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Chapter 038: Battle Like A Maniac

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Because of the high-speed attacks, she expended her Mana at a very fast rate. She had cast one Tier-5 spell after another and although she drank a vial of Blue Potion, it did nothing more than recover a meager 25% of her Total Mana.

Although as a quasi-Immortal, 25% was enough to make her last long in a battle of attrition as a Mage against lower classed enemies, it was still different when she was fighting against someone like Siva who can deliver successive lethal attacks with great progression without any Mana expenditures.

This clearly shows that Mages are indeed the one to come out weaker if pitted against warrior types.

Add to that the [Blood Verse] effect that doubles all of his damage output against any follower of the Bloody Church, and his double Endurance, Siva's unrelenting attacks made her cast one high-Tier spell after another to defend and also fight back.

How many high-Tier spells had she cast since she last swallowed a vial of Blue Potion?

It has only been quite a few seconds, not even an entire full minute!

Sandra used the last of her Mana and cast an Earth Shield as a last resort, preparing herself to escape and dearly wished that she could teleport away with the T-Device she pulled out of her Inventory.

Siva's swing destroyed the already distorted Shield Barrier Magic but he didn't halt and continued to give a mental command.

Another spatial opening appeared behind him just a split second later after his attack. Following this spatial opening was a bright pillar of light along with the violent splitting of the wind that rippled out like a giant wave of thunder.

BOOM~!!!

To all those watching from afar, they only heard a loud explosion followed by the whooshing storm of wind, followed by the expanding force of collision, followed by a force that pushed them away from the impact center. It erupted with terrifying force and pushed everything out around Siva.

When the bright light subsided and the blades of wind subsided, they discovered it. The firing of the second Longhorn Cannon obliterated every fiber of Sandra's being.

Nothing was on the area Siva focused it on. There was only the parting of the dust particles and the booming hum of the sulfuric wind in the space it was fired upon, trying to fix the balance in the area around him. But, there were no remains of Sandra anywhere they looked. The Acolyte Legion felt a cold wind drape over their spines.

Another Priest-class existence of the Church had died today... and it was all done by a single man.

Siva, on the other hand, did not stop there as he turned to look over at Hossain's direction with his coldly glaring placid gaze.

"YOU KILLED HER!!!" Hossain roared and he knew that he was next so he paid no heed to defense and focused only on getting revenge for Sandra.

Siva took a step forward and he and the BMA was gone in the next instant.

"Where is he!" Siva roared from behind Hossain.

During the fight between him and Sandra, their force of battle dragged their location far away from the center of the Church's formation where the Cardinal landed earlier.

Cardinal Hossain was about 120m away.

It took Siva three blinks in one full second before appearing right behind his target.

"Ha!" a two handed full swing. His calm visage was slowly morphing the longer he dragged the battles.

Siva's wrath may be calm when he's not moving but in every attack he released, he puts all his strength into them that it ruins his supposed calmness.

"You killed Sandra!" Hossain seemed to have lost his wits from rage as well as he used both hands to insta-cast spells at the same time.

A Tidal Wave Spell erupted like a barrier around him, meeting the descending War God Axe.

SPLASH!!

Hammer Blast erupted in the core of the War God Axe and the blade that had a slack from the core of the weapon exploded with a pneumatic effect that slashed the thick water curtain apart in two with its powerful kinetic force

Along with the opening, spatial ripples materialized around Siva and the BMA's blades slashed through the wind, going straight at Hossain through the fog created by the earlier attack.

CLANG!!

A dull metallic collision!

There was a fragmented Iron Wall in front of Siva, the remains of the spell which was the source of that dull metallic sound.

With the last blade breaking the Iron Wall defense Hossain erected, a transparent wall of Mana was in front of him, clashing with the last blade Siva sent for him.

CLAP!!

Hossain made a prayer-gesture while glaring at his hated foe. He wasn't praying or anything. It was a gesture to finish the preparation of casting another unique spell.

GONG! GONG~!!

