*
"... How are you holding them back...?" (De Lan)
Her bewildered twintails bounce as she took a few steps back, distancing herself from the conflict, but not so far away that she couldn't hear Kaede. As she had said, Kaede was currently holding out her rapier with a single arm. Her right arm holding the rapier was jittery and vibrating as it put all its strength into resisting the pushing force of The Eye God's staff and The progenitor's claw.
The Eye God, Himei had her usual shrine maiden like outfit, with a colour theme of black and fold. Her locks of pure white were dyed gold around the edges by her aura and a third eye had peeled open the skin in her forehead, forming creases around it. 2 fluffy snow white fox ears perked themselves up over her head.
Her combat dress was worn low with her shoulders and a slight bit of her voluptuous chest exposed, covering her were expansive and generous layers of cloth that wrapped around her multiple times to form a baggy coat where the left side was folded over the right. A layer of white cloth hovers behind her back and around her wrist like a velvety curtain. In her palm was a deep red staff with black rings jingling about its top.
The progenitor wore a large hood bound to a cloak that hid her upper torso. Below the cloak was her combat dress which was plain black with white laces, with a few of the laces peaking out from under the cloak. Due to the heavy lack of laces, the design might look a little simple, but its uniformity brought out a unique charm that could fit into any picture and create a picture esque pose. It was a little similar to gothic lolita, but the minimal usage of frills makes it look more like a normal dress with minimal embroidery and design.
Her top half was covered with a Hooded cloak anyway, there was not much gain in making the costume under too attractive. White thigh highs squeeze onto her flabby legs like soft pillow wrappings, adorned with a few dark crimson ribbons at the sides that seemed to continue towards her high boots. Her outfit certainly was practical looking compared to most others. With thick protective leather boots and a wide coverage cloak.
Their outfits stand out against the dull grey backdrop, their strength unceasing despite this odd state of confrontation... These people were fighting here for a very long time, they should have strengthened themselves and become more deadly mid fight, yet they were unable to break past the guard of a lone girl who had just entered this space.
It was unknown how long they had been here, but Kaede hoped it wasn't too long. It might have been an eternity, then... Things would be explained. Their mind might have deteriorated from being here all this time.
"... They're pretty much on auto pilot, that's why. To them, this is the strength they use to turn a simple door knob. Their minds...." (Kaede)
Are they gone? Or are they at some other location? As she had concluded, the state of things right now were quite strange. But even in this subsconcious state, the magic they used had an effect of reducing any witnesses' sanity... Just what the hell are they doing...
"... De Lan, stay back a little further, if I hit both of them hard enough, they might come back." (Kaede)
"Eh?" (De Lan)
Swinging her rapier, she drives the 2 away. In De Lan's eyes, they vanished. Beyond infinite speed, beyond any concept of velocity, there exist only placement. That's why the battle between Himei and Zedicia looks like a constantly rotating kaleidoscope. A frequent switch in position constantly occurs. She slams her rapier into her enemy, she's sure this wasn't how the rapier was meant to be used, but she unfortunately developed such a barbaric style.
Sparks fly apart as it collides with the enemies of her opponents in a blinding flurry of exchanges. Meanwhile, her opponent's hadn't forgotten to fight each other as well. She uses her body weight and spins forward, then she lands her rapier on the enemy's weapon with that momentum.
Himei was sent flying. Ah, it was a little obvious from the start. Neither of her enemies had their irises right now, only the whites were showing, as if they were some crazed animals. Zedicia inches closer, her thin fingers reach closer in a claw like manner, before growing into large black claws. Kaede launches a fist at the claw, but she switches position and reappears behind Kaede.
*BANG!!*
She slips her rapier behind her in the nick of time, the claw strikes at it and lands the rapier on her own body, but she was resistant to attacks created by her own magic. It was much better than getting instantly dissected into numerous pieces the moment the claws reach her. Himei launches the staff from the front, which she barely dodges by changing her positioning to now be slightly higher in altitude. The staff smashes into Zedicia's claw who was caught in its trajectory.
A shock wave explodes right as they collided, Kaede was sent further into the air, but she instead exploits the momentum to spin, and she striked as she dropped back down, landing a third weapon into the colliding mosh pit of energy. A surge of white energy is shot into the point of collision, causing periodic bursts of white light to leak out in the form of indiscriminate lasers.
"Fuh~" (Kaede)
She exhales as she concentrates, summoning spears of white brilliance that were brighter than the surrounding grey, then she fires them at the other 2. Rather than continuing to pile on more energy into the collision point where strength was concentrated, she should attack the others and get them to concede the collision point. But in the next moment, all 3 of them changed positions and fled far from it. Without a moment to spare, it erupted into a large rampaging cloud of energy that ravaged its surroundings.
She slipped past Himei and slices at Zedicia, but Himei follows up and knocks her staff into her rapier before smashing it into her shoulder, instantly knocking it off her body with brute force. Her left shoulder was left in a stump, but her rapier arm was left just fine and it wasn't still. Flicking the blood off of it, a cut bursts open as blood shot out of Himei's neck like a powerful hose. Zedicia attacks Himei for being closer but was quickly met by her staff, then Kaede rains spears on their position.
