"You can use me as an example without insulting me?" Leal's voice echoed in the background.
So, in her opinion, my skill has its own restrictions, which is one of them.
I don't remember Cheru having failed imitating skills before, and I don't doubt him either. Cheru could copy a certain skill, whether activated, hidden, or inactivated. No skills could escape his eyes as he proclaimed.
[Answer: You don't need wings to fly. With newly evolved Anemo Magic, with Anemomancy and Anemo manipulation, flying is possible]
Oh! That explained everything!
I know that my Unique Skill is always watching, but I doubt there's even a certain restriction for Cherubim.
[Answer: I don't imitate a certain copy of an ability or skill when it does not benefit you]
Maybe this woman had faced someone like you, Cheru. What do you think?
[Answer: Maybe she has seen someone like me but too far to be me]
Oh? So there's someone like you, too?
[Answer: They weren't like me, but they were copied from me. Take as a cheap version of me]
Huh? Such a thing existed?
[Answer: Yes, and that skill is Jack]
Jack?
[Answer: Jack of all trade master of none]
Oh, those words sound familiar even in my world.
[Answer: It's a plain skill. What Jack can see will copy it, but there's a limit. If no skill is activated, Jack can't copy it]
Ah, so Raiden must have seen how this Jack of trade works, and that's why, without any hesitation, she revealed one of those restrictions from those cheap skills?
"How do you know all about it?"
"You are not the first imitator I have fought, and I am certain you are not the last."
Bingo!
[Assessing: This woman is rude. How dare she compare me with something so cheap?]
She wasn't aware of your existence, Cheru.
[NOTICE: Hidden skill imitated]
Huh? Was she hiding a skill?
[Answer: Absolute concealment has broken down a bit when you summon a Magic Eater entity]
And you saw the skill in her?
[Answer: Yes. Assessing…]
[Confirmed: Special Skill Imitated: Crista]
[Note: The ability to access endless knowledge]
What the?! No wonder she knew about imitation skills!
But does that mean that there are people with the same ability as I have somewhere in this world and are currently gathering skills to strengthen themselves?
[Answer: You are unique]
Okay! Okay!
If Raiden had this special skill, I realize since our battle began, for a person who knows about imitation skill, Jack of all trades, master of none works, to end the battle without showing more of her skills was the most logical thing to do, but why showing the skills to me then when she knew I could copy it?
Maybe since she knew about Jack, she's quite confident I'd copy and use it against her.
It was as if she was deliberately showing her skills to me so I could copy them while giving away all the information I could take advantage of to gain more power.
What is she trying to do?
Why is she doing all of this?
What is her purpose?
"Now that all I need to tell you has been said, let's start the real battle, shall we?"
I need to find out.
"Does that mean you won't hold back anymore?"
Half of her lips rose. "Believe me, I did my very best not accidentally to kill you up to this point."
A powerful gushing sound signaled the start of another round of our battle as she flew to the sky at high speed, where I couldn't easily reach her.
And what came next was the rain of ice spikes and rock boulders surging towards me. I countered it by activating my Dark magic: Devourer in the area of effect around me and letting it consume everything.
I saw her biting her lips.
Unlike summoning, Devourer was much easier and wouldn't cause pain inside my head. The result was rather surprising. I felt like I gained something like Mana, and my Mana increased.
[Answer: Devourer is the passive skill of Dark magic]
[Note: Devourer's passive converts what it devoured elements into ManaMana depending on the accumulated elemental particles]
Woah! This is awesome! Cheru, you're the best!
As I turned off my Dark magic: Devourer, I found her just drifting in the sky, watching over me.
I activated my newly evolved Pyro Magic: Hephaestus. I need something that would reach Raiden up. At this time, the perfect weapon for shooting upwards is a bow and arrow.
Archery.
I smiled, raised my left hand above me, and arched my upper body slightly. A fireball appeared in my hand and suddenly shaped into a bow, just like what was in my mind.
