Chapter 317: Blessed
Vespera looked at the surrounding dark cursed arrays with her glowing purple eyes widening slightly in appreciation.
She smoothly adjusted her grip on her single steel longsword, letting her Gold Core mana cycle fluidly through her internal circuits then she offered a confident radiant smile.
"Why not?" Vespera replied smoothly, her voice sounding cool and steady. "Come at me with everything you have, Morrighan! Though... I won’t be coming at you with my full power, considering I have zero intention of accidentally killing my future Hero."
Morwenna’s grey eyes narrowed from atop her wolf as she watched Morrighan’s first move.
WHOOSH!
A pulsating, dark-crimson sigil materialized over Morrighan’s palm as she thrust her hand toward Vespera!
’Mark Of The Abyss...!’
Morrighan attempted to brand Vespera’s core with her signature debuff curse... a spell designed to increase all incoming damage by 25% and suppress mana regeneration by half!
SWISH!
The dark crimson sigil shot through the air, aiming straight for Vespera’s chest plate...
...However, the moment the cursed sigil reached a three-foot boundary around Vespera’s body, it simply dissolved into empty red sparks.
Vespera’s underlying Sovereign Authority and Gold Core power completely rejected the low-tier status effect before it could even attach.
Morwenna scoffed loudly from the sidelines, leaning on her saber hilt.
"Tch! Opening a duel with a debuff curse before even testing your blade? That’s a coward’s move, demon girl!"
Morrighan flinched slightly with her pale cheeks flushing a darker violet at Morwenna’s sharp critique.
She took a deep steadying breath, letting the shame wash away as she centered her focus.
She dropped low, pulling her heavy mythril gauntlets up into a broad defensive caster-martial stance.
"Then let us test raw strength, My Lord!" Morrighan roared!
BOOM!
’Demon’s Resolve!’
A violent aura of crimson-and-black energy erupted around Morrighan’s frame.
Her obsidian horns emitted a terrifying abyssal light, her golden eyes burning with intense demonic power as her physical strength, speed, and durability doubled in a single instant.
BOOM!
Morrighan planted her mythril boot into the dirt, shattering the bedrock as she launched herself forward like a dark cannonball.
Vespera stood her ground with her luminous purple eyes sharpening beneath her hood.
The second Morrighan closed the distance, Vespera activated the Tidal-Blade Second Style: Rip-Current Perception.
HUMMMMMM!
A subtle invisible pulse of high-pressure water mana erupted into the ambient air around Morrighan’s advancing body.
Vespera focused her mental awareness, attempting to trigger the perception phase.
In theory, the atmospheric water moisture was supposed to read Morrighan’s micro-telegraphs... muscle tension, breath control, weight distribution and highlight glowing blue current lines pointing straight to Morrighan’s open gaps.
...However, just as Morwenna had warned during their earlier training sessions, the Second Style was insanely difficult to master.
Vespera’s vision didn’t flood with clear, glowing blue lines.
The atmospheric moisture read the dark brimstone heat radiating off Morrighan’s demonic aura, creating distorted, flickering blue wisps that faded in and out of sight.
Vespera couldn’t get a clear, stable read on the opening.
’Fucking hell...’ Vespera thought with a sigh. ’The heat from her demonic mana is warping the moisture pressure... I can’t rely on full perception.’
BOOM!
Morrighan arrived directly in front of her!
"BRIMSTONE PUNCH!" Morrighan yelled out, driving her heavy spiked mythril gauntlet straight for Vespera’s chest.
The fist was wrapped in a roaring vortex of dark brimstone flames.
Vespera couldn’t read the complete flaw, but her raw combat instincts and gold-core reaction speed kicked in.
CLANG!
Vespera raised her single steel longsword horizontally, catching Morrighan’s massive spiked gauntlet right against the flat of her blade.
KABAGHHH!
The physical impact of Morrighan’s boosted demonic strength was immense.
The shockwave blasted the grass beneath their boots forty feet into the air, forcing Vespera’s boots to skid backward five feet across the torn mud.
"HAAAAAH!"
Morrighan didn’t stop.
Driven by her fierce desire to prove her worth, she spun her body mid-air, her heavy scale-armored crimson tail whipping around like a steel mace straight toward Vespera’s exposed left flank.
SWISH!
Vespera executed rapid footwork, stepping inside the arc of the tail strike... She swung her longsword upward, using a basic deflection arc—
CLANG!
