Chapter 287: Vs Gilbalar II
Check out my entry for the WPC August: Beyond the Bloodline.🔥
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[You kids should not dawdle here too long.]
Undine spoke up to remind them, her gaze trained in the direction where the god had been sent flying.
"Well, we’ve gotten him away from the city like we planned."
"So we can take things more seriously now?"
"Yep."
Esna replied to Edward as she held up her palms towards the trio and began activating multiple support spells.
Multiple two-ringed magic circles of different floated around her as she called out the names of the spells.
"Enchant: Boosted Life Force, Greater Regeneration.
Elemental Ward, Fire.
Elemental Damage Breach-Negative.
Magic Boost.
Greater Divinity Resistance.
Negative Impact Shield.
Tri-Elemental Boost, Darkness, Water, Lightning.
That’s all for now, I’d add the rest mid-battle. You guys go ahead."
The instant Esna was done, the trio immediately took off. Layla and Nicole spread out their wings and flew while Edward coated his body with lightning and blitzed across the ground.
Esna took a deep breath and placed an energy potion bottle in her mouth before activating one last spell.
"Delay Magic:
Dark Magic: Hex of Divine Disruption."
[Oh my. That’s a very nasty spell you have right there.]
"Wha?! Oh, it’s you."
The poor girl’s heart nearly left her chest when she heard the sudden voice in her ear, but upon discovering it was just Undine, she calmed down.
[Fufufu...
Since you’re helping my dear Nicole, I’d give you a free ride.]
Undine spoke with a smile before snapping her fingers.
Esna saw the space around her distort for the shortest of moments before she suddenly appeared in the middle of a forest, or at least what was left of it.
Looking at the carved-up ground that drew a long trail all the way to the place where her three companions were fighting a certain god of fire, she realised Undine had just teleported her to the area of the battle.
"Thanks..."
[You’re welcome.]
The Great Spirit disappeared from her shoulder right after, probably having gone back to Nicole. Esna then sighed as she roused her magic power and began casting delayed support magic spells.
ꕥ ꕥ ꕥ
While Esna was preparing more buffs for them, the Devil-human trio were engaged in heated combat against a very annoyed god of fire.
While Gilbalar was able to infer that Esna’s strange weakening ability had a limited range of effect, his joy was short-lived as his strength abruptly dropped once more, confirming that he was once again within her ability’s range.
"Tsk...just what the fuck did you do to me?!"
He released a burst of pure divinity from his body, forcing Layla and Nicole to instantly take distance from him. The ring of flames spinning behind him shrunk in size before wrapping around his arm like a bracelet.
"That’s for me to know, and you to die before you can find out."
Esna used blink and teleported right beside him, her red magic power bursting from her body and enveloping him at point-blank range.
"Delay Magic: Activate."
’Snail’s Pace.
Physical Damage Breach Increase.
Elemental Damage Breach Increase
Elemental Damage-Negative.’
The first spell; Snail’s pace, slowed Gilbalar’s movement long enough for the other three to activate and for Esna to teleport away, right before the god’s arm grabbed the empty space where she was a second before.
He should have been able to resist a spell like Snail’s Pace, but the fact that it was cast by Esna, doubled its efficiency on him.
’This damned!’
Gilbalar spread out his divine sense and instantly noted where Esna reappeared, coating his body with divinity and dashing straight towards her.
He moved so fast that it seemed like he was a streak of dark red light blitzing towards the ground, however, he collided with another streak of white light mid-way, one that was revealed to be a certain great shield-wielding boy.
The god of fire instantly reacted, throwing out as many punches as he could with his flame-coated fist, each of them thundering down heavily on Edward’s shield with shockwaves that cratered the ground around them.
"?!"
The god’s eyes widened when he saw Edward reveal a smile despite the fact that he was receiving a barrage of punches that could potentially break his arm.
’Shi-!’
"Damage Counter."
***BAAAAAMMMM!!!!
Gilbalar’s body was suddenly hit with the combined force and damage of 50% of all the punches he had just dealt towards Edward in an attempt to break the latter’s shield.
