Chapter 646: Divine Battle — Part 2
I dodge a sword strike as my arm regenerates, realizing that without my divine weapon the disadvantage will be immense — Elysia’s sword is strong, far stronger than I expected, and it cuts through my Mana armor as easily as if it were a thin film of paper.
So I turn the [Mercurial Hunter] into a large blade to match my ten-meter size. Elysia looks so small compared to me, but that’s not something I can underestimate.
Our blades collide, generating a wave of magic so intense that the "environment" cracks around them, releasing bolts of pure black and pure white while the light hitting my eyes stings a little.
’The sky element?’ I don’t know. I’ve never seen the element that makes up those white bolts, but everything the white bolts touch disintegrates into dust instantly.
"[Divine Devastator]" She leaps back, aiming at me, and uses magic. Three hollow white circles appear behind her and fire three white energy beams. I aim at her and fire a completely dark red beam of the Doom element.
Unlike what I expected, the attacks cancel each other out, so I use Time Zero speed by marking the area around Elysia as Point B and keeping it constantly in motion. Time "stops" as I circle around her.
But it lasts only a fraction of a moment, and Elysia moves within the stopped time. Her body slowly gains mobility, catching me by surprise. I attempt a quick attack, but she blocks with her sword and fires a beam of light at the giant eye behind me, burning it.
"Tsk..." I spend some magic to regenerate the eye. Using Point B as something mutable, I keep shifting positions to maintain the stopped time, but Elysia uses a strange magic that generates a large white flash, catching me in the area of effect. I feel everything beginning to darken, so I stop moving in Time Zero and everything returns to normal as time moves forward.
"You think a novice like you can beat me in time magic? Don’t be so conceited," she says with anger, kicking me in the stomach and launching me far back. I barely defend against a downward vertical sword strike that would have split me in half.
"It’s an insult that you think time magic works against me, especially one that stops time!" She strikes directly at one of the fears I had about moving in Time Zero — if I lost consciousness, I might never wake up inside stopped time.
’I don’t feel the effects of that white flash anymore.’ It seems it only worked while time was frozen. I nearly lost the battle instantly because of that.
’If Elysia tried to knock me out, it probably means it’s true. If I passed out inside Time Zero, I’d never wake up again.’ When she charges at me, I kick at her.
She tries to strike with her sword, but the [Mercurial Hunter] extends down to my leg, forming a blade and colliding with hers. Taking advantage of the size difference, I lean fully forward and punch her, slamming her into the ground.
Immediately, I start punching her with all four arms, unleashing an immense flurry of blows until all four hands break, and she jumps up with a double flying kick to my chest, launching me upward.
’No damage...’ No damage again. Only a faint golden glow emanates from her body. She flies up to try to impale me. I begin to float and fire an immense Doom-element Mana beam, which she evades.
I aim at her, tracking her movement with my hand as the beam tries to hit. She spirals around the beam to close in, but I cancel it and throw a punch when she gets near. She uses her hands to withstand the impact and spins around my arm.
Then she uses some magic that makes my entire arm dissolve into particles of white light. She quickly swings her sword at the black spiral on my head, testing.
I twist my body, throwing her downward, and fire thousands of knives at her using the Mercurial Hunter. She dodges everything, but I control their movement, driving the blades forward against her.
For now, we’re assessing each other’s strength. From this, I deduce that Elysia has a fighting style close to mine. Elysia uses barrier magic, stopping my blades by a very narrow margin as the metallic screech shows that her barrier is physical.
While she’s distracted by that, I create an enormous hundred-and-nine-meter axe. I bring the blade down violently toward her. She notices, and instead of retreating, she leans into a lying position in the air and turns the flat of her blade, gripping the hilt and the broad side of the sword as she lets the axe blade strike her weapon.
Initially, she’s pushed downward, but soon she stops my attack. For such a tiny little body, she’s far too strong.
PSSSHH
A kind of yellow laser is fired, piercing through my stomach near my chest instantly and creating a hole in my belly. The speed exceeded what my eyes could perceive.
My body regenerates quickly, and I create a wall with my divine weapon, defending against multiple shots as I hear the sound of impact against the weapon. I end up losing all visibility of Elysia, and she’s very quiet.
