Six thousand arrows hovering in the air slowly dissipated into raw mana returning to the wild. Almost all of the assassins from The Reapers lay on the ground incapacitated or dead from Kairos’ mana creations detonating.

The metal floors that were painted colourfully now give off a thick black arid fume. The nearby lighting crystals all dulled with cracks.

The scream of the explosions had disappeared, but a terrible sound still rung in their ears.

The blow had been devastating. Kairos had avoided harming his own teammates, but the force knocked out nearly everyone.

Clef is no bruiser and had gone out like a light; Boink is but he had the bad luck to be sent flying headfirst into metal bricks. Lulatia remained unscathed thanks to her defensive spells, but her lips paled and her face awash with fatigue, the signs of her mana circuits had overloaded.

Kairos stood at the most dangerous place, but he shrugged off the shockwave without being damaged at all while shielding Relestia at the same time.

He looked around and after making certain that his friends are alright, he returned his attention to Exterminus.

Kairos’ lips slightly twitched when he had noticed Boink being unconscious not too far away from him.

The bodyguard will be needing training before he can claim to protect anyone.

Exterminus looked back at Kairos. He is slightly surprised by how his plans had fell through. Apparently, the lad was not foolish enough to replicate a spell that is unusable.

The archer frowned. It isn’t a nice feeling to be playing on the palm of another from the beginning, much less a lad that is decades younger.

Exterminus straightened his posture as he floated upwards until he is looking down at Kairos and Relestia.

Unlike normal flight spells, the Greater Levitation spell’s path was unnaturally straight and steady.

He had precise control over his movement, and this opens up an incredible array of combat techniques for an archer like him. A black bow made of pure and condensed mana appeared in his hands. Shifting rapidly to the side, Exterminus is suddenly in Kairos’ blind spot in an instant as he nocks an arrow at Relestia. He did not need to draw from a quiver as the arrow will materialise whenever he pulled the bowstring.

He fired without warning, and without slowing down he continued to shift his position is a chaotic pattern. Up, down, left, right, near and far.

The archer let loose an arrow every time he changed position. Not only so, but his arrows were also vicious like a viper’s bite. Each shot aimed to kill Relestia or one of the three other companions but never Kairos.

In ten seconds Exterminus shifted twenty times and he shot the same amount of arrows.

Kairos’ reaction was instant. He drew his sword and flicked away the first arrow.

A mini explosion flicked off the metal harmlessly as the magic packed within the shot detonated. But soon a second shot flew towards Clef.

Kairos immediately understood Exterminus’ intentions. The archer is planning to force him into having a decision lapse. Who to save, who to forsake?

If Kairos let any of his friends, will he fall into despair or rage?

At the very least, as long as the lad chase his arrows, his stamina will quickly drain off and with some luck maybe he will even be hurt.

If some of them dies, then he will have less opponents to worry about. Don’t see that the three of them had been incapacitated. They are all veterans that will quickly overturn the situation if given the chance to recover.

If someone calls him unscrupulous… so what? Exterminus couldn’t find that word in his dictionary.

Kairos chased the arrows as Exterminus fired.

One after another, he protected his friends in the nick of time.

By the third arrow, Relestia who is sorely lacking in combat experience had joined Kairos’ side to fend off the arrows. She uses a thin hiltless blade. The handle – or lacking of – is simply the metal base being bound with leather to prevent slip.

Its design is sleek and lithe, meant to maximise the weapon’s wielding speed.

The royal swordplay of the Vestimore family – the Gentleman’s Blade - involves a lot of precise twirling and flourishing and as such it has a high requirement that not every member could learn it.

Both the third and fifth princes, for example, only uses the Vestimore’s spear techniques.

On Gaia, equipment, pills, skills, and cultivation manuscripts are all rated by Man, Beast, and Titan. Each tier is further divided into Heaven, Earth, Xuan, and Huang, with Heaven as the strongest.

