D-boom-!
Mira stomped the ground causing the earth to rise up in several sections. Lifting one of these chunks he hurled it towards the floating Orreth. Extending a bone hand Orreth shattered the large chunk of earth with a blast of purplish energy. The dust masked Mira's leap until the boy flew through it. Throwing his axe he watched as Orreth rapidly dodged it and shot several strands of purplish energy. They wriggled about before impaling Mira at several locations. Lifting Mira with these strands he flung him back towards the ground.
Tumbling on the floor Mira recovered and reached for his axe. The line of blood grabbed it and returned it to his palm with no difficulties. Orreth had been zoning Mira for the fight, and currently Kan'na was attempting to make a complicated Magic Concatenation. Unable to keep up the pressure Mira already understood his next move!
{Limitation Acupuncture: Left Hand Point}!
Mira's skin rippled as his muscles released more of their latent strength. Spirit crawled down his arm and lingered around the axe. Orreth visibly took a step back despite floating in the air, "What?"
In the presence of the Origin Hydra, all beings instinctually feel fear. This was an apex being of Origin after all. Now with added strength, Mira was an entirely different foe! Raising his foot he stomped the ground letting forth a wave of earth that rumbled outwards like a ripple on water. Several small chunks of earth rose into the air and Mira leapt upwards.
His mana control was only good enough to barely solidify for a foothold. It was like trying to jump off a foam pit, if it wasn't for Mira's absurd strength it would barely provide any momentum. However when there was an actual solid surface involved then the situation changes!
Using his mana control to hold the earth pieces in place Mira bounced between them. Landing on a larger piece of earth Mira leapt with an even greater might. The piece of earth shattered from the force as Mira shot towards Orreth. Swinging his axe forward he aimed for the sternum of Orreth.
Shooting out a blast of purplish energy Orreth attempted to shoot him down again, however red Spirit acted on its own!
{Surging Hydra: Three Heads}!
Two heads of Spirit formed on each side of the axe. As Mira clashed with the purple energy the two heads moved past the attack from Orreth. They flew through the air with a speed that startled Orreth. Raising his hands he created a shield of purple energy only to see the axes shatter it with ease. They crashed into his rib cage and burst apart. Orreth tumbled in the air. Struggling to slow his momentum he barely ground to a stop. Looking up he spotted Mira above him preparing to swing downwards.
Shooting thin purple energy strands forward Orreth tried to grab him this way again. Upon piercing Mira's body Orreth moved to throw him downwards but the strands tensed as Mira did not move. Several thin heads made of blood formed from the wounds. They coiled around the strands, their necks extending as they traveled. Biting into the purple strands they tugged, despite their small size their strength was more than enough to contest against Orreth.
Mira continued to descend and swung downwards, another two axes made of blood formed and followed his swing. Orreth let go of the strands and retreated. Yet as Mira's attack missed he landed on a piece of floating earth and launched forward. Pulling his hand back he delivered a devastating punch to Orreth's rib cage.
From the previous blood axes the rib cage of Orreth was already cracked and damaged. Now having received a direct attack it could no longer keep itself together as it shattered apart. Bone fragments flew across the dirt as Orreth crashed into the ground.
Holding one of his hands to his chest Orreth felt the missing rib cage and howled in rage. Without the Territory effect his bones could not return to their original state. Harreth's fury began to boil within Orreth and his soul began to spread across the bones of Orothus. Reforming the rib cage with the purple energy.
Mira tilted his head upon seeing this. The purple energy and how it moved held a weird similarity to Akiol's Aura, but lacked the distinct alien yet familiar feel. This was due to the energy being directly from Harreth's soul, but unlike Akiol's usage of Aura the purple energy was simply Harreth's rage taking shape.
As Orreth stood back to his feet Kan'na acted. Without the completed set of runes Orreth was no longer rejecting mana, making her spells useful once more! The entire time as Mira was battling Orreth Kan'na found her workload actually increasing.
As she was studying a way to reverse the runes engraved on Orreth, she also had to deal with the rot applying and any way to reverse the process. However the application of a Truth was a category she lacked any information of, and was unable to create a fix in such a short time while multi-tasking the runes on Orreth.
Magic circles formed across Orreth's body as they started to restrain him. The more Orreth struggled the tighter they became. Having acted so quickly Kan'na stopped Orreth from carving the runes back into his newly formed body. Mira approached Orreth and raised his axe. The axe head grew larger as blood formed to increase its size.
Stepping forward Mira cleaved with his incredible strength. The sizeable axe split Orreth into two with ease. The axe continued to travel into the ground and cause a massive split in the earth. A furious cry let out of Orreth. Kan'na raised her hands and several magic circles formed, tearing apart Orreth piece by piece.
The surroundings darkened, like a light was put out. Kan'na frowned and lowered her hands. Looking about she found that she could hardly see. Slowly voices began to laugh playfully, hundreds of them yet so faint they barely reached her ears. Out of the darkness a floating skull launched itself towards her, glowing green.
Raising a magic circle she reached to block it but found that the skull passed through easily. Even shattering the magic circle. This was very similar to Orothus' mana rejection, yet on a soul? Try as she might she couldn't dodge the soul either, as her magic was useless and it was very adamantly homing onto her location. She could only continue to run from it.
Then another appeared, also moving towards her. She then had to constantly avoid two of the floating skulls with mana rejection. This sort of power. . .
This was a Synced Nexus Territory! Upon being split apart Orothus and Harreth synchronized further reaching the next stage of Synced Nexus, the Territory! This Territory gathered lost souls and put them under Orreth's control. He rapidly inscribed them with runes and sent them towards his enemies.
