For the most part, Lieren's wounds have already closed. The gaping hole in his side have closed somewhat, but not to the point where he could move freely, let alone move at extreme speeds with mana. There was also the hole in his thigh, which has mostly recovered. It wasn't bleeding and already scabbed over. Moving it was a difficult chore, not to mention incredibly painful, and that was with Fortification sealing most of the damage and Enhancement improving his resilience and fortitude.
All in all, he was currently in deep, agonizing pain.
Taking a step forward, Lieren flexed his shoulder, then looked back to the masterful spear in Scorpio's hand. His gauntlet was slightly damaged, chipped in the side and looking a little worn down, most likely by the explosion and heavenly weight.
"..."
Reaching within, Lieren felt for his Resistance. It was still there, although divided and separated. It hadn't affected him much, since the wellspring of Resistance he had seemed to be infinite.
He could still fight. Clutching his pendants with his free hand, he looked at Scorpio and smiled.
*glint*
His eyes flashed blue.
"…?! This again!"
Scorpio tried dashed out of the way, moving through the mounds of rubble with alarming familiarity while still gripping the masterful spear with both hands.
But it was much too late.
Lieren had already locked onto his position.
Invisible Abjuration.
A myriad of invisible arrows let loose from his periphery, arcing through the fabric of space and disturbing it in the process.
His eyes were alight with the flame of an undying will. He refused to until he had made his peace.
And then, the reckoning came.
Realizing that he wouldn't be able to dodge the myriad of invisible arrows, Scorpio opted for another approach, reaching for his bracelet with a shaky hand. He, too, had been dealt a considerable amount of damage during the time when the two of them fell unconscious.
But before he could activate his proof of participation, his invisible arrows were already well on its way.
The next moment came as a rather huge surprise for the two of them.
"…?!"
As Scorpio reached for his gauntlet, dozens of arrows pierced his outstretched arm, sinking deep into it and exiting the other side. His invisible arrows continued to travel even deeper, reaching his shoulder and part of his collarbone.
Realizing that he didn't have the luxury to activate his proof of participation's enchantment, Scorpio then proceeded to drop his weight and center of gravity. The later barrage of invisible arrows grazed his exposed body and later completely missed, their target having switched positions.
Luckily, things did not end there.
"Invisible Abjuration: Maxima."
"…!"
This time, the angst teenager was more prepared, his mind steeled and his instincts sharpened. With a quick spin, he stabilized his footing and clutched his masterful spear with fervor… but that was it.
Scorpio's luck ended there.
His spell was simply too powerful. Compared to his usual self, Scorpio was far too injured an battered, his senses dulled like an overused sword.
Lieren's mind was dulled, too, but perhaps his constant run-in with stressful scenarios had brought him vast experience, his psyche didn't feel as tired as it should have been.
And that was the key difference between the two of them.
As the sharpened, enhance spell arced through space with an unnatural noise, the stifled curses of Scorpio was the last thing heard exit to his mouth.
He sighed heavily.
"Good riddance."
Blood splattered the ground, staining it like a macabre painting.
◇◆◇◆◇
Scowling, Harita looked up with a cursory glance, gazing at the unconscious carcass that was Leo. His eyes were alive yet empty, like an ember on the verge of being doused.
The man still breathed.
Glancing at Bian, he nodded meaningfully and the lustrous woman quickly summoned gale-force winds. It enveloped her arms and legs, traveling to her hands and palm.
Nodding back, she muttered a spell:
"Shifting Wind: Ascend."
Having prepared for this already, Harita immediately fortified his body and legs… and shot straight up with a powerful gust of gale-force wind.
Right where the eye of this storm was.
Down below, Bian glared at the soaring avian creature with sapphire and yellow feathers.
Following and predicting the creature's flight path was not an easy task, but with her knowledge of the wind and its whimsical nature, she found the ask suitably easy.
Bian brandished her silver rapier and muttered another incantation:
"Shifting Wind: Blessing of Wind."
