Chapter 1564: She Does Not Make Sense (2)
The jet was only large enough to blast Rias and Nana, and it was relatively swift. Because it came without warning, and after Rias was genuinely taken aback by Kintar’s raw strength, the masked man didn’t see it coming until it was barely a meter away.
But he would not be bested so easily. He knew what Kintar intended, and allowing her to succeed would be tantamount to losing more of his pride to her.
The masked man snatched Nana and cast her away from the range of the blast while shielding her with Undeath energy. The abstract jet of power struck him point-blank, causing a resounding whap! but he remained undamaged. The Eye of Backfire worked wonders. The jet of power might have smothered Rias, but it flooded towards its source - the Drakken.
Naturally, the creature was unharmed by its own attack (and Rias had guessed Kintar would be immune too).
But just then, Nana’s powers increased by 48%!
The Drakken she had frozen shuddered and began to disperse in kind. Chunks of it the size of small houses turned thin as silt and were collected by the raging wings roaring about.
Rias smirked.
This was all a result of his Necromancy Class. It gave him the passive ability to turn the life energy in living things into Undeath energy. The process had been long and tedious before, however. Actuass had to explain this ability to his enemies, which would force the life energy within them to start swelling up, and in turn increase their powers. Until this life energy swelled to the limit, Actuass couldn’t siphon it out and turn it into Undeath energy for his own use – which also meant he was making his opponent stronger during a battle.
But all this was before Actuass became Rias, and Rias became a Divine. The latter was a lot more... free with this ability.
Kintar wished to steal that freedom from him, however.
After the jet of destruction failed, she swerved around Rias, and shuttled towards Nana, but Rias vaulted over her in turn, summersaulted in the air, and grabbed her neck before she could reach her target.
"Your options are thinning...dwarf." A sharp squeeze later, Kintar’s head detached from her body.
...But then yet another Kintar appeared.
This one was especially lively, much to Rias’ surprise. She came at him with the rigor of a tiger. With her hands balled into fists, her arms went in swift, violent cycles against Rias, as if to strike him repeatedly with backhand punches. Again, Rias noted that she didn’t use mana or any other energy at all. He frowned as he met the series of attacks with precise blocks, but when he attempted to retaliate, Kintar, with extraordinary speed, ducked down, did a hand stand, and somehow mastered enough power in one leg to send Rias flying with a brutal kick!
...!!!
Again, Rias felt nothing from the blow, but that was hardly the point!
’How...!’
Just when he landed on his feet, a series of blows just as strong as the one to send him flying just now thundered against his body despite the distance between himself and Kintar. Each pushed him back a few inches at a time and then...
WHAP!
WHAP!
Two jets of abstract destruction flew towards Rias and then Nana.
Rias was quick. He sent a shuttle of Amras flying towards Kintar, slicing her in two with modest difficulty, and then darted towards Nana. He managed to arrive fast enough to have it reflected by his Eye of Backfire.
...But by then, another Kintar had been released. Before he even saw her properly, Rias was smitten by an invisible blow to the face which forced his head back. By the time he recovered, Kintar had flashed forth, charged a double palm strike, and smashed it into his chest. It packed an unbelievable punch.
Rias went skidding back, his body hunched. He barely managed to avoid Kintar’s flying roundhouse by ducking down, but then she spun in midair, and dropped an axe-kick on his shoulder. Again, the attack did nothing of note, but Rias was still overcome with fury. He lunged at Kintar and wrenched her apart like a cloth.
...But then an unending series of invisible, inconsequential but annoying blows, like rapid punches, rained on him from all sides.
The next thing the masked man knew, an arm was under his crotch, another grabbing his shoulder. He was suddenly tipped over and smashed hard on the Drakken’s scale.
A chittering laugh came a moment later when Kintar send her fist crashing towards his face. She was carefree and relentless.
That made it all the more annoying.
Rias seethed.
She was out of options. She could do nothing more than this. Wasn’t that all but obvious?!
The masked man gutted Kintar in a violent fashion and cast her corpse aside.
...But then another demented beauty was born. She grinned at him, took flight and...
Suddenly, she was everywhere.
As the Drakken which was the stage for the battle flew around, distorting the sky, an army of Kintars revolved around Rias. But... it really wasn’t an army. They were all after-images.
On top of Kintar’s Strength stat being replaced by [Expanded Vision-Based Torsion], which allowed her to attack anything she could see, the Unlimited Star’s Agility stat was also different. She had a little something called [Transcendent Skip], an ability to allowed her to traverse the entire scope of her surroundings several hundred thousand times...by taking a single step backwards – even in midair.
This was the culprit behind all the after-images Rias saw, along with something else.
But fast as Kintar was, Rias found her. He seemed to streak forward, reach out with his hand, and snag her from the pool of grinning demons. He killed her at once, but she came back again and again and again while unleashing an unending series of shattering invisible blows.
By the fourteenth Kintar, however...
"Nana!" Rias cried.
The woman’s powers were soaring. She was at a 90% increase in power!
The Drakken she had been staring at finally spilled out of existence, dispersed.
Rias immediately pulled Nana to him, held her by the neck like a puppet, and had her face Kintar. The Eye of Dispersal was powerful indeed. With enough power, it could completely shut down any chance for a target to use any ability at all. They wouldn’t even be able to muster energy.
"You know, for all the smack you waxed on about these wenches being pitiable, you’re easily worse. At the very least, they know their place, and they have sense enough to listen to someone with a little know-how. If you had any vision at all – as most competent Mages do – you would have seen your guaranteed loss in advance and fled. But no. I see it now. You won’t stop until I’ve stripped you bare, and forced you to your knees with your head under my boot. I—"
"Oh, shut the fuck up. We’re not there yet." Kintar said, her face looking a lot more twisted than Aimon’s. Suddenly, her skin and flesh started melting off, smoke billowing in hefty clouds from her.
...!!!
Rias recoiled while Nana gasped. Her Eye of Dispersal was glowing, operating at full throttle, but...
WAAAAA!
Flames that were clearly not flames exploded from Kintar’s body. With a chittering laugh, she locked sights with Nana’s eye.
"Do you really think you can match me in a contest of output just because you are a little juiced-up? Hahaha! I wish Yuyui was here to watch this."
Kintar must not have been human. The look on Rias’ face expressed this idea finely.
He simply could not understand what kind of creature his opponent was.
She did not make sense.
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[Author’s Note]
Very sorry for the absence. I’m not feeling too well. I’m a little better now, though.