Chapter 1568: Stop Interfering! (1)
’I have no choice!’
The masked man, or rather, Rias, had not felt like this in a long time.
Desperation mounted him like a steed.
The kick he took to the chin resounded within his Broader Existence elsewhere. Ever so slightly, it took damage.
That was the trade-off, indeed. This body he had made – immune to mana and thrice as powerful as his last – including his soul, were especially vulnerable to intense damage (damage Rias hadn’t thought he’d endure, of course).
’I have to rely on Aimon to kill her!’ the masked man decided.
...But just as his Amras surged, it tattled on his desires unintentionally.
Kintar’s keen eyes noted it. Or was it her new skill that did?
Her left hand released Rias’ right arm and rushed to grab his face, forcing him to look away from her. She then wound her right arm around the back of the masked man’s neck, catching him in a vice, and struck his face (mask) thrice with her heel. It was spiteful work.
The Unlimited Star then gave a leap, intent on dropping on her back. She and Rias fell onto the hard scale of the Drakken, with the masked man’s face hitting it first. Kintar then placed her left palm on the masked man’s back as they were downed.
...And used Infinitesimal Division.
Genuine Divine energy powered her Absolute Magic this time, making it ten times more potent. But even then, Kintar couldn’t do something exceedingly unnatural against a genuine Divine level expert.
She could, however, use Infinitesimal Division to divide his Amras reserves against themselves and chip a chunk of them away.
...!!!!
Rias’ eyes bulged when he felt a tenth of his reserves vanish, yet, his immediate thought was...
’She figured out how my eye works!’
And indeed, Kintar had.
The Eye of Backfire only worked against energy-type attacks aimed against the user. But the user themselves had to be able to perceive the attacks to make them rebound, hence why Kintar was keeping Rias’ vision away.
Infinitesimal Division flared again.
...!!!
Rias answered another tenth of his reserves disappearing with a roar. He lifted himself and Kintar from the ground (the scale) and erupted with Undeath energy. Kintar flashed away to avoid the unseemly power’s rampage.
When the different-coloured eyes of the masked man turned to her, bloodshot and seething, she grinned.
She had so many surprises she was developing just for him. After all, she too was furious.
...But the clash that would have happened between them was interrupted by a loud explosion which rang from a great distance away.
A certain miniature world finally detonated.
Corpses flew out of it. Some belonged to the members of the Order of the Trodden Rose and others, sadly, belonged to those adorning Granted Armament – Stark Troops.
Nigerra emerged, bloodied, bruised and scowling, soaring backward. She alone remained from her Order.
On the other hand, Gerriey and the other Stark Troops, merely three short, emerged, flashing in the opposite direction. They too looked worse for wear, but unshaken. Before the world they had been battling in was destroyed, they had been winning.
Rias and Kintar were forced to spare less than a second’s worth of attention towards these combatants without drawing away their eyes from each other.
...But someone used this momentary distraction to their advantage.
A beam of condensed Null Life Essence came blasting from the distance, weaving between the Drakkens and catching Rias in his left side. The masked man went flying after a grunt, the quick throng of energy carrying him to an unknown destination.
...But the true assailant had something to say about that.
Sila was faster than the beam. He raced alongside it, swifter than anyone in the vicinity. Lathering his fist with Null Life Essence, he gifted the masked man a guiltless punch that dispersed several of the many storms brewing around, and sent him flying into a Drakken’s wing.
The masked man’s green mask finally chipped. The force of the blow was much stronger than anything Kintar could conjure...yet.
Blood oozed from his nose and mouth as he tried focused his vision on the enemy.
As it so happened, his enemy didn’t look as he did before.
Sila had changed.
Instead of a humanoid made from luminous vines, decked in a valiant suit of armour, he now resembled some abominable cross between a long-bodied black feline with a golden mane, and some compact beetle with six legs. On his face, his two eyes seemed to have merged to form one giant one from which Sila could fire Null Life Essence projectiles.
None from this world would know this, but he had adopted the traits from a foreign species. The Six-Legged Flash Dipper, a speedster of the Null Verse.
Added to the traits of his already Divine-level body, Sila’s physical prowess was even more formidable. He was a nigh-invisible streak, running on air as he aimed for the masked man!
Kintar could barely discern his presence by using her Magecraft, but she cursed the former Tower General all the same.
’Stop interfering!’ she wanted to say.
...But Sila was already running along the Drakken’s body towards Rias. The masked man didn’t know it yet, but he had yet another opponent.
Uyuniya suddenly stormed down from a height, half her face a molten mess, and charged at Rias from behind. Her sword was concentrated with her Void Clot, poised to pierce the masked man’s body clean through.
It was the only way she thought she could win.
But neither she nor Sila managed to lay so much as a finger on the masked man.
...!!!
Speed, magic and brute force were rendered meaningless against the dreadful force that wrapped around the masked man.
When Sila, Uyuniya and Kintar sensed it, they backed away, their immediate desire to attack quelled or rather, forcefully discouraged.
Only the foreign princess wasn’t quite as surprised. She cursed when she got some distance and pointed her greatsword down. The source of the inhibiting power just now had been her opponent all along, and that opponent was no trifle. Her maimed face was all the evidence.
Her partners, however, were befuddled.
’What is it now?’ Kintar thought, her fury growing.
She saw Rias breathe out a sigh of relief. He looked down at what little shadow his shape poured over the Drakken he was standing on.
The inhibiting presence was blasting from it, and soon, its source revealed itself.
It slowly poured out, a massive figure decked in a shining Corinthian armour, its form a collection of strong, clean bones drenched in a dark red pulsing wad of Undeath energy. It stood at over three meters tall with pennons of greenish-black fire rising from its large sockets.
Indeed, it was a Death Knight. It was the only one Rias had managed to create from the opponent he had made for Uyuniya earlier.
The creature was Divine indeed – genuinely so. It had a Broader Existence and a status above any other Undeath creation ever made on Aigas.
Truly, Rias had surpassed Actuass as a necromancer.
Sila narrowed his eye at this.
’It’s far weaker than that Doom Knight we fought earlier, but that doesn’t mean we can defeat it. Even Uyuniya couldn’t defeat it on her own,’ he thought.
This was trouble.
But Kintar wasn’t convinced of that.
"You think you’ve earned yourself a break?" she said and flew towards Rias and the Death Knight. The vermillion core within her kept striking against the others surrounding it, producing more and more Genuine Divine energy. "You’re dying today, you son of a bitch."
Kintar meant to abuse all of her new powers and kill both Rias and his toy right then.
...But the tides of Aigas never meant to keep still today.
The Distant Magnets placed all over Aigas activated and shone, summoning the governing Deities of this world.
Fittingly, Aigas shook, welcoming its creators.
...But someone else forced it to groan.
Wars were brewing on Aigas, but also under it.