CHAPTER 537

FLAMES OF DESTRUCTION (VIII)

While everyone remained flattened by the sudden appearance of overwhelming energy, Lucky quickly shuffled her focus away from it and onto the swarming group in front of her. Her body flashed in tepid grey for a moment as she morphed into a trailing shadow that sped up, covering the short distance away from the other group within a few seconds. The pair of crimson-trailing daggers beamed through the shadows and struck, leaving behind them a trail of light.

A singular cry of pain and destitute seemed to awake the atmosphere as the swarm turned toward their center, where they saw a black-clad figure swiping a single dagger through a human’s throat, ripping his head off and kicking it at the person right next to her, causing him to stumble backward. Right after, she followed it up by slashing the other dagger upward, over the man’s groin and through his chest killing him instantaneously.

It all transpired before anyone was able to act, but as they quickly came to, the circle opened up as those surrounding her withdrew; a mere flash later, a bombardment commenced. Several dozen slashing blades of light swung at Lucky as she darted among them, her body merely a trail of smoke weaving in-between the crimson, scalding blades.

She kicked sideways all of a sudden, making an abrupt turn to her left as space where she was heading split open, twisting unto itself and imploding. She skated around it and reached a humanoid figure draped in thick scales and angular skull; ignoring the somewhat odd appearance, she swung over his neck, swiping one of her daggers while wrapping her legs around the creature's chest, bending backward to evade a flaming spear that skirted right above her, bringing with it a sensation of heat that was enough for her to groan.

Flexing her muscles, she jerked back violently with all her strength, breaking the creature’s spine and darting underneath it, through its massive legs, dodging a rippling pillar of light that consumed the creature soon after, killing it.

Yet, evading a singular attack put her in an even more precarious position; she felt her movements diminish greatly, space around her rippling like a lake punched by a pebble. Biting her tongue, she freed herself from lethargy, spinning in a full circle like a spin-top, blowing out the steam of shadows as she vanished, reappearing over a mile away, behind another line of the enemies; her eyes quickly identified the one that had slowed down her movements – it was another human, a woman seemingly in her late forties, that had immediately realized she was the target.

Calmly, without panicking, she spun in place and withdrew, shooting her arms out consecutively as swirls of tingling lightning dyed in deep yellow sprouted out toward Lucky.

Explosion after an explosion registered in her ears as she realized the battle had commenced in full; just as she was about to dodge, a majestic surge of energy swept through the space around her, ripping the lightning into pieces. Alison appeared from seemingly nowhere, clad in majestic, silver-clad armor, wielding Lino’s former weapon, the Edge, slightly reinforced until it reached the Origin-tier.

The two’s eyes met for a moment as Lucky vanished into shadows once again, Alison swinging the Edge in an angular, downward cleave, ripping through the array of attacks headed toward her, pushing onward like a boulder.

The woman Lucky targeted continued to shuffle back as the crowd around her scattered and engaged as well. A boulder the size of a mountain, bursting in flames, fell toward Alison at a high pace; before she could deflect it, it crashed directly into her as a volcanic eruption of fire billowed out from the crash, smoldering pieces of rock floored through the vast expanse. The fire continued to burn, seemingly against the logic, as her silhouette appeared, walking out of the flames unscathed.

Her golden hair fluttered violently in the blazing storm as her being turned into a shining beacon, her Will ripping out the restrictions around her as she turned into a singular array of light, bursting through. She swung her sword at the man who cast the boulder, yet the Edge was met by another blade as a slightly pale-skinned human appeared in front of her, draped in thick layers of crimson-black clothes, smiling faintly at her, exposing slightly sharpened canines.

Unperturbed, she quickly withdrew from the lockdown as a pillar of ashen-gray sprouted at the place she stood, the man burning through it right after, giving chase. Rather than escaping, she shuffled her backward momentum and manipulated the membrane of space to bounce herself backward at even greater speed; the ensuing clash between the two sent a massive shockwave akin to a ripple, cleaning up the radius around them for tens of miles.

The man managed to endure for a brief flash before being flung backward like a kite without strings. Alison followed right after, the beam of golden light shining in the midst of cosmic darkness.