"!!!" I use Vital Matrix Unfolding to split my body into thousands of centimeter-sized mini-Pandoras, narrowly dodging a strike from Elysia that I felt would have killed me.
"...!?" Elysia looks at the many Pandoras before they all merge back into one and I throw a direct punch at her, launching her upward. I bring my four hands together and fire an immense beam of darkness magic, hitting her head-on.
"You really are a grotesque aberration," she says as she reaches my front, charging through the beam with a slash of her sword. I dodge and form a spear, placing Violet inside the weapon to increase its strength.
"Oh, really? Thanks for the compliment," I thank her with sarcasm, thrusting with the spear repeatedly and pressuring her while with another hand I create an axe and with another a sword. I attack skillfully with everything I can against her.
"[Stellar Collapse]" She uses magic against me, creating a large sphere between us. The sphere expands, but before it grows too large, I advance and devour it, swallowing the sphere and grabbing Elysia by the arm.
CRACK
I squeeze her arm until it breaks, but she doesn’t even react, swinging her sword and making an extremely deep cut across my chest. The flesh on my chest writhes and twists violently, trying to regenerate.
’For now, the damage we’ve both taken is far too neutral, and the magic expenditure on both sides is more or less balanced too...’ I expected to be stronger than Elysia, but our power is more equal than I’d like.
"[Doom: I Sacrifice All Ambient Mana in Exchange for a 500-Times Physical Boost]" As soon as I use the magic, all ambient Mana is completely erased. With that, only my Mana and Elysia’s Mana remain in the environment.
"..." Elysia drops her sword and starts punching to meet the punches I begin to throw at her. Our punches equalize, which catches me off guard, because the force of each punch has increased by 500 times, which shows she’s still holding back.
"Urgh." She’s hit hard and thrown backward as I advance with a kick. She grabs hold and spins me, throwing me down. My ten meters are unfortunately a disadvantage — because our strength is equal, my entire size just reduces the impact area.
Both our bodies are emitting a lot of Mana, a physical response to the stress of having such a strong enemy landing nonstop blows.
"..." She recovers and then stops a short distance away. She settles into a stance and tightens her fist with force. I realize what she’s about to do and also gather all my strength into my fist.
We both charge and collide again. Our punches don’t generate any impact, but the force of the blows makes us both stop completely in place, our bodies shuddering from the wave of Mana that distorts around us.
I pull my hand back in pain as she also retreats, shaking her hand in pain, and I see that her fingers have broken completely. The Magic that drips between her fingers in place of blood has a golden tone.
"You know, Pandora, I wonder why you were chosen as a goddess," Elysia says, pointing at me. Hundreds of magic circles appear and are compressed practically touching one another.
’Is she serious? She’s so confident that she’s charging a slow spell even knowing I can attack her?...’
"Hahaha, you’re a very arrogant whore. Obviously your doubt is foolish. I am a perfect goddess," I say, pointing at her, not retreating or trying to stop her, forming a Doom Element spell — not a Mana attack like always, but true magic.
A red and black magic circle appears in front of me, charging the spell. Since there’s no more ambient Mana, my Mana and her Mana collide in a violent shock of energy release.
"Perfect goddess? What conceit. I’m just testing the waters here, and you will never be perfect. That word is entirely distant from a grotesque being like you."
"I’m just trying things out too. Don’t be so arrogant, pantyless slut." The waves of magic become increasingly violent, nearly whipping at each other, which generates an unpleasant buzzing in the environment.
She really isn’t wearing panties, but she doesn’t care about the insult, showing perfectly well that just as the fact that I’m naked doesn’t bother me, her physical appearance also isn’t a valid distraction in combat.
"Perfect, then. Let’s see how you handle this, little monster. I’ll love hearing your screams of despair. An aberration like you shouldn’t be a goddess, and I’ll finally set the natural cycle of things right." Both my magic and hers are ready as we release the energy in an instantaneous discharge to begin the attack.
"We’ll see, Elysia. I’m the one who’ll watch you thrash and beg in despair," I say in a serious tone, activating the attack.
