*
She just had to use up all her magical particles before the antimagic hits. It would create a powerful attack and the recoil from possessing such a large amount of magic would stop existing. If the magic was all drain up to power an attack, there would be far less of a chance of it imploding inside Kaede's body. Then what she needs right now... A technique that can rapidly absorb and unleash magical particles.
"... Do you heroes have some resistance to her antimagic?" (Kaede)
"Yeah, for me it's especially high. But our passives are always 'anti-demon', so if the antimagic is coming from a demon it would be somewhat suppressed. It's still devastating nonetheless." (Wizard)
She spoke while channeling her magic into the protective transparent cloak covering the rest of us. At the moment, Rubh was bearing the brunt of the Demon King's assault. Even if she was designated as the tank of the hero party, it was still way too absurd to leave it to her alone... Kaede couldn't sit still.
"Lift the cloak. Ruby is in trouble." (Kaede)
"What the hell are you going to do? You just got saved from certain death, I'm not even sure if you're in any fighting shape after recovering..." (Karell)
Karell screamed with exasperation grabbing Kaede's shoulders tightly. Kaede could clearly feel the slight vibrations arising from. Karell's fingers, their smooth supple shape shivered under the present circumstances. Naturally, Karell herself didn't notice her own fear she suppressed it so that she wouldn't bring the others down, so much so that she had even forgotten about it, even if her body hasn't.
Was she that fearful of losing Kaede? Was it because she valued Kaede as a friend? Or was Kaede meant to be some sort of sacrifice by ensuring Karell's survival over the Demon King's subjugation? No, that's impossible. Just a single look at her face was enough to tell Kaede what she needed.
Karell was one who had closed off her heart after her best friend died in the village, in a way her heart died as well, allowing her to excuse those massacres that she had committed. Kaede shares quite a proportionate amount of culpability for it, based on this rather twisted criteria, Karell was able to become concerned for someone else other than herself.
There's no need for any hesitation. Kaede firmly held Karell's arms and gave her a big smile. It was her attempt at reassurance, though she was bad at it since she's not used to doing this kind of thing. She might have pissed her off instead. This time... Not as Kaori, but as Kaede...
"Thank you, for worrying. But I have to fight." (Kaede)
" That's... Unfair...." (Karell)
If she makes such an uncharacteristic expression... How could Karell do anything against it? It was as if her heart was being crushed, she had to let or it would have gotten worse. Kaede's firm grasp over Karell's arms had somewhat calmed down the trembling, it wasn't noticeable to either of the 2 at that time, but Karell subconsciously felt a bit better, as if she received some relief. It felt like a small bit of weight had been taken off her shoulders as a tiny sensation of floating took root.
Her arms fell off of Kaede's like lifeless twigs as Kaede stood up and walked towards the boundary of the cloak.
"Quick, we don't have much longer." (Kaede)
"... Alright, but we're joining you. We can't let you go alone. You have somewhat of a plan right?" (Wizard)
They moved forward as a group, the cloak vanished into thin air as Wizard spoke those last words. An enormous magical signal appeared right in front of the group, capturing everyone's attention in a captivating trance. Faint purple aura flared around her body like a violent ember, it grew to reach the ceiling with a generally pillar like appearance. All at once, the aura shifted back inside her body with a massive amount of magical particles.
The Demon King prepares his antimagic. Without a shred of a pause, 'Last Pace!', she shouted with her all her soul, causing her body to tremble all at once under her own power. All of her magic had been distributed and applied to her skills and attack power. Kaede shot straight ahead with all her strength lying in her right wrist, the magical particles in her body poured out of her palm into a purplish black foggy substance that solidified into her rapier.
Her rapier struck through in the centre of the Demon King's chest with all of the power that she could muster in that moment. The rapier skewered him like a stake, sending his body crashing into the indestructible castle walls, his limbs were sprawled out as the force of her attack smashed them against the surface of the wall. With his body stuck to the wall like a pinned frame of a picture, he uttered silently.
From his restricted position, the antimagic attack commenced. This time... There was absolutely no effect on Kaede. Her tactic had worked. She had used up her magic and so there was nothing to cause an implosion in her body with. She hadn't gathered much, so even with all of her magic, this was the best that she could manage. Pinning the Demon King to the wall, protecting her own body in the process.
Unfortunately, this was worse than her initial battle with Hikari. This time, she had almost no magic. There was barely enough to maintain the transformation, the augmentations were roughly C grade... That was how low she was on magic. Her body had developed some resistance to antimagic, but this was all that meagre resistance had to offer. On the other hand...
She hadn't considered it, but could the Demon King also have a limited well capacity? It's not SS grade like Yiren's was. If his origin was the mythical possessed armour, then it would make sense for Hikari to be more physical oriented than magic... No matter how much they slashed at him, the armour simply regenerates back. It's not so soft to the point where Kaede could easily bisect him, but it's not as hard as Yiren either.
It had just enough hardness... To boost it's elasticity... They haven't been slashing at the Demon King the whole time...
They had been bashing at it, and his armour like body bends around the points of impact, which absorb the blow and re-release it as kinetic energy... This entire time, this entire battle... It was akin to stretching a rubber band, but he was only stretched. He hasn't broken once... This was absent in his clones.