The combat techniques from the royal family of a great empire are mostly within Titan’s grade. The spear skill is considered Huang Titan Grade but the Gentleman’s Blade is one of Vestimore’s most prized combat skill and a Heaven Titan Grade technique.

Such combat arts are either national treasure or a hidden ace; for the Vestimore’s swordplay, it is both such things.

Unsurprisingly, not many are talented enough to grasp such a technique, and much less people know about it.

Although Relestia is far too young and inexperienced to master it, a Heaven Titan technique is not something that Axis Mundi have faced before.

The princess’ figure blurred with extreme speed as she easily deflected the fourth to tenth arrows in a single whirl of her blade. Each shot flew at triple the speed they came back towards Exterminus.

Of course, the archer’s Greater Levitation easily weakened those attacks to the point that he can shrug it off, but for a Circle 9 Arcane Archer’s attacks to be reflected this way, Exterminus feels that must re-evaluate his opponents.

With Relestia sharing half the attacks, Kairos’ burden lightened up tremendously.

With some of his time freed up, he started devising a counterattack. Likewise, the princess is getting a hang of stuff quickly and her deflections became more potent and deadlier than before.

By the tenth time, Relestia could return it to Exterminus at double the speed she could previously; six-times the speed it was fired.

The swordplay of the Vestimore family is not something that a lower realm can easily see. Not only so, Relestia barely used any Ki in her actions.

If she had been fully utilising her refined internal energy with every strike, the Circle 9 Arcane Archer would have been killed by his own attacks.

This is the difference between a world with Heavenly Energy and one without.

Even if Circle 9 is considered the same level as a Triple S cultivator, the actual difference is immense.

Of course, if Exterminus’ attack uses Ki or concentrated mana as medium, it will be impossible for a low rank cultivator like Relestia to deflect.

Even so, not all the arrows had been cut down or deflected. After all, Exterminus could easily strike multiple points that are far from each other and his aim is kill some of Kairos’ companions and deal a blow to him.

Of the twenty arrows, seven were deflected by Relestia, Kairos with his superior speed chased down eight, and five landed on Lulatia’s barrier.

Each shot have enough power to kill Lulatia, Clef or Boink ten times over. The Shield Magus pushed herself to her brink but managed to protect everyone.

A frown etched on Exterminus’ brow.

In the next moment, the archer appeared right in front of Kairos. His movement speed is unnaturally quick thanks to the Greater Levitation spell.

Sensing an almost unsurmountable danger, Kairos’ pupils instantly shrunk to a dot and without hesitation he leapt backwards at full speed. A Circle 9 enemy is dangerous. Despite his superior physique, he do not dare to have a frontal clash.

However, the enemy stuck to him with unnatural movement and speed. It is as if a chain is binding Kairos to Exterminus, no matter how he moved, the enemy remained at the exact same distance.

An archer’s greatest asset is not his bow but his feet, and Exterminus Starwalk fully displayed this in battle.

In fact, ‘Starwalk’ is not the elf’s family name but a self-claimed title, and with his Greater Levitation spell it gained recognition in the elven kingdom.

With such movement technique, it is impossible to get close to the archer, and one can only be at the receiving end. It is no wonder that although Exterminus’ title is bragging to be able to walk among the stars, no one contested it.

Being locked down by the archer, Kairos felt sweat roll down his forehead.

To be followed like this is enough pressure to crack most warriors, and Exterminus had yet to attack.

Kairos knows the importance of movement techniques and had himself put in serious effort in mastering several life-saving techniques.

Lightning Flicker Body, Ice Walk, Mirage Steps, Eternal Empyrean Burst.

Quick Movement, Hallucinatory movement, Illusion movement, and Instant movement respectively.

These are the types of techniques he had picked up.

Of course, with his meagre talent, he had seen little improvements in them over the years. Thankfully, he had very good foundation thanks to his teacher, Enki, planting the techniques forcefully into his brain.

Almost instinctively, Kairos reacted.

