*
Facing the 2, her grip on her rapier tightens. Even when it's taken her highest form of firepower, all her effort amounted to was an alarm clock for the 2 goddesses in front of her. A flood of animosity swallow the realm, a God's aura, it was nothing compared to the conventional aura that magical girls threw out to intimidate their enemies.
It felt like the heavens had literally dropped onto her head and back and was hell bent on crushing her into the ground, leaving not even a speck of her existence. An absolute force glaring and threatening to blow away the candle that was her life in an instant. But... She now understood. The sanity reduction at the start was due to how the 2 gods were fighting at infinite speed, this naturally would deep fry anyone's neurons and leave any normal human dead. Akin to a certain series about cosmic horrors, the sheer volume of information coupled with the absurdity erodes and break downs one's mind.
Then it stands that she was adapting to the characteristics of facing down these goddesses in battle. She resists their infinite pressure that threatened to snap her in half with her aura. Purplish black flood out of her body, flooding over the grey realm, causing the edge of the universe to be dyed in 3 colours. Purplish black, reddish gold and blackish blue. Himei was gold and Zedicia was blue. 3 territories vy for supremacy, there was no longer any point to shouting Oblivion Magia when their auras can do a better job at this point...
Swinging her right arm forward like a little punch, multiple gargantuan rapiers phase into reality and begun to rotate. The rapiers tore at the opponent's aura, but the rapier that reached into Himei's territory instantly vanished while the one in Zedicia's was cut up into countless pieces by her claws. Things weren't looking good, despite how everything was on par previously, with everyone around the same level in attack and defence... Somehow they have now gone above that.
Kaede teleport back, only to be met with Zedicia's fist impaling her heart before spinning her body like a pinwheel on her arm, disorienting her sense of direction. Kaede swallows herself up in a gargantuan rapier, but Himei raises her left palm which conpletely interrupts the rapier from moving...
She teleport once more, but with multiple random destinations. Zedicia appears for a moment but vanishes during the chain of teleportations, she was now gone from Kaede's sight, but this gives a bad feeling instead. After all, the best surveillance on the enemy's moves were her eyes. Zedicia...
Didn't just use any random concealment skill, she flawlessly mimicked her surroundings so she cannot be detected no matter what. As long as she sent back the information that the enemy expects out of the natural environment, then she's completely concealed. Stealth was the control of data, as long as she impeded the source or route of the data, she would remain hiddened.
In the distance, the magic flares up and beams of pink tinted gold flash by as giant lasers, mowing everything down in its way. Kaede and Zedicia began tussling over each other, attempting to stick the other into the laser's path. But at the last second, the both of them teleported to a safer location. The beam that was set off continues to soar far away. It looks like everyone was serious. We could shoot as many attacks as we wanted, but without the proper domination of our auras, we couldn't imitate an Oblivion magia where we shot skills inside the target.
It could never be so simple. In that moment, the beam expanded. It didn't split apart or explode in a wide area, it grew to cover more volume... Fearing that De Lan would be in danger, Kaede teleported in front of her and launched the gargantuan rapier around her to offset to oncoming energy. Despite the sheer difference in volume, Himei's attack didn't weaken in the slightest through expansion. In fact it felt even heavier than her normal attack, and all that insane weight was boring on Kaede.
"Uguh!!!" (Kaede)
She let slip a groan, her legs were spread and her hips were lowered as if she was carrying a boulder with her very arms, her palms rose into the air palm facing outward. Her powers were moulded by her own fingers as they form a barrier of black light around her vicinity, encapsulating like a second layer of defence over De Lan's isolated dimension. But she stood steadfast, staring at it head on. Himei appears in the middle of that energy storm, arriving in that golden light.
It feels like we're swimming in a pool of different liquids. Himei thrusts her arms into the black light to expand the gold and to penetrate the barrier. But Kaede had no plans of backing down here. At times like this, she must stand her ground. She rushes forward with all her strength and slams her own palms into Himei's, then she gradually forms tendrils out of the black light to surround and suck Himei in.
Hidden by their palms she spoke.
"... Kaori, is it okay?" (Kaede)
"Hmpf~ Just what are you talking about? Is this drivel your last ditch effort? An insanity plea? " (Himei)
Despite flashing a condescending smile and a tone full of ridicule, Kaede couldn't help but admire her well balanced facial features, as if she was a perfect statue of some goddess of beauty. On the inside, she was just admiring her previous face and giving self praise... Anyway, to anyone else it might have looked like ridicule, but to Kaede who was the only person who could admire Himei's face that close among everyone in the world, she thought it to be reassuring.
Her sharp eyes display her fiery will, her bangs were symmetrical as 2 large locks circle her face but also fray near the ends like a rough waking from a recent nap, the rough strands that bunched up in the centre and partially covered her third eye was like a charm point that almost made her third eye look shy. Despite how her hair was pretty much in shambles, the portions surrounding the centre were neatly combed outwards and concealed under the peripheral bangs lining her jaw and face.
