-Vol 5: A New Life-

-A Losing Battle On All Sides-

In a fair distance away from Kenshin and Joy’s battlefield, a bunch of hunters with a pretty impressive lineup could be seen fighting with a 10-meter huge tiger. The one leading this fight was a girl wearing a typical shrine maiden outfit while holding a golden-rod in her hand. The rod had a crystal ball attached on its top. Surrounding her was a bob cut hairstyle girl holding a katana that was glowing with yellow runes and an old man that seemed to be floating on air. Also, he was holding a small stick on his right hand.

Behind them were a guy wearing heavy set armor and a huge jet-black shield. Beside him was another man wearing a full-body leather suit and a pair of Nunchuks as a weapon.

“This thing is indeed strong.” The bob-cut girl said as she wiped her head from sweat and dust. Then she threw a look at the man with a huge black shield and clicked her tongue, “Why is a tank standing behind a mage?”

Hearing her snarky comment, the man with the black shield gave her a toothy grin while saying, “I can’t help it, this damn thing is very fast. I am moving around to defend it, but still, I couldn’t beat its speed. So you have to forgive me for that.” The lady with a bob cut grounded her teeth in anger when she heard the answer of the shield-bearing man. Then she pointed her katana at him and said, “How about I help you increase your speed a little? Huh!?”

“Stop it, you two. Mr. Kuroe, why are you messing with her, knowing she would flare even more?” the lady in shrine maiden outfit calmly reprimanded. She was, of course, Aoi Yamazaki and the others were her teammates, well except the old man. He was just a high leveled hunter came to aid her in this battle, sent by DCB’s head office. Aoi looked at him and said, “Uncle, can you do something about its defense? It's really annoying if we can’t hurt it, the damage I dealt with it isn't enough to make a difference.”

“I am sorry, lady Aoi, this old man also isn’t able to bypass its defense. Not to mention its physically hard, it's magically well defended too. Our Radiation Detector is also not working here, so it’s very hard to detect its level.” The old man shook his head as he blushed in shame. He was a pure magic skill user with many powerful magic manipulations under his belt. Leaving aside, water and wood, he can manipulate all the other elements and even their derivations. For example, he can use Gravity manipulation, which was derived from Earth Manipulation. Even so, he still couldn’t hurt the tiger.

“What? Master Takeda, you really can’t damage it too?” the bob-cut girl had a wide-eyed look. She couldn’t believe the ever powerful and crafty Master Takeda also couldn’t damage the damn monster. Master Takeda was actually a very powerful and decorated member of DCB, whose contribution to Japan was second only to a selected few. It can be said that below those in Elder’s Association, this old man wouldn’t lose to anyone or anything. But unexpectedly such a powerful man couldn’t damage a normal-looking tiger with over-inflated size.

“I really can’t. This monster is very strong…I reckon only someone at the level of Elders’ Council would be able to defeat it. I wonder from where this strong beast come from…” the old man looked pensive while throwing a woe filled gaze the at the tiger glaring at them. He had already rung the highest level of distress signal available to him, at the same time, he had requested DCB to block entry of all low leveled hunters to the area. They will only increase the casualty count, nothing else.

“Our main office had already dispatched a few powerful hunters. Besides, ten hunters from Elders’ council are also coming. Let’s hope we can hold on until their arrival.” The old man informed. With a ‘yes’ the group fell back to the earlier formation, but this time, their aim wasn’t to kill it but to make it sit still long enough for powerful backup to arrive and handle the situation.

…

Boom!! Boom!! Boommm!!!

Explosions could be heard as huge mushroom clouds were seen flowing to the sky. At the epicenter, three people standing while glaring at each other. On one side, two adult men standing back to back, while on the other side, a kid could be seen floating in the air, surrounded by black tendrils.

“You bastard!! How can this be possible? How can you have so much power?” the kid raged as he recalled the past fifteen minutes of his bad luck. When he heard these weak humans were going to bombard him with magic skills, he arrogantly thought that it was going to be some low leveled ones that people of this town threw at him before he sent them all to hell. But never in his wildest dreams had he thought that he would be going to face a bombardment of, not only powerful but weird skills. That too in an enclosed space from which he couldn’t get out.

To answer his question, Kenshin conjured a huge guillotine out of pure of Fire Manipulation, enhanced it with [Destructive Energy], and even added Joy’s [Boost] to increase its power and speed. Lastly, he had hidden a cluster of stars in the fire guillotine, which would attack the kid the moment he would block or evade it. Besides, even if the kid wanted it, he couldn’t evade the attacks. That’s because, the moment he evades, Kenshin would apply [Opposite] on him, reversing his action. In the end, the kid would face the sleuth of attacks, no matter what.

Using his most destructive skills, namely, [Fire Manipulation], [Destructive Energy Manipulation] and [Opposites], [Exploding Domanin] and even newest skills like [Plasma Blast], he had created an absolute domain of attack. An array, inside which the enemy was bound to get hurt without even having time to rest or block. And as the topping to this cake, [Starfall Dominion] would finish doing some more damage which was absolute no matter what.

After fighting for so long, Kenshin was able to deduce that the rough strength of this kid at present would be similar to the [Princess of Darkness] he had fought recently, of course, that was because the kid from Sylph race was in the weakened state right now. Despite that, Kenshin’s Absolute Attack Domain wasn’t doing much damage to him or even any for the matter. He would always create a barrier out of thin air and block most of the attacks except [Starfall Dominion].

With the absence of his system, he couldn’t see how much damage he was actually causing to the kid, or how much power this newly created [Absolite Attack Domain] packed. The kid was a bad specimen to test on, he was simply too strong for the current him to do any significant damage. Even so, his tactics were bearing fruit. He was able to make his opponent tired slowly as time passed. One has to know, one could use MP potion or HP potion to replenish their respective stats and sub-stats, but the same couldn’t be said for WIL. It can only be replenished by giving your mind a complete rest, that was by sleeping or doing meditation.

As a race which majors on attacking via WIL, Kenshin was sure they must have some secret way to replenish their WIL faster, as such, he didn’t want to give him time to recover. Kenshin didn’t dare to give him time. The moment he gives time, they might be in a lot of trouble. If this kid calls back that tiger, their trouble might increase manifold. In fact, Kenshin wasn’t sure what he was doing anymore. He had already discovered he couldn’t kill the kid even if he attacks him for the whole day. It's just that his heart was telling him to keep this doing, something in him was compelling him to keep this going. It's like if he abandons this fight and runs away, something terrible might happen.

Not one to neglect his instinct, Kenshin kept going. He also discovered that after completing his accession, he had near inexhaustible MP and stamina. He was using more than 3 skills at once and even maintained two domains, even then he was yet to feel the mental strain of this. It was the first time Kenshin observed some visible changes to him after his awakening. In the past, if he uses more than 1 skill consecutively for more than 5 secs, he would feel splitting headache for a second. But now, he was fine even while using all his offensive skills at the same time.

“Kenshin, just how long are we going do this? This kid seems to be invincible, we should retreat for now and come up with something better…” Joy reminded. He had also realized that this was a losing fight on their part. They were both giving their all, despite that, the amount of damage they were doing was pitifully low.

“I don’t think so. Look at his face, it seems he has started to take damage from this. We will keep going, even if we can’t kill it, we will stall for enough time for help to arrive. Ugh!! That old man, what is he doing at a time like this? He should have come here to help me…” Kenshin complained. At a time like this, Kenshin really hoped to use some help. That old man was the best candidate, not only he had a system for god knows how many years, but also he was insanely strong.