*
Thinking about it, it was probably a little awkward for Neli. Hopefully she didn't mind it that much. We resumed leaping past countless buildings, hoping to reach the next hidden base where Myuu and the others should be at.
Reaching one at last, it was practically a wreck as its underground structure was flooded with debris. The debris seemed to be carved out of the floor and ceiling as what was an intense battle had gouged out the surroundings while dragging everyone in. Walking deeper into its ruins, a faint rummaging sound could be heard in the distance followed by some clicks of frustration and curses.
Turning around, the dark figure from 5 rooms away peeked back at us. None of us had a skill that brought light, so we were relying on the perfect sight we were given by the magical girl transformation. It meant that we could roughly see with the minimal light leaking through the hole that leads to the surface above this hidden base. It was simple to differentiate the person's silhouette from the surroundings, but as for their facial features, that was another matter. They had a robe on that covered their face with a hood.
In another instant, shadows had crept out from under their feet like a rain puddle before forming a 3d shape. Seeing darkness morph into a 3 dimensional shape was a little off putting, but eventually those things had changed into various shapes. The most common being a wolf creature followed by a bear and a dear. They also had the features of monsters, possessing addition limbs, appendages or absurdly sharp claws.
"A C grade." (Barius)
"Let's test the waters first. Some monsters adapted to magical girls and have strong magic defences, some monster adapt to the material environment and have strong physical defences. Some of it translates into skills, don't want to turn into jelly upon contact now do we? "
" Hmpf, won't the demon king be both? Some adapt to everything, how do we predict their skills then? What if their skills are complementary to their attributes rather than being the same? "(Neli)
" That's why we test the waters."
Sending wind blades from all directions, the wolf types died in one hit while the rest took multiple blades to blast apart into pieces. Overall they were quite disappointing compared to the things I've been fighting thus far. Was there really nothing more they could offer? Perhaps that was a good thing, but with the current lack of information I was feeling a little agitated.
The mysterious figure quickly summoned more creatures, this time it seemed to be some kind of shredded up dragon with numerous gaps all over its body. Rather than an injured dragon summon, the gaps and holes in it didn't look anything like another magical girl could do. Of course, with the non existent boundary of skills I could be wrong. But it strikes more to me as a creature that couldn't complete itself.
In the next moment, Barius and Neli was gone, and I was the only one left with the summoner magical girl. Her wrist held a large gold bangle with colourful gems adorning it, with each glow materialising a different monster. In other words, this whole time she had been using a powerful magic item, it may even be a Stick if the summoned creature was stronger than the original. Unlike Kaori and the others, I haven't been in this world for long. I wouldn't be able to identify or find the weakness of these monsters immediately.
An enormous serpent type with a human body and a half bird half humanoid type stayed in the back row. The serpent type pull back its head before jerking forward to send a faint and almost transparent beam of grey that headed towards me, while the bird humanoid type began screeching. These were the skills of the original monsters, like magical girls they had 3 at most, while having one main species unique type at least.
These summons that had hues resembling the silhouettes of their former glory were mere shadows in the physical sense, but their magic was still the same, making their utility value extremely high. In the first place I'm not even sure if killing them would prevent them from being summoned a second them. What if these were just copies made by the gold bangle?
The monsters all worked in tandem as an agile tiger type and small dinosaur type rushed forward. The tiger had a smooth metal like sheen on its joints and a flickering ball of accumulated energy charging up in its mouth, while the dinosaur type had no front claws but was able to mask its presence better than any of the other monsters. There was also what seemed to be a metal crane and an even larger bird type that looked more like a fighter jet than a bird. The 2 fired projectiles at the same time, it was if the enemy had brought an entire party that had amazing chemistry with each other.
Let's test these out. Pseudo time stop, versed inversed grip. Range, until it reached that hooded figure. A faint and nearly transparent purple light extended from under my legs in the shape of a circle. It was a fixed radius made to expand as fast as possible while ensuring the maximum amount of coverage. Brute forcing it to grow as much as possible caused it to turn into a circle as it covered all 360 degrees with me at the centre. The grey light sent by the gorgon like shadow summon abruptly stopped as well as the screeching. Even the dinosaur type's stealth had been deactivated as all of their magic couldn't move.
This was the one sound difference between me and Barius' time stop. While hers is far stronger, far faster and far wider, she couldn't stop the movement of magical particles. Her skill stoped time in the physical sense, in the first place magical particles exist beyond space and time so it was always one league higher in difficulty to control them like how you control a skill. Sure, they empowered and fuelled your magic as you absorb the magical particles in the environment into your well for modification and subsequent use.
But controlling the magical particles itself was always far more difficult than controlling a skill. It was something where we could do a bit of it instinctively, but to put it soundly, one would require a specific skill to actually move them around freely to your own will. Otherwise it was like pushing a river stream against its current with a spoon. But I had my first skill to move them around for me, that was the only reason why I could recreate and destroy my own Stick so easily, why I could wield so many different techniques.
