(Alaster POV)
How long have we been fighting now? I am certain that several days have passed but as neither of us tires and we can both regenerate our bodies, it feels like our struggle will go on forever.
I jump to the side, avoiding a pounce attack from the dragon's sharp claws before plunging Longinus into its arm. Taking hold of the handle with both hands, I give a solid push, twisting the spear's tip in the beast's flesh in a circular pattern. With the leverage of my spear, I am able to amputate its arm, much to its pained annoyance. A second claw smashes into me from the side, piercing the side of my stomach and sending my body flying into the distance.
Ivarage roars into the sky and a storm of red lightning surround its frame. Ivarage unfurls its mighty wings and with a single flap, a shockwave is generated from the center of its body. The semicircular wave is lined with red lightning and races towards me at breakneck speed. I don't panic at the sight of this and flip upright, sticking the landing. Deciding not to take on the pain of this attack, I use [Law Manipulation] to sever space between myself and the shockwave, allowing it to fizzle around the break in reality as it touches the rift I created.
I smirk. THIS was the correct way of breaking reality. Whenever this beast tried to replicate my techniques, it wouldn't use spatial magic, so when a tear in reality occurred, the resulting mending of the universe would cause a large explosion that would injure both Ivarage and myself. That was how he got us the first time and he repeated the trick a few more times while we continued our fights.
I throw Longinus at Ivarage's face, the moment he begins to calm down from his shockwave attack. My Holy Spear strikes the creature's eye, causing it to shriek in pain. I unsheathe Excaliber and sprint toward the dragon as it reaches for its face in an attempt to remove the foreign object.
Due to the automatic {|Melt Strike|} imbued into the spear, it prevented his wounded eye from healing while it was inserted, however, its big hand wasn't agile enough to grasp such a thin object, so it ended up just pushing it around, making the injury worse.
I arrive in front of the dragon, who only know acknowledges my existence again, and stab his other eye with my sword. Now blinded, I jump into the air as it throws its head back in an attempt to throw me off. As I return to the earth, I use a [Magic Burst] to increase my speed as I kick Longinus deeper into the eye. I release another {|Damocles|} at the moment of impact, sending a brutal wave of energy deep into the brute's body with it exiting out of its neck.
Ivarage quivers in pain but its instincts tell it that if it moves it's head much more, then it would likely tear the remaining flesh away and decapitate itself. Instead, it gathers Red Lighting from its eyes and unleashes a brutal wave of red lightning at me, scorching my arm off and throwing me back several meters.
I exhale deeply, looking toward its neck and seeing the wound already nearly healed. I clicked my tongue. This thing was mindless, meaning that attacking its spiritual body, which was my specialty, wasn't very effective and only delayed the creature's ability to use big moves, as its energy flow was disrupted.
I was extremely frustrated by this and charged the creature, coating my fist with as much Fighting Spirit Aura as I could muster, I jumped up from beneath its large frame, driving a devastating uppercut from below. The force of my strike was amplified by [Magic Burst] and other skills, so it caused the creature to be lifted briefly from the ground and fall on its back.
I began to pant. "Huff huff. Just die already!" I called out.
I heard a clanging sound from the creature and noticed both my weapons had been dislodged. A low rumbling noise came as Ivarage rolled its body over and glared at me with newly regenerated red eyes. It slowly got to it's feet as I watched on, summoning my weapons to my hands, though it seems Ivarage had gotten tired of my floating weapons since he immediately stepped on them as they flew towards me.
My frowning face returned as, without my weapons, I would be doing significantly less damage. I shrugged to noone and clenched my fist, preparing to charge forward to the beast once again and start beating it to a pulp with just my fists, however, I was stopped before I was able to do so.
"Why don't you take a rest, Alaster?" I heard a voice from behind me.
I turned to see Velgrynd, Lucia, and Rudra had appeared.
"[Cardinal Cage]!" Velgrynd called out.
Four pillars of red energized gas shot up from the ground around Ivarage before rapidly closing in on it. Ivarage shrieked loudly as its scales began to melt and burn in the cage's embrace.
"Thanks for holding it down, Grynd!" Rudra yelled before unsheathing his own sword and charging at the creature.
