With her transformation, Ann almost appeared like a completely different person. The reason easily recognized her was her… Cough, her clothing.
Even someone like Ran hadn't seen this form, and he was beginning to realize just how little he actually knew about her. So far, it has been surprise after surprise.
The rest were eager too and were excited to see her fight once again.
However, Kingsley really didn't seem to care less. It appeared that he was so confident that no matter what, he would be victorious in the end.
"You can't possibly be this prideful, right? Or did you forget that I also have a fetal organ?"
His words wiped the smirk right off Ann's face. Indeed, she had been a little prideful, but she didn't think about it too much. Being prideful was merely having confidence in your own ability, she thought.
So, she immediately resummoned her armor, but it was a bit different this time. The outline of every piece of armor had been tainted orange, giving it more contrast and visibility.
And as she lifted her hand, it immediately grew several meters in size, being bigger than her own body overall. The enlarged arm slashed at Kingsley, and the resulting slashes of light were also several meters in length.
It's speed and size wasn't something he could dodge anymore, only leaving enough time to raise his arm.
But, just as the crescents of light were going to slice him into pieces, something had completely blocked it.
In reality, only two had managed to hit him, but the other three were close enough to his body that if he moved even a few inches left or right, he would have been hit as well.
And their individual power was nothing to scoff at either; the crescents ended up cutting into the ground for a few dozen meters, creating three thin fissures that emanated black smoke. All the ground around the fissure became completely useless as it was burned beyond natural repair.
But what could have withstood this onslaught from two of those crescents? Well, it was Kingsley's fetal organ of course.
In his hand was a scepter—a royal scepter. It was completely golden, as it should be, with clear diamonds studded onto the top-end of its shaft. The tip (hol up) was similar to that of a spade, but it's angles were much sharper.
Currently, the scepter had blue lightning circling tightly around it, helping it handle the scorching heat of the crescents.
A second later, the attack dispersed and he was going to scoff at Ann for her… less than average, when he looked ahead.
What was in front of him was not the frustrated face of someone who failed, but rather it was merely the sharpened claws of Ann's enlarged armor.
Boom!
The strike had hit his scepter, which was in front of him, but the mere impact of the blast was comparable to that of the lightning that struck earlier. With a gust of wind, he was sent flying right back into the receiver that he originally jumped down from.
However, as if it sensed danger, the receiver activated its dome, which made Kingsley crash right into it back-first.
The strike seemed to have cracked a bone or two because the pain coming from his arm was excruciating. But, remembering what he's been through, he supposed that it was actually nothing. He pushed through the pain and readied himself for the next strike.
He raised his scepter, imbued it with his lightning, and struck back at Ann who didn't wait for him to fully recover.
The clash caused sparks to ignite the surrounding grass, which melted the snow, but they weren't concerned about that. The next second, one of them went flying right back into the dome—it was Kingsley.
With some blood leaking from his mouth, he finally realized optimism isn't going to give him an edge in close combat. She had won in that sense.
So, with the activation of a rune formation, snakes of lightning slithered and coiled around his legs, creating a vice-like grip on them.
As if to imitate an exoskeleton, the snakes not only off-loaded a lot of the strength required to move around, but their lightning attribute allowed for an even greater boost in speed.
Thereafter, the next time Ann swiped at him, he immediately dodged to the side before thrusting his scepter at her head. The lightning around the scepter made the tip even sharper than it already was, and if it hit her, she would be electrocuted. Fortunately, that didn't happen as she had her other arm to block the attack. The clash pushed her back a few meters, but she was otherwise alright.
Buy, she wouldn't let him gain any ground, so she tried to continue pressuring him with her superior melee skills… only to realize this guy was as slimy as an eel!
Actually no, that would be distracting the eel race, but he was just that tricky to deal with.
Any time she tried to get even near him, he would back up enough to avoid her arms, but also have enough reach to try and poke her with his golden rod… wait.
Anyways! The tip was just… it kept trying to penetrate her, and consent was the main issue here. Of course, how would she give consent for the rod to rail her… head. It just wasn't gonna happen, especially if it didn't wear any protection.
Okay, but on a serious note, they seemed to have reached an impasse.
She could seriously hurt him if she could hit him, but she could not as he was too fast. He could also seriously hurt her if he could hit her, but he could not get past her defenses.
In actuality though, Kingsley was the first to step back. After all, due to her fetal organ, Ann had made a complete recovery, even her soul juice had been replenished. He, on the other hand, didn't have that. He was continuously using his soul juice, and while he had a lot, he would probably be wasted before her.
So, his decision? To waste more of it!
That's right, with the continuous activation of his rune formation, snakes made of lightning were conjured from his soul juice. They swarmed around him, numbering into the several hundreds. The next moment, they all did a crackly hiss as they slithered across the air towards Ann.
However, it didn't end there. He took his scepter and tapped the ground several times. Immediately, the scepter glowed with a golden light and it was passed onto the snakes.
They grew twice as large, each being around ten feet long now, and they were outlined with golden streaks.
Like giant arrows, they blotted out the sky as they reached Ann. She used her gigantic arms to swipe at the snakes, sending a pile of them rolling onto the ground.
However, their golden radiance glowed with more power and they stabilized themselves. She would now have to attack twice for each snake to completely get rid of them.
And so, Ann fought valiantly against the swarm of lightning snakes. However, it was taking too much effort, and soon enough she would tire herself out. Not to mention that because they were able to survive a round with her, she sustained significantly more injuries.
She was not even halfway through the swarm and bite-like bruises covered her person. The electricity was starting to affect her as well as her movements were becoming more and more stuttery and out of her control.
Finally realizing her mistake of entertaining these rascals, she quickly backed up as she retreated. Luckily, she was still faster than the snakes, so she could kite them as she charged a nice laser beam on her finger.
Within a few seconds, the laser beam was released, and it cut a path straight through the swarm. But, she held onto the laser for another second, changing its trajectory, which subsequently decimated them.
Before, there were over five hundred snakes, but only a bit over two hundred remain. She had quite literally cut the snakes in two, making their corpses made of lightning sprawl onto the ground before dispersing into liquid.
This… this still didn't change Kingsleys expression much anymore.
He simply waved his hand, which made all the snakes go stiff.
Then, like pieces in a puzzle, they bite each other, forming a chain. Having been brought together, the energy that made up the snakes fused, forcing the swarm to take up the shape of an even bigger and more ferocious snake.
By now, even just its fangs were as big as Ann's entire body, and you know what, I don't even know why I mentioned her. I guess she's just my new unit of measurement.
But all jokes aside, the snake alone had an aura equivalent to rank-4. But with the addition of the scepter's ability to bestow its power, it was even stronger.