Was it to hide information of his actual capabilities? If he finished off all who entered his castle, then he would be able to keep this ability under wraps... Anti-magic and anti-kinetics... He looked like a simple enemy, but he has no weaknesses. This was absurd, it was too much...
She was practically a sitting duck, Ruby blocked the next blow with her sword while Wizard covered them with the cloak like barrier. Ah... That's right. She had allies to rely on, reliable ones too. She's a king candidate, it's not her job to kill the king candidate. Her only job was to monitor the situation and watch over them, perhaps point out a weakness or two... This thinking...
WAS WEAK.
Isn't it a given...? Of course, she wanted to kill the Demon King too. After all, right now she isn't Kaede but Kaori. The ideal magical girl wouldn't settle for a leadership position. She would go in headfirst for the kill. Right... Since her allies are here, then she should continue recharging as fast as she can.
She should prepare to use last pace from behind the cloak, if she lifted the cloak the Demon King could unleash his antimagic before she dealt her attack. Such was the difference in speed and reaction. It was terrifying if not for the fact that the Demon King's attacks were simple and straightforward. She could predict their trajectories with sheer experience compounded with instinct.
She began recharging. The objective: find a way to recharge at faster rates, as fast as possible.
'... I have to reinforce my mana pathways with even more pathways...' (Kaede)
They had many names, mana pathways, magical particle gates, magic pores, spiritual pores. The pathways are self regulating so that there are no spillage of magical particles, while there is uptake of magical particles. It had a similar sieve or valve like structure, akin to blood vessels. There's no telling what might happen if she widened these vessels, but if she added more, things might get better. It was a shot in the dark.
She used what little magic she had to absorb more magic, then used that additional gain to absorb even more, resulting in exponentially increasing gain of magical particles. But this was the basic process of Magia Retainment:Perpetual. She needed way more than that. It was not sufficient at her current level. She had already violated the law of magical girls by going against the nature of magical particles and forcefully absorbing them into her body. This was one more wall that she needed to bust through.
For a start, she thought about stealing the Demon King's magic pathways. Was it possible? For reference, the well was like a giant ball of yarn the size of a car, while the pathways were the size of normal threads compared to that car... It was much harder to grasp and easier to break. The stealing process of the well in the first place was made easier due to the target being a mere clone, its entire being was recreated by Hikari's magic, causing it to be more fundamental and badic. Compared to stealing a specific tiny gear in a complex bus sized machine, it was akin to taking the battery out of a toy.
Let's think carefully first before doing anything rash. The Demon King wasn't incapacitated like last time, he could control his magic perfectly. If she steals his magic pathways by connecting hers to his, he could channel his magic into her body and make it explode. Through the pathways, no amount of augmentations would matter, even an SS grade might be reduced to be as weak as a normal human compared to an explosive.
She could try to initiate this forceful injection of her magic into his body to burst his organs open with an explosion, but... Naturally the individual with more magic and control would overwhelm the other in response. In other words, since his Well and will stat is higher, this will only end in death. Then it's not possible to steal his pathways, but with this new information, it could still be incorporated into the next plan.
There were various points of interest, factors that could be narrowed down and worked on. First was the enemy's antimagic, the second was her own survivability, the third was the options brought to the table by her allies. Sease was a hero with a theme that was somewhat related to ninjas.
Her first skill [Survey] allowed her to search for any target in the world, the second [Blessing of Morgan] was a curse that numbs the body to pain and kickstarted the body forcefully like an AED. It forces the body to regenerate physically and magically at the cost of their vitality, her lifespan might have decreased as a result.
Wizard had a skill that allows her to use attacks that 'seem like magic', such as the traditional fireball, earth conjuring, wind blade and lightning. Her second skill was the cloak barrier magic that constantly protected them. Ruby on the other hand had a tank skill and an attack skill. She took the brunt of the attacks, reducing the burden on the barrier. It was fortunate that the Demon King dealt simple but devastating physical attacks.
The party was steadily decreasing their supply of magic, despite the Demon King decreasing his own well in tandem... With a larger well he naturally had an exponentially faster rate of magical particle regeneration. Attrition was not viable in the slightest.
The next two points of interest were concerning the antimagic. To increase her resistance to it... That would take too long. Then, the only way was to somehow mitigate its encroachment.
"I see..." (Kaede)
Solely focusing on this one point narrowed her scope but ironically opened up all kinds of possibilities. In the first place, is it necessary to resist the antimagic? While she had been planning from the confines of the protective cloak, the Demon King dropped from the wall like a loose painting and was assaulted by Ruby immediately. She swung her blade at his throat with full force just as he fell. Kaede's attack had used all of her energy, including her last pace, inertia lost its hold over Hikari for a moment, causing him to lose his balance just for a slight period of time.
*CLANG*
Her blade slammed against his throat, cutting deeply into it. But he simply walked it off, standing up, the wound vanished just like the rest of his wounds accumulated throughout the battle. His flesh, which was the armour fell into place without pause.
His body was practically like a slime's, physically invulnerable.