I faced off against Myra Kazuichi, my heart pumping into overdrive. There was still the unsettling feeling of an unknown pressure suppressing me. It must have been the effects of mana nullification, considering I couldn't feel mana flowing in my body. However, there was something else. A chilling presence that made my blood run cold. As if someone I just barely couldn't 'see was watching over me, analyzing my every move.
It felt similar to when the Witch of Vainglory had cast her gaze upon me. A bone-chilling and unsettling stare. One I knew was there but could never pinpoint. I shook my head, pinching myself to stay focused. I had been given my task, and I had to make sure that I wasn't the one who messed things up for everyone today. I needed to distract the opponent in front of me while making sure Aven got away safely.
That was easier said than done, of course. The opponent that I had to keep distracted was none other than Myra Kazuichi, the bloodhound. The last time we fought, I came out with multiple broken bones, a few broken ribs, and I nearly died from cardiac arrest, as she forced me to go all out.
And I needed to fight this same opponent, all the while not using any mana, and keeping count of a whole other person, and making sure they didn't get hurt either.
If I were being frank, it was pretty much impossible. That being said, I had to do the impossible, or else there would be a high chance that my team would lose.
In front of me, Myra was stretching, staying light on her toes, a constant bounce in her movements resemblinga predatory cat.
"Come on, you don't look too happy to be here right now." Myra commented as she stepped forward. blocking the path between me and Aven.
"Of course I'm not all too happy. I was led on to believe there was a new HxH volume. But it turns out even in an illusion the series will never finish." I unsheathed my sword, the sound of the metal being released filling the room with a spine-chilling SHHHHHH!
Myra assumed a fighting stance, her eyes roving about and analyzing every single part of me. "Don't you feel slightly ashamed using a weapon against an unarmed lady?"
I met her gaze, not even blinking. "Not at all."
A brief moment of tense silence ensued, where the two of us stood off facing each other.
And then at the same time we both took one silent step forward, dashing at the other and clashing.
As my sword clashed against her arm, I made sure to not lose my grip and get my weapon thrown away. With no mana to rely on, if I lost my weapon, I lost any chance I had for even a small advantage.
Myra began the battle by pressing hard and relentlessly, unleashing a constant flurry of attacks that I had no hope of escaping from, let alone finding the room to launch any sort of meaningful counterattack. I stepped out of the way of a kick and blocked its follow-up punches before flipping over the counter of the pizza parlor and dodging a skull crusher of an elbow.
Without the ability to use electrification, I could feel my drop in movement speed, even more so with how close I was to getting hit by Myra's attacks. I flipped back over the counter, and with that I had placed myself in between Myra and Aven. That allowed me to fight while defending Aven. But in truth my plan wasn't to fight; it was to run. And in order to do that, I would have to create a big enough distraction that even Myra would be slowed down.
And I had the perfect plan for that. Still, I would need the adequate time and space to get it off, and the way Myra was attacking, I wasn't sure if I'd be gifted that adequate time and space at all.
Myra launched back into her flurry of attacks, and this time I baited her towards the right corner of the parlor, near the entrance. Dodging and weaving and flipping over attacks to avoid certain death, I managed to get Myra to follow me over towards the right corner of the pizza place. As soon as I felt my back touch the wall, I used my sword to swing myself upwards, avoiding another punch that would have left me quadriplegic.
The entire wooden support beam crumpled under the power of her blow, and the building half fell over, crumpling on its right side.
I pushed off the collapsing support beam to the left side of the building, and with one slash of my sword I cut that beam down too.
The entire front half of the pizza parlor came crumpling down, along with the store's next to it. Using the distraction caused by the crumbling building, I dashed forward and grabbed Aven's unconscious body, which was surprisingly heavy, and jumped out of the back entrance.
As soon as I felt my feet hit the pavement and the light of the sun bearing down upon me, I burst into a run, not bothering to wait a single second.
A flimsy distraction like that wouldn't have succeeded in holding Myra for any more than a second or two, so I had to move quickly.
That assumption was proven correct by the massive explosion behind me and the sound of wood and metal being torn apart. A wall of heat blasted my back as the furnaces within the pizza place blew, spreading flame over the rest of the plaza.
