CHAPTER 46

  A BIRD WITH CLIPPED WINGS

  Hans and Reina locked eyes. She was floating high inside a swirling sphere of light, while he stood on the ground, looking up. The atmosphere was tense. It was Hans who broke the impasse first, and it was with his best supportive spell.

  VoidZone

  After merging with the Day seed, he not only gained the ability to absorb sun energy but his control over the wild mana of nature reached its peak. And the quick effect of VoidZone was undeniable. Within a hundred meters, every single mana particle was at his command, like a loyal dog.

  Yet it had no effect on Reina; she had been reduced to Dominion Knight and fell to rank twenty-first from eighth, but she was from a generation when Samson reigned supreme so she had developed a way to effectively avoid the effects of VoidZone.

  The passive rotating sphere was her domain skill; it was a joke comparing to the size of domain skills of other knights since it was barely two metres wide but inside it was her own little world, filled with her pure filtered light aura.

  He understood why his VoidZone wasn’t effective in a glance. “ She is maintaining it for quite a while. Even with her huge capacity, she’d eventually run out of it sooner or later. But I’m not going to fudge around and wait for it.” He resolved and let out the energy he had absorbed from the barrier, turning the VoidZone into his own sanctuary, a sole privilege of eighth circle mage.

  Sun-field Sanctuary

  A pulse of heat emitted from Hans and took over his VoidZone easily. Everything was drying up, scorching the land without fire.

  Reina wasn’t an exception either, since it was not some magical phenomenon that she could counter but rather a physical change in nature.

  Within a few moments, the place succumbed to drought devoid of any moisture. She could feel herself inside an oven, being baked like a bread.

  “A sanctuary— you gotta be kidding me.” She said as her body’s fluids kept vaporising at a visible rate. However, like any other sanctuary, even when it was an overpowering mage technique, it shared the same flaw. The caster had to be still in one place. Hans was just a sitting duck if she could somehow get away from this.

  “Quite the invitation you are giving me, scion of Parv.” She murmured, it was an obvious trap, yet she had no choice but to fall into it since Sun-field Sanctuary had to be stopped for her to succeed. She lunged ahead at the speed of a cannonball.

  To avoid her, even with abandoning his sanctuary, it was near impossible for Hans who shared the weakness of being slow. She was too fast for him. So, he did what he always did best—rain everything he had on her.

  SeedBullets

  With his photonised state, his conjured seeds were filled with the explosive energy. They weren’t just the imitation of dwarven muskets but a moniker of his nation which was several years ahead in magic technology.

  She was in range, he aimed at her but not in the centre. His target was her right and when the absolute rotary defence collided with Hans’s explosive bullets, the impact shifted her forward path, slanting it so much that it automatically passed by Hans with quite some distance.

  He smirked, his sanctuary survived and he could see her gasping, the heat was finally showing some effect. It was clear to both parties that if she wanted to stop his sanctuary, she needed to turn off her rotatory sphere, toning down her defence quite a bit and put everything in a critical blow.

  “If you hold your head that high. It’ll be a matter of time before someone takes it off.” Reina grunted as her sphere vanished, finally giving in, but unlike what Hans had hoped, her demeanour only grew fiercer.

  “Fuck!” Hans cursed as he looked into those menacing eyes of hers. He had only seen her one skill and didn’t even know the name of it, and to stop that skill, he had to put his best spell in use. He pulsed through another photonised energy, making his already hot sanctuary hotter.

  “This won’t work.” Reina, who had come down after canceling her defensive shield, began to fly again. Her speed reached new heights that made Hans unable to even trace her blade.

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  “Swoosh!” The blade almost kissed his neck as he barely avoided it by using another blast seed, but soon another came in.

  “Zwoom!” With his photonised state, he quickly backed off, crashing behind an ashen tree, which became a dust cloud upon impact. His sanctuary was broken. “Goddamn it.” Dusting off the ashes, he rose, feeling his neck intact. “I almost lost my shit here— ugh. She is aiming for my life now.”

  But there was a fine red line on his neck. “She reached—” he was almost sure that he had avoided it cleanly, but there was a very razor-sharp cut in his neck, and before he could realise anything else, Reina rained volleys of her high-speed attack, giving many superficial wounds to Hans. He looked like someone had drawn straight red lines all over his body.

  He needed breathing room and even more, some good old healing since there was a peculiarity in those superficial wounds. The blood clotting, which should have kicked in, was nowhere to be seen. His body never continued to bleed this long, even with grave wounds.

