Chapter 387: Experience vs Adaptation Final Part
A few minutes of fighting had passed since I was hit by that glow — an attack that left me blind for several minutes. Since I'd been blinded for that long, I'd basically had to focus entirely on survival.
But thanks to that, I learned several things during the many exchanges of blows and the many times I almost died. The first is how the Queen of Angels is copying me. She can only "copy" me if it's a magic ability that comes from a common element.
Lightning, fire, wind, earth, water, among other simpler elements. But if the magic is more complex, she can't truly "copy" it. So instead of copying, she actually observes and learns the magic because it's "simple." In other words, she's just absurdly clever and good at magic.
That calms me down because it means she can't truly "copy" my regeneration or abilities that save my life, though it also makes me tense because it shows her absurd experience with magic. And after recovering my vision, the physical combat became quite balanced. Since I gained two martial arts abilities at once, I gained the advantage.
She seemed to be testing me, but as I learned her pattern, I also realized she can't just cast magic nonstop. Each of her spells is so strong it destroys all the Hikishin nearby, meaning her next spell always comes out weaker.
To avoid that, she uses one spell or a few spells and then stops using them, returning to hand-to-hand combat. That also explains how she resists certain spells I use so easily, since they come out weakened by the lack of Hikishin in the environment.
"Haaa..." She gasps, taking a step back. Despite her overwhelming advantage, her regeneration depends entirely on healing magic, which isn't perfect like all the regeneration abilities I've been gaining.
"Hahahaha, are you tired?" I taunt her. She's currently under the effect of a really good spell I picked up — [Phantom Chain]. This spell is incredible. It drains the Hikishin from both people bound by the chain.
A kind of transparent, intangible chain is between us, and we're both losing Hikishin. But because of my vitality shared with Evelyn, the chain doesn't work properly, so I lose far less magic than Qyraen.
"For a pest who needs to drain my magic to have a chance at winning, I don't think you should be laughing, especially when you have far less magic than me." She points in my direction, but I grab the chain and pull, throwing her off balance. Since the chain is mine, I can interact with it.
'This spell will last five more minutes...' I'll probably end up with my magic reserves nearly depleted, but so will she. So even if I lose, Evelyn will be able to face her with almost no magic! Plus, there's Eve. I bet she'll defeat the King of Angels and arrive soon.
She lunges extremely fast, but I've already figured out her fighting style. I grab her hand and spin her whole body. She fires a beam of light at my head, but I manage to dodge and kick her stomach, slamming her against the ground. I try to break her arm, but her wings knock me down with a blow, making me let go of her.
"How inconvenient. I had saved this to use specifically against the Demon King. I didn't expect to have to use it against someone so unworthy, but so be it." She speaks, leaping back and creating distance.
"Are you bluffing? Did you get that desperate?" I question her. She doesn't reveal much with that statement. Around her, a magic circle rises, multiplying across her body. Soon, four circles are floating around her wrists and ankles.
"We'll see who's bluffing." She advances toward me and throws a punch that I catch, but suddenly I'm hit by dozens of punches from all sides and pushed back. Qyraen throws a kick at my face that I block with the side of my arm, but dozens of kicks repeat, hitting my face violently.
She starts unleashing a sequence of punches on my body while the magic generates some kind of copy of her fists and arms that hit me from every angle.
'I-I can't defend myself.' She begins speeding up the blows, and there are so many from all sides that they simply shatter any attempt at defense or magic. She points at my face, and the light attack that was just one repeats in dozens, completely bursting everything above my waist.
The only regeneration ability I gained activates, but I'm not managing to find regeneration abilities anymore. Throughout this entire fight, I've already rolled over 100,000 times, and out of those 100,000, I only gained 10 regeneration abilities, showing that getting them is quite rare.
"Urgh..." I manage to retreat, gaining a movement ability, and realize how ridiculously broken the ability she's using is. Every blow she makes with her hands or legs is multiplied several times.
"What's the matter? Weren't you so confident?" She points in my direction, preparing another one of those immense beams of pure Hikishin. My entire body shudders in terror, because if that attack hits me, it would be instant death, and I'm out of abilities to survive it.
But worse, it's going to be multiplied!! If one would already kill me, with 10 or 20 of them, there isn't the slightest chance my "luck" will save me. I run toward her with all my strength.
But she deceives me, not using that attack and instead throwing a punch. Several rapid punches hit my face, and she sweeps my legs, knocking me to the ground. She steps on my head and then begins charging magic in her palm.
"Haaa... you never stood a chance, girl." She tries to humiliate me, but I quickly grab the chain and break it with my hand. Qyraen lets out a scream, staggering back and falling to the ground.
"What the hell did you do!?" She yells at me.
"I just made things fairer. Let's say I leveled the playing field." The chain had a condition. It was supposed to be removed by time. If either of us broke it, both of us would have the use of magical attacks locked for the next few hours.
"For the next few hours, neither you nor I will be able to use magic!!" I say, confident in what I did. She gets up from the ground, looking at her own body.
"..." She points at me and then fires a beam of Hikishin at my arm. Before I can react, she fires a few more, hitting the folds of my joints.
"!!!?" I fall to the ground, touching my shoulder, which isn't regenerating. I see that the magic around her wrists and ankles has vanished.
"W-What? How?!!" I'm in shock. How did she do that?
"Nice trick. I would have obliterated your body with magic if you hadn't broken the chain... but you're pretty stupid, aren't you? Magic and Hikishin are different things." She kicks me violently against the ground, preventing me from trying to get up.
"Hikishin is what shapes reality, what generates phenomena in our world." She gives a scornful smile, stepping on my face while letting out a sarcastic laugh.
"Magic is the effect of that. It doesn't matter if I can't obtain an effect. I can still just fire Hikishin as energy." She fires several beams of Hikishin from her fingertips into my limbs to cause me pain.
"!!!"
'N-No!!! I made a mistake in my deduction!! I didn't think my abilities would be canceled!' My two abilities [God's Toy] and [Game Mode] were canceled at the same time.
"How old are you? How long have you been alive?" She asks a strange question while shooting several small beams at my limbs, incapacitating me further and filling my body with holes.
"..." I stay silent, biting my lips in immense pain.
"It must not be long, right? But you fought very well. Many wouldn't have survived even half the attacks I used against you. If it weren't for this small mistake, you could have kept fighting." She points at my head, charging energy.
'I-I'm going to die...' I start crying! I look around, searching for Evelyn, who said she wouldn't let me die. She promised that if it came to this situation, she would appear.
And I know she should be nearby, so the panic immediately makes me imagine the worst scenario.
'S-She lied...' I curl up. Just when my life was finally getting better, am I going to die?
"...!!" Before she can fire at me, she's hit by a punch that throws her into the debris and dirt. I see Evelyn with that same puppet that knocked out Marie.
"E-Evelyn..." I look at Evelyn, still not used to her new appearance, but happy she came to save me.
"You did a good job. I was listening to everything. Though it was a pretty bad mistake to sacrifice your magic and her magic. Now Qyraen still has almost all her power as long as she sticks to just firing Hikishin..." Evelyn has a very dark expression.
"...S-Sorry..."
"Whatever... I guess it's better this way. I'll get to kill her directly." Evelyn is furious. I don't know what happened in that vault, but I've never seen her with such a dark expression before. I try to stand up to get away from this place.
"Shizuka, I don't want to be interrupted, so... I'm going to throw you far away." The puppet beside her approaches me, grabbing me by the leg.
"H-Huh? AAHHHHH!!!" The puppet just hurls me violently toward the army at extreme speed while I see Qyraen emerging from the rubble and facing Evelyn.