Edward immediately followed up, swinging his long sword downwards and activating his favourite original lightning magic spell.
"Paladin’s Judgment!"
A bolt of golden lightning descended from the skies, barely missing Gilbalar’s body by a hair’s breadth as the god twisted his body to dodge at the last moment.
Even so, Edward only grinned evilly, right before a dozen more bolts thundered down in quick succession.
Gilbalar backflipped to dodge the first one, before jumping back normally in zig-zags, however, the bolts of lightning followed him wherever he went and his dodging abilities were put to the test.
Each bolt was moving at a speed that outstripped that of sound, but despite this, the man dodged each one by a hair’s breadth, with the most damage he received coming from the splinters of earth that flew about when the lightning bolts dropped on the ground and shattered the earth.
Just when he was about to dodge another bolt, his eyes widened and he looked to the side, just in time for Layla to appear from the corner of his vision with a sword in hand.
**SWISHHH!!!
The blade sliced off a few strands of his hair, passing so close to his head that he could see his reflection clearly on the metal blade.
’Fuck!’
**BANG!! **BOOMM!!
What followed Layla’s slash were two gunshots, the bullets having been infused with lightning resistance reduction debuffs, fired straight into his torso.
Although he coated his body with divinity at the last moment to block the bullets, the first one broke his divinity barrier and the second hit him squarely, piercing through his clothes and stopping at his skin.
Nevertheless, the bullet only needed to touch him once to inflict the debuff, the exact same instant that Edward’s lightning bolt dropped from the sky and onto his head.
"GAH!"
He grunted in pain as his whole body was electrified in an instant, but despite this, he was still able to react to Layla’s follow-up attack.
Gilbalar stretched out his arm and condensed his divinity inside it, creating a flame sword which he used to block Layla’s dark aura-coated blade that went straight for his neck.
While circulating his energy rapidly to get rid of the paralysis and the other effects of Edward’s lightning, he stomped his foot on the ground and used his superior physical capabilities to knock Layla back a dozen metres.
He also did not forget that he was fighting against not one, but two Devils, spinning around and dragging his leg on the ground to draw a magic power line on the ground.
**RUMBLLEE!!
The ground cracked open and walls of stone rose up just in time to block the dozens of Aqua Javelins that Nicole sent his way.
**BOOM!!
He kept pouring magic power to recreate the stone walls as Nicole’s projectile spell kept breaking them over and over again.
***PAPAPAPAPAPA!!!!
The sound of Layla’s assault rifle spitting fire forced him to turn his attention back to her, his eyes widening as he saw that the thing in her hands was the same strange weapon she used to kill the majority of the monsters earlier.
’What is this weapon? Is this what Aliens like them use?
All I know Is I can’t let those small pieces of metal hit me!’
And indeed, he did not let them hit him.
His hand moved so fast it looked like a blur, with trails of dark red light streaking through the air as he slashed down all of Layla’s bullets with his sword of flames.
Layla frowned and switched out her gun’s magazine, changing her grip and pulling the under barrel of the rifle backwards and then forwards.
**DUM!
The sound that came out of the gun was a lot different than before, but Gilbalar’s hand was already moving to slash the thing that came out of it by the time he noticed that the ’bullet’ was also different.
The instant his flame sword touched the large calibre projectile Layla fired...
**BOOMMMM!!!
A small explosion rang out, blasting his energy-generated weapon to bits and scattering shrapnels in all directions, with some of them succeeding in piercing through his defensive divinity barrier.
"The fuck?!"
**DUM! DUM! DUM! DUM!
He heard that same ominous sound again and realised Layla had fired more of that strange bullet, changing his approach and snapping his fingers, to create flame spears that dropped down from above and intercepted the projectiles mid-way.
Of course, he did not hesitate to jump out of the area, such an action proving to be a wise decision as the simultaneous explosion of four grenades at point-blank range was not something to be trifled with.
Especially, if said grenades were fired from Layla’s guns.
It was then that Layla took an action that he had not expected, using wind magic to blow the smoke of the explosion towards him.
’She’s trying to obscure my vision? No! Something’s off about this smoke!’