And then, she shot forth like a cannon, carried by a sudden blast of gale-force winds. It was nothing compared to the tempestuous winds of the Legend of the Dead Sea, but against the avian creature? It was more than enough for a momentary surprise.
"…!!"
*screeeech!*
The avian creature screamed, sensing the sudden change in wind flow. Its eyes fell on Bian, and it quickly flapped its wings, summoning a torrent of wind behind it, creating an draft to boost its speed.
Just like how she predicted.
Summoning the power of Shifting Wind, she redirected the blast of wind from behind to beside her, changing her trajectory in half a second.
Brandishing Weeping Maiden, she thrust the point forward… right into the avian creature's eye.
She lampooned:
"Take that, you bastard."
◇◆◇◆◇
An ear-piercing shriek permeated Harita's poor ears. If it wasn't for his Reinforcement, he would have already been bawling and covering his bleeding eardrums.
Luckily, his companion had already taken care of the problem shortly after. Tightening his grip on Silent Reverie, he pierced the swirling eye of the storm and went past the highest clouds.
The sky held beauty unfathomable.
Looking further up, he saw the budding form the reincarnating Legend, in a chrysalis of tempestuous wind, all curled up and awaiting its eventual incarnation.
From what his limited knowledge told him, time was of the essence. The Legend was about to emerge from its cocoon.
He was a little relieved.
"It's a good thing he took a shortcut."
With the plethora of conditions Leo abided by just to summon one creature, one would normally think of it as a ritual with a success rate of higher then fifty percent, which was considered as a top tier summoning. But it would seem that his reach was far higher this time, soaring past his infamy as a warrior of the Purple Night and bastard son of the Exousia.
Because of that, Leo's summoning was left incomplete, with the rest of the incarnation left to the summoned creature: The Lord of Storms.
Even then, they had spent too much time already. The creature was already nearing complete reincarnation.
And Harita was heading straight into such a creature.
Gripping Silent Reverie ever tighter, he put on a resolved expression, looking more and more determined by the second.
"I can do this."
Fear and doubt was nowhere in his heart. Only hope and belief.
◇◆◇◆◇
As the masterful spear crumbled into rubble and dust, Lieren leaned over and picked up the gauntlet which had not been eviscerated by his Invisible Abjuration. It was silver and had a sleek design, slim and shining. As deep underground as they were, where no light shines through except for the few lighting artifacts here and there, its shimmering presence seemed to be completely unaffected.
There was a single beige gem inlaid where the plate covering the back of the hand was supposed to be, the main source of the glimmering light.
"..."
Slipping his thin fingers in, Lieren equipped the gauntlet and lingered for a few seconds.
Nothing happened.
…Well, what did he expect? Of course there wouldn't be. He hadn't injected any mana into it, after all.
Stretching his arms and legs, Lieren's ears suddenly perked up.
*taptaptaptaptap*
Hurried footsteps thundered across the hall.
He thought back to the crystal Scorpio had suffered.
"So, they're Scorpio's associates? Figures. They were going to arrive sooner or later. Judging by the fact that they're so late, something truly dire and distracting must have happened upstairs. It's probably also the same cause, or something closely related to it, ae the crushing force."
Turning on his heel, Lieren looked at the battered body of Mysta, the uptight attendant that just hated him so much.
"…Well, I guess you better we better get out of here, huh."
Picking Mysta up and carrying her out of here was not an easy task whatsoever, and so he opted to wait for the woman to wake up instead of carrying her all the way outside.
Also, he was still very much injured.
As the cacophonous footsteps grew ever closer, Lieren hid Mysta in a nearby mound and waited in the shadows for a quick ambush.
Between carrying the uptight attendant and battling a dozen mages, he preferred the latter.
"Hopefully, she wakes up sooner than I thought."
With that thought in his head, Lieren crouched and readied his brilliant blade.
◇◆◇◆◇
Above the high clouds, Harita fortified his body with mana and held Silent Reverie tight.
One, two, three…
*Bam!*
Brandishing his watersteel dagger, Harita stabbed it deep into the gigantic chrysalis, enhancing the sharpness of his blade and the resilience of his entire body. This high up, breathing is a task of great difficulty. He heaved for breath, but not too laboriously.
