*
I could feel my body gradually increasing its own strength, was my continuous enhancing of Sagian Miltreu Ancient Vine Spear also affecting my body? As I invest a constant flow of power into the spear, it happened to have a user augmenting effect, so a portion of that infinite power is flowing into me... It's still not enough to match up to HuoLi... Far from it in fact. But it's way better than nothing.
I spin the main spear in my arm, rushing at HuoLi as I maneuvered its handling into my left arm. She noticed my slight growth in speed, so she reacts accordingly and slams her scythe into my waist before I noticed. She uses just enough force not to kill me, but enough to send me flying a long distance away. I had been played like a golf ball...
My body rolled and bounced off the ground like a mass of tumble weeds before I healed my body and forced my balance to return. I bend my knees and slammed them against the ground along with my forearms, using the friction to stop my momentum. Ughh...! After all that spinning, I got a bit dizzy and my limbs won't stop shivering.
Webs of white light expanded from the distance, growing larger as they approach closer. I block it with my spear but it sliced through everything, rendering myself dead once more. Reviving, I stood back up I replaced my main spear with my second most used spear. The main spear will be planted in the ground. What am I... A masochist?
Hehehhehe... Hehehehehe!!! Just how many times will I use myself as bait? I already know... Even if the spear was stronger than before, it wouldn't pierce the enemy's defense. All she had to do was keep her shape-shifting timeless substance in the same shape for a second after I finish attacking. I see... Then wouldn't there be a gap right after the first attack she blocks? No... She can expand it, she just can't retract it. So she can block multiple attacks.
Then I need something she can't block... Yes, I got it. I know what to do. I should implement it now, lest I want her to get used to my movements. She's still the leading war magical girl, she's a professional with a significant amount of more experience.
"I noticed. You've swapped out your spears. Just because I have way more magical particles than that spear by an enormous extent, doesn't mean I can't notice tiny shifts in magic." (HuoLi)
She noticed. But that was fine. It was no longer the core part of my plan. It wouldn't be able to do anything to her anyway. It was merely a distraction now, I drew a refreshing smirk at her. She smiles back in response with a intimidating glint in her eyes.
I slam 2nd spear into her scythe, it wasn't able to prove much in terms of strength, but the miniscule amount of resistance it put up was able to let me go while only taking away an arm. With this, I slipped past her guard. I lifted my left arm as far as possible in preparation for a wide punch. With this adrenaline and rush, I forgot that I lost my right arm to her scythe earlier from the shoulder down, but I continued my rush forward.
Her left arm was still available so she used her superior speed and strength to bust my elbow apart, but I continued moving forward to headbutt her torso. I wonder if she thought busting down a limb would stop me? Well, even taking my head won't help. I'll revive immediately and still push forward. My vision blacks out once more before colour fills it again, it looks like she indeed busted my skull opened and blew my brains out with her fist.
With a complete revival close up, she sensed the danger and attempted to escape. She want to jump backwards diagonally to her left, which was when I launched the first spear at her from her back. Spears surrounded us from all angles before launching. She placed a single toe into the ground, a shock wave exploded out to blow everything away. In that destruction and chaos, 1st spear had positioned itself right behind her. Everything but the first spear was destroyed. It continue pushing forward against her resistance. It would only last for a moment but that was enough.
I took that small lapse in her concentration and launched my right fist at her torso with all my might.
*Splat*
An uncharacteristic wet explosion resounded. It sounds most like a water balloon popping after being thrown at someone. It definitely can't be HuoLi's body, then what else could it be?
"..." (HuoLi)
Yet my fist had finally surpassed all her defences and lodged itself inside her chest.
"I purposefully weakened the magical girl augmentation beyond the wrist."
I'm sure she didn't need me to tell her to figure it out, but I just wanted to rub it in her face. In other words, I untransformed only a part of my body so that it would get weaker and become destroyed from the force exerted by my own punch. By destroying my fist, then pressing my severed wrist at her chest, and finally superimposing my normal fist in that space... I erased her body out of existence. Well a small chunk of it anyway, but she cannot regenerate it back. It is now part of my fist, in other words to the world, it just looks like this was how she was born.
She erased my smile by cutting it up into countless chunks, but I simply revived back up. There's no change to her, she'll have to live with a fist shaped hole in her chest from now on.
"It seems that even taking prudence is not enough to deal with you. Yes, rather than fighting you as an equal... I should have treated you as a threat from the start, as something who was potentially stronger than me.
This is so that I will... Unleash everything from the start. Final skill, the finality of one's efforts in life. The blessing of the dying starts and the awakening nebulas, an ultimate image of myself that would adorn the edge of the universe during its final sparks.
[A maiden's median of the world's end] "(HuoLi)
The boring as hell greyish realm around us was completely replaced with deep darkness. The occasional flickering of stars shone in the distance, but there was nothing else. I was cold... Cold beyond imagination... Heat and magical particles were rapidly being sucked out of my body into this empty vacuum of space. Where the hell am I... There's no air here... I'll have to substitute it with magical particles... I also need to reinforce my body extra tough in order to withstand the insane pressure on my body. Even as a magical girl, it's threatening to make my body explode.