He can tell that even on Gaia, few can match the archer’s speed and quickly gave up the idea to create a distance.

Instead, he charged forward into Exterminus.

However, the archer did not seem to notice and only rushed forward as if still following Kairos.

Without a doubt a fist came straight at Exterminus’ face. The archer paled instantly when he noticed he had been tricked. Of the decades that he had stepped into Circle 9, he never had an opponent step into close-quarters.

He was chasing Kairos, but was far away enough for him to escape and too near for Kairos to dodge his arrows.

However, he had absolute confidence in his spell and was maintained merely fifty paces away.

Fifty paces, even a mortal can throw that far.

If his opponent uses magic or aura, he will be able to sense danger and quickly back off.

Unfortunately, Exterminus felt neither when the punch came. In fact, he saw Kairos backing away when suddenly he sensed danger.

“Ice Walk,” Kairos thought with a thrill.

He did not expect things to work out this well. This movement technique inherited from Enki allows him to appear going forward while sliding backwards, or seemingly backtracking but is actually moving closer.

While the technique can be used in all directions, Kairos is still far from adequate. If he had completely mastered it, every step he takes can appear to be in any direction he wishes to show. It will become so confusing and chaotic that mere movement can disorientate an army.

Exterminus dodged it in the nick of time and slid back so swiftly that it looked like he had been pulled away by a rope.

Relestia did not stand around watching.

Just as Exterminus retreated, she closed the distance and with a single slash, her blade slashed apart the archer’s collar.

If he had been slower for even a moment, he would be bleeding profusely from his neck, and this is after he had been paying attention to the girl.

“You two goddamned maggots!”

Although not as varied, Relestia also knows a powerful movement technique. The Gentleman’s Steps, a technique used in pair with the Vestimore family’s swordplay.

A Heaven Titan grade combat technique must have a similar level of footwork to fully execute. Granted that Kairos’ movement techniques are of an even higher grade since those are divine techniques, but his mastery level is much lesser compared to the little princess.

The girl is secretly chosen as the next emperor of Saint Empire over her brothers the Third Prince and the Fifth Prince, as such, her father had trained her since the day she could hold a sword. In the royal family, the best precaution is deterrence. If one day the princes found out that they cannot sit on the throne because of their little sister, she being weaker in cultivation than them is a temptation for them to rebel.

Thankfully, of all the boys in the house, Vestimore’s only girl is also the most talented.

To put things into perspective, if Relestia is the same age as Kairos, then there will be no place for Luciette, George, and Calculus to shine. Only Jones can be her match and that is only after his capture and subsequent upgrade to his constitution: The Divine Asura Constitution.

At the very least, she is displaying nearly triple the amount of Ki a cultivator at the Entry C rank should have. Otherwise, in a place without Heavenly Energies, she could not keep up with such an intense battle.

Just as Exterminus pulled away, Kairos appeared next to him again.

Of course, with the Greater Levitation spell, the archer easily moved away and shot three arrows at Kairos.

Relestia anxiously rushed over. Her hand shook with worry. The attacks came too swiftly.

But at the next moment, she saw another Kairos slash downwards at Exterminus from above his head.

The archer didn’t hesitate and rushed forward, twisted in mid-air and fired two quick arrows at Kairos without caring how this lad managed to creep up to him again.

Some aura techniques allows the user to completely conceal their presence and mount a rapid succession of attacks.

Without a moment of rest, another Kairos appeared by Exterminus’ side and ferociously attacked with a horizontal slash. The blade glimmered and tore through the air with such speed, even Lulatia who is observing the battle from far paled with aghast.

The archer almost threw himself to avoid the attack. Of course, his action is purely out of instinctual fear rather than any actual need.

His face quickly reddened with shame and anger.

His eyes confused from the multiple swift attacks.

Yet, Kairos did not let him have time to think as another slash came.

Relestia who ran forward only a couple of steps stopped with wide-eyes.

