Chapter Text
The light that had enveloped the entirety of Nasca slowly faded away.
Rudra was unscathed, thanks to the power of [Castle Guard]; the same could not be said for the single digits.
All of them were without exception dead. The same thing happened to the citizens of the city, who were caught unaware by the explosion.
To say the capital was devasted would be an understatement. The blast was no less weaker than Milim's Drago Nova. At a glance, Rudra estimated 3 quarters of the city to have completely been evaporated into nothingness. Just this attack alone had killed atleast millions of people.
The Emperor's gaze flicked to his "partner." The scorch dragon wasn't protected by [Castle Guard], and any barrier she herself had erected wouldn't be strong enough to survive an attack that was on par with the Milim Nava's drago Nova. And yet-
"Rudra, are you okay?" Velgrynd's voice appeared in Rudra's head, a usage of the very useful [Thought Communication] skill.
"Yes. [Castle Guard] protected me," in another scenario, the emperor might have been worried about the scorch dragon who had to be gravely injured after such an attack. However, Rudra send no words of concern, because he knew she was perfectly fine.
"Thanks for the help, Feldway," he said in his mind. "Hm," came the short response.
Indeed, standing right next to the Scorch Dragon was the first angel of origin. Clad in his usual military uniform, Feldway had negated most of the damage from the explosion, preventing Velgrynd from taking on an attack that would've otherwise injured her seriously.
Meanwhile, the woman behind the attack didn't follow up with anything else. She stood silently in one spot, her gaze fixed on Feldway.
The origin angel narrowed his eyes. Tension hung in the air, like a string being stretched to its limits.
Then, the "string" snapped.
The woman raised her palm again, no doubt preparing the same attack as before, but Feldway had no intention of letting her do it. He dashed foward, his own palm stretched towards the woman.
The angel crossed the distance in a heartbeat. His outstretched palm made contact with the woman's mask, creating a shockwave and sending the woman flying into the air.
Feldway pushed magicules to his body, before leaping into the air with mana powered legs. He stretched out his palm again.
The origin angel's fist was only a few milimetres away from impact when the woman suddenly dodged, her body jerking to the right in mid-air.
Feldway though had no intention of letting his build-up momentum go to waste. He raised his other fist upwards and brought it down in arc. The origin angel watched with satisfaction as his fist connected with the woman's mask, creating a visible crack in it before flinging her away.
Rudra saw an opportunity and immediately activated [Castle Guard] before running towards Velgrynd, who was watching the battle with intense concentration. "We have to leave," he said, and without even waiting for a response teleported them both away from the battlefield.
The woman meanwhile was send towards the ground instead of being send higher into the skies due to the angle of Feldway's fist. Her body made contact with the ground, creating an enormouse cloud of dust.
The houses and people that previously lived on the surface had already been killed in her initial attack, which meant that Feldway could let loose atleast a bit of his power, though truth be told the origin angel wouldn't have cared even if there were innocent civilians on the ground.
Applying [Inertia Manipulation] to his body, Feldway shot off towards the woman's immobile body on the ground. He saw the cloud of dust part as something came out it. Feldway stopped immediately and applied a barrier over his body.
A shadowy tendril, so dark that it seemed to consume light itself, shot towards him. The angel's calm facade momentarily broke as he saw the tendril easily break apart his barriers as if they weren't even there. Thinking quickly, he activated [Castle Guard.] The tendril stopped in mid-air as it encountered the impenetrable barrier.
The cloud of dust finally cleared, allowing Feldway to get a look at his opponent. Over a hundred shadowy tendrils hung over the woman's body. Some were still, others were slowly slithering in air like a snake eyeing its prey.
The tendril that had attacked him immediately went back to the woman's side. The angel's eyes widened slightly in surprise. Does she know about [Castle Guard]?
Before he could ponder it further, the woman raised her fist again, the palm facing the skies. Feldway calmly let the woman do what she wanted, knowing that Rudra and Velgrynd had already escaped, and that he was virtually untouchable inside [Castle Guard.]
Unknowingly, Feldway had just commited a grave mistake.
The woman closed her fist without muttering any words like she had done the last time. It was then that Feldway realised the error in his actions.
The shadowy tendrils shot out towards him. They closed the gap between the combatants quickly, before abruptly hitting a dead end as they failed to penetrate [Castle Guard.]
