"…no, I didn"t forget. I did kind of expect this."I sighed wearily as my shoulders drooped. Wiping the perspiration from my face, I studied Eliza while White Tiger and Leo flanked me.
"I was hoping to finish you off before you could recover, though."
Sighing again, I shrugged wearily before linking my will to White Tiger and Leo. Lightning flashed out, but Eliza swatted it away with her glowing broadsword. Pus.h.i.+ng my gla.s.ses up my nose, I continued to scrutinize her, and realized why I was paying such intense attention to her.
Eliza Franklin was growing stronger with each pa.s.sing second. The advanced spells that she had been casting and weaving around herself from the beginning were finally kicking in and manifesting as buffs. Her physical strength was increasing exponentially, and she was finally getting to be on par with me, canceling out the advantage I had at the start of the match.
The more time pa.s.sed, the more advantageous it got for her. Of course, it also meant that she would be expending quite a lot of mana maintaining her buffs and Blessing. Already, thanks to my gla.s.ses, I could see that her considerable mana pool had been drained drastically just to keep up her Blessing and heal her wounds.
After I dealt a certain amount of damage to her, she would run out of the mana required to heal herself. This was going to be a real battle of attrition. Either that, or I had to overwhelm her with enough damage and knock her out with a single attack so that her Blessing and other buffs would disappear along with her consciousness.
Easier said than done.
"!!"
While I was planning my next move, Eliza was already moving. She swung her broadsword at White Tiger, who parried the bulky weapon with his claws. Lightning sparked and crackled between them explosively, almost throwing the Paladin off.
However, Eliza nimbly landed on her feet and gracefully swung about to unleash a holy blast from her sword. The golden wave of destructive energy soared toward White Tiger, only to dissipate against a water sphere that Black Tortoise conjured. She then jumped backward to avoid getting impaled by a series of icicles that burst from the ground.
While she evaded, White Tiger launched lightning bolts from the air, the jagged web of electricity splaying out to ensnare the agile Eliza. She hacked away at several tongues of lightning with her broadsword while spinning her body in midair to avoid the rest, and then landed on the ground to skid several meters back.
"Huff…"
Despite her exertion, Eliza didn"t falter. Instead, her Blessing allowed her to recover her physical strength almost immediately and she straightened up with a smile, the flush disappearing from her formerly red face.
Then her mana flared up and she charged forward, disappearing into a golden blur. Before any of us could react, she was already in front of White Tiger, slas.h.i.+ng at him with her giant broadsword before Black Tortoise could conjure a s.h.i.+eld.
Only White Tiger"s reflexes saved him from being cleaved in half, his claws raised to parry the blow. Blood splattered the ground and he withdrew his wounded paw with a snarl. Eliza closed in, but White Tiger sent another blast of lightning at her, forcing her back from the sheer voltage of his electricity.
"She"s much faster than before!" I reallzed. One of the enchantments that coalesced around her was a speed buff, tripling her Agility stat and allowing her to take her enemies by surprise. However, her attempt to take out White Tiger in one stroke had failed, and she had lost the element of surprise. White Tiger and I could adjust accordingly, or at least take note of her upgraded speed.
"!!"
Eliza suddenly switched trajectory and propelled herself in Leo"s direction. I had my Constellation spirit stand his ground, however.
"Leo, Regulus!"
The golden beam surged forward to meet the charging Eliza. Her momentum hurling her forward, she had no means of changing direction, so she decided to greet the powerful spell head-on. With a yell, she swung her broadsword and cleaved Regulus apart.
…only to be swatted to the side by Leo.
"Kuh!"
Eliza hit the ground in a roll and jumped back to her feet. Blood dripped from her arm and face, but those injuries rapidly disappeared as her Blessing healed them.
Frowning, I glanced in the direction of the technical area. This ability somewhat reminded me of Harrison and his holy magic. Harrison, however, still hadn"t gotten to the part where he had mastered healing magic or Blessing yet, but certainly he struck me as a Paladin-to-be.
He just hadn"t reached the same level as Eliza. Not yet.
Leo and White Tiger pounced on Eliza while she was still vulnerable, but by the time they crossed the distance she had already fully recovered and was standing tall. Swinging her broadsword, she blasted the both of them back, and Leo hit the ground before disappearing despite his supposedly invulnerability. Eliza had focusd her boosted attack on him.
Even White Tiger wasn"t able to escape completely unscathed, blood dripping down his flank as he backed off. Lightning crackled defensively around him, the reason why Eliza didn"t pursue him and deliver a deeper cut.
"They weren"t kidding when they said Paladins specialized in slaying monsters," I remarked, wiping the perspiration from my face. Despite Black Tortoise"s water sphere materializing between White Tiger and the charging Eliza, the Paladin succeeded in cleaving the barrier apart and taking a huge chunk of meat off the poor Celestial Guardian.
Roaring in agony, White Tiger struck her with an electrifying paw, his claws raking her across her front and throwing her across the arena. Flipping herself upward, Eliza landed on the ground and skidded to a stop by plunging her broadsword into the ground.
Already White Tiger was upon her, thunderbolts accompanying his descent. In the face of such a horrifying a.s.sault, Eliza met the onslaught of lightning with steely resolve, swinging her broadsword up to meet them. Stepping to the side, she was unable to avoid being eviscerated by Whtie Tiger"s claws. Despite the horrendous injury, she gritted her teeth and stabbed White Tiger in the gut, a fierce retaliation that elicted a b.e.s.t.i.a.l bellow from the flailing Celestial Guardian.