The archer who is steeped in the situation did not notice, but the princess had the full view of the fight.

It wasn’t that Kairos is keeping up with the speed of the archer’s movement spell at all.

There are more than one.

Every time Exterminus moved, another Kairos will be awaiting in his path.

“Mirage steps… wow, this is the first time I’ve seen it,” she beamed happily.

Of course the princess didn’t dare to say it out but as Kairos’ number one fan club member she can recognise most of his techniques instantly.

After backing off three times, even Exterminus started feeling something is wrong.

Not sensing mana and aura, he could not tell how, but the lad is definitely using illusions to attack him.

Not only attacking him, he is forced to retreat towards where the real body actual is.

He silently calculated. The first two attacks after Ice Walk should be illusions, and the third attack – a horizontal slash - was the real one. It was exceptionally difficult to dodge even with the Greater Levitation spell.

It wasn’t the speed, but the angle that the boy attacked at. Not only is it his blind spot, even if he avoided his neck being cut, the lad’s blade will stab towards his chest.

Fortunately, he is an experienced fighter and predicted it beforehand. At the skin of his teeth, he pulled back without a scratch.

When the fourth strike came, the archer sneered.

Yet another illusion.

It seems that this time the lad didn’t even try.

He had backed off to a far distance away from the previous three attacks, only an illusion can catch up.

Moreover, the strike is coming too straightforwardly and the attack far too powerful to be possible.

Even an Aura Master will have a hard time to pull off such a frightening presence.

“Trying to scare me back into your attack range? Fine I shall entertain you.”

In his hands, a dense mana sphere started forming while hidden away from sight.

Just as the slash comes, Exterminus quickly backpedalled. His spell pulled him away towards where he supposed Kairos’ actual attack will come. As he flew back, he twisted and fired an arrow packed with double the mana at incredible speeds.

Kairos who is right in front of him was ignored, instead the arrow flew towards emptiness, yet the archer had a smirk on his face as if saying that everything fell within his predications.

However the next moment, nothing happened!

Exterminus’ face paled quickly, just as his arrow flew further and further without hitting anything.

It is only within the span of a breath, but every Circle 9 warrior has superhuman reflexes and could have a variety of emotions in fractions of a second.

By this time, he already knew something is wrong, but no matter how swift he can move using the Greater Levitation spell, there is a limit to one’s reaction time.

Kairos’ illusion that was trying to force him to retreat swing his blade downwards furiously.

The powerful attack that the archer believed to be a mere decorative threat split the air apart with such violence that Exterminus felt his body tremble uncontrollably.

This is the real thing!

For a warrior who stood at the top of Axis Mundi to feel fear from a teenager, this is a first.

Just as Exterminus is counting his lucky stars that he had avoided the strike despite it thought to be an illusion, the archer saw his hair split apart.

This attack isn’t the Mirage Steps but Ice Walk!

What seems to be a distance away is but a pace away.

At this point Exterminus already realised that he do not have time to escape the blow.

Every inch of his skin crawled with anticipation and fear.

His body channelled every ounce of mana into the Greater Levitation spell, not for movement, but to shield himself against the sword slash.

The spell has a powerful anti-friction ability built-in to travel without air resistance, together with a stabilising function to ensure perfectly controlled motion at extreme speeds.

Of course, if all it can do is to help a mage move around, it would not be considered a Circle 9 spell on Axis Mundi. Mages are an academic group that are permanently unsatisfied with becoming content over anything that still has some research value left.

Because of their inquisitive nature, they are a group that push forward the advances, It is like this on Gaia and the same for Axis Mundi.

Of course, since the Axis has much lesser mana, their research are in a different direction compared to Gaia’s mages.

Therefore, on the Axis, in a single spell, they prefer to have many useful properties.

Whereas on Gaia, a single spell can achieve an incredible extreme of a single purpose.

Does Gaia have the Greater Levitation spell?