With the mana rejection back in place he was able to free himself from the magic circles! Mira was also facing similar issues, but instead the souls he was going against were higher in number. He was able to destroy the occasional one with a swing of his axe, but he still lacked the proper speed to keep up with them all. As one landed onto him a gush of blood flowed freely from the newly made wound, and his regeneration was slowed.
Orreth remembered that Mira's strength was lessened when he was regenerating, and thus these souls were inscribed with the rejection of blood! His movement was getting slower, and his axe grew heavier!
Yet as more souls filled the Territory the darkness was being pushed back, and quickly Kan'na was able to spot Mira. With a swift teleport she appeared next to him and used her magic to shatter the souls attack him. As Mira slowly regenerated the damage he began to swing his axe at the souls attacking Kan'na. This strategy worked swiftly enough to reduce the pressure, however it seemed Orreth was growing faster at sending more souls and very quickly the two were going to be overwhelmed.
Mira felt horrible, his lack of speed was the sole purpose of this increasing pressure. Kan'na was easily handling the souls that were sent for him, but he was struggling to remove the mana rejection souls. So he opted to take the damage of some of them to make up for this. Kan'na noticed his actions but didn't put a stop to it, the damage they dealt was easily regenerated by Mira.
Then hands made of souls began to raise through the ground. Kan'na swiftly teleported them away but this was a temporary solution. The moment they touched the ground again more hands began to raise up. Instead she lifted the two upwards to avoid touching the ground, but even then the hands continued to snake their way from the ground.
More and more souls were surrounding them, and despite her teleports the Territory was rapidly being filled by more hostile souls. These attacks were entirely of Orreth's doing, the Territory couldn't bring harm and only benefits. However the effect of allowing Orreth to gather and control souls surpassed the control Kan'na used to free them back to the life cycle. Excluding the mana rejection souls, the other souls refused to return to the life cycle. Essentially bringing back the might of Orothus!
The hands managed to grab ahold of them, and the souls continued to bombard them. Several magic circles continued to twist and turn as Kan'na tried to find a way to circumvent this. Mira found his strength failing as more wounds struggled to regenerate. It seemed Orreth was mixing different kinds of rejection to further Mira's struggle.
Through the pooling blood several snake-like hydra heads began to form. They slowly crawled up Mira and slithered about, entirely ignoring any of the bombarding souls. Until one of them reached Mira's right hand. It explored about before finding its mark, opening it's jaw it bit a specific part of Mira's hand.
{Limitation Acupuncture: Right Hand Point}!
From the pooling blood a massive hydra head leapt forth and ate several of the souls. Orreth paused upon seeing the head, even Harreth's rage felt a sudden chill from the fear that entered their very existence.
The pooling blood suddenly retracted and re-entered Mira's body, entirely healing his wounds in under a moment. Kan'na stifled her shivers and looked towards Mira. Just from his expression she guess he was barely holding onto his sanity.
There was a large chance that upon entering Third Stage the Origin Hydra residing in his heart was growing in power, and Mira's control upon it was slipping away. Yet at this moment such power was greatly needed!
Three heads formed from Mira and they let out a gurgling sound. Searching about they spotted Orreth despite the darkness and opened their jaws. Spirit traveled up their necks and formed a massive ball, it grew in size until it suddenly morphed into a beam that shot with a far greater speed than anything Mira was capable of. Orreth barely reacted and only managed to step back in shock before the beam hit him.
Now that the pressure had suddenly vanished Kan'na acted just as quick as the hydra heads. Extending her palm she released the Magic Concatenation she was working on. It spun like a series of gears and space began to warp. Refining itself to a needle it rewrote a rune on Orreth's spine, and suddenly the mana rejection broke.
Controlling the fabric of space finely enough to form a needle was something usually only Givale could do. Kan'na was only originally able to mimic the needle, but to make it able to write something before the world law repaired it was originally out of her skillset. Until she formed the Key to All. Now she finally pulled it off!
As Orreth's body melted from the beam of the Hydra's Spirit Kan'na formed another series of magic circles. Without mana rejection Orreth was helpless to their powers. Another circle appeared at her finger tips and she moved it towards her palm. Gripping the edges of the circle she yanked it free and suddenly Orreth burst apart.
His body utterly consumed by the beam, and Harreth's raging howl died out. In her palm Kan'na watched a small furious ball bounce about in a cylinder. Waving her hand away she stored it in some mysterious place.
< Congratulations! You have defeated Orreth the Wrathful Lich LVL: 800! >
< This feat will be known across the world! >
< Your feat is being recorded in The Framework >
< The Title: "Surpassing Synchronization" has been granted to you! >
< Your rewards are being given to you! >
< You can view them [here] >
Finally, at long last Orothus had been defeated! After so long she had gotten her rematch, and had won! Of course a large portion of the credit had to go to Mira. . .
Kan'na turned to face Mira and instead found the three Hydra heads staring at her. Their empty eyes held no sense of friendliness. Slowly they opened their jaws, Spirit moving down to their mouths.
"Mira!", Kan'na called.
The hydra heads hesitated, then furiously squirmed about. Slowly they retracted and returned to Mira's body. When the final scale returned to Mira he let out a heavy breath and fell to his knees. Moving to pat his pack Kan'na comforted, "Thank you, you really saved us there."
"I almost killed you!"
"I wouldn't have died so easy."
The Territory fell apart into pieces revealing the battlefield once more. Kan'na looked about and placed a hand to her ear and broadcasted their victory!
"Orothus and Harreth are dead!"