7/10 15:14 (Summer, Sunset)
The two didn't hesitate.
A swing of a Mana Sword enhanced with Stats Enhancement from her right hand was blocked by its left paw, the barrier around it flickering slightly as the damage was negated, and she found herself having to dodge its retaliatory swipe from its right paw by jumping back, 3 Mana Arrows being launched from the air above where she was.
It jumped forward, dodging two of them and following her, the third being able to destroy its barrier, as magma started to accumulate within its maw.
A stomp from its right paw was dodged left only to find herself before its maw, the vaguely spherical mass of lava being released almost at point blank range at her.
A two meters tall and one and a half meters large rectangular shield was Shaped before her out of her own Mana, blocking the blast, before she rolled underneath its following bite to then cut its leftmost back paw with a Mana Knife, before leaving from beneath it, a Mana Greatsword falling on its back, causing, however, only a cut on its side as it dodged most of it.
She nodded to herself.
This was too inefficient.
She spent a lot of her own Mana and its Vital Energy was proceding to slowly heal the damage.
The reason was simple.
Her own Skill Rank in both Mana Shaping and Singularity is too low for herself to combat it like her past self would.
She nodded to herself before starting to move her own Mana within her body as she moved towards it, his barrier already fully restored in the breaf seconds in the lull of their fight.
She jumped over its swipe from its left hand, jumping from it over its biting head before, once over it, she punched down, her right fist clad in her Unique Arma and Vital Energy, Mana releasing in tandem with the blow.
"Heavy Strike."
This blow was enough to shatter its barrier before the following attack was dodged at the last moment, its tail striking in her side sending her crashing throught a tree before she quickly converted some blood she stored during this last 10 days in Vital Energy to instantly heal most of her damage, leaving the rest to heal of its own.
During this, however, he had enough time for it to charge another lava blast where she just was, dodged by her creating a Mana Spear to launch herself away to then hook herself with its point to a branch, to land on another one, her eyes examinating her opponent that was charging another one of its lava breath.
"Fast Shot."
A Mana Bow in her left arm, she launched a Mana Arrow clad in her red energy and enhanced with Mana Burst.
Differently from their first exchange, the arrow burst the lava ball less than a meter away from it, damaging it slightly before its barrier went up again.
However the newly-reborn Drake didn't hesitate.
It charged her tree, its eyes covered by a trasparent coating of scales, as it sent it and the nearby ones flying.
She, however, was not on it anymore as she jumped above it before falling down on it, her leg clad in red energy.
"Heavy Strike."
Its barrier was damaged, but she moved away, dodging a strike from its tail.
She needed to save as much of her own Mana as possible while continuing to destroy its barrier and inflicting damage.
Without a doubt, this will be fun.
A smile on her face, she launched herself at it again, punching on its side of the head before crossing her arms to block a retaliatory strike from its left paw being sent flying away again, its barrier destroyed for the third time in this battle.
As the two obserbed each other the barrier around it was rebuilt.
"I see." She thought aloud. "Your barrier is passive and completely automatic, isn't it. You don't need to think about it nor spend either Mana or Vital Energy… I understand now why you were able to reach this level of power so fast. I'm impressed."
Her smile, enlarging until her fangs shone in the light of the ending sunset, remaned even when the D-Rank Ghoul that accompanied her neared slightly, preparing to intervene at any moment.
Two Mana Arrows formed above her right and left shoulder being sent towards her enemy, a third in her left hand already being nocked in her Mana Bow and following the others.
When it was about to dodge her arrows, the first two exploded prematurely, distracting it from the third that shattered its barrier by bursting too and opening it to the fourth arrow, clad in red that burst against it damaging and further opening it to a swing of a Mana greatsword clad in red energy too.
This was the first real damage he received since its evolution and so he roared its rage and hatred, the temperature around it increasing greatly as its Mana went berserk turning the ground around it into lava and solid rocks.
The Lunarian found herself having to dodge from rock to rock, the trees in the clearing burning and falling in the lava, and the rocks in the surface periodically being submerged to break her footing as it charged a giant mass of lava in its mouth.
She didn't hesitate and charged a Mana Arrow straight in said mass, making it explode in its face covering the rock around it and stunning it even more giving her enough time.
"Heavy Piercing Shot."
This technique was not Activated using a simple Mana Bow and Arrow, but a Mana Bow whose branches were each almost 1 meter and a half and an arrow that was instead a slightly modified Mana Spear using a combination of Heavy Thrust and Piercing Shot to deal as much damage as efficiently as possible before the area would become actively harmful to her.
The arrow, if so it could be defined, traveled towards its still stunned target before stabbing it in the left shoulder instead of its head as it was able to dodge at the last second, turning a lethal blow in merely a crippling one, as its arm fell off because of the detonation of said arrow.
Before she could celebrate her first use of a combined technique, she found herself having to jump towards another rock as her previous one was quickly drowned beneath a wave of lava as this blow, instead of enraging it further, allowed the Earth Drake to calm down its destructive instinct and guide them more effectively.
It was not growling or snarling anymore nor considered her with the same natural pride as before.
She was not a challenging prey nor a somewhat strong meal as it reguarded her initially.
Neither was she an inferior being that dared to challenge and hurt it as it thought before.
She was now an hated enemy to destroy.
But she was strong and so it would need to go all out without any thought running throught its head, but her death.
Luna smiled as she correctly guessed her opponent's thought as the night began to cover the sky over them, the Moon starting to rise and the ground illuminated by the molten rock flowing on the surface.
The Ghoul, remembered by neither of the two adversary, merely made distance with the lava while preparing various Spell to end the fight if necessary.
The battle restarted, a wave of lava being dodged by jumping on another rock only for that rock, while she was still in midair, to fall in the lava beneath them making it so she would have suffered the same fate.
Without any hesitation she formed briefly a small circular platform of Mana before using as a stepping stone to jump over the platform and towards a still on the surface one, a Mana arrow flying not towards the Drake, but its platform, trying to make it fall in the lava to damage it.
It noted this fact and, for the first time since it changed the area around them, jumped at her to fight her physically, its pride destroyed in favor of a more pragmatic and combat effective mentality.
The fight between the two would finally proceed to the second phase, with the Moon and the Ghoul controlled by Edgar as the only observers.
The bite was dodged and so was the swing of its remaining frontal paw while her own swing was dodged too.
Its following release of lava was not a sphere like the ones at the start of the battle neither was it an almost solid beam of magma like the one he was charging before, but was instead a simple, but a fast release of lava that forced her to vacate the now melting platform.
Before it could follow up on the assault, it found itself having to dodge a Mana arrow.
The Earth Drake roared, a scream that resonated with the flow of lava that instantly solified a larger platform of lava around it while all other rocks fall beneath the surface, Luna finding herself having to remain standing on a small platform of Mana, high above it.
The two opponents studied each other, the battlefield a 50 meters large wasteland of lava that was causing a fire around it, with a ten meters large solid rock platform, the air full of smoke and volcanic ash and the two opponent studing each other, one above said platform and the other on a small one made entirely out of Mana, the distance between the two of around 35 meters counting the difference between their relative heights.
One consistant of an enormous Earth Drake whose right front leg was starting to regenerate and the other a Lunarian looking down on her favorite opponent yet.
All the while the Moon watched on from high above, from the now night sky.