"Haon!" Jack shouted.
His clone with the gold dragon wings and Leavemealone were the two closest to the herald at this moment. They were able to resist the knockback force somewhat due to their divine suits, but they were still having difficulty advancing due to the extreme pressure.
Lightning Jack returned in a bolt of lightning, slipping past all the fireballs while clone Jack and Leavemealone used Lightning God Barrage and Fire God Barrage at the same time. Leavemealone activated his weapon's Overlimit before using his divine skill.
Jack's bolt of lightning arrived first. He executed Hundred Shadow Strikes. The lightning enchantment made this already fast skill even faster. It was as if Jack split into twenty and attacked simultaneously.
However, the flaming shields were still floating around the herald's body. These flaming shields were as if alive. They blocked all the strikes.
Still casting, the Herald tapped the other end of his staff to the ground. A huge runic symbol decorated the ground with the herald at its center. A hot stream rose from the giant symbol. Jack felt as if an inverted waterfall suddenly appeared there. He was forcefully dragged upward. He sensed strong mana manipulation in this stream and was unable to resist. Even when he turned into a lightning bolt to move instantaneously, he found he was still at the same spot afterward.
The thirty lightning balls from Jack's clone and twenty fireballs from Leavemealone were on their way while Jack was fighting the upward tide.
Because there were so many of these balls, some of these elemental balls brushed one another. Jack was worried they would end up exploding from the touch, but they didn't. The two different elemental balls scrapped one another while the connecting parts shimmered into a mix of fire and lightning.
"Huh…?" Jack was fascinated by the sight. Maybe this was because he and Leavemealone were in the same party.
The two different elemental balls continued to intersect further. Sparks started appearing, and then they exploded.
'Oh, it truly happens,' Jack thought disappointingly.
Several more fire and lightning balls crashed into each other and exploded as well, but the rest continued forward.
"Great thinking on using our divine skills at the same time, genius," Leavemealone said sarcastically.
"Shut up, man," Jack replied.
The herald was already casting another spell with his other hand while maintaining the spell formation that summoned the second sun. Jack recognized the spell formation. It was teleportation. Teleportation was a spell with a short cooldown of only two minutes. If this spell already had star upgrades, the cooldown was even shorter.
Different than the first time when the herald used teleportation. This time, Lightning Jack who was forced to stay airborne above the Herald was within range. Jack cast Time Lock.
The Herald paused mid-casting. Both he and his spell formations completely stopped moving. His spell formation didn't fizzle, though. The herald's concentration wasn't interrupted, it was paused.
Time lock only lasted two seconds, but it was enough for the two divine skills to arrive. At the same time, Jack activated his weapon's Overlimit and fired Soul Breath from above. He also used the Realm of Sword God. Out from the void above, hundreds of lightning swords rained. The swords were coated in lightning because Jack was in his lightning form when using this skill.
From the Herald's perspective, it was as if the approaching fire and lightning balls that were still at a distance had suddenly teleported to right before him. This startled him greatly, but his concentration was very solid. He let go of the Teleportation spell and focused on his Second Sun spell.
The divine balls, Jack's soul breath, and the lightning swords hit, taking another chunk of the herald's HP. The herald's spell formation shivered for a bit but it remained. During the bombardment, the herald completed his spell just as a huge lightning sword from the end of Realm of Sword God's ten-second duration stabbed into him.
A miniature sun appeared then, burning brightly at an altitude that was too dangerously close to everyone. Everyone received both light and fire damage from the sun. The longer they stayed within the sun's exposure, the higher the damage they received. Those with low HP like John died in just a few seconds since the sun appeared. His summons disappeared with him.
Paytowin, who still had his brave techno suit on, tried to fly away out of the sun range. After flying a few hundred meters, his HP continued to drop. He died before he was out of the sun's range.
Everyone else died one after another until only the real Jack was left. Even in his lightning form, which only received 10% from the sun's damage, his HP fell to critical. He used Gold Dragon Vitality. His HP was completely refilled and even doubled. He could last longer now. He hoped this was enough to outlast the second sun's duration.
But then he saw the Herald. The corrupted mage had his hand up in the sky in the sun's direction. The second sun was a sustain-type spell. As long as the Herald was sustaining it, it would not end.
Jack believed sustaining this sun required a hell lot of MP, but he didn't believe his HP would outlast the herald's MP.
Looking at the situation, he wouldn't be able to defeat this Herald, but he wanted to at least land one more attack. His Lightning God Incarnation's three-minute duration was still half a minute away. Peniel had been using her healing spells to heal them both while going in and out of her secret dimension to avoid the sun's damage. Even so, Jack wouldn't be able to last until the Lightning God Incarnaton's natural duration.
He wondered if he could force the finishing mode to occur earlier.
He closed his eyes and focused on his mana. He remembered how the mana reacted when the finishing mode happened. He tried replicating that sensation. It was probably due to his mana affinity talent, or perhaps his mana manipulation technique had become very advanced already, he could feel the explosive mana gathering.
'It was possible!' Jack thought.
Jack asked Peniel to use Invulnerability to buy him a few more seconds to complete this finishing mode.
Once the explosive mana was forced to appear, he did as before. He used mana manipulation to control the explosive energy from the Lightning God Incarnation's finishing mode. He channeled this energy into his fist and punched down.
The power from this accumulated energy counteracted against the push from the Herald's upside-down force stream. Jack turned into a massive lightning bolt that pierced through this stream and headed to the herald.
The herald was visibly startled by this development. He had no time to cast the Teleportation spell.
Jack crashed into the herald, who lost his hold on the second sun from the impact. The bright sun slowly fizzled out of existence.
The Herald's defense couldn't be compared to the mythical opponent Jack used this final attack on earlier. This time, it dealt only around 200,000 damage. This also proved the five-member Hope's Light was almost four times more powerful.
The herald also didn't get paralyzed. Its chaos armor was still active. He stared at Jack from the ground and roared. From his opened mouth, chaos breath spewed.
Jack's HP was already critical by then and he was back to human form. He died from this point-blank breath attack. He appeared at the score exchanging space where the others were already waiting.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m