Like the sound of two humongous bells, two Magic Circles 30m in diameter appeared on Siva's sides.

The next moment, large tree-trunks like fists came out of the two Magic Circles and accompanying the vestiges of the two loud gongs, the fists smashed into each other with Siva at their midst.

—it all happened within a blink of an eye!

"HA!"

Siva struck the one on his right and the BMA was the one encharged of defending from his left.

But Hossain wasn't finished yet. As soon as both of his palms clapped, he moved and changed his hand movements.

From the prayer-gesture, his left hand slid up and his right hand slid down. Another set of two gongs followed this gesture.

Above Siva and from below, two Magic Circles 30m in diameter came with the same punches.

There was no time to think of his next actions. He wasn't even aware that there were two more Magic Circles when he was only able to stop the attacks from the left and right of him.

Siva wasn't prepared for the two next attacks but before he could move in reflex, the thought-link came from Cortana.

[Strike down!]

—the shorter the message the better!

Siva just followed his instincts and used one of his preciously stored lightning strikes from Electra and struck downwards.

The tree-trunk fist from below shattered like glass but the one from above struck him, albeit it wasn't a killing blow but was still enough to rock all of his reasoning and sense of direction, aside from pain.

"Hah!" Hossain's roar sounded last.

His right hand punched out and a Magic Circle with the same tree-trunk fist slammed at him from right behind Siva.

A smashing sound rung as Siva and the BMA was struck but Hossain punched with his left and what followed was another fist from the front side that squarely hit Siva.

—it all happened in a single second.

Siva was flown out like a kite and he spun while he felt tremendous pain all over his body.

He gave priority with the BMA and summoned it to his inventory, with a report on his vision saying that it received 60% of its overall damage capacity.

In the middle of his 'flight' he vanished, just in time to dodge a series of Wind Slashes that were sent directly to the place where he disappeared.

Only right now did he realize what the weakness of the Mini Realm's uses is.

It takes four blinks' time for it to completely enfold him and hide him in the fabrics of space.

—enough time to deliver the successive attacks he received from Cardinal Hossain starting from the two Magic Circles on his left and right.

He appeared 50m away from Hossain and quickly drank a vial of Red Potion to recover a bit from the pain he was feeling.

Siva glared at the man's direction that was covered in the after-clouds from the earlier destruction of one of the Magic Circles of his spell.

But just as he was about to take a breather...

SHUUU!!

An overly large Wind Blade parted the mist and went straight for Siva. At a speed of a thought, the Wind Blade reached his location but Siva has been at least been prepared for it.

Stretching a hand in the air, Lancet Imperious was summoned and he held in in the far end of its shaft to be used like a big sword in a half-arched swing, destroying the main body of the spell. Another mist erupted around him and he swung again to erase it with the gusting wind.

"...!!"

Yet when his gaze landed at the front, his eyes went wide at the sight of his enemy.

When Siva saw Hossain, he was already at the last part of casting his high-level spell.

—he started casting this high-tier spell right after he cast out that last spell!

This instance showed the weakness of the BMA's [Absolute Domain]. He can't detect anything that's obstructing his view without the Absolute Domain, especially when the target is using [Magic].

Siva felt the building Mana Resonance in the air as he felt his skin rattling from the wind that felt like it was the exhaust pipe of a turbine furnace.

Cardinal Hossain was casting a devastatingly dangerous spell.

"Die! Die! DIE!!!"

More than twenty seemingly high-Tier talismans floated around him forming into a tiny formation. In but an instant, the talismans shone a bright familiar bloody light and a magic circle the color of blood appeared behind him, seeming to serve like a halo to signify divinity —a pseudo-immortality state.

His left palm held a small magic circle as if it was a disc while his right hand's fingers formed a sword gesture and is already in the middle of a slash.

"Blood Magic!" Siva gasped.

SWOOSH!!

He didn't have time to reminisce on old memories connected to Blood Magic as he dodged teleport to the left flank 50m away.

