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CHAPTER START—
"So, do you have any cool Magic, or will I be doing all the fighting?" Oberon asks as he walks side by side through the forest, being led by Wayne.
"My Magics are all about creating and enforcing contracts," Wayne says. "After you subdue her, my Binding Magic will temporarily disrupt and seal her Magic Energy until we get to the Royal Knights, where they'll place cuffs on her that have the same effect."
"That sounds cool," Oberon says as he casually walks through the forest, taking in the sights and enjoying the fresh air.
Wayne raises a hand, and Oberon instantly stops. "She's close, less than a mile, directly ahead," Wayne says.
"Tell me if she starts moving," Oberon says as he begins walking ahead of Wayne.
After a few more minutes Oberon speaks in a low voice, "How far away from the city are we?"
"About twelve miles," Wayne says. "Why?"
"Just thinking, there isn't anything in this forest, at least not on the map, so why would she even be out here?"
"Her Guild said she cut all ties with them, so I assumed she was here to meet new friends," Wayne says as they get closer. "800 Meters -2600ft-, we're almost in her range…stop."
Oberon glances over at Wayne, seeing the man looking slightly confused.
"She's moving, higher," Wayne says.
"How high up?"
"Just a few stories, but she got up there fast."
"Get some cover, I'll go take a look," Oberon says as, to Wayne's surprise, he quickly flies into the canopy of the forest. Poking his head out through the leaves to see a large hill ahead of them in a massive clearing. "Shit."
"Shit?" Wayne asks as Oberon drops back to the floor.
"She took the high ground in the middle of an open field, she must have known we were coming."
Wayne looks around for a moment, "There must have been Alarm Lacrima or something around here, and I was so confident in getting the jump on her that I rushed us right past them."
"It's fine, this just means we'll have to stay behind cover as we approach," Oberon says.
Their pace slows to a crawl as they carefully move from one tree or boulder to the next for the next hundred meters, until they can see the start of the massive clearing.
With their backs to trees, Oberon signals to Wayne to stay put, as with a wave of his hand he creates the Telescopic Lens, the size of a monocle between his fingers.
He spins around and barely leans out from behind the tree, focusing on the top of the hill, over 400m -1300ft- from the edge of the tree line.
He barely gets a glimpse of the woman, wearing a pair of long brown pants and a white top as she lays in the grass, rifle set on a tripod and aiming their way, looking down the scope with one eye, in his direction.
Oberon sees her playfully wave before a blinding yellow flash fills his vision.
"Ah!" Oberon winces as the sudden light blinds his eye.
"Wha—" Wayne doesn't even have time to finish his question as Oberon throws both hands forward and creates a square Light Barrier.
In the next moment a beam of light, as wide as Oberon's head slams into his Light Barrier, shattering it as the attack creates an explosion on impact.
BOOM!
The explosion kicks up dirt and rocks, shakes the trees, and causes such a shockwave that Wayne is thrown off his feet, and sent rolling in the dirt.
"Argh!" He holds his aching shoulder as he struggles to get up, looking back to see Oberon gone, then looking toward the hill to see another shot coming directly toward his face.
His eyes widen, body paralyzed with fear.
But at the last moment a Light Barrier forms to protect him, and the shot explodes against it, cracking the Light Barrier instead of shattering it like the previous one.
"Are you ok?" Oberon asks, causing Wayne to look over at him.
His clothes were slightly singed and dusted with dirt, but the boy still stood with his hands out, generating the Light Barrier in front of them both.
"I'll be fine," Wayne says as he gets up.
"Incoming!" Oberon yells as two more shots are fired at them.
He grits his teeth and pours more Magic Energy into the Light Barrier, yet the power of these two shots forces him to slide back a few feet as they explode against his spell.
"Wow," Wayne mutters.
"We need to move, get ready!" Oberon says as she fires a third shot.
This time, however, when the shot slams into his Light Barrier, it curves around it, heading directly toward Wayne's head.
"No!" Oberon yells as he forces the Light Barrier to bend, twist, and expand, barely intercepting this attack as the explosion shatters his spell.
They're both sent rolling, still in line-of-sight with her rifle, which Oberon quickly notices.
He quickly gets up on one knee and raises his fist.
LIGHT FLASH!
He releases a massive amount of bright golden light from his fist.
"Ah shit!" the woman yells as she winces, seeing stars in her vision.
Without much delay she changes to aim down the scope with her other eye, only to see both her targets gone.