  “Am I poisoned— Slash! Slash!” He couldn’t even complete his words, and Reina interrupted with her relentless volleys. He continued to dodge, but it was frustrating for both attacker and him. Even with perfect evasions, the injuries began to stack up, and he kept bleeding.

  Reina wasn’t playing around either. She was putting her best effort into each of her attacks, aimed for Hans’s vitals, yet Hans kept evading with minimum damage.

  “I’ve had enough of this — Elderform,” Hans shouted and like an explosion, the vegetation took over Hans’s body, turning him into a humongous forest monster.

  “You fool, you just made yourself a bigger target—”

  “Try me, you elven hag.” Hans shouted in his monstrous voice and the gigantic body exploded into thousands of wooden shards, all hanging in the air. There wasn’t any trace of Hans; all she could see were the broken pieces of elderwood, scattered all over the place.

  Suddenly, like a tremor, all the hanging shards shook and as if every bit of them were being controlled. They all flew in a swirl at Reina. She swiftly dodged the barrage, but like a swarm of locusts, they preyed on Reina on her every appearance.

  No matter how many shards she shattered, they multiplied like parasites. She had no choice but to call upon her defensive sphere, but Hans was omnipotent in this form. As soon as she encased herself in the rotating sphere of light, he relaunched his Sunfield sanctuary.

  But this time the obvious weakness of sanctuary, a mage’s immobility wasn’t seen; he wasn’t anywhere but everywhere. However, the Sunfield Sanctuary was a double-edged sword; with extreme heat, the plant life he conjured, even his own wooden shards, were drying soft bread in an oven, turning into ashes.

  “There is no magic. You aren’t conjuring anything with mana.” Reina, frustrated, growled with her dry mouth, “These are all physical attacks. I’ve had enough of this.” Her lips were already chapped, and her skin turned tanned, but her aura soared to what Hans had never seen before. He knew something dangerous was coming.

  “ManaStorm”

  He prepared himself, swirling the nature’s mana around him, stressing it further and further; the friction among the particles rose so high that they started emitting electric charges. It was Hans’s biggest ManaStorm yet. He couldn’t hold back against the ominous feeling he was getting. It was like he knew if he couldn’t stop whatever Reina was planning, then he would die a dog’s death.

  “Hmm… You are really a stupid brat. So much power wasted on you.” Reina tried to chuckle, but her expressions were affixed all thanks to her baked skin.

  Perfectly hidden in plain sight, among his remaining and fast-moving wooden shards, Hans saw her eyes glow the same as his. “Don’t tell me—”

  She disappeared from her location, “Lumen Eyes - you aren’t the only one who can see the natural flow of mana.” She whispered, right behind Hans.

  Feeling her creeping behind, Hans broke into a cold sweat in the high, intense heat; his exposed location became apparent, and she continued in a low and dry voice, “You enjoy authority with no consequences attached to it. You’ve killed so many, so don’t resent me much, Scion of Parv— Slash!”

  The ominous feeling that Hans had felt before turned true. Her attack chipped a wooden shard. And hidden inside, Hans paid the price by losing his right hand. The wound didn’t even bleed; the final attack of Reina was so intense that it had already cauterised his upper arm.

  Instinctively, he blasted his energy down, shooting himself a little far. He was forced-transformed back into his human form, and was writhing in pain like a fish out of water. Despite his cries, Reina’s cold, lifeless eyes showed no pity. Hans was like a thorn that pricked her; with just his existence, her whole world could fall apart as she was told.

  “Blame your overconfident father. One can’t ever fight his fate.” She took the calm steps towards him. “What is written must happen at all costs, but it is the price we must pay for knowing our demise. Rest in peace, Hans Parv.”

  On the other hand, Hans wasn’t in his right mind to concentrate and do anything else. He was tolerant to pain, but since the beginning, there was something else in her aura; he felt it before since his wounds weren’t healing like usual. And it was true, Reina might have shifted to rank 21, but it was because her feather was clipped before she could take a flight. Her aura technique was the deadliest among the top rankers.

  “Ugh, God damn it.” He conjured the bladed leaf creepers and cut off his remaining upper arm from his shoulder. The prickly pain somehow reduced, and stumbling, he darted at Reina, “You’ll pay for this — Carronade.” He shouted, as the pearl-sized sunstones converged at high speed at the close proximity of Hans and Reina.

  “Let’s die together, you old hag.”