A screeching tear whizzed past his ears. A blood-coloured C-shaped sword slash 5m wide and 20m high came slashing where he used to stand.

To where it passed, the fabrics of space began to churn but it didn't rupture. Since the degree of the [Blood Magic] was still three or four Tiers lower in strength in order to affect the fabrics of space, all it did to it was shake it, threatening to create a tear that could cause spatial storms.

Seen from afar, that bloody sword-light still made a storm as it passed by Siva's former location.

The succeeding ripples of the attack are still strong enough to cause strong winds to part and undulate into cutting blades that the newly appearing Siva is swept into like a fallen leaf in the midst of a storm.

Siva's Absolute Domain was unable to anchor him in place as it was also a victim of that shredding strength of the Wind Blade used with the Blood Magic as a catalyst.

He twirled and spun, and the wind blades twisted around him, carrying him in its current while cutting his body with their undulating edge.

[Boss, you have to teleport away. You're going to hit the bedrock!]

Siva was like a kite in a thunderstorm, swept in the sway of the wind, going head-on collision against the wall of solidified lava.

He didn't take a step and just hid behind the care of a Mini Realm and then added five more of them on the top to escape Hossain's detection.

Siva felt cold seat on his back as he looked over at the Cardinal. As if to confirm his initial thoughts, he was wielding a bloody silhouette of a large sword on his right hand.

Blood Magic was a spell originating from the Era of the Gods and Immortals, during its most flourishing period where its Magic ethos is the most booming and also the time where the Demon Armada was in its strongest development state.

It originated from a certain Terran Race called the "Blood Angels" —a secondary branch of the Angel Race— who hated the Demons so much they at the end of it all became corrupted by their hate and eventually joined them.

By the command of the Devil God of Hate, Animus, the Blood Angels cultivated this Magic Art that can only be considered as... queasy.

Since the Blood Angels are rich in "Blood" in the first place, they used it as a catalyst for this Magic Art; in exchange for a certain amount of total blood volume in the body, they can cause their Magical Strength to skyrocket in power, giving them the ability to fight against, Immortals as if they were on equal footing... thus the origin of the Commanders of the Demon Pawn Soldiers, as well as the very foundations of the [Blood Seal] that the leaders of the Demon Armada uses to temporarily use all their strengths when they enters Terroa.

—proving more of Siva's earlier conjecture that this entire plot of the Demons were all focused on one certain point in Terroa...

Middle Earth...

Yvalice

Because of this Magic Art, the Blood Angels are one of the very first races to disappear when the Demon Armada fully launched their invasion of the Light Realm. The Blood Magic was truly too strong.

Remembered this small detail caused Siva to think once again on that dreamy, yet surreal, memory of his during his lifetime as an Immortal.

"To think I'd see Blood Magic here..."

In exchange for power, the price was literary blood with a consequence that may cause him to die if he can't control the input and output of the Magic Art.

"Blood, in this Terran Universe, is just one of the forms of Life Force. Although the source of life for Treants is their Heart Seeds, it's still a fact that he's using Blood Magic. Although it's going to be much weaker than actual Blood Magic, it's still a problem that he's now capable to insta-cast Tier-7 classed spells without a problem."

(AN: for clarity's sake, "Blood" here is spoken to as a separate unit to further classify [Life Force] as a Magical Aspect in our story... and not the (Biology) hypothetical (not physical or chemical) force once thought by Henri Bergson to cause the evolution and development of organisms. Henri Bergson is a French philosopher who proposed elan vital as the cause of evolution and development (born in 1859-1941) he was 82 years old when he died.)

In simple words, Hossain's spells are still Tier-5 but their strength was increased to Tier-7.

The situation was almost at his advantage, until this game changing event came.

[Now you're on a complete disadvantage.]

"I know! And please don't say it an unconcerned face like that you're wearing."

[I'll add it to my reactionary matrix.]

"..."

Cortana's timing for her comments was getting a bit worse by the day.