Meanwhile, Lucky used the massive shockwave that the two had created, and that had disturbed the enclosing circle, to shuffle in-between the backlines, reaping lives cleanly and efficiently, her blade growing a shade darker. Realizing that they were shuffling to encircle her again, she withdrew back to her original position, behind Hannah who alone was engaged against at the very least three hundred souls.

A massive circle spun behind her, halo-like, fuming in scalding coral, her arms spread far and wide. The world around her grew misted, chilly and frigid, as over a thousand shining bolts of ice formed above her and shot out right after; each was the size of a household, and each, even if deflected or defended, caused a massive explosion that resulted in countless ejections of frigid air.

Right after, her soft cry struck out into the open void as she clasped her hands together. Surrounding the three hundred or so that had engaged her, ripples in space shifted into open, circular rips counting in thousands, forming an almost perfect sphere as a form of encirclement; each shone in resplendent gold, open-palms of stone depressing through the openings, shuddering. It all transpired within a mere second, the frigid explosions, the massive rips, and the palms the size of a small mountain; the latter blew out immediately, displacing the space in front of them as they collapsed toward the three hundred.

The latter didn’t stand still; rather, sheens of impeccable light surrounded them on all ends as spillage of turbid, black flames sunk under and up, exploding into a majestic display; the numbers matched those of the palms precisely, and arrived at the edge just in time to clash with the descending and ascending palms of golden stone.

The two colors soon blinded the onlookers and the participants completely, the sheer number of explosions resulting in the unstable quaking of the reality itself; black and golden rippled upward into a seeming infinity, forming two eerie curtains that seemed to split the world itself in two.

Hannah didn't rest, however, veins on her neck bulging massively, like worms, as she began repeatedly, and violently, slapping her arms forward, first right then left, each time unleashing ever-growing waves of crimson-coral flames shaped like coiling dragons. Though, at first, they were blocked from piercing beyond the curtain, the ever-growing size and strength ensured that the fifteenth one that reached burned through the thin coil, setting the innards ablaze.

The golden-black sphere exploded in a bizarre, outgoing fashion, like a simultaneous eruption of thousands upon thousands of volcanoes; sprinkled in with the ejected pillars and waves of dashing fire were bits and chunks of the stoned palms, as well as an ever-growing cloud of ash and soot.

Figures, one after another, began darting out of the explosion, withdrawing, none remaining untouched; out of three hundred, in the end, just over a hundred and fifty made it out, the rest consumed in the staunch flames that seemed unwilling to die.

Hannah channeled her energy once again, weaving her arms around in a circle, the massive sea of fire in front of her in the shape of a rippling sphere seemingly following the movements of her arms, weaving out and about until it collapsed into the perfect sphere the size of the moon; clasping her hands together and intertwining her fingers for a moment, Hannah took a deep breath before she ripped them apart, flinging her arms outward in a straightforward fashion.

The sphere followed those movements precisely, ripped open as though its core exploded, ejecting two consuming beams of fire on two ends for hundreds upon hundreds of miles, scrying the remaining souls and killing an additional hundred in a single sweep.

Though many had died, it hardly put a dent to the battle; Y’nn, Eldon, Reli and Elta were protecting her flanks and allowing her to focus entirely on offense, while Lucky had long since darted out once again, no doubt itching to abuse the ensuing chaos. Alison was still engaged in the far distance, her golden beam repeatedly clashing with a crimson-dyed one, each clash producing massive shockwaves that, while paling in comparison to the ones on Hannah’s end, still manage to hurt and coil the membrane of spacetime.

Taking a breather, Hannah glanced up for a moment, her expression bitter. In the recent clash, she had come to realize just how lacking he was in comparison; mere aftermath of one of Lino’s attacks left everyone on the battlefield stunned and frozen for a moment, while her almost all-out effort failed to afford even the remotely similar reaction. It’s fine, she thought, taking a deep breath and sharpening her gaze once again. Soon enough, I’ll be an Agent too. The bastard’s gonna pay for all that braggart shit I had to endure for fucking months… ugh…