As such, all the monsters magic had been rendered useless as their magical particles froze on the spot by my skill's effect. The only magical particles moving were the ones outside my range and the ones inside my body. This brings me full reign over the battle field. The only way around it was to brute force it, gain higher priority control over the magical particles by using more magic than I did, or use a skill the move them.
It was highly unlikely there was any skill that actually moved them save for [spirit constitution], but that was a rather roundabout solution of using a spirit's inherent ability to control magical particles. All the shadow monsters shattered in an instant, with the flick of my wrist wind blades had converged into them from all directions. Every bit of surface area was burst open one after the other, leaving countless cracks in the tiger monster's armour, shredded wings for the flying monsters, a deep gash in the dinosaur type's with a lopped off tail, and the back liners had exploded back into magical particles.
As they were monsters, their biology was partially made of magical particles which rendered them even more unable to move. As I was about to finish off the enemy, Barius and Neli reappeared right next to me, appearing a little sweaty and tired. Neli was gasping for air while Barius had a few tears in her magical combat dress, but nothing more than a few scratches had affected them. The summoner magical girl widened her eyes in shock, or at least I think she did when her hooded robe flinched for a second.
Looks like they were done on their side, let's capture her before she escaped. Thinking so, I sauntered towards her with one hand on my vacuum blade, I was thinking up a new way to apply this blade and she made the perfect guinea pig.
"?!" (?)
"Woopsy, no teleporting away now~" (Barius)
A sadistic glint shone on Barius' eyes as she held up a small yellow tag with red markings, it looked like a talisman, a specific style of aesthetics that the producer magical girls use in their magical items in this faction, The Sanctuary. How Barius specifically got an anti-teleportation talisman was another matter, in the first place not many magical girls can teleport away during battle. They would either get killed before the item is activated and skills that allow one to teleport are exceedingly rare.
I looked toward her in surprise, curiosity painted my face blatantly as I stared fixedly at the item between her fingers. It looked so thin and fragile yet it had such a powerful effect that eluded me, maybe there was an item that could make me stronger in combat. If I could bridge power gaps with money I would.
"...? It would be odd if an A grade like me doesn't have a few convenient items up my sleeve. Unlike the lower grade magical girls, we are paid handsomely by the government. But I suppose the money was meant to buy magical tools that help us survive as they periodically send some low grade assassins to kill us.
They aren't too hard to kill but we'd be subjugated by other A grades if we do so, we have to adapt to them was what they told me in a letter. After a certain amount was purchased, they would stop coming. Anyway, I can freeze the space around the enemy. This isn't an anti-teleportation talisman, only S grades have those. This talisman simply cuts off magical particle signals. Usually teleportation items can reestablish this signal to connect to another place, but I can freeze space around them and prevent that.
It's my own pseudo anti-teleportation. "(Barius)
She shoved out a V shape with her fingers with a cheeky grin and delighted closed eyes. It was getting on my nerves a bit listening to her explain, but at least it cleared up the talisman. The enemy was merely a sitting duck now. Leaping past the ground beneath me, I landed right next to her and pierced her skin with my vacuum blade before she noticed.
Activating the new feature, red liquid began flowing out of her orifices and gathering into a ball at the top of the sword. Since she was wearing a hood, it didn't seem so gruesome to me, but I suppose I'll have to keep such a thing in mind in the future. I didn't thing it would flow out of all her orifices and target only her blood, but it was successful. As for the need for such a thing, I suppose I don't know. I just wanted to see a cool red ball at the tip of my sword I guess.
Cutting off her head, we left the corpse there as we investigated the base. After a thorough search we found nothing, and it wasn't as if there were any convenient skills or documents that could get us out of this. If there were any such useful things, Myuu and the others, the advanced party would have taken them.
"Anyway, nevermind if you're fine or not, is the base safe when you're away?"
Listening with a blank face, her lips curved up as she flapped her palm down as if to say not to worry.
"Izumi nearly grew as strong as me, if not for me being a horrible match up against her, there would not be anyone else stronger than her. She's basically a cheat, with her around there was nothing to worry about. That's why I was lazing around on the surface towns." (Barius)
She gave a slight chuckle as she reminisced on her friends, she seemed to be enjoying it as she does so. A slight tinge tugged at my heart but I ignored it. I faced away to quickly brush it off, don't even think about it. I began to walk towards the exit, and the others immediately followed behind. I'm glad there's someone so reliable that Barius can trust guarding her memories.
At first I wanted Barius to lead us due to her experience, but she declined. Neli didn't want to take charge as well... So I have no choice. I'll bring them as forces of combat and make the decisions then. I'll find Myuu. I'll win.