Hossain was looking around him, thrashing the big bloody sword in random directions to incite a mess of the local wind and cause storms to erupt. None of the Acolytes even dared to close in on him in fear of being swept in his rampage.

"Where are you, you coward? Show yourself!!!"

"Shit. How could I get close to him when he's cast off his Mana Sense without any blind spot to use?"

Because he's a Quasi-Immortal, Hossain could cast a Mana Sense, albeit a lot weaker than Gabriel's.

Still, the range of his Mana Sense reaches 200m.

Right now, the [Transcendent State] only has 2min or so left in its activation limit. With the Blood Verse still in effect, he could kill Hossain without an issue but that is if he could physically get close to him to deliver an attacks.

"Blood Magic has its usage limit and based on the amount of savage spells he continued to cast one after another, I could just wait until he gets weaker then deliver an attack."

[You only have 2 minutes and 3 seconds left in the Transcendent State.]

"—aaaaand that's where the problem lies."

In simple words, Hossain and him were on a similar situation with the only difference being that Siva is not only dealing with Hossain. He still had to deal with the other team with a hundred Fire Dragons.

"Siva!"

Hossain continued to howl and throw in his curses as he brandished one massive spell after another.

And just as he was cursing, something changed in their situation again. it was the "something" Siva is mostly not welcoming with open spirits.

[Boss, I think you've just caused something.]

Siva turned his head in the direction Cortana said he had "caused something", seeing a large hole in the lava floor with churning magma threatening to boil and erupt upwards.

That was the hole caused by the latest firing of the Longhorn Cannon.

"Shit."

He couldn't help cursing at it.

Because he was eager to end Sandra, Siva had not the time nor did he had the extra bit of attention to change his targeting trajectory, and so just crushed Sandra in the most efficient manner possible in the given situation earlier.

He only now realized that he had actually might've just caused a miniature eruption under Horbe.

Adding on the damages Hossain's rampage caused the surroundings, the magma churned even wilder as the eruption threated to come closer at the most earliest of the fastest time.

And just as he was contemplating on how to deal with this situation, the icing on the cake happened.

Simultaneous loud monster roars rung in the entire underground cave and the magma underneath them all began to seethe and boil as if reacting at those roaring dragons.

"What now..." Siva felt the problem beginning to escalate again. And as if to confirm the headache coming for his aide—

{We're her—WHAT?!! Your Excellency!}

{What was that?!! Where are you?}

—Siva's communicator rung with the voices of the Guard Captain of the Vajras and Electra.

He couldn't help but pressing a palm on his face.

There was nothing more perfect than their sudden appearance at this juncture.

[You only have one minute and fifty nine seconds.]

'Please, I beg you, stop with the monotone.'

The underground cave was about to blow up and it might even make a large sinkhole, or a volcano, in the middle of the Island Country, depending on the result of the fight that was about to ensue; and yet now, there was the possible addition of casualties.

Everything around him now is in chaos.

But reinforcements are still reinforcements.

"Captain! Just follow these indications on your vision. This underground cave is about to be filled with Magma and so you don't have enough time to waste for probing battle. There are over 100 Fire Dragons here and they are agitating the Lava Floor to erupt prematurely. Finish them off at the fastest time you can along with their Acolytes who's in the middle of performing the Soul Puppet Spell. Go! I can handle the Cardinal and his Acolytes."

{Alright.}

{I will get back as fast as I can!}

Siva confirmed their location and sent his own via their Communicators connected thru Mini Realms.

"Now I just have to battle like a maniac." Siva felt a sense of danger embracing him and he doesn't feel good about this plan yet had no choice.

[Yet why you're smiling...]

Siva was indeed smiling, "Aye. 'Tis in moments like these that I renew my conviction. Everything in this world and outside of it are all me enemies."

[Focus is ready anytime.]

Siva breathed in, held it, and took a step along with a sharp cry.

With two blinks, he appeared behind Hossain with a full swing of his War God Axe.

.

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