The flame was shaped into a recurve bow, which I used in a game while on Earth. I remember the bow was my favorite back then because it was powerful and maximized the bearer's damage.
I pulled the bow's flame string as I pointed the bow towards Raiden.
Suddenly, a flame bow appeared in between and fired it at her. I watched as the arrow multiplied by a hundred, and all of it was aiming toward Raiden at a speed that I wasn't expecting.
Raiden immediately created a wind swirl to misguide the arrows, but it was futile; flame arrows penetrated the wind's swirling wall and aimed at Raiden.
She obviously didn't expect the arrow to penetrate the wind's current; she immediately created ice blocks, hoping to stop the arrows.
It helped, but only for a few seconds. The blocks of ice slowed down the arrows by melting those thick blocks. Seeing the stubbornness of flame arrows, she added more blocks of ice.
Watching her struggling, I took the opportunity and fired another batch of flame arrows. It was difficult to use Hephaestus before due to how it consumed ManaMana. Thanks to Devourer, I could easily create several of them in one activation without draining my Mana at all.
The arrows flew towards her and simultaneously tried to activate my Anemo Magic: Boreas. Multiple visible anemo blades appeared before me, and I hurled them to her location.
Seeing the situation and the incoming attack, Raiden was forced to use her Dark Magic and swallowed it all, including my flame arrows and Anemo blades.
I thought she was overpowered, but did I feel like she couldn't stop my attacks?
Suddenly, a destructive roar of thunder surged towards me, but I blocked it by creating rock boulders and throwing them towards her. Raiden broke it with a punch, shattering the boulder into pieces.
Woah, talking about physical power.
But what came next was more than I expected. A forest instantly sprouted again, but not a simple, burning forest. As I looked up to the sky, the gigantic thundercloud was forming again, and the wind current it generated was much more powerful than before.
Now, it's apparent that she's just flexing on me!
A vine suddenly appeared beneath, and grabbed my foot, and the moment it touched me, I instantly felt the high electrical current it was generating.
The plants have freaking electricity on them!
I sliced off the vines rushing towards me using my anemo blades and prepared for what was coming next. It was a hail storm, but rather than snowballs, what was coming down were huge chunks of ice spikes and rocks.
I was about to activate Dark magic: Summoning to summon someone just like I did earlier, but I worry about completely ManaMana draining. I activated my Anemo magic: Kaikias.
I created a massive hurricane, a huge swirling of anemo, capable of sucking everything near it. My Hurricane sucked up Raiden's ice spikes and rocks. When I was sure everything was gone, I fired the Hurricane my flame arrow, creating a swirl of flame. When my Kaikias met flame Arrow, the swirling of the Hurricane absorbed the flame immediately, spreading it within the Hurricane.
The flame hurricane sucked the burning electrical forest around me, and to avoid further damage to the area, I activated: Notus. The concentrated anemo blocks I created imprisoned the flame hurricane while it destroyed Rainden's attack.
The thunder strike roared, coming from the gigantic thunderstorm above me.
And goodness, it's so massive and radiant that I literally saw my entire life flashed before my eyes. I immediately activated Dark Magic: Devourer as I started to feel tired. I focused it right above me while I was still holding Notus.
The thunderstruck me, but my Devourer met it halfway and devoured it all up, including the black clouds above.
That was so close!
I don't think I would survive that without activating my Devourer.
Even though her thunder magic was devoured, Raiden used all her elements again.
The hell with this woman? Does she have unlimited Mana or something?!
I immediately let Devourer devour my flame Hurricane and deactivate Notus.
I could hear the roar of thunder and the rumbling of lightning from above, and it remained for at least ten seconds.
Phew, that girl really wanted to go for a kill, wasn't she? What kind of person would survive this? Even with Warrior's rage, I don't think I would last even for five seconds with that devastating attack! I will say my most thank you to Cheru-san for evolving my skills.
But this has to end now. It's not like I'm afraid of Mana-draining; I had to thank Devourer for that, but the longer our fight would be, the more damage Raiden's place would be.