I darted behind a group of vehicles, sticking to cover and aiming to take a route between alleys and buildings, trying my very best to put as much distance between me and the bloodhound as possible.
Of course any attempt to escape her would be futile. She wasn't given that nickname for no reason after all. She was adept at hunting down targets. With every corner I turned and every building I cut through, I could hear her jingling bells not far off in the distance, hot on my trail.
That same pressure from before came over me again, as if a massive eye from above was bearing down on me, watching my every move. Calculating every outcome.
The result of those calculations?
This chase would end in me being caught.
I had come to that conclusion myself already. The sound of the bells that Myra kept on her was getting louder and louder, and my anxiety was rising higher as I realized she would be on me at any moment.
Thankfully, I had managed to reach where I wanted to. Turning the corner, I saw standing in front of me the backyard of a hotel. More specifically, the pool section. In order to wake Aven up, I was planning to dunk him into the cold water before abandoning him to lead Myra as far away as I could.
Straight ahead of me was the hotel, only a block between me and the success of my on-the-fly strategy.
But of course, things would never have ended so perfectly.
Like a villain in a horror movie, Myra smashed through the wall of the building right in front of me, forcing me to come to a stop as my heart literally dropped to my ass.
She was laughing as she stepped out of the hole in the wall, her eyes filled with pleasure.
Once again that mysterious pressure intensified.
My eyes desperately scanned around for a solution, but I found nothing. There was nothing that I could do to escape. She had already caught us.
Just before I got hit with the game over screen, however, I felt life resurge back into my body as the stagnant mana began to flow once more. Not wasting a single second, I activated my electrification, using it to avoid Myra's grab and position myself a few buildings away.
Once I was there, I slightly shocked Aven with a bit of lightning mana, causing him to bolt up in a sweat.
"You alright?"
He looked like he had just seen something horrific, and his face was aghast, making me wonder what Myra did to him.
"Wh- what's, I—"
His words were interrupted by a loud crashing sound as Myra landed on the rooftopa few feet away.
"Use your shield! Alice will explain the whole situation!" Moving quickly, I picked Aven up, applied an amplification and wind spell, and tossed him towards the center of the map.
At the same time, Myra arrived, landing one vicious punch amplified by mana. In the brief moment of pain I whispered goodbye to my barely healed ribs as I was sent flying through three straight buildings, finally coming to a stop in the laundry room of a dormitory.
The punch was so violent and powerful that I landed upside down, my feet in the air, and the shape of my body was imprinted in the now destroyed washing machines and dryers.
My sword clanked down to the side next to me as I began wrenching blood, grasping my chest.
That's your wake-up call, Raiden. You slack off and you die.
I pushed myself to my feet despite the pain in my body, picking up my blade once more.
Just in time to catch another one to the face.
I was sent flying straight through the wall this time.
Before I even had the chance to recover, there was another.
And another.
And another.
I couldn't keep up any more.
"Come on! Didn't we agree? Full power, no holding back?"
Using mana to amplify her body to the max, Myra was whaling on me, who was only using electrification at 20%.
Very quickly it registered in my mind that if I did not turn it up, I would lose here.
I thought back to the fact that Credo was watching this whole thing go down.
My team was probably fighting hard.
I couldn't go down like this.
Just as Myra went for her next punch, I sidestepped.
I was at 85%. I wanted to keep it like this, but chances are that wouldn't be possible.
I dodged her blow, and her next, and then her next.
I continued to dodge her blows, slowly ramping up the power of my electrification. Myra seemed to be having the most fun she had in ages, the smile on her face widening even further.
Our fight crashed through multiple floors of the dormitory, shattering rooms and courtyards, ending up with us crashing into the base floor of an apartment, right into the wide lobby.
At this point I had dodged what felt like over a hundred attacks.
Still, it wasn't enough.
I knew for a fact that I couldn't beat Myra if I fought with electrification at 100%. Not because I would lose, but instead because the cardiac arrest would kill me before she could.
Still, I needed the power of electrification at 100% if I wanted any shot at beating Myra here.
So I needed to end this battle while making use of 100% electrification for as little time as possible.
And I had found the perfect way to do that.
