Chapter 277 : Chapter 277
Chapter 277. Battle of Attrition
The Goddess of the Currents that Fulan saw had long hair drifting through the surrounding sea, the same pale blue as the seawater itself, and Her pupils resembled finely carved sapphires.
She stood upon the sea, with the water just barely covering Her knees, as though She were walking forward.
She wore a white robe, and wherever She passed, the sea remained calm, without even a single splash staining that robe.
Behind the Goddess of the Currents was a strikingly clear path of light. At the far end of that luminous path were enormous man-made sailing ships, colossal creatures beneath the sea, and tiny fish and shrimp faintly surfacing from the water.
At the other end of that path of light, the sea was no longer as calm as it was where the Goddess of the Currents now stood. Waves seemed ready to rise at any moment.
Fulan watched the Goddess of the Currents walk across the sea. Only after Her figure disappeared beyond the horizon did she slowly come back to herself.
When her mind regained a little clarity, the scenery before her changed once more, returning to the standoff from just moments ago.
The two of them still had no idea what Fulan had just seen. Valerie focused her mind and watched Fulan intently.
As for the glow at Heather’s chest, it had not yet fully erupted and was still gradually intensifying.
It seemed that while Fulan had been looking upon the Goddess of the Currents, time here had not passed at all. She could even launch an attack before Heather finished what she was doing.
So that was exactly what she did.
She raised her hand and immediately sent out an Enhanced Wind Blade. The surrounding wind elements converged toward that single blade as it flew.
Heather also saw the Wind Blade coming, but she did not take it seriously at all, because she believed that such an attack could never break through her defense.
Forget that red-glowing technique from before—even with a Wind Blade, you still think you can break my defense?
That was what Heather thought.
So she showed no intention of dodging or strengthening her protection. She simply continued guiding her divine spell in place.
At that moment, the Church Knight behind her noticed something unusual about that Wind Blade, and the corner of her lips curled slightly.
When the Wind Blade struck Heather, it was just as Heather had expected. A single Wind Blade like that truly could not injure her.
But what happened next completely exceeded her expectations.
The moment the Wind Blade dispersed, it was as though a fuse had been lit. The surrounding wind elements began to tremble violently.
That turbulence instantly interrupted the divine spell Heather had been guiding, and pain shot through the hand she still had left.
Then that pain spread evenly through every part of her body, drawing a sheen of tears from her eyes.
At that moment, Heather was like a small boat trapped in the tides. She could clearly feel the pain, yet could do nothing at all, because the pressure of the wind elements left her unable to move.
Valerie, standing behind Heather, immediately realized that the time had come. She flashed forward and rescued Heather at the cost of slight damage to the bishop’s robe she wore.
Once Heather regained her ability to move, she seemed to make up her mind. She wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes and said directly,
“That’s enough. I can’t take this anymore...”
Heather suddenly turned her head and said, “You go attack her. I’ll pray for you from the back.”
Heather had never experienced such a powerless battle before. She felt as though every attack she made only made the other side laugh at her. She could not accept that.
Valerie could tell that Heather was truly angry now, or she would never have said something like that.
“All right, Your Highness. But once we return, you need to train properly.”
Valerie clenched her fists, cracking her knuckles, then strode forward in great steps.
Fulan glanced at the Heather she had just driven back, then at the Church Knight advancing to fight her, and raised an eyebrow.
Objectively speaking, Heather was genuinely strong. If Fulan had not already reached the second tier and learned a second-tier spell that could heighten the activity of the surrounding elements, her spells would likely have struggled to break through Heather’s defenses.
Looking at it that way, without using Blood of the Furnace, the only thing Fulan had that could truly injure her opponent was the Sunflame technique.
For the Fulan of the past, this might have been a bitter battle.
But the current her could defeat Heather with relative ease.
At the same time, Fulan’s gaze shifted to the Church Knight walking toward her, and her heart began to pound uneasily. She was not completely confident that she could defeat the other woman.
Before reaching the second tier, Fulan had always used Blood of the Furnace to instantly kill second-tier enemies.
But now that she herself had reached the second tier, she still did not know whether her current strength was enough to directly defeat a second-tier opponent.
There isn’t much time left. If necessary, I need to seize the right moment, kill that Church Knight with Blood of the Furnace, and run immediately.
Fulan could now cast Blood of the Furnace without relying on a spell ring, but once she used it, she would probably have almost no Mental Power left.
So if she wanted to kill the other party, she would need to seize the perfect opportunity and finish that Church Knight in a single strike.
But I can try another method first.
She still had enough time for now. It had not yet reached the point where she had to use Blood of the Furnace at all costs and flee immediately afterward.
