Life Hunter

Superore"s bullets reached the center area of Fantasia in no time. When the pillar of energy was no longer observable from the surface, Arima put away his gun and just waited as the bullets were digging further underground.

After a minute, Fantasia became unstable. The wind pressure raised and the entire planet was cracking and quaking. At the same time, Fafnir"s aura reached an unbelievable level. It covered the whole surface and even killed most weaker creatures.

Even Arima was shocked by the pressure of this aura but he didn"t take his objective out of sight. He flapped his wings and flew into the hole he had just created with Superore. He never stopped to accelerate and even started to enlarge the hole with just the wind pressure created by his displacement.

"[Aperi iter ad aethereum] (Open the path of the ethereal)"

As he was falling inside, Arima extended his hand and started chanting the Second White Art "{Hey, will it work? This Art requires quite a lot of matter to work}" Night asked.

"{If I use the surrounding aura, and the matter around the center, I should be able to activate it}" Arima responded "{In any case, last time I used an entire planet because I wanted to go to h.e.l.l but right now, I just need to bring him somewhere far, just to gain some time. Should be easy}"

"{"Should"?}"

Arima smiled "{Imagine someone trying to teleport me against my will. What do you think I will do?}"

"{You would definitely try to stop the magic and if you can"t, you would retaliate somehow before you are sent away…. ah}" Night noticed by himself as he was talking.

"{You got it}" Arima said as he entered the outer layer core of the planet. The temperature should be rising but it wasn"t the case.

Arima"s eyes sharpened as he stared down and continued to dig further down the path formed by his bullets.

"[Detrahet me in somnis etiam fines se nisi arcerent illum] (Bring me to horizons only restrained by my dreams)"

"[Materia obliviscentes] (Forget the material)"

A silver gear shining brightly appeared in Arima"s hand. It started spinning while also sucking Fafnir"s aura. At the same time, an earth-shattering roar resounded and even pushed back Arima who was flying toward the center.

Arima clicked his tongue and his sigil glowed. His wings released some red mist and his speed increased even more as he went against the pressure.

A second roar thundered and Arima countered it with his own. A clash occurred with just their voice and from the center, the planet was struck again. Cracks appeared down there and opened until the surface to create some impressive pits.

Layla sighed as she looked at everything with her "Unblinking Eyes". She shifted her attention somewhere else and flapped her wings.

She approached Deva with incredible speed and landed on her "Deva, please go there" Layla said as she sent the location by telepathy.

Deva looked up at her and slowly moved afterward. She left the ground and her feathers glowed as she ascended. Layla saw her mana deplete and wondered how Arima managed to give enough mana to return from h.e.l.l. Just the small jump she was going to make was enough to take a quarter of her entire mana pool.

Jorga and Karma were with her and calmly looked as Deva prepared to go. Oulan couldn"t join them as the white and large creature warped before he knew. He could only wonder why Layla had just left while he observed the hole Arima made.

"[Uti originem ducere] (Use the origins to lead me)" Arima said the last line of his incantation and the gear was spinning so quickly at this point that it looked like a turning wheel surrounded by vapor.

Arima reached the place where his bullets weren"t able to pa.s.s and gathered mana in his left arm "[Terminus Confractus, CCC]" His muscles contracted and produced some vapor too. A red hue then shrouded his hand before he punched the last wall separating him from the "core".

The planet almost changed its...o...b..t as the stone at its kernel crumbled. Arima instantly heard another roar which pierced his eardrums and made him grit his teeth. A great aura pressured him as he entered an area full of golden light.

"[Second White Art, Calces Porta]" Arima moved his left hand which was holding the silver gear and threw it right in front of him.

The gear shined again and became bigger. The silver light merged with the golden one and something that even made Arima shudder occurred. A pair of crimson eyes, glowing with a color even more bright and deep than his own, opened among the light just above the Second White Art.

The pair of eyes locked on Arima with clear rage filling them. A giant claw also grabbed the silver gear and tried to shatter it. But as the gear wasn"t breaking, even the eyes looking at Arima shifted in surprise. Fafnir turned even more angry as he realized what this magic was going to do.

He looked back at Arima to see two barrels pointing at him. Two waves, black and blue, struck him in the head. He howled strongly and the planet trembled. The reason he raised his voice was more irritation than pain.

Fafnir snapped and let go of the gear to attack Arima instead. His eyes moved and were suddenly very close to Arima. The latter crossed his arms and tried to block the claw with multiple layers of magic barriers. But they were destroyed easily and Arima took the blow and was sent flying away, crushing even more stone underground.

Arima coughed blood and smirked. The gear suddenly expanded and covered Fafnir. The latter could not react in the end, and was teleported away.

The blood on Arima"s scales evaporated and he quickly went toward the center again. The golden light had faded away and it was now an empty nest. When he saw how big this place was, Arima thought that Fafnir was bigger than Deva.

At the same time, Fantasia started to lose some gravity and it slowly went out of orbit. The gravitational field in itself is created by the whole ma.s.s of earth composing the planet but the disappearance of a core this big still caused some major alterations to the overall ma.s.s. And there was no planet which could survive long without a core and the natural magnetic field it produces.

