Ivarage's breath attack raced forward. It cut a semi-circular hole in the small elevated hill were it had last seen its enemies as the attack continued on and into the distance. Far away, the beam struck the side of a mountain and exploded with amazing force, causing the earth to splash like a wave as chunks of superheated rock were thrown high into the atmosphere.
Smoke and ash were pulled into the space after the initial shockwave had past, forming a large mushroom cloud. Small crackles of red lightning flickered in the dust cloud as Ivarage roared in satisfaction, but didn't lower its guard at all. This wouldn't be the first time it landed a nearly direct hit on the group which opposed it.
Unfortunately, despite battling for days straight with the white-haired one with the spear and sword, and fighting for several more ours against its allies, none were able to defeat the other. If it injured one member, the red-eyed female would heal them. If it attempted to blast away its whole group, it'd end up being struck by the white dragon instantly. It didn't even see the white dragon move most of the time, it was as if it had been struck instantly with no way to defend against it.
The one it hated the most, however, was the Blond one. Its attacks which severed space were painful and it was unable to regenerate from them as quickly at first, but now it could do s at ease. Still, that didn't take away from the pain it constantly felt.. It also completely ignored all of his defenses. One of the attacks he loathed the most was-
"[Absolute Severance]!" A shout called from above.
Ivarage looked up just in time to have a large and gaping wound cut across its face, blinding the creature by cutting out its eyes, though with [Magic Perception] it could still perceive the world, it's own aura blurred the image significantly.
""[Thermal Break]"" Velgrynd and Velzard called out, releasing the combined might of both [Gabriel] and [Raguel].
A burst of white light and a wave of heat immediately fell from the heavens and began to melt away at the dragon's body. Ivarage roared in fury and began coating its body in a defensive red lightning cloak before expelling the barrier off of his body in the form of a shockwave centered on himself. The goal with this omnidirectional attack was to stop the [Thermal Break], as its power would easily destroy him if he endured it for too long, though when fighting against two ultimate skills, he found himself unable to be victorious.
The shockwave struggled against the beam of extremely bright light which continued to burn at his flesh. Ivarage, not to be left out, however, began to gallop on land and outside of the [Thermal Break]'s area of effect.
As it ran, it spread out its now regenerated wings and opened them up widely as if to take to the sky. It gave several powerful flaps, but as if to torment the creature for its foolish effort to escape, two beings emerged from the dust cloud surrounding the battlefield.
It was Rudra and I. We each swung our swords with all of our might, wrapping the power of Ultimate Skills around our blades and intertwining it with our Auras. In one powerful and coordinated swing, Rudra and I lopped off both of Ivarage's wings just as he was taking off, forcing him to unexpectedly come crashing to the ground with a large *THUD!!!*
"I've finished the Calculations!" Lucia yelled out.
"And I've already forseen all of his possible escape angles, go for it hun!" Sarion called out.
Sylvia stood in the center of the group, gathering all of her magical powers together in a plan to unleash her most powerful attack. The sky turned dark as thunderclouds began to gather in the sky, forming a massive hurricane-type storm system that blanketed much of the continent.
Ivarage, to busy recovering from his stumble to notice, turned his attention to Rudra and I as we turned around to face him once again. He opened his mouth to release another breath attack but I quickly threw my arm forward and used [Law Manipulation] to affect the space in front of the creature. Out of it jumped Lilith, who gave the creature a powerful uppercut to its jaw and fully lifted it off the ground and into the air before it came crashing back down a second later on its back.
Rudra saw this and smiled fearlessly. He twirled his sword a few times before stabbing it into the ground. The earth split apart as an underground energy wave raced beneath it and towards the creature before reaching Ivarage and bursting forth from the ground. "[Unlimited Imprisonment]!" Rudra called out victoriously.
Velzard, in her white ice dragon form, appeared above the glowing prison and watched as Ivarage smashed his weight against it continuously in a vain attempt to break it through sheer force of will. Velzard smirked before activating [Gabriel] to decrease Ivarage's kenetic momentum and begin freezing him solid while also activating [Envy] to reduce Ivarage's powers even further.
After a moment of this, Ivarage was now frozen solid in a block of ice so hard it rivaled magisteel. She then gave the signal. "Now, do it!" She called out.
Rudra retracted his sword, releasing the [Unlimited Imprisonment], and allowing the outside world to affect the new ice sculpture.
"Evelyn, do it!" I called out as she nodded.
Evelyn activated two abilities. The first was the [Inspire Forces] ability of her [Unyielding] Unique Skill on Sylvia, granting her a temporary 30% power buff. The wind speeds in the surroundings began to pick up faster and faster.
Ramirs began to channel more and more wind spirit power into the storm, giving it an even more powerful edge. The clouds began to glow red hot as the friction of the water molecules rushing around the epicenter was getting faster and faster. Louder and Louder Thunder echoed from inside them, and just when it seemed the dam was about to burst, Slyvia unleashed the floodgates.
Lightning gathered and just before it dropped, dozens of layers of magic circles appeared between it and Ivarage. The ice around Ivarage began to crack and melt, and Ivarage's face began breaking free of its iced prison just long enough for the beast to look up and feel something other than anger and noyance for the first time in its life. It felt true fear and terror.
"[Heaven's Wrath]!" Slyvia called out, converting all of her personal magic energy into a single attack with [Indra] as a catalyst.