Mixing my ability, [Perfect Counter], with the domain tech I had picked up when fighting against Pride.
Using that, along with electrification at 100% to amp my power, I should have had enough power to take Myra down in one blow.
So I continued to dodge attacks, charging the count on my perfect counter. The more attacks I dodged, the more I would be able to unleash that same amount of attacks back at my opponent.
But this time, instead of doing it in a bunch of little slashes, I would charge it all into one singular blow.
We crashed upwards through multiple floors, coming out on a massive dining hall.
It was then that I felt I was ready.
I released my mana, creating a domain.
Myra, who had seen this attack before, shook her head.
"The same thing won't work on me twice."
I felt her channel up mana. She was planning to use a defense spell.
I allowed my domain to encompass more than just the hotel we were fighting in. I allowed it to flow out into the buildings outside. Everything was covered in a black and white hue.
And then I dashed forward.
95%.
Myra activated a defense spell while shouting out into her intercom.
Multiple layers of defense spells were put up.
I channel all of my strength into my arm, raising the level of electrification to 100% for a single second.
Charging up all of the recorded attacks I had dodged, I let them loose in one singular slash, activating my ability [Perfect Counter].
That one slash tore through all of the defense spells like butter. It tore through the walls of the hotel, and it didn't stop there. That single slash and the aftershock of it uplifted multiple entire city blocks. ripping skyscrapers and ground from where they stood in an area the size of multiple football fields.
Myra had managed to neutralize some of the damage through defense spells, and a last-ditch portal spell from Misa managed to redirect some of the power.
But a brunt of the attack still hit her arms, which were fortified with mana.
A deep gash opened up in both of her arms, and it pierced through even that.
A large red slash was drawn along her chest, deep and bleeding.
CRACKKK!
SHATTERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The domain shatters, returning color to the world.
The entire area we were in was falling apart.
Skyscrapers and large apartment buildings were falling; it was raining cars, ground, and houses.
The ground down below had been reduced to rubble and ash.
I dashed forward.
I and Myra were now falling.
Hundreds of feet into the air.
I raised my ball into the air.
We crashed through the ground, smashing into the car of a subway train passing by.
Myra hit the ground first, and I landed right after her, pinning her down by placing my sword against her neck.
Above I could feel the world rock and shake as buildings crashed into the ground. It felt like the train would be thrown off of the rails by the force of everything.
Below me, Myra was breathing heavily; her eyes were glazed over.
She was bleeding heavily from the gash in her stomach.
I was breathing heavily as well. The relapse from all the damage I had taken would be hitting soon.
"That was...fucking sick." Myra commented.
I coughed out blood to the side.
"You got what you wanted, right? You saw me fight without holding back?" I said, hoping we could just end this battle here.
Myra chuckled, which must have hurt considering the wound on her chest.
"Not at all. At the very end right there I saw the look in your face. You dampened the power of that blow at the last second. If you had really been going full power, I would have been bisected."
She was right. At the very last moment I had pulled back the power of my attack. I had realized that I was thinking as if I was in a life-or-death situation.
"That fact in and of itself should be a motivator. You pushed me to a point where I literally thought I was going to die."
Myra nodded. "Still. We have so much time left. Wouldn't it be a shame to end it all here?"
My eyes widened. Not because of what she said, although that alone was shocking. Instead, it was because of what I was witnessing."
Myra was healing. Her wound was closing, albeit slowly. The blood had stopped gushing.
Healing magic in and of itself wasn't unheard of. There were even mages who spent their time studying to become dedicated healers. It was necessary, considering the scale of injuries that could be racked up on the battlefield.
Self-healing, however, was practically unheard of. Trying to mend your body with your very own mana was quite literally one of the things you should never do. Pumping yourself with your own mana to heal wounds usually leads to poisoning and irritation of your mana flow, which damages you more than it helps. It was a similar principle to the one behind why you shouldn't drink your own blood.
So how was Myra self-healing?
"Wha—"
My shock was interrupted by a punch to my face, which knocked me out of the train. I slide to a stop just before I fall off the railing into the next set of tracks.
Myra stepped out of the train. Her wounds had stopped bleeding and were beginning to heal over. She smiled.
"Shocking, I know. A family secret of ours, so I can't tell. What do you say we continue?"
