Chapter 276: Chaos in the Rustlands II(6)

Point-of-View: Fuo Wesroh

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"Ready to do this?" I inquired, as solar energy overflowed in my hands. 

"Yeah, let's do it," Replied Persia affirmatively, crouching on all fours while wind and streaks of black flames swirled around her. 

Before the previous attack when most of the top Adventurers had gathered to train together, Persia and I found that our fighting styles were pretty compatible with working with each other. So, after the last attack, we started training together from time to time...let's see if those efforts have paid off or not, shall we? 

Persia raced forward as I zipped up into the air rapidly, forming a sharp ice boomerang and flinging it across to the right of Lily, throwing it in an arc that made it suddenly curve in towards her. She shattered the boomerang with a swing of her weapon, right as Persia swiftly closed in in front of her, a slight look of alarm appearing in Lily's eyes. 

She quickly began to swing her weapon back towards Persia with a hint of desperation, when Persia suddenly shot straight up, then forward and then straight back down with three short and rapid bursts of Propulsion, moving from in front of the enemy to right behind her in an instant. 

She then fired out a powerful, expansive blast of wind from her mouth at Lily, who was too slow to react and let out a sharp gasp of pain at it struck her back and sent her flying forward at a blinding speed, right as I formed a sharp ice blade, using Alchemic Magic to maximize its density to the maximum. 

I then swooped down towards her right before she crashed onto a building and swung my blade horizontally at her midsection, striking into the left side of it and slicing and tearing through her armor and flesh in a jagged, rough slash, my ice blade cracking as it went through her. 

As I cut through her, her slashed body then flew past me, the momentum from Persia's wind blast only weakening slightly from my slash, before she crashed onto a building, blood splattering everywhere and pouring like a waterfall out of her torso. 

I would have preferred to decapitate her, but the way she'd been holding her weapon, probably unintentionally, had been blocking my access to her neck. 

So I tried to slash her in half horizontally along her stomach instead, but the ice blade was only about as half as long as I needed it to be, so I wasn't able to fully cut her in half. Still, with the amount of blood she's losing, she isn't surviving this unless she has a powerful healing spell on her. 

"Kill her so that we can get a move on, I'm worried about what might be happening elsewhere," Called out Persia with a look of concern as faint screams and the sounds of weapons clashing echoed out in the distance. 

"Yeah, I was just about to-," I began to reply as I formed another ice blade, when suddenly, the enemy sunk into a portal that opened up beneath her, disappearing through it, I flung my ice blade at her in desperation but I was too late, the blade striking and getting embedded in the ground instead, "Damn it, no!" 

"I'm really sorry, I know you worked hard for that win, but I'd rather not lose too many of my new toys," Came a familiar voice, in a mock apologetic tone. 

"Belia Lasmodeus," I growled, as she poked her head out of the portal.

"Yup, that's my name! Anyway, I'll make up for this, I swear, I feel really bad...ooh, I know...how about I find you a stronger opponent? Yeah, that's a great idea! Don't go anywhere, I'll be back soon!" She remarked with an enthusiastic grin. 

And just like that, she left... 

"Damn, that's infuriating," Muttered Persia with a grimace, "What do we do? I, for one, would prefer not to listen to her and just get going as we planned to. What do you think?"

"Yeah, I agree...screw her, let's get out of here."

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Point-of-View: Belia Lasmodeus

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Okay, let's see, where is he...ah, found him! Looks like he's just finished cutting down a group of A and B-Ranked Adventurers. I opened a portal near him and walked through it, appearing near him. 

"Wha-...oh, it's just you, Belia," He greeted me, after getting startled initially. 

Alright, I'm not going to lose to Shiro in manipulation and deception, here goes... 

"Hey, Shin...I'm...really sorry to tell you this, but...Ren is dead...and Lily was badly injured, though I was able to get to her in time and get her to safety, she should be fine," I remarked, putting on a downcast expression and a somber tone, while carefully watching his face to see his reaction. 

"Th-that's...I-I see, so Ren is-...damn it! And...what about the others?" He asked, a look of anger, disbelief and sorrow on his face. 

What a nice reaction... 

"The rest are all doing just fine for now," I replied assuringly. 

That wasn't entirely true...the twins were currently about to fight an opponent that they had no chance of victory against...but I'm not going to tell him that... 

"Who...who did it!? Who killed Ren!?" He exclaimed furiously, as his anger overshadowed the other emotions in him. 

Perfect... 

"I...I don't know. But I promise that I'll find out, if it's the last thing I do...that said, I do know who nearly killed Lily. I...could take you to them."

