At the moment, everyone collectively looked up and were completely shocked.
The sky around them had been completely blotted out by a cloud that was about a mile wide.
It was dark, like a rain cloud, but this one was different. First; no rain.
And from the inside, rays of blue light shot out from all sides. Then, blue streaks reminiscent of lightning slithered inside of it, as if a sign of what's to come.
Everyone could feel the energy rapidly ramp up, but it was also somewhat different.
It was an actual cloud that had been taken from the sky. Now, this kind of thing doesn't happen too often, and after a certain point, your power can surpass nature itself so there is no point in trying to utilize it.
Another example of this kind of thing was how the laws and mechanisms that governed water were attracted to Ran's soul juice.
This was the same thing. Only, Kingsley had sought out the cloud with a snake secretly as Ann fought the others. Upon entering, he used the cloud to amplify both his and its own power.
In reality, this was simply unification.
Okay, it was slightly more nuanced than that.
Basically, using Ran as an example, because the soul juice contained similar laws, but was equally different to the water around, it created a disharmony.
This disharmony was the key. This universe was not an entity, a thinking agent, but when the laws within itself were no longer constant and orderly, it inherently seeked to balance them.
It was an attempt at harmonization; in other words, a unification of those laws.
However, true unification can never happen unless the different laws were inherited from this universe.
All in all, this process of attempting to unify all the laws with each other created the catalyst to amplify both parties' power.
Now, of course, Rans case was quite a bit more special, but I won't go into detail for now. Though, I guess I already hinted at part of it… whoops.
Yeah, anyways, blah blah blah, they all got frightened, with their faces turning pale from the clouds aura. Ann, who was already a distance away, was even more frightened, but it was because she saw how the cloud was seemingly focused completely on the group.
So, under the mocking and smug gaze of Kingsley, who seemed to be smiling with his eyes, she sped towards the group in a streak of light.
But by then, the energy within the cloud had reached the peak.
A second later, the cloud discharged its energy in a lightning bolt big enough to swallow the whole group.
Will she make it?
…
Of course she would make it, and she did. She was only a few hundred meters away and with her speed, she made it there easily. She even barely had time to come up with a countermeasure.
Thus, now standing within the group, she quickly activated another rune formation in an attempt to protect everyone from their impending doom.
This was, in essence, her ultimate move. Was it the most powerful? Of course not, it didn't have any power. But, it was a move that stayed truest to its roots.
And so, one by one, under the guise of the rune formation, the pieces of her armor came off at a rate even Tony Stark would… marvel at.
The pieces then quickly converged onto her hand, fitting themselves nicely into what appeared to be a shield.
The shield itself was dome-like in shape. It was only about four inches tall, or at its thickest, and twenty-four inches in diameter.
It was milky white and had a crystalline structure. It's surface was completely made of varying angled surfaces, all of which were as smooth as glass. And each surface was a separate piece of armor, but the whole was solid beyond belief.
The back was much more normal, which were merely two straps that wrapped around her forearm.
And so, upon activating her shield, the shield of dispersion, it emitted radiating light as she held it up towards the incoming bolt of lightning.
In reality, it was so fast that no one reacted to it, and Ann had held up her shield just before it fell. But the subsequent impact was even more of something they couldn't react to.
Once it fell and crashed into her shield, it immediately enlarged to encompass the group from the blast. The lightning entered the shield, which then used the angled surfaces to split the bolt by its energy levels, making lightning bolts within itself. From there, the soul juice weakened it to the point that it was then repelled outside the shield in weak sparks.
However, the blast that came with it immediately cracked the ground, sending everyone a few feet below ground. Ann gritted her teeth as the momentum of the blast spread through her body, but she resisted the urge to kneel and lose focus. The rest were toppled by the shifting ground and landed face first on the ground. Not only that, simply the thunder that came with the lightning was loud enough that it practically blew their eardrums.
However, unlike real lightning, this one wasn't instant. Rather, it simply spilled continuously as if someone left the tap on, and for every second it lasted, Ann would suffer more and more until she coughed blood.
It lasted for a full seven seconds, and Ann spilt blood for five of those seconds. The lightning then calmed down and the cloud simply left like it's work had been done. After all, it still has a wife and kid to go home to.
But, it was finally over, and the group sighed in relief. But as if to mock their ease, a thud soon followed. Ann, who had withstood the attack all on her own, could no longer hold on and lost her strength to continue standing. She fell on one knee, and coughed another mouthful of blood; her face was pale and her vision blurry.
Seeing their very own white knight seemingly crumble, they all got up to get to her side and help her up, which she reluctantly allowed.
"Don't worry about me, I'm fine. Tis… but a scratch."
However, the group was not reassured by her words at all.
Then, just as they were holding her steady, they heard a noise. Clapping. Slow clapping.
They only had to look up a bit out of their crater to see the still smug face of Kingsley as he slow-clapped at them.
"Ha! I must say I'm quite impressed. I did not expect to see you still standing after… that. And in one piece too!"
He seemed genuinely surprised to see her survive this move, and was also inexplicably admiring her for strength.
"However, it ends here. I won't be making this mistake a second time…"
He was going to continue speaking as well as prepare a finishing move, but he was stopped in his tracks by what he saw.
By now, Ann had released the shield, which had made her armor disappear as well. And so, with her maid-like outfit on, beads of an orange liquid were secreted from her pores and through her clothes.
The beads ran across her uniform before clumping together into a fat globule that sat gently in her hand.
Previously, the greasy liquid had been red in color, but after achieving rank-5, it was further strengthened and evolved to its current form.
So, yes, this was indeed her fetal organ.
Youth serum, which had only explicitly appeared one other time so far, finally made another appearance.
Then, under everyone's bewilderment, she pulled a clump off, like you would with a piece of dough, and ate it.
It passed through her esophagus, and was digested by her stomach. Her small intestine, much like real food, absorbed it where it then spread to the rest of her body.
Her body quickly healed, and soon she was as good as new (?). She even stood up on her own, curiously looking up at Kingsley.
Then, as if to mock him, a lot of mocking going on around here apparently, she ate another clump while making direct eye contact. Only half of her youth serum remained as she stored it in her body once more.
Instantly, her muscles bulged, and her aura grew and grew until it broke through a certain threshold—equal to that of rank-4. It was even visible, and it looked like a translucent orange fire that surrounded her. It whipped a gust of air around her and made her look stunning.
Crazier yet, her hair and eyes, as if stained by the youth serum, turned a sparkling orange like that of a star as her short hair fluttered in the wind.
Then, with the simple push of her feet, she broke the ground even further, sending the dirt all over the faces of the group, as she landed right in front of Kingsley. He acted in time and moved out of his position, but her speed, which was several times greater than before, made him stumble backwards until he fell flat on his ass.
Seeing her current condition, he cringed a little, even rubbed his face a bit, before sighing seemingly in resignation.
"You're… you're really making it this difficult for me, aren't you?"
Ann, however, only smirked.
"What do you think?"