The blade struck the scale armor of Morrighan’s tail, sending bright orange sparks showering into the dust.
’Chains... I need my chains...’
While her tail was still engaged, Morrighan thrust her left palm straight down into the dirt!
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Four massive, shadow-forged abyssal chains erupted out of the mud directly beneath Vespera’s boots, coiling around her ankles and pulling tight.
Vespera felt the chilling stamina-draining cold of the abyssal chains locking her legs in place.
’Impulsive... but creative!’ Vespera evaluated internally, her eyes gleaming with genuine admiration. ’She chained a physical distraction straight into a crowd-control spell!’
"BRIMSTONE BOLT!" Morrighan screamed, thrusting both hands forward at point-blank range.
A massive smoky fireball of dark demonic fire shot straight for Vespera’s face.
Vespera didn’t panic.
She didn’t draw on her Tier 3 destructive spells like Fulgur Annihilation or Incineration Ray since she was explicitly keeping this fight strictly focused on her swordsmanship and controlled output.
HUMMMMM!
Vespera channeled her Gold Core wind mana through her single blade, executing a high-speed vertical slash.
VWOOSH!
A crescent of compressed wind pressure exploded from her steel tip, slicing the incoming brimstone fireball cleanly in half.
The two halves of dark fire detonated harmlessly behind Vespera, scorching the distant mud.
CRUNCH!
With a flex of her mana, Vespera shattered the abyssal chains around her ankles, stepping free from the dark links.
Morrighan was panting heavily now as she landed.
"Hah... Hah..."
The heavy toll of `Demon’s Resolve` was already starting to drain her stamina reserves, but her golden eyes burned with ferocious unyielding spirit.
"AGAIN!" Morrighan bellowed, drawing deep on her lingering reserves.
She rushed forward, throwing a barrage of heavy, gauntleted punches, tail sweeps, and brimstone blasts.
CLANG! BAM! CLANG! VWOOSH!
Vespera retreated step-by-step across the clearing, parrying every strike with her longsword blurring into a silver circle of steel.
Throughout the intense exchange, Vespera continuously maintained the Second Style: Rip-Current Perception.
She cycled ambient moisture through her internal circuits, pushing her mind to filter out the chaotic brimstone heat and read Morrighan’s underlying movement telegraphs.
’I need this to work...’
Ten seconds... twenty seconds... thirty seconds of high-speed clashing passed.
Morrighan’s movements were gradually slowing down.
Her shoulder was dipping half an inch low on every third punch and her breath control was becoming ragged.
And then... for a single, fleeting microsecond...
In Vespera’s heightened perception, the ambient moisture pressure suddenly clicked into place.
A single razor-thin wisp of glowing blue light current materialized in the air... pointing directly to a microscopic opening under Morrighan’s left armpit as she raised her gauntlet for a heavy overhead strike.
’THERE!’ Vespera’s mind screamed.
It wasn’t a full perfect vision of the Second Style... it was barely a slim, brief opening that lasted for a fraction of a second but it was enough.
SWISH!
Vespera executed an instantaneous forward step, slipping cleanly under Morrighan’s raised mythril gauntlet.
She didn’t use the cutting edge of her sword.
Instead, Vespera reversed her grip, driving the flat pommel of her longsword precisely into the open gap under Morrighan’s left rib cage, followed by a swift, gentle tap of her gloved hand against the side of Morrighan’s neck.
THWACK!
The precise impact shut down the nerve cluster along Morrighan’s spine.
The dark cursed magic circles spinning around the clearing instantly shattered into harmless black particles as the crimson aura around Morrighan’s body faded away.
"Ah..." Morrighan let out a soft, airy breath.
Her molten-gold eyes lost their focus with her long crimson hair trailing in the wind as her knees buckled.
As her body tipped forward, falling toward the damp grass, a single cute and flustered thought flashed through Morrighan’s fading consciousness.
’Ah... her hand was so warm... I am finally... home...’
"My Lord..." Morrighan whispered softly.
THUD.
Morrighan’s tall horned frame landed gently on the mud, completely unconscious, a peaceful contented smile resting on her dark lips.
Vespera lowered her sword, letting out a long, quiet breath as steam rose from her blade.
She looked down at the sleeping demoness, reaching up to adjust her spatial hood as a slight, sheepish look touched her face.
"Ah..." Vespera muttered softly to herself, looking at Morwenna. "Did I... did I go a little too hard on her?"
