Chapter 357: Testing the Waters
Sigesi used her fists to send a barrage of icy shockwaves flying in Arthur’s direction and the boy found himself flying around haphazardly to avoid each one of them.
"Aren’t you the least bit concerned about how this is gonna appear to the civilians?"
"I’d just release a statement and say it was a military demonstration, they’d buy it."
She replied to Arthur’s question right before she kicked off the ground and took to the skies, attempting to close the distance between them since long-range attacks didn’t seem to be working out fine.
Unfortunately for her, Arthur just teleported away and reappeared in a different location in the skies.
A quick glance downwards, and he saw that some soldiers had already started gathering on the ground, while the civilian humans and elves rushed towards their homes as fast as they could.
The boy sighed and shook his head, before flapping his wings and ascending higher into the skies.
He was using this chance to stretch the wings he hadn’t used so much since learning Cosmic energy flight. He also hadn’t used them as magic catalysts to amplify his spells since he had not gone up against any opponents that required him to use that much power.
After he ascended above the clouds, Arthur stopped his flight and Sigesi came to a stop not long after.
The distance between them was just that of about a dozen metres, the kind they could close in the blink of an eye.
Sigesi loosened her hair and retied it into a simple low ponytail while muttering light complaints about its length.
"I really want to cut this but the General says I should grow it out...like he’s the one who has to take care of it."
Arthur heard her words and raised a brow in question, wondering just what kind of relationship she had with McEnda that he was telling her not to cut her hair.
’There’s how she was speaking with him earlier too. That’s not the way soldiers interact with their superiors as well.’
Still, such thoughts weren’t important now as the woman in front of him started pulling in ambient universal law energy.
"Your ice elemental affinity must be quite high, seeing as it affected your hair."
Sigesi’s eyes widened lightly when she heard Arthur’s words, as she hadn’t expected him to notice the fact that her blue hair colour was caused by her strong affinity with ice.
Most people didn’t notice this until they infused their gazes with law energy, after all. But Arthur’s sight was perpetually in this state so it was clear as day to him.
The woman’s surprise was only momentary, as in the next moment she stretched her hand out and launched an attack at Arthur.
The ice elemental energy condensed into razor-sharp shards which were then hurled towards him at supersonic speeds, creating a deadly hailstorm of frozen projectiles.
Arthur’s Bounded Field made projectiles useless against him, but when it wasn’t active, he had to deal with them just like everyone else.
Since his wings were unfurled, he decided to test out how good they were as magic catalysts, activating a simple fire spell to counter the projectiles.
"Fiery Buckshot."
Multiple fireballs manifested around him, before shooting forward as a barrage of projectiles that collided with the razor-sharp ice shards.
Sigesi slammed her palms together and activated a technique, generating a cyclone of freezing winds around her body. Immediately after that, she summoned a javelin of pure ice and thrust it forward with great speed towards Arthur.
The boy clenched his fist and threw a punch forward, using the shockwave to blast the cyclone away, before opening his palm and catching the spear that was tossed towards him.
In that same moment, ethereal chains of ice burst out from the clouds around them, encircling his arms and trying to bind them but Arthur simply grabbed the ice javelin and used it to break the chains.
The time he took to do that, however, was enough for Sigesi to launch her next attack.
And this time, it wasn’t from range.
"Cryomancer’s fury."
Her body was surrounded with a tempest of ice law energy, which she then proceeded to absorb into her arms.
She dashed forward at breakneck speed, sending out a full-powered punch towards Arthur’s head, which the boy dodged with minimal movement.
Ignoring how the shockwave released from her fist parted a line through the clouds behind him, she pulled back her arm and delivered a right straight aiming at his stomach.
Arthur quickly reacted, using the inner part of his right arm to divert the trajectory of her punch, but in that short moment he came in contact with her, his upper arm was frozen in ice.
’Certainly, a cryomancer’s fury.’
He thought to himself as he brought his own law energy into the mix, ’destroying’ the ice. The sudden emergence of destruction law energy from within his body made Sigesi take distance from him.
’This...he generated the law energy from his body? How?’
The light of curiosity shone through her eyes, as she lunged forward with remarkable speed, releasing a series of punches which Arthur met with his fists.
She flapped her wings and propelled herself upward, before performing a spin while coming down with her foot stretched out horizontally.
A huge wave of icy air was generated as her foot came down on Arthur like it wanted to split him in half.
The progenitor blocked by crossing his arms in above his head, before grabbing onto her ankle and pulling her body downwards, whilst simultaneously kicking towards her head.
She released a burst of aura to knock him back, flipping around in the air and creating a solid platform with ice which she used as a springboard to boost herself towards Arthur once more.
Arthur spiralled upward to evade her attack and she followed closely, unleashing a rapid series of icy jabs, forming crystalline projectiles that darted towards the boy.
’Icarian Frostbite.’
Sigesi’s wings were encased in a thin layer of blue energy as she zipped around unpredictably, leaving frosty contrails in her wake and filling the air with her frosty energy.
She summoned another javelin of ice and hurled it toward Arthur, who countered with a gust of wind that deflected the projectile.
Following up, she unleashed a cascade of ice shards in Arthur’s direction, forcing him to teleport away to dodge them.
As soon as he reappeared outside their trajectory, he boosted forward to gain momentum, kicking diagonally in a scissoring motion as he approached Sigesi.
In response to his direct assault, Sigesi went on the defensive.
’Frost Veil Glide’.
Her body was enveloped in a gliding veil of frost, providing her with temporary invisibility that resulted in Arthur momentarily losing sight of her.
Though he quickly looked around with his law energy-infused pupil, he wasn’t able to find a trace of her, anywhere he looked.
’Where did sh-?!’
His senses alerted him of danger faster than he could even finish asking himself that question, and his hands moved to conjure a barrier of aura just in time to block the massive ice sword that stabbed down at him from above.
However, he couldn’t help but notice that Sigesi wasn’t behind the sword.
On pure instinct, he bent his upper body backwards, and with his left eye, he saw the appearance of the invisible Sigesi’s foot kicking through the air where his head was a moment ago.
’Updraft Wind.’
She activated a technique and created an updraft of freezing air from below Arthur, but the boy used his wings to fight against the force it carried and swiftly descended, using the currents to redirect his trajectory.
Sigesi slammed her palms together and the icy wind currents began increasing in intensity. Within a few seconds, it had transformed into a spiralling vortex of icy winds that surrounded Arthur.
While she did all this, she remained invisible and charged into the vortex herself, coating her arm in energy and reaching for Arthur’s wings with the intention to grab them, but the boy had his fair share of that under Hades’ tutelage and certainly wasn’t gonna let anyone else do that as well.
He instinctively retracted his wings, causing Sigesi to grab empty air. In that same moment, he switched to his cosmic energy flight, spinning around in the air and delivering a high kick to the side of Sigesi’s head.
Though she blocked the kick, the impact disabled her invisibility and revealed her form to the world once more, and the sheer power behind that kick knocked her back dozens of kilometres.
Arthur held out his fists in a ’stance’, but unlike he expected, Sigesi did not charge in towards him.
"...you’re not taking this seriously, are you?"
"What makes you say so?"