That was it; their goal was never to break through the barrier.
The tendrils covered every part of his body. Eventually, his vision disappeared as not even a single gap was left behind by the dark appaendages.
A strange sensation appeared in Feldway's chest; he couldn't decide if it felt like being left behind or being pushed away.
Soon, it became apparent that it was the latter, as a hole was punctured into the very fabric of reality. She's trying to isolate me into a pocket dimension, the angel concluded his analysis.
Before he could make any counter-attacks, a message popped up in his brain, "I'm coming back." He recognised it to be from Michael.
***
Holy circles appeared in mid air one after another, divine runes flashing through their surface. They stacked upon each other, creating a pillar of awe inspiring magic circles; a pillar to the heavens.
Magicules in the surroundings flocked towards the magic circles, so did Michael's own energy. His gaze flicked to Feldway, who was being surrounded by shadowy tendrils.
The woman they were fighting paid no heed to him preparing the ultimate holy spell: Disintegration. He sneered, This shall be the last bit of foolishness you show.
The spell was ready. He send another message to Feldway, "Get ready to attack her as soon as the tendrils withdraw." Then, without waiting for a reply, he activated the spell.
A beam of light came crashing down, gaining more power as it travelled through each circle. A translucent barrier surrounded the woman, preventing her from escaping, though it didn't cut off the shadow tendrils.
Just before the beam of light hit her, the shadow tendrils surrounding Feldway vanished. New tendrils appeared around her body; they covered her like a turtle's shell. Michael's lips twitched upwards, forming a slight smile. The woman had played right into his trap.
The beam of light hit the outermost layer of shadow tendrils. They disappeared after a moment of stalling the beam. Subsequent layers were destroyed steadily in this manner as well. Unfortunately, new tendrils kept popping up, stalling the beam even more.
Michael would admit that it was half disappointing to see the disintegration spell fade away before it reached the woman. The tendrils had done their work, slowing down the spell until all the magicules had been used up. However, this was expected. What came next was the real attack.
Feldway hadn't been standing around doing nothing while Michael's disintegration magic did it's work. A mythical grade sword rested in his right hand. His eyes were closed in concentration. What little magicules left that weren't sucked in by Michael's spell made their way over to Feldway.
The origin angel opened his eyes and dashed forward at the woman, and at the perfect timing too as the barrier keeping her in place had faded away.
Within less than a nanosecond the origin angel had closed the gap between his opponent, now being only a few metres away. Feldway raised his sword, bringing it above his head.
"Consecutive Melt Slash!"
He brought down his sword in a vertical slash; a horizontal slash followed soon after, then a diagonal slash. Rinse and repeat.
Within less than a quarter of a second the origin angel had swung his sword a hundred times. He gave his opponent no time to rest and swung relentlessly.
He took rest only once the mana he had collected for the attack had been used up. Feldway leaped away into the air and away from his opponent. He finally took a glance at his opponent and-
"...What!?" Was the only thing that left his mouth.
The woman had been injured for sure, but the damage was limited only to a single missing limb and torn pieces of cloth. The damage she sustained regenerated soon after as both Michael and Feldway regarded her with a more cautious gaze.
We need a new plan, was the simultaneous thought in both their minds. However, their target clearly had no intention of allowing them rest. She leaped into the air immediately after her injuries vanished, courtesy of some kind of regenerations skill.
She zoomed towards an airborne Feldway at a rapid speed... But-
Her movements are sluggish, and slower than before, the origin angel observed. She's using a sword as well. Is she finally taking this battle seriously?
Feldway prepared to intercept her slash. Michael watched from a safe distance.
"Enough, Feldway," Michael said to his partner. "I'm going to use Suspended World, and then we will deal with h-"
Michael's statement was cut off as another shockwave hit all of them. The woman lost all of her build-up momentum. Feldway was thrown a few hundred metres away, though the shockwave conveniently gave him time to charge up his own attack.
All of them - even the woman - flicked their gaze towards the source of the shockwave.
Hovering hundreds of kilometres above the surface, a gigantic blue dragon looked down with amused eyes.
"Rudra," the scorch dragon spoke with a tone of shock, "that dragon has a true dragon factor as well."
The battle had just got much more complicated.
***
Author's Notes: Pretty low effort chapter. I really messed up the power levels of Velgrynd, Michael and Feldway. Idk how to write combat.