They instantly recognise projectile attacks and vanished. But then Himei appeared once more, she was knocked in the head by zedicia's claw and her head split into 5 horizontal slices, but the slices slip back into her original position and before Kaede could notice it, she was now completely fine.
It looks like an inexorable situation where the parties were perpetually stuck in a stalemate. No good, in a fight with god magical girls, the fights quickly becomes silly and pointless. Despite having such vast power, this must be the underlying reason that god magical girls don't tend to fight themselves. This place was like a purgatory for those who have reached the summit... Fighting in person would attract another person who has also reached the summit.
This might either cause unnecessary casualties when one aims for the other's subordinates for a quick and easy genocide and demoralisation, or it ends up in this current situation where the god magical girls fight each other with no end in sight. I see... Things would never aim if she doesn't give it her all... No, it takes more than her all. She was a newly born god magical girl, not even an infant or a speck of dust compared to the others. But now, this was the chance to learn how to fight other god magical girls... While they are somewhat weak...
It might be impossible to kill them, but at least right now, while she doesn't stand a chance to die! Repositioning herself, she reappears at a distance away from the fighting. Naturally the other 2 follow her, and she splits into countless rapiers. Her body turns into rapiers, hiding her real mind somewhere else while the rapiers fly in every direction. They didn't expect an enemy to explode, so some of the rapier's cut deep and numerous lacerations appeared.
Then at once, all of the rapiers vanished and Kaede rematerialises. At once, Himei's staff and Zedicia's claw extends and impales Kaede. Ignoring the gaping wounds in her body, she materialised floating arms wielding rapiers in the air and sliced the other 2 through the belly with them. Sure enough, her body regenerates easily, she didn't even feel any of the pain that was normally associated with such life threatening wounds. It's as if she was operating a virtual avatar in a game...
Thankfully one of her objectives was still continuously being fulfilled. Capturing their attention, it lowers the risk of De Lan catching their attention and getting killed. After all, with 3 god magical girl level beings here, she was practically unnoticeable.
She must have been getting used to her powers, while her stats were infinite, it only meant that there was no limit to her augmentations which were constantly climbing up. Her magic still started off on a finite value and gradually climbs up at all times, at a certain point even Kaede wouldn't be able to keep up with the speed of her own regeneration.
Conversely, the enemy has had an unknown amount of time of 'value climbing'. The only reason they could fight as equals right now was that these 'climbing rates' could be manipulated, meaning that Kaede could catch up in an instant. That's why stats wise, there was no difference between those who were SS grade, but there was an incalculable difference between SS and S grade.
That was why Kaede was most worried about De Lan at the moment, but she was gradually learning the robes to combat between gods. To De Lan, everyone vanishes and reappears sporadically, like twinkling stars coming into existence and then snuffing out. De Lan was moving at normal human speed in this realm, practically everyone was due to the nature of this being the 'edge', meaning that everyone here was already moving at an infinite speed.
Kaede swings her rapier around and reappears at a distance behind her initial position, throwing her rapier like a spear at Zedicia who appeared right behind her. The rapier pierces her. Kaede teleports back to her rapier and rips it out of her back, but not before dodging Himei's ambush hiding next to Zedicia.
She swings her right leg into the air, catching Zedicia's arm by smashing against her elbow before the wide claw swing of hers. Then she slices at the air, but Himei smashes her wrist with her staff, cutting the swing short. Kaede's head flies off and her body splits into multiple sections. The staff had an odd effect where it separated its targets into sections like dolls. Her body parts vanish into thin air, and she reappears at a distance away completely fine.
"Tch... There's absolutely no end to this. No matter how much damage we do to each other, we just heal it off." (Kaede)
As god magical girls, they could even survive getting their brain destroyed. It was like loading a previous save file from right before brain death, that was how fast regeneration has gotten that it could even recover brain cells before one actually dies.
First... There requires an overwhelming advantage. No matter how she sees it, she could do nothing about the current situation unless she fulfills that condition. But despite being on auto pilot, the other 2 were dealing with her sufficiently, even landing hits on her occasionally.
"Haa~~" (Kaede)
She releases a deep sigh, as if she was exhaling out all of her grievances. Remember, everything. Her aura reverts to a dark purple and her rapier transitions into a jett black hue as it constantly flowed. After all, it was a void rapier that absorbed all light and circulated that energy in a rapier shape. She teleports behind Zedicia whom promptly swings her claws at her face. One rapier was used to block the claws, another materialised, alerting Zedicia.
But she does not rely on it, taking advantage of Zedicia who put up her guard against both rapiers, she puts all her strength on the rapier that was already colliding against Zedicia's claws.
*BAH BAH BAH*
The sounds of an expensive chunk of crystals vividly splitting apart range out as the claw deforms. Kaede was pushing through with raw strength, she knew that Zedicia and Himei were acting somewhat intelligent despite their automatic battle responses, there was some level of intelligence and battle iq residing there. So she took the advantage, to distract Zedicia with another rapier and split her focus into 2, lowering the difficulty on her other arm so she could break through.
But standing still was too dangerous, Himei was still around. Just as Himei impaled Kaede with her staff, Kaede stabbed Zedicia in the face, causing a chain of damage.