Arima"s sigil glowed again and time stopped around him again. He took out the core he s.n.a.t.c.hed from the other planet and placed it there. It was a good thing that the core was bigger than Fafnir as it saved a lot of effort to Arima.

After all, now, he had to go through the hardest problem of the whole plan. Storing and replacing cores… it"s something simply impossible if you can"t stop time actually. But the second problem is how to replace a core.

Arima had to integrate this core to Fantasia. It was almost like an organ transplant. If he messes up, the core will destroy the planet rather than sustaining it. He had to do it slowly while stopping and slowing time.

He had to test and see what affects it brought depending on how he placed it. If the balance is not correct, the planet will collapse one day or another. So he had to keep the integrity of the planet by himself in the process until he manages to get this core back into place.

Everything was so taxing for his mind that he didn"t even speak to Night about it. His mana was also decreasing quite dangerously. He had to do it quickly or he will have difficulties later.

*****************************************

Meanwhile, in the middle of outer s.p.a.ce, a huge silver gear appeared and spat out a golden figure which illuminated this dark environment.

Layla observed it from Deva"s back, miles away from it. Fafnir"s appearance took her off guard as she didn"t expect him to be like that. It wasn"t like she could see details when she looked into the future. It was more like watching a black and white video with repet.i.tive white bands and a fading soundtrack.

Fafnir"s body was quite large and long. His entire skin shined with a golden color and even seemed to be made of gold. His eyes were of a bright crimson that Layla had never seen. They seemed to be filled with glowing blood, emanating madness and pride.

His wings were quite thin but also bigger than his entire body. His tail seemed to be incredibly tough as it was large and long. Fafnir"s legs were short and if he was standing on firm ground, it would"ve looked like he was crawling. His head, in contrast, was pretty big.

In the end, Fafnir looked like a giant golden salamander with wings, and with a head slightly more dragon-like. His overall size was indeed bigger than Deva. He was around four hundred meters long and a hundred meters large.

The moment he was transported, Fafnir tried to jump back inside the silver gear but he just managed to push the whole thing back before it disappeared.

The angered dragon roared again and this time, it was Layla"s group which had to withstand it. Layla immediately used her full transformation and her scales, tail, and wings grew back. Her presence raised to the next level and her appearance was even more stunning. She then immediately protected Jorga and Karma from the pressure. Deva was surprisingly fine, in fact, she seemed to be unaffected and just annoyed.

Jorga and Karma both stared at Layla in admiration. In her draconic form, she was definitely dazzling and right now, her transparent scales were reflecting both a silver light and the golden light emitted by Fafnir.

The latter was about to rush back to Fantasia and teach a lesson to the one who forcefully teleported him here but before he could do that, he felt a sudden burst of aura and saw Layla"s figure from afar. He frowned and moved his body so that he could look at her from the front.

His eyes wandered on Deva who confused him a lot and then locked on Layla. He was sure that the aura coming from her was that of a dragon he knew. Her soul was also shockingly imposing.

"…Did Chronepsis really give his inheritance to a little human like you?" Fafnir"s voice spread in this void and it sounded strangely serene and calm in contrast with what his eyes looked like.

"He did" Layla grabbed her rapier "But I don"t really know if I"m a human"

Fafnir eyes blinked, he didn"t seem to be surprised about her response "Indeed, you seem to be mostly human but I feel divine mana in you. Only pure G.o.ds can have that. No matter how strong one is, he will always have original mana as long he is not birthed by h.e.l.l or Heaven…" As he was saying that, Fafnir furrowed.

"They both collapsed…?" He muttered strangely.

"Hey, what"re your plans?" Layla asked and it made him concentrate on her again. Layla didn"t really want to negotiate with his big guy. But if by chance he was not evil, she didn"t need to fight him.

"Of course, first of all, I"ll kill that weird dragon who woke me up and injured me" Fafnir said with scorn in his voice. Layla glanced at the small injury and the blood flowing down on Fafnir"s head and smiled wryly.

She still wasn"t sure if Fafnir was worth fighting with or not. After all, they only knew that Fantasia would have been destroyed because of his wake up. But that"s all. Maybe the destruction of Fantasia wasn"t really something he wished for. And she also knew that what Arima just did would anger most people.

Heck, if Arima himself woke up like that and was shaken up by someone shooting at him, he would definitely kill the attacker. So, she ignored the fact that he said he would kill Arima and didn"t even bother trying to say that it was impossible for him and resumed.

"Then what about next? After you kill that dragon, what will you do?"

"Why do you want to know? Strange girl?"

Layla"s mouth twitched when she heard Fafnir calling her. For her, that was almost enough to kill him but she endured it and smiled "Because you"re a well-known dragon in the legends, I"m simply curious, if not a bit scared"

Fafnir tilted his head. He felt like she wasn"t lying. Which was true, Layla was truly curious about what he wanted to do and scared at the same time that he will become some calamity in the future.

"I suppose I can answer that" Fafnir said "After killing that dragon, I"ll go find the G.o.ds that are still living in this world then slaughter them for my revenge. Afterward, I"ll just explore and steal the gold of the entire world. That"s my goal"