"C'mon, just poke your head out," she says all while keeping her rifle in the same direction.
Meanwhile, at the other side of those trees Wayne is sitting with his back against the bark, holding his dislocated shoulder.
"Hey kid, I think we should retreat," he says, glancing over at Oberon who was standing with his back to a tree a few meters away, eyes closed, thinking over everything.
"Just give me a moment to think," Oberon says. "How hurt are you?"
"My shoulder is dislocated."
"You won't bleed out then, so just stay right there until I'm done."
Wayne closes his eyes, trying not to focus on the throbbing pain wracking his body, "You Guild Wizards are crazy…" he mutters.
Oberon considered everything he just saw.
'At this range, I can hit her, but my shots won't have enough power by the time they get to her, plus she'll definitely get to fire first since I'm the one who has to leave cover and then find her before casting a Spell.
But I definitely have more shots than her if she keeps using that rifle,' he glances over at Wayne. 'A battle of stamina is no good with him here, one stray shot and he dies. I need to keep her focused on me…but she was focused on him earlier, probably because she knows he's the tracker.'
Oberon brings his fists together in front of his chest, focusing his Magic Energy to heal the bruises across his body.
'She can't curve her shots if she doesn't know where they need to go beforehand, and it seems like she can only make a shot curve once, otherwise, it would have just curved a second time to hit Wayne in the head.
Plus if she could curve the shot without seeing her target to lock onto it, then, we'd already be dead as she'd curve it around the trees,' Oberon glances at Wayne, then a tree a bit deeper into the forest from them.
He sees a large rock behind the tree, and using his Gravity Magic he moves it to completely hide it behind the tree.
And a moment later a shot of Light Magic is fired toward the tree, curving around it and slamming into the rock, pulverizing it.
'Ok, so my analysis was right, and now I know she's in the exact same spot,' he thinks while taking a few deep breaths, preparing himself.
Looking over to Wayne he sees the man looking at him, "No matter what happens, don't leave cover, her main target is you for now, I need to close the distance and end this before she gets a lucky shot onto you," Oberon says.
"Don't have to tell me twice," Wayne says.
Taking one more deep breath Oberon rushes out from behind the tree, moving toward the clearing while raising a hand to fire at the woman.
He releases eight shots of Light Magic directly at her, spreading them out slightly so she can't hit multiple with one blast from the rifle.
'This should make her use multiple shots, and drain her Magic Energy a lot faster.'
In response, she smiles, and fires one shot from the rifle, directly at him.
This shot moves much faster than his, reaching him before his shots are even halfway to her.
Oberon raises his hands and creates a Light Barrier around himself to block the impact, noticing that this time it was meant to pierce not explode.
And through his Light Barrier, he uses his Telescopic Lens to see her Requip a Magic Pistol into her left hand and fire a single shot at his attacks.
Her single light bullet splits into either bullets and easily cancels his attacks, causing them to explode into bright flashes of light.
Oberon gets behind a boulder for cover before the flashes dissipate, breathing a sigh of relief.
'Oh you've got to be kidding me, she dealt with that like it was nothing,' he thinks. 'She was a top Mercenary Guild member before this, so of course at range she outclasses me in all ways. That means this only ends if I get up close.'
Oberon sits behind the rock for two minutes, wracking his brain to think of a plan, only for one insane idea to form in his mind.
He looks down at his hands, flexing his fingers and flowing Light Magic across his skin.
'Well, the Lizardman used an innate Defense Enchantment to dissipate Magic Energy that hit his body, so…maybe I can do that,' he thinks before closing his eyes and taking a meditative pose.
Oberon focuses on the air around him, feeling the wind moving across his skin, then circulates his Magic Energy through his body and across his skin.
After a few minutes, his opponent becomes impatient, firing at trees and rocks he could be hiding behind, tearing up this small section of the forest with different spells.
Eventually, she fires a Fire Magic Bullet into the trees, setting them ablaze to flush out Oberon and Wayne.
But even then, he simply meditates on his Magic Energy, tuning out everything else in the world.
'I'm already held apart from the world,' he thinks. 'I can't sense Magic, lots of people think I'm handicapped or some kind of freak because of it, like there is an invisible wall between me and everyone else in the world. Like I can never really hold hands with them, because my Magic can't properly connect with them…'
Oberon opens his eyes, wiping the sweat from his brown, seeing the trees around him burning.
