arael could produce nuclear-scale explosions.
Eventually, the enormous sphere broke apart into fading droplets of colour. And from within...the heavily damaged hero fell limply, trailing smoke as it descended toward the ground.
But before it reached, the manifestation began distorting midway through its fall as its physical coherence collapsed after sustaining too much damage.
Arael watched the last traces disappear.
One of Dark Nova’s manifestations had finally been taken down.
—
Meanwhile, as his summons continued their respective battles against Dark Nova’s manifestations, the fight between Mr. and Mrs. Stark and the real Hero had continued for several more minutes.
At this time, they had gone some distance away from the stark manor, by over 1 kilometer.
Despite everything they had thrown at him, neither of them had succeeded in landing another meaningful attack.
Not even the hundredfold gravity Ethan had brought down upon Dark Nova earlier had been enough; neither had consuming the entirety of Rue’s Clowder to unleash attacks that were guaranteed to hit.
Everything they had tried so far had failed to cause any meaningful damage.
The problem ultimately came down to the difference in their levels.
Ethan and Isabella were both considerably more powerful than members of the second tier of the Grand Class who scaled at SSS- Tier.
In fact, if another level existed between the second tier and those ranked as Extraordinary, that was precisely where the two of them would currently belong.
For Ethan in particular, the only reason he could even reach that middle ground was because of his Amplification trait. Combined with his Demon-Dragon Transformation, the amplification pushed his overall power several levels beyond what he would normally possess.
Dark Nova, however, showed power levels within the Extraordinary rank; putting him above Mr and Mrs Stark and that difference was becoming increasingly apparent as the battle continued.
Their attacks possessed enough force to knock him away, interrupt his movements or temporarily overwhelm him through sheer impact, but actually damaging him was an entirely different matter.
There was also the troublesome nature of Dark Nova’s body itself. The Strength of Heracles blessing made it nearly indestructible.
When combined with the difference in their respective levels, that durability made inflicting any meaningful injury upon the Hero incredibly difficult.
However, over the course of the battle, they had noticed something rather obvious. Which is that Dark Nova was more interested in Isabella.
The only times he bothered engaging Ethan were whenever Ethan directly interfered; inserting himself into the Hero’s path several times to prevent him from reaching his wife.
Ethan eventually decided to take advantage of this
Dark Bella had dissolved into a streak of writhing shadows that traveled through ground, disappearing into one shadow before emerging from another several metres away.
While Dark Nova pursued her relentlessly from above.
His speed allowed him to remain directly behind her regardless of how frequently she changed directions, and throughout the chase, Ragnarok continued attacking him independently.
The legendary sword streaked through the air, repeatedly attempting to carve into the Hero from different angles.
But this one time, Dark Nova didn’t bother evading.
While still pursuing Isabella, he swung his left hand against the approaching sword with enough force to send the weapon spinning away into the distance.
But that brief chase had given Ethan all the time he needed.
The Demon-Dragon was positioned high above the battlefield, with both hands stretched to the sides.
The ground began trembling at this time.
Enormous quantities of earth and stone were ripped upwards as the iron-rich material embedded throughout the ground responded to Ethan’s electromagnetic influence, dragging portions of the surrounding rock along with it.
Several chunks of earth, reaching into thousands continued ascending into the skies around Ethan as each began rotating rapidly.
Their rough forms then compressed, gradually taking the shape of elongated drill-like projectiles.
Then purple lightning flashed through each spinning mass as the stone surrounding them began cracking apart.
Those pieces of earth broke free and the true forms of the projectiles were gradually revealed.
They were Iron.