"Wait-" I tried to stop his wreckless charge, knowing he'd die in an instant, but was stopped by Velgrynd's hand on my shoulder.
"Its fine. He's stronger now. MUCH stronger!" She said, pleased with herself.
I looked forward and towards the burning Ivarage, only to widen my eyes in shock as Rudra channeled a large amount of magical energy into his sword. I recognized the spatial element bending around it before he let out a flashy-looking sword beam.
"[Absolute Severance]!" He called out.
Ivarage, despite all the pain he was in, seemed to notice the danger of the coming attack, and bent down just in time to avoid being decapitated, however, the rest of his body wasn't so lucky. His large wings which were folded over under his back were immediately sliced off like a hot knife through butter.
Rudra smiled at this result before thrusting his sword forward, channeling spatial energies forward. "{|Dimensional Storm|}!" He called out as a torrent of formless energy raced towards the beast that was Ivarage live a tornado.
Ivarage was immediately shredded into thousands of pieces as chunks of his flesh exploded outwards into a fine paste. A bloody mist covering the area. Rudra turned to me with a victorious smile on his face.
"That was easy! You must be getting old, Alaster!" He declared, but I immediately broke Velgrynd's grip on me and ran to him quickly.
Rudra looked a bit surprised at my charge but wasn't concerned. "What's up? Do you want to fight me or some-"
"Get down!" I yelled, tackling him as a bloody claw swiped downward towards him and cleaved through my back. I gritted my teeth in pain but was happy that I successfully protected the cocky hero.
"Rudra!" Velgrynd called out in worry.
He looked up from underneath me to see the bloody mist swirling around in the air, getting closer and closer together before taking the shape of a snout, then a head, then a neck, then the whole body of the beast Ivarage.
"What absurd regeneration!" Rudra cried out in surprise as I helped him to his feet, my wound having already long healed.
"Yeah, unless we wipe out every single cell in his body, I don't think he's going to go down easy." I spat out, summoning Excaliber and Longinus now that they weren't under the heel of the monster.
Ivarage shook his entire body briefly before the scales on his body began to perk up and flex outward. A dark green gas then sprayed out from the underlining skin, filling the air around us with mist.
Rudra and I didn't need to be told that this was dangerous, so we immediately backed up and retreated to where Velgrynd was located. We all looked on in shock as the ashen ground that the mist covered began to take on a waxy appearance and the borders from earlier attacks that lined the battlefield began to melt away.
"Acid Mist Armor," I said with a pained expression. "That stuff is potent enough to melt you down to your bones if you're not careful," I warned.
"It sounds like you have experience?" Velgrynd asked, taken aback by the tactic.
"This isn't my first or second set of skin, so yes." I replied before looking around. "Hey where is-"
I didn't get to finish my statement as a gigantic magic circle appeared under the feet of the dragon at just that moment. A second circle appeared above it a moment later and golden white chairs appeared at the same time to restrain Ivarage. Small pillars of light shone through the circles, connecting them together.
I gazed off to my far left and noticed Lucia, arms outstretched with sweat running down her cheeks as she strained to keep up such a large magic circle. She then, in an almost exaggerated motion threw her arms out from one side to another.
"{Grand Disintegration}!!!" She chanted as the entire battlefield was engulfed in a holy light.
We all turned our heads away as to not hurt our eyes, but we all heard the loud roars of Ivarage as the attack commenced. We all peaked as much as possible to see the damage being done to Ivarage, slowly melting away at his body and it healing at a rapid rate, though the spell seemed slightly faster. For a few moments, we looked on in hope that this could be the end of it, but sadly, it seemed Lucia ran out of stamina first, as she collapsed onto the ground and the spell faded.
"Sis!" Rudra called out and ran to her while I kept my eye on Ivarage's slowly regenerating form.
It was kind of odd actually. He seemed to be regenerating slower than before, but I chalked it up to my eyes deceiving me. There was no way he was somehow weaker now than before right?
"Damn it. What a stubborn creature. Its hide must be tougher than Veldoras to survive both my Burning Embrace and Disintegration." She muttered as Rudra helped Lucia walk to us with her harm around his neck.
