Aergia"s eyes widened in shock and Raylein couldn"t believe what he was seeing. Evangeline covered her mouth and Gilgamesh gasped. Flavio solemnly watched and Ganesha had stopped laughing, but his smile was strangely cheerful."Arima!" Layla shouted as she felt her resonance with him weakening. She flew toward him and supported him before he crashed on the ground. The two of them returned to their human form when their resonance ended.
Malum stared at the place he saw Ambrogio being consumed for a moment then followed Layla "Hey, what the h.e.l.l did you do?"
Arima slightly opened his eyes and that was the only thing he could move at the moment "…I"m lucky I didn"t die" He muttered. At the same time, Night reappeared next to him.
"You"re sure are" He crossed his arms and affirmed.
"…Don"t tell me you used another Law?" Layla grimaced and questioned.
Arima chuckled "I did. I went back in time to kill Ambrogio before he could kill you" He said and Layla clenched her fist and seemed to be seriously holding back something.
"I honestly want to slap you right now"
"Haha, that would be fun. I support that" Malum laughingly approved.
Arima snickered and closed his eyes again "A few minutes…That"s how long I need to recover and absorb Ambrogio"s power… They"re coming, hold on until then…" He faintly said then fell silent as if he had fallen asleep. Karma changed back to her human form and crouched down beside Arima. She nodded toward Layla and the latter stood up. Night sighed and started healing Arima the best he could.
"Let"s go" Layla commanded and dragonized herself.
"Oi, oi, sorry to tell you that, but you are extremely weak by yourself. Without your resonance with Arima, you"re a simple human at best, if not an insect"
"Leave me alone" Layla replied angrily and jumped on Malum"s back "Just go ahead. That other guy will soon come out from my Soul Manifestation because of this"
The skeletal dragon snorted and flapped his ashen wings. He rushed toward the place Shiva and Shakti had been downed. When he reached the place, a strong aura pressured him.
"[Resurrection]" He heard two voices chanting the same thing. Layla opened her eyes wide. Her pupils narrowed to a slit, surrounded by silver and green pigments. She immediately linked her mind with Malum.
The temperature in this area started dropping considerably. They had already gone past the absolute zero. The undead dragon"s "eyes" burned stronger. A thin layer of ice was already covering his bones.
Layla exhaled a white mist. She looked around carefully then a light flashed past her eyes. Malum immediately moved and dodged the strike of the ice giant which had suddenly appeared without any sound or delay.
Malum turned around and gathered fire under his ribs. He roared and spat out a powerful wave of dark fire. His flames consumed the ice giant but another one arose and swung a sword at him, which he escaped thanks to Layla. Then a third one appeared, and another, until there was a whole army enclosing him.
"[Niflheim]" Shiva chanted from below them as he stood up among the ruins. His body had still two blatant holes in it and blood was still dripping. But he glared at Malum and Layla with unshakable determination.
Malum"s body was also getting extremely heavy and the ice kept sticking to him. Layla who was on his shoulder was barely resisting the cold. Malum glanced at her and used his flames to help her "What do we do?" He asked.
"Get rid of the source" Layla responded and Malum grinned. He waved his hand and hundreds of large fireb.a.l.l.s were formed.
"[Fifth Blue Art, Inferno]" He chanted and each fireball gained a sort of large mouth "[Manducare] (Eat)" The little fire monsters flew away and attacked the giants by eating them. Each time they took a bite, the fireb.a.l.l.s would become bigger.
Malum then charged at Shiva without any care of what was going on around him. Shiva"s eyes glowed and countless ice spikes emerged from the ground and pierced each fireball, destroying them. But they also exploded at the same time and engulfed a large number of ice giants with their flames.
Malum was about to strike Shiva with his weapon made of his own scales but he b.u.mped against an invisible wall that made him stop his momentum. Shakti finally joined Shiva and had produced a barrier to defend him "[A Mother"s Gift]" She channeled the power of her Soul Manifestation and behind Malum, the ice giants which had been destroyed by the Fifth Blue Art were immediately reconstructed and attacked again.
"{They don"t want us in close combat}"
"{I get that!}" Malum responded to Layla while fending off the giants" sword with his own. Each time he clashed with one of them, he would get even more frozen and pressured by the cold which was supposed to be ineffective on a body like his.
Layla inhaled and jumped off Malum"s shoulder. She went toward Shiva and Shakti "Hey!" Malum exclaimed and turned around but he was then crushed by one giant hammer "G.o.ddammit!" He cursed out loud while pushing the giant hammer with his weapon "If only I could use the First Blue Art again…" He lamented.