I spit out blood, looking at my opponent. I was a fool to think this battle would be over. Myra Kazuichi was the kind of person who would not stop a battle until she physically could move no longer. Like a hound, she would fight and fight and struggle until the end.
So in order to beat her, I'd have to be the same. I stabbed my blade into the ground, tossing my sheath to the side.
Myra looked at me in confusion. "Chivalry?"
I nodded. "I just realized it was unfair of me to use a weapon against an unarmed damsel like yourself." In truth, I ditched the weapon because I figured I wouldn't be able to make use of it anymore. The mana nullification had returned.
I unbuttoned my blazer. It would be easier to move withoutit, and it was unrealistically hot in here.
Pulling it off, I held it out over the rails. Waiting.
And as soon as the train passed by, I let go, letting the train carry the blazer with it.
Myra smiled. "Finally serious?" She assumed a fighting stance.
I did the same. "You could say that."
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Nova jumped from the back of one robot to the next, in constant movement, avoiding the waves of flames that vaporized the bots behind her. Her goal was to reach the flying broom where Yuri, Erika, and Misa were on, raining down fire from above.
Tasked with distracting Misa for long enough for Ayung to come up with something that could bring her down for good.
The bell had already rung as well, meaning at this point the captains would be making their way towards this central area. They'd probably arrive in around 5-10 minutes, meaning in that time one side would have to have gained complete control of the center.
If not, this battle would devolve into a mess.
Ayung's bots, despite being weak, were large in number, making for a nice amount of footholds to use as Nova made her approach. And that wasn't their only purpose. They also made use of gunfire and rockets to add an additional layer of pressure.
Misa used her portals to take in the fire and reflect it back, which Nova had to avoid all the while dodging Erika's flames.
Shen landed on the next robot before prepping her bow and firing off multiple flaming arrows.
Just before the arrows were sucked straight into Misa's portal, they diverged. She had used individual strings of mana to control their movement, similar to Julius, the World Ender.
The arrows dodged the portals Misa tried to put up, but just before the hit, they were shot down by Yuri's guns.
"Tch!" Nova shook her head in frustration.
Their defenses were just too strong to be broken through from a range. And getting close wasn't easy either....
Just as Nova was reaching her wit's end, Luka called out to her.
"We can make use of my Shadows!"
She stared at him in confusion, and he jumped over to stand on the robot next to her. The robots took evasive maneuvers to avoid the gunfire and flames being shot down at them.
"I have the ability to swap places with any one of my shadows. So all we need to do is provide enough cover fire for at least one shadow to get through. Then we can swap and knock them down a peg."
Nova marveled at the versatility of Luka's ability for a moment before nodding her head and agreeing to the strategy. It was the best shot that they had at the moment, so why not go for it?
Turning back to face their opponents, Nova aimed her bow. She also activated a spell that summoned multiple other bows around her and layered that with a homing spell. She also layered a spell to detonate the arrows.
With that, she fired off a hailstorm of arrows, not letting up for a second.
Looking at the wall of arrows coming down at them, one might freeze up in shock, but Misa did not. Instead she just smiled and opened a massive gaping portal right in front of them, which sucked in all of the arrows.
Nova realized her misstep in the same moment that a new portal opened up, firing all of her arrows right back at her.
But before those arrows could even become a threat, a massive golden barrier was erected between her and the barrier. The arrows hit against the barrier and detonated harmlessly.
Nova looked around in shock to see Aven in the air, flying above on summoned blades. He looked worse for wear, but he had a smile on his face despite that.
He flashed Nova a thumbs up. Nova nodded her thanks and went back to raining down her fire arrows. Every time they were launched back at her, Aven would raise the barrier, blocking all of the attacks.
Noticing that, Yuri jumped off of the broom and began allowing his mana to flow within the air.
He was going to use the technique that Raiden had warned about. His goal was to take out Aven.
Just before Aven could trap him in the barrier, however, he went through a portal.
Misa continued to throw Yuri through a series of continuous portals, and he used his teleport ability on top of that, which made him literally impossible to track.
All the while he rained down fire on Aven, who surrounded himself in a barrier for protection.