"GaaaaaHAAAAAAGGHHHHH!!!!!"
The pain was driving my mind numb, it was a constant in this place, meaning that even after letting myself die and revive in this place it wouldn't stop. In the unbelievably far off and dark distance away, the opponent stood still. It might have been because this was her magic that she couldn't feel its effects... Or that she was simply so strong that she could withstand it naturally without any help...
But under this never ending stirring of my mind... Not good! I'm beginning to lose conscious... Will my magic still activate if I faint...? I need to do something about this quick... But what...? For now, I begin walking towards her. It felt like I was lifting the entirety of the earth with my foot with every step.
For now... Let's copy her. I'll use my first skill to revive ancient plants and integrate them into my body. Surely there were some that lived in extreme pressure environments like the sea. I heard that fish in the deep sea had evolved to have special cells that resisted the deep sea pressure. I wonder if I can implant this directly to form an outerlayer around my skin. I can just use some kind of illusion plant to return human skin colour and texture later.
The dense green magic circle appeared at my feet as greyish and transparent plants arose from it, wrapping themselves around my skin. This should be perfect, if they are transparent it should retain its original colour... Over here I was more worried about my looks over my survival. It meant that my mind was still working properly... I think?
I can not back down, I can not run. I have to forcefully prove my weight and worth in this world. Even if I have to fight the strongest arc maiden in the world. A ruler of cities, a protector and a guardian deity. If I can defeat such a prominent figure, wouldn't that make me a significant figure? A name that would go down in history?
As I got lost in such thoughts, the hammer of reality inched close before I could react. A vertical strike with her fist that blew my brains out before retreating to a safe distance away. She was now indeed treating me as a threat rather than a rival. One that she would bring out everything to exterminate. Her figure disappears without another moment to blink, my body caves in at 3 different points, brain, chest and legs. The impact sends it flying into this directionless void.
For some reason in this endless expanse of space, there was only 1 glowing star in the distance. Not even the light of other stars had persisted after their deaths, this was the final one. It was most likely dead as well seeing as it's distance was quite far away, in the time it took the light to travel here it must have already been extinguished.
Other than HuoLi, I was the only mass of matter left, the entire universe's vacuum is prodding the mass in my body to escape. Using the integrated plants, I close the orifices on my skin. I also form a cool black mask around my mouth with a small white diamondon its right side. The mask covered my ears as well as nose and mouth. Only my eyes remained and they stayed firmly shut behind a transparent layer of cells.
Now that she's wary after the very first successful attack, it seemed impossible to get close to her. No matter what, she would land numerous attacks that would send me flying before I could get her within my own punching distance. She's doing a 'hit and run' tactic and no matter how close I get she just runs away each time. Her distance management was perfect and her magic shows no sign of letting up, not even a small 'tremour' could be felt in her magical signature. Nothing, it was as if her well has been full from the start.
Somehow she was even more calmer than before, her cold eyes seized me up and the only word that comes to mind that could describe her actions, was efficiency. She transformed her scythe into numerous blades attached to chains, their smaller builds cause their weight to be light making them easier to be thrown. As if they were alive, the chains bent at unrealistic angles and the small blades at their tips never lost speed. Naturally, they were too fast for me to react to and it began.
Here was a chain of death. Every second, every moment. The instance I revive, the next chained blade would blow my head off with sheer force. Since there were numerous chain blades, she would keep doing this until my well went dry. I tried to block them of course. With my weapons, with my arms. With other defensive plants I've never conjured before. But no matter what I brought out, even plants on the ancient level, they were all decimated along with my brain. If it had been anyone else in our little group who fought her... They would have died a 1000 times over...
No... They would have died one time. I was the on reviving hundreds of times. I wonder when this would end. I feel powerless. It's especially because of now, now that I had the taste of my own worth, the value of my own being. That I don't want to give up. I fully enticed and drunk on this feeling of being strong... Of being unkillable... Yet here there was a person who could kill me... Just when I yearned for it... I get dealt this awful hand...
It was because I don't feel like giving up now... I'm not so mentally weak to do so anymore... That I feel even more powerless than ever. Because I see that all my efforts were absolutely futile. This person could have used her first skill and spam rapid attacks at the start. I'm not like Kaori, I couldn't see or think without my brain... Their strength would be useless here too... That's how absurdly strong HuoLi is...
She also made sure to pace her attacks... Otherwise this would happen. After experiencing it so many times, I got used to the timing and grabbed the chain. I allowed it to burst my head open, but the tiny amount of resistance brought by my hand was enough... It didn't escape in time and got overwritten. It was one of numerous, but I successfully removed a single blade from existence. My final skill is rather cost efficient, I wonder who would run dry first.