*
Her body trembles as if it caught the largest cold. Her eyes wide in astonishment. I was pretty darn exhausted after all that...
"haa~haa~, screw you... You know how scary it was to die so many times...? "
It seems my quip was rather not well received. Much like those of a certain movie franchise.
I thought I was going to lose the fight... I'm sure it wouldn't impede her in the slightest but anything was better than nothing. So I made plant walls that were lots of metres thick. Maybe 20? I think she's the kind who has fought so much, she could kill me in her sleep. So impeding her sight wouldn't really do much. I suppose I was trying to slow the velocity of the chain blades, but they still strike right at my head... How scarily accurate...
Anyway, the magical particle limit of my well only applies to my revival. In other words, I had been using unlimited magic to fuel my first and second skill the whole time. By constantly reviving I was also able to withstand the magical particles that cross the threshold of my body as a vessel. Well, I say withstand but I'm just letting it break down my body before reviving again. Anyway, it also meant that my body was slowly adapting to the speed of her attacks. Though it was still far from it. I estimate about a week's time would be needed for me to actually dodge her attacks. So that's thrown out of the window.
The last thing left was my first skill. Rather I've been charging up all this time, even my death wouldn't actually impede me from gathering more magical particles. A reversal of the enemy's final skill with my own powering my first skill.
"Dawn of life(imitation). "
Due to Celistane Frey's... The Rising Knight Order's Zenith commander's first skill, [Will of the dying sun], I discovered it out. The sun... Not just the sun but every star in the universe... They all had souls. They were living beings though not in the traditional sense. They were much closer to monsters and survived solely on magical particles that resided in the universe.
They had possessed so much magical particles that they achieved something similar to spirits on a smaller scale. They discarded their physical astral bodies and could form tinier avatars. They are not bound by their physical limits. It also meant that the wild monsters and natural spirits were actually remnants of the planet's will as they were born from the earth's aura. I see... Was that what The Great Disaster was? The planet had enough of the beings living on it, in other words it had chosen to abandon humanity.
Well, let's ignore that for now and focus on this. This dimension spawn from HuoLi's final skill was undoubtly a special anti-personnel realm that simulated the end of the universe. As it the end of everything that is and will be, it would usually cause death for any of her enemies. It was a broken skill that spelled instant death for anyone unless they had my resurrection... No, superimposition skill. If it was normal resurrection, it wouldn't work. Such was the nature of this place.
There was no air, no fundamental particles, no magical particles, no nothing here. A place that would bring the word 'desolate' to the extreme as it was void of everything. Only HuoLi was suppose to have access to magical particles here since it's her realm, my source of magical particles rather were from my superimposed bodies. In other words, they were from other universes instead. When I stepped here, I was no longer the Myuu of this world but a Myuu from another world... Was I really still Myuu then...?
I still possess her memories... I see.... This must be a tinge of what Kaori felt... But I can safely discard these feelings and start with this reversal technique. My first skill... Was the revival of anything that existed in the past after all... For the first time, I'll revive the entire earth. Each planet had its own soul, perhaps I could only summon an imitation with the amount of magical particles I possessed, but it was the earth regardless.
We were back on solid ground and air, this was no longer the simulation created by her final skill. I have overwritten it with the earth's spirit. Time to use the earth as a weapon. Wind rushed by our figures, gathering a mass of debris into the centre. Gradually it began to form a massive silhouette 500 time the height of a human. At the final moment, the massive contours of this forming giant compressed into a human sized outline in an instant.
She was a translucent being, though she reflected a forest green hue rather than the typical grey of a natural spirit. She stared off against HuoLi and kept silent for a while, as if assessing the enemy's worthiness in fighting her. She was known by many names across human history, but most notably well known was Gaia. She narrowed her eyes and swept her gaze at me before looking back at HuoLi. It seemed she had a certain level of intelligence, and it wasn't low either. She might just be as smart or smarter than me.
"... Oi, why should I lend you a hand just because you summoned me? Do you understand the price? " (Gaia)
She uses the wind to whisper discretely into my ear. At the same time she blocked out the air surrounding me, so the sound couldn't travel through it and get picked up by HuoLi. Even as she asked the question, she stared down HuoLi with her arms crossed. Perhaps she was testing me. But I can only give an answer that I would give.
"Because I have to prove my worth. Ironic as it is, I have to use your help to do so. To exhibit the full extent of my first skill."
"... I see... I'm didn't have that kind of issue when I was still alive, but I don't dislike that honest answer. "(Gaia)
I rush forward just as Gaia threw a fist at HuoLi. Not even her avatar which was as sturdy as an A grade could withstand HuoLi. Right after Gaia threw her punch, her fist cracked and her body shattered like glass. But the fragmented glass that arose from her broken body joined back together as if there was a magnetic force that stuck them together in the perfect shape.
