Chapter 575 Triple Flower Cannon
"?!
Kur-"
[I know!]
Kuro didn't even hesitate to spread out his energy to detect all the nearby shadows he could use for movement, picking the closest one to the target location and linking to it.
In that same instant, he wrapped his and Eliza's body with his energy and they sunk into their shadows on the ground, re-emerging in the shadow of a collapsed building for a moment before sinking back right after.
Their next re-emergence was at their destination, and things were far more chaotic than they had expected.
People were screaming and running about, someone was shouting something about a 'Monster Apocalypse', police officers and soldiers were trying to calm the panicked civilians, while the city defence force and adventurers were trying to fight off the monsters that were trying to take a bite of the thousands in the shelter.
Eliza could see the square barrier that surrounded the four corners of the shelter flickering dangerously, before completely vanishing and giving the airborne monsters free reign.
Sky serpents and thunderous gorgons screeched loudly as they beat their wings and flew over the shelter, showering it with bolts and spears of lightning, flames and poison.
At that moment, Eliza activated her most powerful speed buffs, kicking off the ground and blitzing towards the shelter's half-destroyed entrance with a velocity that outpaced Kuro's shadows covering her body.
The moment she reached, she redirected all the energy in the buffs into another skill, pulling out the Radiant Codex whilst simultaneously activating her barrier skill.
She slammed the Memoria into the ground in front of her and waves of ether cascaded from her being, spreading to cover the dome-shaped shelter and covering the top with a green translucent square-shaped barrier.
'Divergent Wards!'
Another skill activation prompted the manifestations of dozens of 50cm square-shaped barriers in the air. They shot out towards the combatants engaging the monsters on the ground, hovering above their heads to protect them against the projectiles raining down on them.
"Guh!"
A strained grunt escaped her lips as the attacks beat down on her barrier with relentless fury, causing webbed cracks to spread out at various points.
The monsters' eyes flashed upon seeing the barrier, infusing more energy into their attacks whilst some directly descended to attack the barrier using their physical bodies coated in dense aura.
Eliza clenched her fist and roused her energy, channelling more ether into her barrier skill and adding another layer to the already deployed barrier.
This served to increase the construct's integrity and made it able to pull through the bombardment from the monsters, preventing the scene of the combined attacks weakening the shelter's structure, or possibly even destroying it.
Even so, Eliza did not have the time to celebrate, after all, the monsters were still alive and kicking.
Her sapphire pupils darted around and she quickly identified the strongest of the airborne monsters, the grandmaster-level ones who were leading the other hundreds of master levels.
She also noticed a few humanoids in the midst of the monsters, some of which were riding on the winged serpents' backs.
Their life energies were similar to that of Pride and Greed, but at the same time, gave off the feelings of regular humans and celestials.
'Demonic Hand Senior Members! And they're in their fused states too!'
Appearance-wise, they seemed more like monsters than normal humanoids, owing to the traits from the breeds of demons they were contracted with, so people just automatically assumed they were mutant monsters.
To make matters worse, she could sense similar energy signatures on the ground.
[Eliza, I'd handle the weaker Demonic Hand members on the ground, you deal with those Senior Members.]
Kuro's voice rang out beside her ear, a moment before the life signs of the demonic hand members on the ground disappeared, swallowed by Kuro's shadows.
'In that case…'
"Ethereal Equilibrium: Combat Mode."
The Ultra Rare skill that was almost as powerful as a Unique grade one was activated with a wave of ether bursting out from her body, blanketing her in a green coat of energy that momentarily obscured her from view.
When the ether coat faded away into light fragments and revealed her new form, the eyes of all the grandmaster-level existences present that were already on her widened in shock.
They could already sense the energy fluctuations from her and guessed she was at least level 400, but then she just went on to do something that made those readings spike in an instant.
Not giving anyone time to fully react, she slammed the Memoria into the ground and activated her Flower Cannon skill.
However, instead of the usual singular shoot erupting from the ground, there were three of them, albeit a bit smaller than before.
Their flower buds bloomed in synchrony, and from an opening of their petals, three beams of concentrated ether were launched towards the thunderous gorgons in the sky.
The monsters reacted quickly, beating their wings and flying out of the way, but sadly, those beams were locked onto their life signatures and would follow them to the ends of Aidos.
Simultaneously, Eliza snapped her fingers and the five short spears hovering behind her floated up into the air in front of her.
She then kicked off the ground and dashed forward, spinning her body around to generate momentum before launching a kick to the butt of the first spear.
**BOOOM!!!
With the sound of the sound barrier being shattered as the backdrop, the spear was propelled upwards and towards one of the winged serpents, the layers of debuffs applied on the spear in conjunction with its force allowed it to pierce through the monster's defences, bore a hole through its chest and do the same to its Demonic Fused rider.
It went without saying that the trio could not exactly continue living with the holes she had just bored in their chests.
Before they even fell towards the ground, Eliza had moved on to the other spears, kicking them in the same manner and managing to end three other Demonic Hand members like so.
The others dodged the spears at the last moment, however, Eliza only flicked her fingers and recalled them.
The spears flipped around and with the same force at which they were launched, hurtled through the air, piercing through anything obstructing their path towards her.
She then created a divergent ward under her feet and used it as a boost to remain airborne, before generating a second one and kicking off it to fly into the air with the Memoria in hand.
"Flower Cannon. Cutting Wave: Corrosion, Bleed."
The flower cannons on the ground sent another trio of concentrated ether beams searing through the skies and towards the other airborne monsters.
One of the mages nearby activated a unique skill, generating a thin energy film in front of her projectiles.
When these beams passed through the projectiles, they all saw an increase in quantity and quality.
The monsters now had nine beams that were three times as powerful as normal to deal with, and it went without saying that they failed woefully at this.
The firework-like explosions that went off in the sky were proof of this.
As for Eliza, the battle priestess was now engaged in single combat with the leader of this squad of sixth division members who had blocked her cutting wave without a scratch.
The grandmaster-level woman launched a volley of arrows towards the energy wave and forced it to detonate mid-flight, before making the winged serpent she was on fly higher into the sky.
She clearly intended to keep her distance and keep firing arrows from her bow with machine gun-like speed, whilst Eliza would have no choice but to helplessly run around to avoid them or block with barriers.
Too bad for her, but Eliza's boyfriend happened to be someone who was very skilled at airborne manoeuvrers using energy the generated platforms of his Void Steps skill, and he had taught Eliza how to achieve the same thing using her divergent wards.
This made the Senior Member frown and she ordered the other monsters to attack Eliza, revealing she possessed some ability that controlled said monsters.
But Eliza only created a divergent ward to keep herself airborne, before looking straight at her and speaking.
"Life Energy Draining Prison."
The skill she did not use earlier to avoid running the risk of accidentally absorbing the life forces of any of her 'allies' was activated, and the prison of green light manifested around her and the monsters trying to attack her.
Simultaneously, she consumed a charge of her Child of Life skill to reduce the maximum health stats of the strongest monsters present, along with that of the Senior Member.
These peak Master level monsters, weakened by the draining of their life forces faltered in their flight, succumbing to the loving embrace of gravity.
With languid descents, they plummeted towards the ground, their weakened forms making them easy targets for the awaiting soldiers and city defence force members.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