But he simply looks down at his hands and smiles, "Now that invisible wall is real," he mutters, feeling Cosmic hovering just above his skin.
An all-encompassing armor, invisible and impossible to sense.
He places his hand on the ground, and it stops two inches above the grass, while forming a handprint on the grass below it.
"Ok, it needs a lot of work, but this'll work for now," Oberon says before taking a deep breath.
While in his armor he doesn't have access to air, as his Cosmic pushes even that away, so the moment he fully formed the armor around his body.
He rushed out from behind the boulder and charged the clearing.
"He's lost his mind," the woman chuckles as she fires at him the rifle, a dense blast of Light Magic energy rushes toward him.
Oberon barely steps to the side, out of its path.
But the blast curves at the last moment, slamming into his right shoulder.
"Hungh!" he's sent rolling through the clearing, tumbling before getting into a crouch and skidding on the grass, then immediately continues rushing the hill.
Her eyes widen in surprise, not seeing any visible damage on the boy, "What the hell? This must be some trick," she snarls before firing again.
This time he braces himself, reaching forward with his right hand, fingers flattened like a blade to meet the attack directly.
"Ahhh!" he screams, feeling the bones in his fingers crack and the skin on his right hand get seared by the shot.
The shot pushes him back a few feet, but he stays on his feet and immediately rushes forward again.
The woman's brows furrow as she grits her teeth, firing multiple shots at him.
With each shot, his Cosmic Armor becomes slightly better, more refined.
Not in the efficiency of it, but in the amount of Magic Energy he can consciously push into it.
Eventually, he crosses hundreds of meters, taking over a dozen shots while sprinting at her, and on the thirteenth shot, he's close enough to see her breathing unsteady.
She was tired, firing shot after shot into this juggernaut was mentally and physically exhausting, and now that he was less than 30m -100ft- away, she used her Magic to swap the rifle for a revolver.
Leaping backward she fans the hammer, firing six shots directly at him.
Oberon sees them coming, and allows them all to shatter against his Cosmic Armor, not even flinching, now fully confident in his new Spell.
The woman sees this and panics, swapping the revolver for a Magic Hunting Rifle, and taking aim directly at his face.
Even with him barely 15m -50ft- away, she keeps her aim stead and fires directly toward his eyes.
And to her horror Oberon doesn't even blink, instead reaching up and grabbing the shot out of the air so it doesn't obscure his vision when hitting his Cosmic Armor.
This sends a pang of fear through her as the boy reaches close enough to leap forward, fist reared to punch her in the face with everything he had.
"No!" she screams and falls backward.
As she's falling Oberon descends onto her, and at the last moment, she Requips.
Drawing the rifle and holding it sloppily, and with the barrel less than an arm's length from his chest, she fires.
"AHHHH!" Oberon's blood-curdling scream echoes through the clearing as he's knocked a dozen meters away.
"Ahhh!" the woman screams as well, the sloppily directed energy she used causes the gun to twist her fingers, breaking her index finger on her right hand as it flies off behind her.
They both lay on the ground, and after almost two minutes the woman gets up, clutching her injured right hand as she stumbles over to look at the boy.
She sees him on the floor, eyes closed, and on his chest is a basketball-sized circle where the skin is missing.
A bloody indication that his Cosmic Armor had failed, and the shot reached his skin, peeling all of his skin and some of the flesh below it away.
"That should have punched a hole right through you…what are you even made of," she mutters while Requiping the pistol into her left hand, swaying as she tries to gather enough energy for one shot.
"Ngh!" as she prepares to fire she winces, stumbling as her Magic Energy is already so low that she's barely conscious, and this small sound is enough for Oberon's eyes to snap open.
Her eyes go wide as her gaze meets his, and before she can pull the trigger, a wave of Gravity Magic pushes her hand to the side, causing her to miss.
Oberon suddenly rises off the floor, levitating toward her and punching her in the face, breaking her nose before following through with the punch until he slams her skull into the ground behind her.
"Nnnnn," the woman groans in pain as she blacks out, with Oberon's fist still on her head as he crouches on the grass beside her.
"Oh my god," Oberon says as he sees all the blood dripping from his chest into the grass beneath him. "I really, really need to work on that new Spell," he mutters before laying on his back beside the woman, gathering up his energy to heal and finish this Job…
END CHAPTER---
Discord: discord .gg /eHuxNeZfyS [Come chat with me]
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
You.tube: @KeanuEugene [Giving away all my writing knowledge]