Morwenna chuckled dryly from atop her wolf, shaking her head.
"She’s fine, Captain. Her ribs are intact. She just needs an hour of sleep."
Vespera looked at her single steel longsword with her thoughts turning back to the slim, flickering wisp of the Second Style she had managed to trigger at the very end.
’I barely caught that opening...’ Vespera thought. ’The Second Style really is a nightmare to master in real-time combat. I couldn’t push my perception speed as fast as I wanted... I just need to train a lot more but damn...’
Nobody else was coming to her.
’Are they afraid?’
...
Meanwhile, far across the central battlefield...
The chaotic clash between the main forces was reaching a terrifying elemental climax.
Ignis... the Flame Hero and Frost... the Glacial Hero were completely terrorizing both sides of the clearing.
Because they were operating as a paired elemental Hero team, their combined mana output was creating immense collateral destruction.
Ignis was hurling fifty-foot fireballs that incinerated defensive barriers, while Frost was casting wide-area blizzards that froze the weapons of both Sky’s infantrymen and Blessed Land’s Vanguard women alike.
They did not care about casualties at all.
"GET BACK!" a Shieldmaiden screamed out, retreating as a wall of blue ice spiked out of the ground.
"HAHAHAHA!" Ignis laughed hysterically, his hands engulfed in white-hot flames as he floated ten feet above the scorched dirt. "Is this all the famous Blessed Land has to offer?! You can’t even close the distance through our dual domain!"
Beside him, Frost hovered with cold arrogant detachment with his icy blue eyes scanning the disoriented troops below.
"It’s useless," Frost declared coldly. "Our anti-gravity rune arrays protect us from ground lockdown, and our combined elemental density cannot be pierced by simple infantry charges!"
Sky’s disoriented troops and Blessed Land’s Vanguard were both being pushed back by the unbridled environmental pressure of fire and ice.
...Suddenly...
HUMMMMMMM!
Directly beneath the floating boots of Ignis and Frost, the damp scorched earth began to glow with a brilliant deep-sapphire light.
A massive intricate Runic magic circle stretching thirty yards wide materialized on the ground, its complex runic geometric lines spinning with terrifying power.
SWISH!
A sleek elegant figure stepped out from behind a frozen rock pillar.
Rowenna calmly walked into the open clearing.
She reached up with her gloved hand, smoothly pulling back her dark hood to reveal her striking features as her long hair fluttered in the wind.
She wasn’t holding any staff as her hands were completely empty, resting casually at her sides.
Ignis and Frost stopped their attacks mid-air, snapping their heads down to glare at the lone Rune Weaver.
"Look who finally stepped out!" Ignis taunted arrogantly with a wide sneer on his face. "A runic arcanist! Don’t bother trying to pull us down with spatial tricks, woman! We carry special High-Tier Anti-Gravity Runes carved directly into our chest armor! Your basic spells won’t even nudge us—"
Rowenna paused in her tracks.
She looked up at the two hovering Heroes with her sharp eyes completely unbothered as her voice cut cleanly through their taunts with icy authority.
"Yes..." Rowenna interrupted smoothly, a sharp, dangerous grin curving her lips. "...I know you have anti-gravity runes."
Ignis and Frost froze, their eyes widening in sudden instinctual horror.
KRA-THOOOOOOOOOM!
Before either Hero could react, Rowenna snapped her right fingers.
KABAAAAAM!
The deep-sapphire runic array on the ground violently exploded with twenty times the force of standard atmospheric gravity.
The space above the circle visually distorted, bending light and air inward like a collapsing black hole.
CRASH! KABAGHHH!
The anti-gravity runes carved into Ignis and Frost’s armor instantly shattered under the astronomical weight of the 20x gravity well.
Both Heroes didn’t just fall... they were forcefully, violently slammed straight down from mid-air into the bedrock like two dropped iron anvils!
BOOOOOOM!
The velocity of their collision smashed a forty-foot crater into the dirt.
Bedrock shattered into fine powder as Ignis and Frost were pinned flat on their bellies in the dirt, the overwhelming 20x gravity pressing down on their spines so hard they couldn’t even lift a single finger or vent a breath of fire.
Rowenna stood at the edge of the crater, looking down at the two trapped Heroes with a calm predatory smirk on her face.
She dusted off her sleeves, her voice echoing coldly across the silent battlefield.
"I’ve been listening..." Rowenna finished smoothly. "...from the very beginning."