Chapter 471: Mode Change: Survival
’Thunderclap.’
The boy activated another skill, its activation concealed from all as a wall of lightning blocks formed in the air behind Margaux.
It folded in a ’clapping’ motion very quickly, catching Margaux’s body within and shocking her with more lightning than she had ever seen in her life.
"Burn."
Evan’s command rang out and his energy ignited into a burst of prismatic flames which then exploded upon contact with the lightning around Margaux.
Outside the barrier, Arthur clapped his hands for Evan, his expectations of the boy’s strength having been exceeded multiple times over.
"He’s even stronger than Artemisia and Beatrix combined...
He may be Level 576, but using his Blessing skill and his Dragon Transformation, he can match the power of Level 630s.
And this Isn’t even all as he still hasn’t used that ’Limit Break’ Skill, nor has he used that ’Vortex’ Unique skill of his. I estimate that at full power, Evan is on par with Level 660s—Superior Epic Realms."
He had been chaining attacks after attacks, not letting Margaux get a chance to strike as he knew that any one of her attacks would deal a shit ton of damage to him.
Seeing him use his ’Chain Lightning’ and ’Elemental Skewer’ skills to destroy all the smaller spirits Margaux summoned and using his ’Elemental Weapon Projection’ to create weapons that shot down all of her projectile attacks, it almost seemed as if Evan had the upper hand.
Almost, being the keyword here.
Unfortunately for Evan, the gulf in power between the Epic and Legendary Realms was not one that could be breached with a mere 300% power boost or using Esoteric flames that ignored durability.
Evan looked to have the upper hand now, but the moment Margaux increased her power output—
"Ice Storm!!"
—the tides of battle began changing pretty quickly.
She called down a torrential downpour of ice shards from the sky, bombarding the area with sharp projectiles that froze the ground upon contact, prompting Evan to use his ’Elemental Shield’ skill with flames.
However, even that was not enough to block the power of these 50-cm-long ice shards and very quickly, he had to employ another skill for help.
"Stout Guardian!"
A towering armoured knight wielding a shield materialized before him, blocking the hail of icicles, but Margaux had something in her arsenal to deal with this.
"Stone Golem Summoning."
Rising from the scorched earth around them, was a giant golem of similar height to Evan’s Stout Guardian. It charged forward with bare hands and punched the knight, cracking its shield with one hit.
Seeing this, Evan activated his Frozen Inferno, allowing him to wield his ice simultaneously with his flames without fear of backlash.
At the same instant that the stone golem punched his Stout Guardian again; Evan deployed a technique.
’Frostborne Colossus!’
The ambient icy energy that filled the area due to Marguax’s attack rapidly coalesced behind the stone golem that was punching the head of the stout guardian, forming a giant sword-wielding knight of crimson gold ice.
The knight swung down its blade and bisected the stone golem, only for a massive hole to suddenly burst out in its torso in the next second.
A streak of reddish-brown light shot through it, reaching Evan faster than he could draw his sword and a spear of dark eerie energy stabbed into his shoulder, piercing through his scales.
Malignant magic power surged from the spear and latched onto Evan, infusing him with a plethora of serious curses and debuffs that seeped into his body intending to affect his soul.
Margaux did not stop there, raising her other hand and firing a barrage of freezing projectiles that pelted Evan’s body and sent him flying into the distance.
The boy’s back slammed into the wall of the barrier with so much force the air in his lungs was knocked out.
He was barely able to push himself out of the way half a second before a giant illusory claw swiped down on where he was.
Looking up, he saw the spirit of a giant lion monster charging at him, but Evan had zero desire to engage it in combat.
He sent his Hydras after it and they bit into the lion spirit, showering it in flames ice and lightning until it dissipated into magic power.
Arthur narrowed his eyes at Evan, his Pseudo-Authority of time releasing a pulse of energy that scanned the boy and revealed something interesting.
’Her curses...they aren’t working on him. But he’s acting like they are.’
Arthur quickly guessed that Evan was aiming to make Margaux lower her guard and come in close so he could deal a heavy blow.
Unfortunately, that plan failed as the woman didn’t close the distance.
’My curses haven’t activated...is his curse resistance that high?’
She easily saw through the fact that Evan was only faking being cursed and the purple patch that was rapidly spreading across his skin was no more than a visual effect with zero substance.
All the curse was doing was just discolouring his skin.
’In that case...’
Marguax took a deep breath, before activating her Unique skill and muttering a ’request’.
"Come, Marcel. We have some pests blocking our path of Revenge. Let’s take them out."
A black mass extended from her upper back, swirling upwards to form a 3-metre-tall half-humanoid with a skull head, glowing reddish-brown eyes, no nose, and a half-torn mouth.
[Yes, Mother.]
"?!"