At the same time, I had caught up and would throw a similar punch at the same time. HuoLi shatters both our torsos and made some distance between us while watching carefully. It was natural, after all having Gaia on my side was like having another magical girl on my side. Without knowing what skills she possessed, she was way too dangerous.
Maybe it's because I summoned her but I could feel it in my body that she's way more limited than she looks. I didn't charge up enough magical particles at the time to actually summon the real earth, she was basically just a shell so in magical girl terms, she only had her primary first skill.
We looked over, scrutinising her for any openings and planning the next coordinated attack. For some reason we worked really well together.... Or well, she was doing a supporting role so maybe she was just that skilled enough to be able to support anyone. Added to that, she had a constitution similar to that of a spirits. So she's able to dematerialise, letting my fist past through her and hit HuoLi. HuoLi doesn't hesitate to slice my arm off from my wrist with her scythe, she's using some of her experience of fighting short range fighters like me to skillfully keep me at bay.
***(Gaia)
If I had to describe it in human terms, it would be like drowning. I was summoned... No... Created...? I don't know, but I'm here now. This existence of mine, for some reason it felt so wrong. As if I was lacking something fundamentally. As a summon, I could innately sense who my summoner was, so I gave her a quick question to judge if I would extend my hand to her.
It was all still confusing. I was possibly a fake recreation of a real being, at the same time I was a mere shell of that fake recreation. A fake of a fake, so severely bogged down by circumstances that it's hard to tell if I'm even alive at this moment in time. From what I'm seeing, this realm... Is not real. At the same time, it's accurate to the real thing. It's a recreation that is not inferior to the actual thing in any way... As a celestial body, predicting the conditions of our own deaths weren't really such a hard thing... Rather, we've accepted our mortality a long while ago. We had so much time to think after all.
Anyway, it was because this simulation of the universe's end was 100% accurate that despite an inferior imitation, I still seemed to possess most of my memories... Of course it was possible that that was not true, and that I only believe I possess most of my memories. But I don't particularly feel incomplete in that department, it felt like I easily remembered and could recall my entire time in existence. I was not the original Gaia, but I am still somewhat real...
Ah...! It's all too confusing. I'll just test the summoner with a quick question and leave it all up to her. What's that? She gave some vague answer about her own significance while acting cool? You can only act like that without feeling embarrassed because you're only so young, you know!! Grrr, just thinking about it makes me mad. When my ego first gained awareness, I didn't exactly have these kinds of worries. It was a solitary existence... The other planets were too far away for me to talk to... Their age also vary wildly so I felt that there was a generation gap in the way before the orbital distance gap...
In any case, HuoLi is my enemy now. I ran forward to initiate combat, since there was no way to dodge her superior speed I prioritises covering distance and tightening her actions. Myuu quickly caught up, and together we busted open her defence. To be more accurate, we only destroyed the weakest layer of her shell, while she had done a lot of damage to us already. Each of us had to revive once.
We ran at her from both sides, I dematerialise to let her attacks phase through before rematerialising nearer to her body. Visually, there was no difference at all as I controlled my body to look the same. I throw a punch before making my entire dematerialise before the punch landed. As I had expected, a relentless carving would have been carried out on my body by HuoLi's strange unshaped weapon.
Myuu had revived once more, but managed to get to a similar position due to my distraction. She switches her attention to Myuu, at that very moment I flung a full powered punch at the back of her neck. At the same time her weapon sliced me apart relentlessly as Myuu shot spears at her from all directions. She simply withstood all the spears flying at her at high velocities and bursting apart into magical particles.
With all that work, Myuu finally got close enough to throw another punch, but it was completely interrupted by HuoLi's weapon. I deflected it a little with my own punch, slightly bending away Myuu's trajectory. She landed on her legs before resuming our battle. With this, I realised we needed a multilayer feint to land a hit on HuoLi. I regrouped with her before we were both ready to rush her once more.
In order to dodge HuoLi, one needed to be unpredictable. Since HuoLi's reaction speed is faster than ours, we have to move long before she notices. Rather than fighting reactively which would spell our doom, we needed to strategise our way through. Myuu slides forward a long distance before jumping back into a sprint. HuoLi's weapon carved a massive raving right below Myuu as she jumped missing by only a slight moment. I jumped high and above most of her attacks.
We steadily reduced the distance between us until we were all within arm's reach. I feint another punch, followed up by a feint from Myuu then on more from me. 3 successive feints in a row before HuoLi tries to make some distance again. This time she doesn't notice that the Myuu in front of her was a fake. She was confused by the feints, giving her the optimum opportunity to switch out with a plant double.
The real Myuu appears right behind her to give one clean strike through the back. Myuu shatters her arm and superimpose over HuoLi's insides. HuoLi twists her body at the last second to prevent a fatal attack, but lost a decent chunk of flesh.