Even up so high, where the realm of clouds were just below him, Harita's tenacity refused to allow him to die.
Gripping his dagger with a twisted expression, he allowed the gale-force winds to carry him even higher, using his impaled dagger to stick close to the incarnating Legend.
*WOOOOOOOO!*
A bestial howl pierced the atmosphere like an arrow, almost ripping his eardrum like a piece or paper.
With no extra hand to cover his ears, and no mana in his reserves to spare any more, Harita was left with an immolating pain and lingering sensation in his head. It made him feel nauseous and confused, but just barely not enough to put him over the edge.
Death's Edge, that is.
He crested the surface of the Legend, his ascent gradually slowing down to a noticeable degree as the impenetrable hide and forest of sapphire and yellow feathers sped past him. The flesh below was as hard as rock, each second feeling like a torturous monotony of cutting through a mountain. The Legend's hide flesh was extremely hard and unrelenting despite the incomplete reincarnation.
Which, by the way, was but a few minutes away from total completion. Should the Legend fully incarnate and awaken, not even this godforsaken city would survive. A fleeting thought passed his battered mind:
'What the hell are the other contestants doing?'
As that fleeting drowned in the sea of chaos of the unraveling scenario, Harita eventually and finally reached the zenith of the chrysalis, having fully crested what he has now realized as the Legend's spine.
'What a… sight?'
Though shallow and unremarkable, his blade managed to draw an even and relatively straight and uninterrupted line on the creatures back, drawing blue blood. Even if he had imbued and covered his blade with Augmentation way past his limits, such a feat was of no small circumstance.
"Hah~"
With a deep exhale, Harita planted his feet on the base of the Legend's neck, which was curled up like a fetus's. Raising his blade high, he poured mana into it and absorbed the nearby streams of blue-colored mana as he but his lip and felt his own mana reserves tank sharply down.
"..."
Harita realized a deep thought at this very moment, pausing for a second:
He did not have enough power to cleave through the Legend's impenetrable body. Even despite exhausting his body and mind, he barely made a dent in the Lord of Storm's flesh.
"I'm gonna hate myself for this."
And then, he bit his own lip. Not as an accident. Rather, it was to test his resolve.
…Maybe, just maybe, it may have just been to push away all the incoming invasive thoughts.
Harita took a deep breath. Silent Reverie's water blade continued to form and sharpen, having already gone past his initial strike against Leo's destructive might.
Separating his focus and keeping it at the same time, he delve deep into himself. Normally, this process took minutes to hours, even days or weeks. However, with his master's Resistance keeping his soul trapped within, while resisting other worldly distractions, the entire process took no longer than thirty seconds.
And that in itself brought him more dread and fear than anything else in the world.
Because he didn't need such a long windup time to focus, it was to steel his resolve and gather enough courage to do so. Being able to do it so quickly unnerved him as if he was in the face of a true god or daemon.
And yet, his mind was as clear as the Tranquil Sea. Pure and beautiful, deceptive and deadly.
Looking down with a resolute expression, Harita looked at his soul — rather, the pieces of it that he had separated all those years ago, when he was still hailed as the Guardian of the Archipelago. While he was still in the servitude of her previous master, and the calamitous end her wrought all across the isles he had sworn to protect.
Opening his eyes, bright flames ignited behind his green irises. It was so bright that it looked like it was burning, scorching, immolating and disintegrating the very essence of his life.
Which wasn't that far-off from the truth.
..No, actually, it was spot on.
He was, after all burning his own soul.
As the water blade conjured by his watersteel dagger shifted and transmuted into a completely different material, of an incandescent green flame that exuded the very essence that made his being, Harita brought down his fire blade with the unbreakable will of his soul fire.
It was his final gambit and greatest weapon, acquired through extinguishing one of the nine pieces of his soul he had shattered long ago; five of which was long rid of this world.
This was Nine Lives Reborn, Sixth Shift: Courage of the Unrelenting Knight.
A scream of will, power, and bravery tore from his throat and pierced the very heavens.