"What's the plan? I thought that our collective attacks would work out, but it seems that even our hardest-hitting abilities aren't going to work out here.
Without taking my eyes off of Ivarage as his head finally finished regenerating, I spoke with a bit of a somber voice. "I think so long as it has energy, it will continue to regenerate. If that's the case, we may be here for weeks, as I think its only about used about 15% of its energy."
"Mister Alaster is right. Its actually 14.88%" Lucia commented.
"Showoff." Rudra quipped while giving her a gentle nudge. He then turned towards me. "What's the plan then? This great me is more than enough to delay Ivarage, but I don't think I can keep this up for weeks. I'm still human you know?"
Ivarage was fully restored now and began to growl lowly at us. "Is it just us 4?" I asked.
"No, The others went to get sister. She took off after you but since we don't see her here, I'm guessing she lost you at some point." Velgrynd guessed.
Ivarage opened its jaws wide and a purple light began to emanate from deep within its throat. We all tensed before I noticed that nothing was moving anymore. I glanced at Velgrynd who seemed to be frozen, then to Rudra and Lucia who also seemed unable to move.
Time was stopped.
I looked to the sky and noticed a large beautiful white dragon floating above us. On her back was Evelyn, Lilith, Slyvia, and Sarion. The calvery, for all that it'll be worth, had arrived. Velzard flew down at us before transforming into her human form as she approached, leaving the others to hover in the air, as gravity and momentum were also stopped, so when she stopped touching them, they froze in place again.
Velzard, in her younger-looking form with blue eyes and less voluptuous body, fell forward, allowing me to catch her. I immediately pulled her into a hug and spun her around for a moment. As we came to a stop, our faces approached each other and we locked lips in a deep kiss. I would say that we were there for a log time, but time was stopped, so it was actually over in less than an instant.
"I'm sorry for getting hurt trying to protect you!" She said.
I blinked in surprise before smirking and pulling her in for a deeper hug. "It's alright. I forgive you. I was never mad about that. I just couldn't control myself when I saw you getting hurt."
"I know, but I don't want you to think I didn't trust you or that you needed my protection." She muttered.
I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "What are you talking about? I was happy to see you wanted to protect me, but I was angry you were hurt! I am the one who should be saying sorry for allowing you to be injured!" I confessed.
Velzard chuckled before she pressed her forehead against mine. " I love you, Alaster. Please don't ever leave me."
I gave my wife a brief kiss on the nose. "I'd rather die than give you up," I said before putting her down, though Velzard kept hanging herself around my neck.
Velzard smiled happily at my statement, as though a great burden was lifted off her shoulders. After a moment of looking into my eyes, she finally let go of me and stepped back. "So, I know I told you to stand back and wait and all, but what took you so long beautiful?" I said, trying to change the subject.
"Wh-?" She started but I interrupted her.
"Velgrynd said you took off after me in a rush," I explained.
Velzard went a bit red and gave Velgrynd a quick glare, though since she was stuck in time, it didn't seem to matter much. She then returned her attention back to me with a slight blush on her lips. "I- uh, may have gotten lost on the way...?" She said, sounding more like a question than an answer.
I raised my eyebrows at that but before I could say anything, a third voice interrupted. "She thought you were angry at her for getting injured and was sulking!" Ramiris commented from the side.
"Ramiris, when did you get here? Also how can you move in stopped time?" I asked, slightly embarrassed by the sudden cuteness Velzard was displaying by burying herself in my chest to hide her red face.
"Well, I'm the Queen of the Spirits, right? That includes the Spirit of Time so..." Ramiris stated.
"So you saw everything?" I asked, now just as embarrassed as Velzard, as we were having an intimate moment while someone was watching.
Ramiris' face contorted into a smirk. "Heh!"
.~.~.~.
Lore Bit: I know that in the WN Velgrynd isn't affected by time stop, but in Volume 19, when Michael stopped time during his fight with Chloe and then later Rimuru; when it cut back to Velgrynd vs Feldway, she was frozen, so she is frozen this time too.
Furthermore, since Guy never met or fought against Velzard, he doesn't know about time stop either, or at the very least, he can't do it yet. The next chapter will be the penultimate climax of the battle.