The answer is yes. Magic is similar to an equation, when searching for a result, there can be a dozen different ways or more, but the reward is the same.

However, because of the different methods to reach the destination, there are many variations as well.

The Greater Levitation spell of Gaia is purely for combat to match cultivators’ movement techniques, or at least to get the mages to safety when being chased by these superhuman warriors.

Can the Greater Leviation spell of Gaia also be as defensive as its counterpart from Axis Mundi?

That answer is definitely a flat no.

The original purpose of the spell is movement, hence was conceived and encapsulated.

To have other functions is merely by-product. The only difference is the amount of weight placed on these by-products.

Since Gaia’s mages do not really care about having two or more uses in a spell, they focus on minimising unimportant features and maximising its efficiency.

No one can say who is better, only which path is more developed.

Just as Kairos’ blade struck Exterminus, a fearsome roar erupted both the archers’ eardrums.

Before the sword struck, there was nothing at all, but the moment it touched his skin, it was as if he was dragged into another world.

Waves after waves of vibrations travelled from the lad’s arm through his weapon and into Exterminus’ head.

Just as the Heavenly Sight recommended, emissive attacks is recommended to bypass the spells’ blast-redirection and contact type weakening properties.

Anything that strikes at the archer will be muffled. Anything that emits a wide-area attack will be pushed away like water drained. Only a direct transfer of energy into the archer’s body will damage him.

The Astral Cataclysm is the perfect mechanism for this purpose.

While Kairos’ talents are limited, he is always steadily improving. At least, after four years, his control improved enough for him to execute the technique with his weapon. Although it took him years to extend his technique beyond his fists, that metre and a half distance

Blood flowed over of every orifice of the archer’s face.

He desperately increased the spatial anchoring effect of his spell. If he does not want to die, he needs to immobilise the destructive wave that invaded into his head before his brain turns into mash.

A half-groan half-whimper escaped the elf’s lips.

His eyes turned bloodshot even as he stares as the gleaming edge above.

Thanks to his spell, the blade stopped soon after it hit, but even so the sword is lodged deeply into his skull. Blood flowed down profusely in a little stream. Just a little more and his head will be split in two. No one had cut him so deeply before when he is shielded.

Exterminus’ heart pounded, his vision turned red, and yet he can hear nothing.

The wound on his head is a little deeper than he expected. Even the strongest knight can nary deal him such a blow, yet this child who is less than a quarter of his age nearly struck him down.

The archer was astonished, but Kairos was even more surprised.

With his strength, he can hardly find a match here on the Axis, yet the Circle 9 proved that he is still a warrior standing at the peak of this world. Even with his strength, he could not break the defences of an archer – a warrior that is supposed to be the weakest in close-quarters combat.

Little by little, the blade is pushed out of the elf’s head as the spell resisted the force.

A small smile formed on his lips. A wicked grin. A confident glint across his eyes.

That is the last chance the lad has. Now within paces away, no forces of nature can save him from his arrows.

The archer’s bow appeared in his hands, and he dragged out every inch of strength left in him.

Watching Kairos trying to free his hand of his sword, the archer’s glee deepened seeing his spell had held fast.

Don’t think that Exterminus have had a bad run the whole battle, Kairos’ group had been treading on thin ice. If a Circle 9 Arcane Archer shot him at this distance, it will be impossible to survive.

The battle is over. At this point, there is no more techniques, no more mind games.

Or it should be.

Suddenly, a flickering shadow approached.

The blade that was almost dislodged, jammed deep into Exterminus’ head.

No, it will be far more accurate to say that the elf flew forward and split himself on Kairos’ weapon.

Behind him, Kairos saw a fleeting figure land elegantly. The princess, with closed eyes, pulled a slender long leg back from a flying spin kick she had struck the elf.

“Y… you forgot about me,” she chided the dead man.

Trembling, the girl fell and sat heavily on the ground panting.

“This… This is quite exciting,” she insisted through shivering and pale lips.