She could use this chance to test what level she herself now stood at among second-tier opponents.
After thinking it all through, Fulan took a deep breath, repaired the damaged [Hard Scale Rock] she had suffered in the battle with her Mental Power, and then set down the purple short sword in her hand.
Behind the Church Knight, Heather had already begun to pray.
Heather raised the one arm that was still relatively intact, though now covered in wounds, in front of her chest. Then she used that fluctuation of radiance so familiar to Fulan.
Fulan could not hear the contents of Heather’s prayer clearly. She only knew that Heather was praying, yet by the time the words reached her ears, she could no longer remember what Heather had just been praying for.
As Valerie continued walking forward, Fulan could feel the aura around her rapidly rising, while a layer of pale-blue gauze draped itself over her body.
At that point, Fulan understood that if she did not attack first, then once the other side made the first move, she would probably be forced into a passive position.
So Fulan grabbed one of the spears she had found in the storeroom earlier and directly used [Equipment Overload].
A tremendous amount of Mental Power wrapped itself around the spear. For a moment, it seemed as though the spear could not bear so much Mental Power, and it began to shake violently.
Because this spear was not a weapon Fulan had forged with her own hands, the effects of [Equipment Overload] could not be fully brought out.
And since she could not use this spear to cast [Equipment Augmentation], the power it could unleash was greatly reduced.
But all of that could be made up for with [Equipment Loading]. Fulan deliberately poured an extremely high amount of Mental Power into it, forcing the spear to bring out two hundred percent of its power.
The price, however, was that every second for the next minute, there was a significant chance that the spear would simply explode and end its life as a weapon.
Still, this was only something Fulan had grabbed casually from the storeroom. Even if it were destroyed here, she would not feel the least bit distressed.
And when she left the storeroom, she had already considered the possibility of being intercepted outside.
That was why she had deliberately not taken all the weapon-making materials with her, instead grabbing a few finished weapons directly.
Now, it seemed that decision had truly been the right one.
Fulan took a deep breath, stepped forward with her left foot, leaned her body slightly backward, then gripped the spear in her right hand and drew back slightly, gathering strength as the wind elements in the air attached themselves to it.
With a flick of her wrist and a savage swing of her arm, she hurled the spear forward. It ripped through the air with a shrill howl and shot straight toward the Church Knight’s face.
Valerie knew that this was not the moment to dodge lightly.
Heather was still behind her. If she moved aside, what if the attack hit Heather instead?
If Heather’s blessing was gone, that would still be manageable. But what if Heather threw a tantrum at her once they returned to the Material Realm? So Valerie did not dodge. Instead, she took a stance to receive the attack head-on.
The instant the spear flew over, Valerie relied on her outstanding dynamic vision and coordination to snatch it out of the air with one hand.
The powerful wind elements howled around the spear and madly tore at her arm. Some of those attacks broke through the protective shield Heather had given her, leaving several wounds on her arm.
Even though the spear had not actually injured her, stopping its advance was still an extremely difficult thing for her to do.
That was because her feet did not have enough friction against the ground. She could even feel that the place beneath her feet had a slickness like polished jade.
That forced her to grab the spear with both hands and stamp one foot into the ground, sinking it into a deep pit to increase her friction.
Yet even so, she was still shoved backward three meters, carving a black skid mark across the floor before she finally came to a stop.
And while Valerie was struggling against the spear, Fulan rushed forward first. She knew that she currently had no large-scale offensive spells she could use, so her only real chance now was to close in and fight with Sunflame.
She held a longsword in one hand and a large blade in the other. Both arms spun through the air with red light blazing around them as she slashed toward the Church Knight with the momentum of her charge.
Valerie gripped the spear tightly, then seized both ends of it and turned it sideways like a wooden plank to block the attack.
The wind elements on the spear had not yet dispersed, so although Fulan’s slash split the spear apart with Sunflame, the obstruction from the wind elements caused the downward follow-through of her strike to slam directly into the ground.
Sunflame melted a red-black fissure into the floor. Fulan immediately turned her body and thrust her longsword toward the opponent.
Valerie, however, moved with great ease. With a forward kick and a single long stride, she opened the distance.
The red glow on the longsword could only reach the space right before her eyes, unable to advance even half a step farther because of the distance between them.
But at that very moment, a powerful wave of spell fluctuation suddenly erupted from Fulan’s body, as though some spell she had been maintaining had exploded under the force of a massive injection of Mental Power.
Valerie’s expression changed at once. Only then did she think to throw away the broken spear in her hand, but it was already too late.
Not only did the spear Fulan had enhanced earlier explode in Valerie’s hand, but even the longsword Fulan had thrust up before her exploded at the tip from the infusion of Mental Power.