Layla reached Shakti"s barrier and placed her hand on it. Shakti furrowed and Shiva immediately cast his magic. Another giant was created and instantly cut Layla in two with its sword. But both Shiva and Shakti froze in shock instead of being relieved. Layla"s figure blurred and turned into a small white and black book. They shivered when they saw that book again. Thinking that it may explode once more.
But it was only a small diversion "[Fourth White Art, Ultima Forma, Magister Labor est scriptor] (Final Form, Master"s Work)" They heard a chant but it was too late. Layla cast the magic and a lot of intricate circles were revealed on the barrier Shakti had laid.
She panicked when she saw that "Impossible!" She shouted "A magic capable of unraveling any kind of formation… It"s absurd" She said and her barrier was instantly broken as the magic circles composing it were all disengaged.
Malum snickered and pushed the ice giant away. He flapped his wings and charged at the two Guardians "[Berserker"s Art, Inflammatio]" He chanted and cracks appeared all over his bones. Some really bright flames erupted from them and made Malum look like a propelled rocket.
Shiva"s expression darkened and a trickle of blood flowed down his lips. Shakti braced herself and clasped her hands together then pointed them at Malum.
The skeletal dragon suddenly slowed down and seemed to have a hard time going forward. Meanwhile, the ice giants were approaching and even the sky was getting covered by clouds which would soon make ice blocks rain on him.
"(Telekinesis?)" malum was actually awed "(This girl is actually pinning me down with just some telekinesis… I can see that battle is not her strong point, and still, this is quite impressive)" He praised her internally and smirked "Not enough though" The flames coming out of his bones became even stronger and even made a detonation sound.
Malum easily broke free and reached his targets in no time, he clenched his fists and struck both Guardians. Shiva and Shakti were sent flying for hundreds of thousands of miles before crashing. Malum had also unconsciously held back against Shakti. He wryly laughed "That guy is getting to me"
Layla smiled and rejoined him, ready to resume the fight. At the same moment, her canvas was torn apart and an intense light illuminated the planet. After it faded away, Victor"s figure became visible. He was panting and obviously injured.
He rotated his line of sight then ruthlessly charged toward Arima. Layla tensed up but sighed when her eyes caught a new future.
Night stood up and released his own aura. He quickly transformed into a one hundred meters tall dragon. Karma turned into a great sword which he grabbed. He gripped the handle and a constellation lighted up in the sky "[Fifth Cryptic Art, Aeterna, Foiros]" He chanted and swung the sword. A large wave of lightning and fire was thrown at Victor.
He hurriedly transformed into a shadow and tried to contain the whole thing with darkness magic but it was for nothing as it still exploded on him. Night then used every single bit of mana he had left to cast every reinforcing magic he could think of. He neared the Berserker"s Path and his muscles bled.
He roared and used the Third Red Art to discard all defenses. He reached a really high speed and promptly made his way in Victor"s direction. The latter was still recovering and couldn"t react when Night grabbed him.
The dragon panted and inhaled to cast one last magic "[Fifth Destruction Art, Spatium Horti]" The dark blue sphere formed around Night"s hand. The red roses bloomed and when Night pulled his hand out, and the magic had ended, Victor was nothing more than minced meat. The soul beast sighed in relief and fell on the ground before lying down like Arima.
"Shouldn"t we stop them? Victor and Ambrogio already died… I think that"s enough. There"s no point in letting them continued this" Evangeline raised her voice and everyone looked at her. She was obviously concerned and quite stressed.
"You may be right…" Aergia spoke with a very composed demeanor. She was staring at the fainted Arima and so was the rest "But right now… I feel like we should let it end. If Shiva and Shakti die, it"ll their own fault…"
"I rather think that we should worry about how much damage and noise this fight has made" Flavio added and put on some gla.s.ses. He looked around with them and a number appeared on the lenses "Fortunately, this planet is tougher than an original land. But still, there are exactly 76 billion 565 million 671 thousand and 308 casualties on Melumnia. There are also some planets far away who exploded because of stray magic and aura. Adding a few tens of billion to the count"
He told and Ganesha laughed "That"s some serious damage. But what about the noise? Do you expect that someone will come now that we are weaker? Particularly when we just lost our main way of getting an army, the First Vampire?"
Flavio pushed his gla.s.ses back and nodded "Precisely. But before that, we have another guest" He declared and looked up at the sky. A sky-blue mist came out of nowhere and formed a spiral. A giant pair of reptilian eyes shimmered from inside of it.
"We don"t have time for this!" A really deep voice resounded across the entire planet and Arima"s eyes opened at the same time. His aura was abruptly released and it was at least a few times stronger than before.