"Holy Judgement."
The incredible spell ripped White Tiger apart from the inside out and he vanished in a blinding explosion.
"Ugh!"
Staggering back, I hurriedly commanded Black Tortoise to fire a barrage of icicles at Eliza. To my surprise, she didn"t dodge the attack and instead endured it, the icicles turning her body into a human pincus.h.i.+on. Blood splattered against the ground, but still she didn"t fall. Instead, rising to her full height, she flexed her mana. The icicles crumbled and shattered, the frost raining down in flakes of snow amidst her golden aura.
As usual, her Blessing allowed her to heal up relatively quickly. Bringing her broadsword up, she pointed it at me. A golden orb gathered at the tip before las.h.i.+ng out in a huge, destructive torrent that ravaged the ground.
"Scutum Sobiescianum!"
I managed to summon my Constellation s.h.i.+eld just in time to block the attack, but it was almost instantly obliterated from the sheer destructive power. Fortunately, the delay bought me enough time to dive to the side and evade it totally. Even so, I could still feel the searing blast surge past behind me and wreck a large portion of the arena.
Rolling back to my feet, I brought both of my swords up in reflex. Just as well, because Eliza chose that moment to descend upon me with her heavy broadsword. I grunted as I parried her decisive blow, the ground cracking beneath my knee and feet.
Seriously, it was not good to receive attacks like this when in a kneeling posture. They hurt like h.e.l.l.
"Huff…"
Eliza continued to bear down on me with her superior strength, crus.h.i.+ng me to the ground. My knee and feet hurt, unable to withstand the pressure any longer.
Fortunately, they didn"t have to.
"!!!"
Icicles surged out of the ground and punctured Eliza"s body. She cursed as she was thrown into the air, helpless and impaled in many places. Blood dripped down the icy spikes, the red mixing with the transparent water droplets that condensed on the gleaming surface.
"Phew…"
I sprang to my feet and moved. At the same time, Eliza unleashed her mana and destroyed the icicles that were hoisting her up in the air, causing frosty fragments to rain down on the place where she had pinned me seconds earlier. Twisting her body in the air, she swung her broadsword to unleash a holy blast in my direction, even as her wounds began to close up and knit together.
This time, instead of Scutum Sobiescianum, I conjured an ice s.h.i.+eld instead. The holy blast froze upon contact, turning into a twisted structure resembling an ice sculpture.
"!!"
"Cetus!"
While Eliza was still momentarily stunned and landing on the ground, I called forth one of my more powerful Constellation spirits. With three out of my five Celestial Guardians eliminated, I didn"t have much left.
"It won"t work!"
Eliza"s lips curled as she whirled around and slashed at the charging gigantic whale. The azure behemoth was cleaved apart immediately by her blade, which was wreathed in a golden flash of light.
…or so it appeared.
"Eh?!"
Cetus shattered into countless icy fragments that pelted a stunned Eliza, delivering numerous cuts to her. As she stumbled through the deadly hail of frost shrapnel, using her magical aura to deflect most of the damage, Cetus came up from behind and slammed her forward, causing her to cartwheel bodily through the air before cras.h.i.+ng heavily onto the ground.
"Ugh!"
Amidst the shattered concrete, Eliza staggered to her feet, still holding her ma.s.sive broadsword up. Her injuries were still healing from her Blessing, but the rate of her regeneration was noticeably slower than before.
Good. She was running out of mana. Or so I hoped.
However, Eliza clearly still had a lot of strength left. She faced down my charging Cetus, smas.h.i.+ng through the ice that he generated, and slashed at him with her broadsword. Moving with a speed and grace that belied his ma.s.sive size, Cetus swerved to the side and flipped over, evading the deadly attack.
"Ho…you move well, even with a big body like that."
Eliza was impressed. Sc.r.a.ping her foot against the ground, she brought her broadsword back for another swing. Cetus cautiously backed off, noticing that she still had another trick up her sleeve. The Paladin"s lips curled further into a snide smile.
"Oh…your instincts are good. Too bad it"s useless."
She swung her sword and unleashed a devastating bombardment of holy mana. Once again, her spell was frozen solid by my ice technique, turning into a distorted, gleaming crystalline sculpture before it could reach my Cetus.
"The same trick won"t work twice!"
Smas.h.i.+ng through the ice with her broadsword, Eliza thrust her huge weapon forward and stabbed Cetus in the forehead. With another holy judgement spell, she blew him up from the inside out. Landing on her feet, ignoring the thousands of frost fragments that rained down on her and cut open her skin, she turned to me and my Black Tortoise. Her eyes glowing ferociously, she then charged forward to finish me off.
I just barely managed to parry her broadsword by crossing both of my swords, but the tremendous force behind her strike blew me several meters backward. Blood spurting out of my mouth, I hit the ground and lay down limply. Black Tortoise tried to conjure another water sphere around me, but Eliza easily sliced through it. Water droplets were flung in all sides as she easily cut through whatever defenses my Black Tortoise could weave around me.
"!!"
Icicles sprang out of the ground to impale her, but…
"I told you, the same trick won"t work twice."
Eliza"s body appeared to turn into a blur. Using her incredible agility, she wove through the labyrinthine network of icicles, shattering the ones that she couldn"t evade, and made her way toward my position in just an instant.
"It"s over."
Her broadsword swung downward, ready to decapitate me and end the match once and for all. Completely helpless, I could only watch as her gleaming blade flash toward my head, knocking both of my swords aside and whistling in an unstoppable manner.