Yuri and Misa continued the combo pressure, however. Aven's barriers were pretty much unbreakable, however, so there shouldn't have been any worry—
However, in that moment, that was when Nova saw it. Every bullet that hit the barrier left a trace of mana, which wove its way around. Using her mana sense, she could see that the traces of the mana left behind wove their way around and around Aven's barrier until they covered the entire surface area of the spear.
When Yuri finally stopped his onslaught, he returned back to Misa's broom through a portal.
He stood up, and with a sly smirk, he snapped his fingers.
For a second nothing happened. He looked confused and snapped his fingers again. And again.
Finally, after the fourth snap, the mana traces left on Aven's barrier all detonated at once, shattering the barrier instantly. It must have been Yuri's ability.
As soon as the barrier was cracked open, Yuri prepared to open fire down on Aven, but just as he did. -
Luka grabbed Nova's arm, and suddenly they had teleported behind the crew on the broom.
The distraction was just enough for one of Luka's shadows to sneak behind them, and now they were in.
Nova transformed her bow into a sword, and Luka charged up a blast of mana.
WHOOOOSH!
A gust of wind so powerful that the houses below were torn off of their bases blew through the air, knocking both Luka and Nova away. They just barely managed to stay atop the robots, whose flight path had been completely knocked off course by the wind.
"What's going on!" Nova shouted.
That's when Alice's voice came over the speaker.
"EVERYONE! Clyde has used his ability! A storm the very size of this island is tearing its way here now! Aven!"
And just as Alice had said, when they looked south, they saw it.
A massive storm of pressurized wind that split the surface of the ocean itself. Its width easily dwarfed that of the entire island that they stood on, and even from afar, the very outer ring of the storm was tearing apart the houses on the island. So large that even here in the center they could feel its effects.
"I'm almost done! Getting ready to fire in 20 seconds!" Ayung shouted.
Massive walls of gold were erected around the island just as the storm was about to hit land. The storm crashed against the walls, creating a deafening sound that irritated the ears. A wall of pressure and a shock wave were released outside the wall as the storm continued to fight against the walls erected by Aven.
"We're arriving in the center now!" Alice said.
Just then, a massive portal opened up in the sky. Another portal opened up right outside the barrier.
A combo attack, combining Clyde's storm with Misa's portals to create a pressurized blast of wind that would blow a majority of the map away.
Aven would be too caught up holding the storm off to erect barriers around his teammates, and Misa had already saved Masayoshi from the effects by placing him inside of her own portal dimension.
A massive beam of wind and water was shot out of the portal, coming straight for the ground. Everything went bright as the massive beam of light got closer.
CLASH!
"FIRING!" Ayung shouted.
Another massive beam of light was fired from the massive supermall where Alice's team had started from.
The beams clashed against each other, hanging in the air for a split moment, before everything was overtaken by a massive flash of blinding white light.
When the light cleared, the entire center portion of the city had been completely blown away. The storm was still raging outside, fighting against Aven's barrier. Everybodyhad been knocked down by the explosion. The only people left still standing were the captains, who were now rushing towards the center. Masayoshi was in the lead because of Misa's portal; however, his progress was slowed by Ayung's robots. Erika sliced them down, clearing a way for him.
The two captains arrived at the center at the exact same time. They thrust down their flags—
An explosion of energy knocked them back as the sky ruptured into black and red cubes, and something crashed into the ground from the sky.
The captains were blown backward.
And in the center of the field was a figure. Tall. With a large black cloak covering them. They held a black katana at their side. And beneath the cloak, soulless black eyes stared back.
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Just as the two captains were about to put in their flag, the feed cut out. The screen went black and red, and students shouted out as the intense match that they were watching was interrupted.
The screen shifted to show a single red eye in the center, staring. Its gaze gave off an uneasy pressure, and the eye was calculating something.
Credo looked at the screen as if this was something he was expecting. "THEY intervened. Earlier than they should have. But that's no problem. This means things are going right." Credo smiled, and his vermillion red eye began to bleed. He had lost all control over this illusion.
"Even that cold, unfeeling calculator would have never been able to foresee this." He looked up into the sky. "This is just the first step. With this..."
He felt THEIR gaze upon him.
"I'll dismantle the future."