Both Arthur and Evan widened their eyes in shock when they saw Marcel’s Summoned Spirit. This was not because they did not expect its appearance, but because they did not expect it to be this powerful.
[Master, that thing’s energy levels are comparable to Superior Stages...]
Celestia’s voice rang out in Arthur’s head and the boy nodded in affirmation, thinking that he’d need to use his Pseudo-Authority to deal with this.
Of course, Arthur was 100% confident in his swift victory if it came down to a fight. It’s just that he’d expend more energy than he initially assumed.
For Evan, however, the difficulty of the battle just went from Low A-Tier to SS-Tier in an instant.
"Oy, Arthur, this is NOT what I signed up for!"
"Haha! I don’t think you signed up for any of this."
"Exactly! So, open up that barrier now!"
"Where’s the fun in that?"
Arthur laughed at Evan who was slowly backing away to the edge of the barrier, before holding up his right palm and saying.
"You like games, don’t you? How about we play ’Survival Mode’ now? 5 minutes."
He knew fully well that asking Evan for that was too much, and had intentions to intervene before then, but Arthur just wanted to see if Margaux would succeed in pushing Evan to use his Mystic Eye abilities.
Back within the barrier, Margaux ignored Arthur’s shouts and locked her gaze on Evan. In the next second, she vanished and then Evan’s superior kinetic vision + Time Difference skill barely allowed him to catch the sight of her reaching him in an instant and striking forward with her spear.
"Banshee’s Lament."
***KIIIIIAAAAAAKKKKKK!!!!!!
Marcel let out a loud mournful wail infused with dark curses, targeting the very souls of all who heard.
Arthur quickly used magic to block the sound from getting too far, preventing the people who were a few kilometres away from suddenly dropping dead due to the curses.
The Demon Police force on their way were also saved from the malignant soundwave that sought to inflict agonizing pain and drain away one’s life force.
As for Evan, the boy used a technique and self-immolated himself with orange flames, granting him another power boost which he used to barely dodge Margaux’s spear.
Marcel’s wail, however, hit him with sound waves that knocked him into the air with force.
He flapped his wings and stabilized himself, thanking his stars that he was ’Loved By Nature’, therefore possessing nigh-immunity to curses.
[Haunting...Frostbite]
Marcel’s ghostly voice rang out and the spirit lunged at Evan with icy claws and teeth, swinging them at him with the intent to swat him out of the sky.
Evan blocked the first two strikes with his shield but dodged the third as he noticed the power behind them was progressively increasing.
He flapped his wings and manoeuvred through the air, dodging Margaux’s spells whilst simultaneously launching Vindiction’s Strikes to keep the woman on the ground.
Although Margaux could tank Evan’s attacks, the mixture of Destruction Essence and Esoteric flames was not one she wanted to touch, so she opted to dodge them all even though it meant not being able to chase Evan in the skies.
This was no problem for her, as he had Marcel lunging at him and ripping through his Stout Guardian like paper.
Evan’s elemental shields were torn through like a knife splitting a block of butter in two, and Marcel displayed the astonishing ability to clone himself!
[Frigid...Phantasmal...Assault]
Icy duplicates of himself materialized, charging at Evan from all directions and overwhelming him with relentless frosty attacks.
Each strike inflicted a plethora of curses and debuffs on Evan, and with Margaux supporting from the ground with her skill, the potency of each one was tripled.
The frigid phantoms descended upon Evan with swift and merciless movements. Blades of ice slashed through the air, and despite his best efforts, Evan could barely keep up with the onslaught despite having activated his Limit Break Skill.
His elemental shields shattered like fragile glass, his Stout Guardians were ripped through like paper and the Vengeful Spirit tore through his ’Imperial Scales’ with its claws, drawing blood.
It didn’t take too long for Marcel to succeed in knocking Evan out of the sky, sending the boy’s body rag dolling across the earth like a discarded rag.
His dragon wings unfurled and flapped rapidly, creating a force that lifted him off the ground barely a second before Margaux’s spear pierced down where his torso was a second ago.
Marguax attempted to give chase, but Evan stomped on the ground and activated his ’Collapse’ skill, sending seismic waves through the ground and crumbling the earth beneath their feet.
The Divine Human had to cancel her dash to stabilize herself, but Marcel who didn’t need to move on the ground charged forward, divinity glowing on his claws as he released debuffing mist into the surroundings.
Evan raised his left hand and a seven-sided shield materialized, blocking Marcel’s slash. However, the follow-up slash came not from the front but from his flank, hitting him faster than he could react.
As Evan was knocked to the side, the boy felt lightheaded, instantly discerning the cause to be the mist he had inhaled.
"Mesarthim; Yellow: Cleanse."
The orange flames surrounding him turned yellow for a moment and all the debuffs he was afflicted with vanished. The sight of this allowed Arthur to confirm a conjecture of his.
