Chapter 235 – So, it begins… almost.

Chapter 235 – So, it begins... almost.

John looked at the blue ball above the dwarf fortress. It was about the size of a grown man and slowly gained mass. It shone with the intensity of a small, blue sun. The Arcana Strike had been hovering there for about four minutes.

Compared to the fortress, the size of a hill and the shape of a mountain, with walls carved from it and reinforced with lots and lots of metal, it wasn’t exactly big though.

“This is so d-u-l-l - dull!” Rave complained. “Why are we doing this again?”

“We are testing this Skill’s power,” Lydia, who had an eye on the clock, reminded Rave. “We agreed upon a five-minute charging period at John’s maximum mana. Which is about... now.”

John unleashed the attack with the ease of a thought. A straight line descended from the orb in the sky to the fortress below. Then, with supersonic speed, the giant mass of arcane power hit the ground. There was a deep noise, distorted as if put through electronic tools, like the beat of an old techno song, accompanied by a gust of wind that forced everyone in the group to take a step back.

The explosion spread outward, ripping apart blocks of stone and scattering them into the air in a rising blue mass of magical energies and dust. A pillar of power in turmoil, layers upon layers of translucent energy, like ripped blue satin wrapped around an iron rod, the shape roughly equivalent to a cone, broad side at the ground, tip where the Arcana Strike had charged. An upside-down, blue hurricane in appearance, just that there was no safe eye of the storm here.

John looked at it with a bit of worry as the energy became less volatile and finally was little more than a blue hue over a crater the size of the fortress. Actually, it was slightly smaller than the fortress; the outer walls were still intact, giving the impression of some ancient civilization building a wall around an impact site.

The reason why he was worried was that they had positioned Thana inside the fortress to test for friendly fire. John hadn’t been a huge fan of the idea, but she had insisted once Lydia had presented it. They all knew that she could take it, but that didn’t mean that it was a pleasant thought.

A human sized dot flew over from, the around 500 metres away, impact site. Robe fluttering, Thana landed about a third of the way before making a second and then third jump. “I actually thought I would need new fucking clothes there for a moment,” Thana said and shook fine particle dust from the black cloth, “but this shit is made to survive the next holocaust, which is bitchingly awesome if you ask me.”

“So...you took damage?” John wanted to know. He tried paying close attention to her health bar, but with her regeneration, he could have just blinked and whatever damage she took would have been gone.LaaTest novels on (n)ovelbi/n(.)com

“Oh yeah, seared my skin a bit before I did some magic-fuckery to protect against it,” Thana waved off before the apocalyptic background. “I would say it would probably outright defeat the weakest one of us... so, Lydia, stay the fuck away.”

“Pardon?” Lydia asked.

“Ya heard me, anal queen,” Thana laughed, “or are you saying you aren’t?”

“I am...”

“Because you sure as fuck are weaker than me,” the blood mage interrupted; “John and his elemental gallery would tear you the fuck apart as well. Aclysia would need to make her body out of something non-metally, but I think they ate enough cocksleeves to become rubber. That is if their innate magic resistance isn’t enough.”

“I am in agreement with that statement, but...”

“Rave wouldn’t spank you quite as hard, but she would win like 9/10 times. In a fighting context, your powers are really not that fucking great, unless your opponent relies heavily on something made from metal. Like swords or armour or some other shit...” Thana chuckled. “Khahaha, for a noble you have some majorly supportive powers, miss princess of steel...” Looking over to John, she froze, “The fuck are you looking at me like that for?” John wasn’t looking at her at all, instead he was sighing and massaging the bridge of his nose.

“You aren’t wrong,” he told her, “that was just pretty blunt.”

“Well, blunt is best, no use to hide the fucking thing,” Thana defended herself. “Unless it turns out she can beat anyone besides Momo and Momo can at least survive that thing.”

“Ja, actually agree with that,” Rave said.

Lydia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I find myself unable to refute those claims,” she admitted. “In a vacuum I am going to lose to all of you. My powers are more reliant on external factors than any of yours are.”

“I guess ya have the highest potential power in a metal rich environment though,” Rave said, feeling that the princess may have been cut down a bit too far.

“Yeah, no, it really is,” the techno-lover waved off. “Ya will see eventually. It’s called banter.”

Lydia just sighed and turned away, stepping on the mana street. John, in the meanwhile, spoke to Aclysia. The guardian was on extended housekeeping duty. Originally, John had wanted her to come along to the tournament so she could at least watch, but they now had a visitor that needed to be attended. In other words: Aclysia’s job was to make sure Nathalia didn’t do anything stupid.

“Should you be threatened while you are shopping, don’t hesitate to use Defensive Teleportation to get out of there,” John reminded her.

“Of course, Master,” Aclysia nodded. She had a slightly saddened expression. She wasn’t absolutely happy about this arrangement either. “I will have food ready when you come home and will be following the events over television and our connection,” she stepped close to him and kissed him goodbye; “Good luck and until later, my John.”

“Until later,” he said, and then they walked off.

“Man, ya remember when she was the size of your hand?” Rave teased once he caught up to the group, already sliding down the mana street. She grabbed his arm after whirlingly stepping towards him, unbothered by the several hundred metres of airspace below them.

“Good times,” John mused. “It was fun making her grow up.”

“It was fun to see too... man, she used to be very inquisitive about stuff,” Rave said. Indeed, the days when Aclysia had riddled them with questions had passed; for the most part she had now figured out her place in the world. There were still occasional fits of confusion but nothing out of the ordinary.

“Kind of miss it,” John admitted. “When she asks questions nowadays, she mostly wants to hear me talk.”

“Like ya don’t like that either,” Rave giggled and poked him in the side; “Ya love the sound of your own voice.”

“Not true!” John defended himself; “I love the sound of your voice. I merely like how my enthusiasm for things makes Aclysia happy, is all. We all win.”

“How do I win in that arrangement?” his girlfriend wondered.

“You don’t have to listen to me talk about something like Dota 2,” John explained.

“True, that game’s balancing is cray-cray and I don’t wanna hear it,” Rave agreed. “How about we watch some anime soon?”

“Again? We just finished Log Horizon... I mean that one was pretty good, but the part about the twins in the second season was really boring,” John said.

“Yeah, well, it’s not all gold all the time, now issit?” Rave said. “I suggest we watch Dragonball next.”

He knew that name, how could he not, and he knew that it had around 600 episodes. “All of it?” he croaked.

“Ja! That’s something to do for a while, plus I want you to watch it so we can watch the abridged. Pretty please?” she said in a voice that she KNEW John couldn’t say no to. That cute tone that made his heart flutter.

“You will not get your way every time if you use that too much, you know?”

Rave smiled. Knowing that she had won the argument, she leaned towards his ear, “I could suck ya off instead next time.” While that offer should have lost a lot of its lustre by now, given frequency and alternatives... it didn’t.

“Deal, but I get to eat steak off Nathalia’s back while you do it,” John said.

Rave laughed and they went down to the city.