Reign clicked his tongue as he charged at Nearsch who continued shooting his weapons at him. The shield and sword were still there, but the AI had made a decision that fighting Reign from close range was definitely not a good choice, and after not seeing any long-range attacks from him, it decided to fight him from long range.
Reign tried to get closer, but even with his speed, the AI was still able to follow his movements and continuously launch attacks, rendering him unable to go forward and having to dodge left and right at all times.
[ Lightning Spear ]
Reign was annoyed by the constant attacks from the enemy, thus he decided to fight him from long-range as well. Tens of lightning spears appeared around him as he launched them at Nearsch whose eyes had opened wide at the display of power.
'Dammit, how can he continue dodging and focusing on creating those spears?!' Nearsch was after all, not a fighter, and even though his body was now powerful enough to allow him to battle against Tier IV beings, he was nowhere proficient enough to utilize his strength correctly.
With the fog helping him out, he was able to use mana and fight, but when faced against somebody like Reign, he would be defeated in an instant even if the two had the same exact stats.
He wasn't able to channel mana as proficiently, he wasn't able to create skills as they could, and he couldn't even use two skills at the same time as he had never tried focusing and using mana in such a way.
It was only now that he was able to see just how weak he truly was. Without the battle suit, he would have been unable to even scratch Reign and the other as even his monsters were more powerful than he was.
The AI made the suit move in an erratic manner, weaving left and right, dodging the spears, and sometimes jumping up or going down to the ground. Sometimes, there was not enough time or space for the AI to dodge, so it would use the barrier to defend itself.
After all, the suit allowed one to fight against Tier V beings, so the amount of mana it could store and utilize was higher compared to Reign, not to mention that the materials the suit was made out of made it incredibly durable and hard to penetrate, so even without the barrier, the suit would have been able to tank the spears.
As the suit was dodging the attacks, it was still launching its own at Reign, who was doing the same. Nearsch got a bit nervous as he saw one lightning spear that was floating above Reign's head. Contrary to the other spears, this one hadn't been launched, and Reign was still pouring more mana into it, making it stronger and stronger.
Black and white energy swirled inside the spear, making its aura dreadful while the mana that Reign was using to make it more powerful continued surging, making the spear larger and larger.
The AI suddenly stopped moving the suit and created a powerful barrier in front of it. It had deemed Reign's spear a danger, and thus, it had to respond to his attack. Multiple compartments opened up from the purple suit before some parts even detached.
The parts that detached moved to the front of the suit before forming a circle that was further reinforced by multiple parts that created some channels on it before finally connecting it to the suit with mana, as well as the fog.
A large amount of mana was suddenly being drawn from the suit into the circle and the compartments as Reign smirked and poured more mana into his spear while stopping his attacks, just like the suit had done.
The spear continued growing and growing, and it was when it became 7 meters long and almost 2 meters thick, that Reign launched it. The spear appeared in front of the suit instantly, and the AI was forced to fire its attack before it had channeled more energy for it.
Thanks to the fact that the suit had more mana than Reign, the AI was able to pump mana into its attacks faster than Reign, even in his transformed state, he was still a bit behind. The spear was just about to hit the suit when a devastating ray of energy was unleashed. The ray disintegrated the spear and passed next to Reign who did his best to dodge it, but a part of his arm was gone, and so was his right wing.
'Dammit!' Reign cursed as he fell down. He quickly charged at the suit that had expended quite a bit of energy while his wing and arm regenerated quickly. The regeneration would cost him quite some mana, and it would probably make the transformation last shorter, but he had to do it.
The AI quickly responded to his attack by charging at him as well. The suit needed some time to rest after firing such a powerful attack, and it wouldn't be able to launch any long-range attacks for the next couple of seconds.
Reign and Nearsch clashed, and suddenly, the helmet opened and Reign was able to see Nearsch whose face was contorted in anger.
"You damned worm, die already!" The crystal on Nearsch's forehead shone as a ray of purple light was launched at Reign who was able to cock his head to the side and evade the ray that struck the ground, passing through it with ease.
Nearsch continued using the crystal, which was a part of his body, as well as something that the higher-ranking Ubolts possessed. Only a small percentage of Ubolts were born with the crystal, and in ancient times, the Ubolts regarded those as Saints and saviors of their perspective tribes.
The crystal allowed one to possess greater intellect and power than normal Ubolts, and it was also helpful when it came to gathering and channeling mana, it was only now, when the Ubolts had managed to progress their technology to such a degree, that most of them never used it correctly.
The crystal was seen more as a symbol than anything, and there were even those that would have surgery and implant an identical crystal just so that they would look the same as those that were born with one. Some Ubolts even implanted it in the babies as they wanted everybody to think they were special.
This was the first time Nearsch had gotten so angry that he had unintentionally used the crystal to attack. The crystal could both use mana to create the powerful ray of energy, which was similar to how the ash demons could utilize their third eye, but it could also help one with using soul power and allowed them to utilize soul-based attacks.
Unfortunately for Nearsch, not only did he have no idea how to do so, but it would be useless against Reign who was much more experienced with dealing with soul power, but had a lot more soul power compared to Nearsch as well.
As Nearsch continued firing the rays, Reign was hit a couple of times as Nearsch started aiming at his body after seeing how he had been unable to hit his face. After being hit, and seeing that the ray was barely doing any damage, Reign smirked and looked at the uncovered face of Nearsch.
"As a member of the Ubolts, you probably never had a battle like this before, I bet you were never even injured thanks to that pretty little crystal of yours." Reign said mockingly before suddenly flapping his wings to get just a bit closer to Nearsch.
Immediately after seeing him get close, Nearsch panicked, but before the AI could put the helmet back on his head, Reign cocked his head back before headbutting Nearsch and breaking his nose. Nearsch's head started spinning from the attack as Reign was right, he had never before been in a fight, he had never been injured, especially not like this.
He was a higher-ranking member of the Ubolt society, but he had reached his peak and knew that he wouldn't be able to rise higher. Upon seeing some of his old comrades go above him in rank and even some normal Ubolts that didn't have the crystal go above him, he had become annoyed, then depressed, until he became enraged.
If he couldn't rise higher, then he would leave, he would make his own destiny, and upon learning that the fog was being transported by a drunken inspector, he decided to go on the ship and take it for himself as he had heard the story of how one can gain incredible powers from it.
After being hit by Reign like this, he was even more enraged. He had learned about this planet, and the mere fact that someone that didn't even know what the universe was truly like a couple of months ago had inflicted so much damage on him enraged him.
Fog suddenly dispersed from him before charging at Reign. Before he was able to do anything, the fog had entered his body.
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