Chapter 79: Too Easy
The dark green-haired girl and the flaming lion charged at each other.
The girl’s whole body was enveloped by a layer of pure mana.
The ground shook with the first collision. Her claws met the lion’s mane, and sparks of fire erupted from the impact.
-BOOM
The heat was intense, but she did not flinch.
She pushed against the lion’s massive frame, her feet digging into the soil, and forced it back a step.
The lion roared and swung a massive paw at her head.
She ducked under it, feeling the flames pass over her, and drove her claws into its leg.
The fire parted around her strike, and she tore through the construct’s flesh. The lion staggered but did not fall.
It recovered quickly. Its tail, a whip of fire, lashed at her side. She twisted her body, letting it pass, and answered with a deep cut to its flank.
The lion stumbled again, its body flickering.
The girl pressed her advantage.
She moved in close, too close for the lion to use its full strength, and struck again and again.
Her claws tore through the fire, each hit destabilizing the construct further.
The lion’s form began to waver, patches of its body losing cohesion.
It tried to retreat, but she followed. It tried to circle her, but she matched its pace. She was faster, sharper, more precise.
Every time the lion attacked, she was already somewhere else.
Every time it tried to create distance, she was already there.
The lion lunged at her with its jaws open wide. She dropped low, let the flames pass over her back, and drove both hands upward into its throat.
The construct convulsed. Fire spilled from the wound like blood.
The lion tried to swat her away, but she held on. Her claws dug deeper, and she pulled.
The lion’s head tore apart, and the construct collapsed.
But it did not disappear.
The flames twisted, reformed, and the lion stood again. Its body was smaller now, weaker, but still burning.
The three [Platinum] rankers were pouring more mana into the construct, forcing it to stay together.
The girl did not give it time to recover. She was already moving.
She struck its front leg, and the limb dissolved. The lion stumbled, its weight shifting to the remaining legs.
She struck its side, and the flames there went dark.
The construct roared, but the sound was weaker now, more desperate. She struck its back, and the lion crumbled to the ground.
It tried to rise. She put her foot on its neck and pressed down.
The lion thrashed beneath her, claws scraping the dirt, fire sputtering from its mouth.
She did not move. She pressed harder, and the construct’s struggles grew weaker.
Then she pushed all her weight down.
The lion froze as cracks spread across its flaming body.
The fire dimmed, flickered, and then shattered like glass.
Pieces of the construct fell to the ground and turned to ash before they landed.
The Unification Art broke apart, revealing the three [Platinum] rankers who had been maintaining it.
They stood in a triangle formation, their hands still raised, their faces pale.
Sweat dripped from their foreheads. Their breathing was heavy.
The girl landed on the ground and straightened her posture. She rolled her shoulders, flexed her claws, and looked at the three men.
The girl could feel the heat radiating from them, the mana still smoldering in their palms.
They did not run.
Since the girl forcibly broke the synchronization of their fire elemental mana, they all suffered internal injuries due to mana going out of control for a brief second.
Originally, they all wanted to attack her without using unification art, but they received an order from the higher-ups that they should not show their presence.
What if the girl had a background?
To avoid any issues, they were ordered to attack her using the unification art, so that way, even if the girl had an amazing background, they all thought she was killed by a beast.
Now that they were exposed, they had to kill the girl with all their might.
Even with the advantage of their higher rank and numbers, they all felt a sense of unease.
This girl can actually have the strength of a [platinum] ranker while being in [Gold].
The first one attacked.
He lunged at her with a blade of fire, the weapon long and curved, burning bright. He aimed for her throat.
She stepped inside his reach, too close for the blade to cut, and drove her claws into his wrist.
Her fingers pierced through skin and muscle.
He cried out. His hand went limp. The blade dissipated.
He stumbled back, clutching his arm, blood dripping between his fingers.
But the girl didn’t give him time as she stretched her hand, gripping the man’s neck tightly.
-CRACK
With an unpleasant sound, he dropped dead.
The second one did not wait.
He sent a wave of flames toward her, the fire roaring across the ground, consuming leaves and twigs, leaving nothing but blackened earth in its wake.
She jumped over it.
The flames passed beneath her, and she landed in front of him before he could summon another attack.
She drove her claws into his chest, into his heart.
He collapsed before he could scream. His body hit the ground, and the flames around him died.
The third one was terrified by the scene; in just mere seconds, he saw his comrades getting killed so easily and effortlessly.
He saw the girl turn toward him. His hands trembled. His mana flickered.
That was his mistake.
She crossed the distance between them in a single step.
Her hand closed around his face. Her claws pierced his skin. He gasped, but no sound came out.
She held him there for a moment, looking into his eyes, watching the fear spread on his face, and realized that he was already dead.
Then she released him.
He fell to the ground and did not move.
The girl looked at the bodies around her.
Three [Platinum] rankers, dead in less than a minute. Their blood soaked into the soil. Their fire had gone out.
She adjusted her hair and said,
"Too easy."
The forest around her was still. The rain had stopped minutes after formation was activated, but water still dripped from the leaves above, each drop landing in a small puddle with a soft, hollow sound.
The air was cool and damp, heavy with the smell of wet earth and rotting wood.
She turned her head toward the distance.
A battle was happening somewhere else in the forest.
She could feel the mana colliding, the formations straining, the ground trembling beneath her feet.
The pulses were irregular, violent, as if two forces were tearing at each other, and she muttered,
"It seems they even targeted him."
....
On the other side, A few minutes earlier.
Cael’s violet eyes shone open as he muttered,
"I understand now."
A breeze passed through the trees, rustling the canopy and sending a shower of droplets down around him.
They landed on his shoulders, his hair, the barrier in front of him, each impact barely audible beneath the low hum of the formation.
The reason Cael had been able to copy Teleportation but failed to copy the spatial restriction from the barrier was simple.
In the teleportation scenario, the mana circles were interwoven into a pattern designed for a single purpose.
The formation before him was different.
It contained spatial restriction, concealment, mana materialization of the barrier, sensory mechanisms, and more.
Cael guessed that to copy the spatial restriction alone, he needed to isolate its patterns and ignore the rest.
In short, if the formation was fried rice, and the pieces of egg were the patterns, he needed to connect all the egg pieces and restore them into a whole egg.
Yes, that whole egg was the skill he needed.
The theory was simple, but the practice was ridiculously tough.
Still, it was a guess. But not without merit.
Cael realized he had already used his innate ability before without being aware of it.
When he tried to copy mana breathing and enhancement from Elowyn, he failed.
Or did he?
He had doubts for some time about how he had entered resonance for the second time.
The answer was his innate ability.
At that moment, he had desperately wanted to copy the skill, even when the interface did not appear.
He tried until the end, triggering the condition: "The will imposed upon it."
After that resonance, he did not gain the skill.
Instead, he was given a clue. Eating mana beasts.
Back then, it did not make any sense. But now, it made a little more sense why he had been shown the Monarch eating the beast.
The only reason he had tried to copy mana breathing and enhancement was to make his body stronger, to withstand the backlash of Mana Sovereignty.
The resonance had shown him exactly that: by eating mana beasts, his body would be adapted.
Now, to connect the patterns and acquire this skill, he needed to trigger that condition one more time.
"Hope this works."