And of course, the biggest point that would cause most to fall head over heels at first sight, her perky fox ears full of divine dignity. They stand tall with a combed and neat texture, as if they could withstand anything the universe could throw at her. Shit, was Kaede really going to fall for her past self? It felt like time has stopped and she awakened a weird new preference. Despite how Kaori's heart was suppose to be loyal to Myuu...
All of these feelings were real, this momentary vulnerability was by no means a facade. But just as quickly as she got captivated, she just as quickly recovered her resolve. Her eyes turned cold as her eyelids relaxed due to the immense concentration. A dense black rapier materialises in her palms, in the very same moment she thrusts it into Himei's heart. Zedicia finally appears, having gathered enough energy to blow both their auras away into the wind.
A strong explosion consumes the space in dark blue aura. Damn it, their conversation was only possible because their auras were protecting them, so Zedicia must have been taking her time to create some magic that blew it all away. Her hood shivers vigorously as her figure arrives at their side in an instant, piercing two blades into the heads of Kaede and Himei. As god magical girls, they lose the weakness of their brain being their weak point. This was because God magical girls were usually spiritual beings, they don't need their mortal body to preserve their existence.
However old habits die hard. Thankfully, Kaede stabbed into Himei's heart with a fake blade that shrunk like a toy and protected them from the blast with a super close range barrier that no one else could see due to how thin it was. Kaede then grabbed onto the blade that was 'stabbing' into her brain with her palm, after strengthening her grip it shattered like glass and fell into dissipating peices.
First skill [hollow calamity], changing the flow of energy in the weapon, it compressed into a flat plunger like shape at the point of collision. Kaede's skin was not damaged, not even one bit. As for Himei, the weapon completely vanished. They weren't so distracted with each other that they would let their guard down on such an attack. With Kaede on Zedicia's left and Himei on her right... The fight resumed.
Kaede launched her left fist which was barley dodged, but Himei threw a far reaching kicking that struck Zedicia's left shoulder. The kick blew out a chunk of her flesh, revealing the bones of her shoulder joint. It grew back in an instant as her claw gauntlets enlarged. The paradigm would shift now that it was a 2 v 1. Kaede used her rapier to parry against Zedicia' s left claw, while Himei summoned her staff and smashed it against her right.
With expert footwork, Zedicia moved backwards tactically to a safe distance to launch a kick at Kaede. Kaede let go of the parry and received the kick with her palms, particularly she slammed her left palm and used all the strength in her wrist to break the impact. Naturally the leg was stronger than the wrist, so her wrist shattered a little and it hurt for an instant, but she used her magic to strengthen her body and pulled on her leg instead.
Himei threw her staff at Zedicia's midriff and followed it with a right hook, slamming her into the ground.
"Hmpf! Don't get cocky now just because you have a new ally. In the end if one of you couldn't take me down, why would one more of you make a difference?" (Zedicia)
She was right. There was no definitive way to kill a god without some kind of conceptual magic that was 'god killing' or 'regeneration inhibiting'. They required a way to halt her regeneration or to somehow damage her faster than she can regenerate, which was a tall task considering that the rate of regeneration was 'infinite'.
She looked to Himei for any clues while fending off some attacks with her rapier, in the mean time some of the attacks were cutting close, leaving cuts on her that took slightly longer to heal.
Even if it was just a little, Zedicia does indeed have the regeneration inhibition... Then it was a good decision to have intercepted her attack just now instead of letting it through.
"My final skill... I'm sure you know by now, but Zedicia has a resistance to conceptual attacks and the resistance grows over time.
This is because of her status as the Progenitor and Authority over skills." (Himei)
So that's it. They were missing information, that's why they lost. No, it was pretty obvious if one thought about it from another perspective... She was the progenitor, naturally she would have a lot of followers or believers, if she could conduct that belief into power she would turn into a god of skills, because that was what she was originally residing over, the authority of skills... That was why she had innate resistance against any and all skills...
"Skill editing, [Destiny that reaches akasha]
Inversion, [Otherworldly disassociation, decay spreads to all]
Final skill [Fate trickles down the mud], causes destiny to cascade and funnel possibilities of miracles and advantage to her.
As the Eye God, you can't hide anything from me. Not even your passive, [Those who reside beyond the veil of mystics], which grants resistance and regeneration from skills. " (The Eye God, Mameshin no Himei)
" Hmpf, if it's knowing skills, then I'll tell you my first skill can read yours too.
[Akashic editor: 'Cursed maiden of the all-seeing sight: Amon Mei'], a skill named after yourself...? How absurd, the absolute height of arrogance.
[Vice of an observation long past, dawn of an interlocking dimensional matrix of myth: Laplace] materialises and controls anything that doesn't exist in this time period, whether it be the future or the past.
And final skill, [Perception dances under the sole observer of the universe]. Anything you envision superimposed over reality. A disgusting skill that is conceptual in nature and overrides any magic defence. Too bad, because you used it haphazardly earlier, I've gained resistance to it. "(The progenitor, Zedicia Ivelliu Wiz)
I suppose they were getting me up to speed, after I was the only one who couldn't read the skill names of others or their effects.