This was a combined attack on all of us. I used [Metatron] to draw out the maximum purest form of energy from the attack, increasing its potency ten-fold. Velgrynd used [Raguel] to increase the speed of the strike and its overall firepower while giving it the secondary effect of burning away all matter it touched. Rudra used [Uriel] to control the vast quantities of energy with the use of his spatial attribute and give it a focus, directing it towards Ivarage rather than just exploding outwards like it otherwise would have. Velzard continued using [Envy] to draw out Ivarage's excess energy, reducing his defensive measures. Sarion used his Unique Skill [Deceiver] to look briefly into the future and see if there was any way that Ivarage survived or was able to escape and sent the information to the true heroine of this battle, Lucia, who used [Great Sage] to perfectly calculate everything to ensure nothing would go wrong, as with the amount of power we were about to throw at this guy, we wanted to make damn sure it go to him before it exploded mid-air.
We had all grouped up together as the attack was set off. Velzard's [Gabriel] was the strongest of the defense-type systems, and she put up her strongest barrier to protect us from the fallout of the strike. Lilith even added the effects of her Unique Skill [Denier] to it, adding even further power to the defense. Rudra even trapped us all inside of an [Unlimited Imprisonment] just for good measure.
All of this is in order to defend ourselves against one blast. And boy was it a blast.
As the Lightning struck the multiple magic circles to amplify it, all of us were blinded, as even [Universal Perception] was unable to comprehend the amount of energy that was being emitted in this one moment. No attack since the dawn of creation had even a tenth the power of what we unleashed on Ivarage today.
There was a flash and then darkness.
...
My entire body felt heavy. I couldn't feel my limbs very well as I opened my eyes. I looked around to see a vast open plane of stone and dust. A small and flickering shine came from a semicircular barrier that surrounded us which I recognized as Rudra's [Unlimited Imprisonment].
I tried sitting up only to find myself unable to. Clinging to my body were Evelyn, Velzard, and Lilith. Lilith held my hand while both Velzard and Evelyn were clinging to my chest. I strained my back trying to move just a bit to get more comfortable and be able to assess the situation more accurately, but I was stopped by a familiar voice.
"Don't bother getting up. You lot need the rest." Veldanava stated from my right.
I turned my head to see the weary-looking True Dragon in human form sitting on the ground only a meter or so away from me. In his lap was the sleeping face of Lucia, who he was tending to with magic.
"What happened to-"
"It's dead. Trust me on that. You definitely killed it. Destroyed it down to the last information particle in its soul." Veldanava said with a bit of annoyance in his voice.
I was slightly taken aback by this and opened my mouth to ask what was wrong but stopped. Looking around and seeing the lunar-like landscape, t was easy to see what he was upset about."How bad was it?" I asked, realizing the only reason he would have come here would be due to the immense collateral damage our last attack caused.
"Bad. There is so much dust and ash in the atmosphere that I imagine the tempurature of the planet will drop by a few degrees for a couple of years. The earthquake alone was global and if not for Dagruel, the crack you guys made in the planet may have broken the tectonic plate in half." Veldanava gave a tired sigh. "Did you really have to use such a powerful and flashy move?"
I smirked a bit. "Sorry. Not all of us are Spiritual Lifeforms who have infinite physical and mental stamina, so we planned to end the fight as soon as possible with one big attack combining all of our skills together. Didn't think we would nearly destroyed the whole planet though."
Veldanava rolled his eyes. "The Cardinal world is much more durable than most planets. After all, it's where I primarily live, so of course, I'd take care to make it extra durable, though if this was a normal planet it would definitely be space dust right now." He explained.
I was silent for a long time before I opened my mouth again. "We died, didn't we? And you brought us back."
Veldanava remained silent, so I got my answer. "Thanks," I said.
"Don't mention it. Besides, you're not out of the woods yet. Feldway was pissed you nearly destroyed the planet I created and said he would be coming for you." Veldanava chuckled to lighten the mood and change subjects.
"Oh no! Not Feldway! Anything but that!" I exclaimed, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
Veldanava smirked and we remained silent.
"You need to learn Primitive Magic from me." He said out of the blue.
I raised my eyebrow in response. "If you had it, then you'd have been able to win easily. Plus I need to restructure your Skills. [Satanael]'s hatred is pushing back against the purity of [Metatron] and if we don't address this then it will continue to build pressure up in your soul."
"What will happen if I don't get that fixed?" I asked, curious.
"Nothing really, it'll just put more and more pressure on your soul until you can't use any skills at all. There's a reason why it's so hard for people to acquire more than two Ultimate Skills. Hell, I created [Raphael] to organize them and even I could only carry 7 total. I've actually gotten stronger now that I've given up all but [Michael].
I see-" I started but Velzard began to stir alongside Velgrynd, who was hugging Rudra's unconscious body.
"Alaster...?" Velzard sleepily called out to me, and I used my one free hand to pet her head as she returned to the land of the conscious.
"Hey there beautiful. How'd you sleep?" I asked.
"Awful. I had this dream we were fighting a gigantic cockroach who kept laughing at us with Veldora's voice." She exclaimed as she lazily snuggled up to me even further.
Veldanava and I looked at each other and chuckled. Only my wife would dream of something so weird.
.~.~.~.
Lore Bit: The whole 'putting pressure on the user's soul' is true. Rimuru probably wouldn't have even been able to move if Ciel didn't restructure all of his skills, which even took her days to complete. Rimuru had six Ultimates at one point, [Uriel], [Beelzebuth], [Veldora], and [Raphael], which where his originals, while also having [Velgrynd] and [Raguel] because he ate her and analyzed her power. You could even add inf [Faust] to that since he ate Veldora and would've analyzed the skill too.
Considering [Raphael] was used as a Skill Manager and even it was having trouble, it's obvious that having two skills of opposite natures would make it difficult on someone without that skill, plus it gives him an excuse to get rid of [Metatron] and escape Michael's domination later on.