"...yes. Please do," He replied, a cold fury burning in his eyes. 

Ohhh, this should be fun... 

"Okay, then...I'll take you to them right away," I responded in a serious voice, before turning around with a slight smirk as I opened a portal...I think I handled that quite well...

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Point-of-View: Persia Gerit 

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"Goddammit, she's back," Groaned Fuo, as we halted as a portal opened in front of us. 

"No, it's not her...," I replied with a frown, as a man with longish blonde hair and dark blue eyes stepped out of it instead. 

He had an angry look on his face and a sword in his hand. My instincts were telling me that he's really strong...this might be tricky. 

"Hey, I think we should go all out right away, this one is trouble," Remarked Fuo with a wary look on her face, entering her Demonic Vampire Mode and absorbing solar energy, while forming an orb of artificial moonlight in her hand. 

She can tell too, huh? I then entered VamPanther Mode and activated Accelerate x4, before forming a drastically compressed Spiral Sphere, mixing flames into it before zipping forward towards him and leaping up as he swung his sword across at me horizontally at a rapid speed, the blade grazing the soles of my boots.

I drove my sphere towards the left side of his head, he swiftly leapt away to the right as it expanded rapidly, burning through the armor on the top of his left shoulder and scorching his shoulder, and my wind grazing the left side of his face and leaving a cut on the top of his ear as it expanded, he narrowly avoided getting his head shredded into a thousand pieces. 

I then fired out Propulsion from my hands to swiftly get some distance as well as strike him, my wind striking the side of his head and shoulder as I shot away. 

Fuo then fired out a rapid barrage of ice arrows straight at him before then firing one upwards at an angle, and then firing an arrow with a flat end at it, deflecting it down towards him as he continued to evade and deflect the arrows that were fired straight at him. 

He reacted at the last instant, the deflected arrow grazing the side of his neck as he twisted himself out of the way of it to narrowly avoid getting pierced through the neck. I was now a few meters directly behind him, with Mana charged up in my mouth...as he evaded the arrow, I fired it out in a massive wind-enhanced black fireball, right as Fuo blasted out a powerful beam of solar energy from the opposite end. 

Right before our attacks could converge on him, he bent his knees and leapt up...springing up about fifty meters straight up into the air. I spread my wings open and gave myself a kick-start with Propulsion and rapidly flew up towards him, as did Fuo, our two attacks hitting each other and causing a fiery explosion below us. 

As we zipped up towards and began to close in on him, he kicked straight out forward at the air, the force of his kick strong enough to create a powerful burst of air pressure, sending himself flying off in the opposite direction, away from us. 

Fuo responded by flinging a couple of ice boomerangs at him while I blasted out a concentrated blast of wind and flames. He swung his blade across horizontally as our attacks neared him, shattering Fuo's ice and dissipating my flames, the force of the slash sending out a shockwave that reached us, forcing us to halt and maintain our balance, as he landed back down. 

I blasted myself down towards him using Propulsion with wind swirling violently around my right arm and claws. As I closed in on him, he swung his blade vertically up at me, which I narrowly evaded, getting a glimpse of my reflection on the blade as it whizzed past my right side. 

He began to step away as I swung my claws at his throat, tearing through the armor on his right shoulder instead, my claws grazing the skin underneath. 

Fuo then rapidly swooped down as I shot past him over his shoulder, forming an ice blade and swinging it straight down at him as she swiftly closed in. He quickly defended with his sword, Fuo's ice blade cracking and breaking in half as she swung it down onto his blade. 

As the broken piece of her ice blade plummeted down, she grabbed it with her Levitate Cross and swung it straight up at his head, he quickly tilted his head backwards with a look of alarm, the ice shard grazing his left eyebrow. 

His eyes widened as I leapt up behind him with flames and wind swirling around my claws. His expression then turned into a grimace and he swiftly used his backwards momentum to transfer his weight into a backflip kick, kicking Fuo away and forcing me to spring back and narrowly avoid getting stomped on. 

I then ducked as he spun around and swung his blade horizontally across at me, the blade slicing through the air just above me, cutting through a couple of strands of my hair. Before I could react, his foot then swung out towards me, striking the middle of my chest and sending me flying back, as I crashed onto a building with a resounding impact, letting out a gasp of pain and coughing out blood as the wall behind me cracked. 

I think that just fractured a couple of my ribs...looks like he's getting serious now. Not good, I don't have much more time left with Accelerate, I won't be able to keep up with him once it runs out. As it is...I can barely keep up with him now... 

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