Chapter 294 - A New Form (2/2)
”Exactly,” Argentum said as he lightly nodded before explaining, ”If we cast all of our buffs from the start of the first trial, then the difficulty of the bolts you're facing right now might become higher. You could be facing against a wide array of purple bolts, or even worse, a far more terrifying type of lightning bolt.”
”Wait a second…” Horell said out of the blue, prompting the two of them to look at him as he pondered over something for a bit. Eventually, he found his train of thought as he looked at Herellia and said, ”Isn't this the same thing that happened in Zelefaire's tribulation?”
”To think that the bump in the difficulty of his trial was brought about by us helping him out,” he added, letting out a soft sigh of regret. Soon focusing his vision towards Argentum, he then asked him after mulling over something else, ”I was wondering…how strong are blue lightning bolts?”
”Incredibly strong,” Argentum said without hesitation, taking into consideration the darkening of each bolt for Existence Tribulations when compared to Power Baptisms. He then added, ”You'd be thanking the heavens if you faced a swath of purple bolts instead of a single blue bolt. That's how terrifying it is.”
”I see…” Horell said after trying to wrap his mind around what Argentum said. But just as he was about to ask Argentum a few more questions, the seventh round of lightning bolts came crashing down towards Herellia, dispelling the connection the three had as she focused her attention towards the oncoming bolts.
The seventh round brought along 49 lightning bolts, with 16 of the oncoming lightning bolts being lavender. Noticing this, Argentum could not help but feel like something wrong was happening in the trial, but could not put his finger on what.
Fortunately, Herellia had somewhat prepared for such a scenario, bringing forth a total of 12 crimson thorns towards the lavender bolts, which were surrounded by two crimson bolts each, with a special one being surrounded by three. To the current Herellia, 12 crimson thorns at once seemed to be limit to what her mind could handle while maintaining all sense of rationality.
Without hesitation, she made the crimson thorns charge towards the lavender bolts, dispelling a great portion of the crimson lightning bolts in the process. After dispelling those crimson bolts, she went ahead and manipulated the crimson thorns to congregate and turn into what looked like a larger crimson thorn from afar. She willed these thorns to move towards the remaining lavender and crimson lightning bolts from a lateral angle, allowing the fusion of each crimson thorn's power to do all of the work, dispelling the remaining bolts just as they were only a few meters away from her body.
”Huuh…” Herellia let out a sigh of exhaustion as she had a hunch that the next round was going to be far harder than the round she had just finished, even with the decent increment in power she had just experienced from the purple strands being absorbed by her body. Nevertheless, she continued to psych herself up as she knew that by finishing through all of the trials brought to her by the heavens, she would finally fulfill the wish she had been wanting to fulfill for quite a long time.
”I should try and form another crimson thorn,” Herellia muttered to herself after psyching herself up. Unfortunately for her, just as she was about to start forming the 13th crimson thorn, the eighth round of lightning bolts came down from the dark clouds, not giving her a decent amount of time to rest. This time around, 64 lightning bolts made their way towards Herellia…with half of the group being composed of lavender lightning bolts!
”So that's what's happening!” Argentum said in a slightly loud voice as he finally figured what he felt was off from the lightning bolts a while ago. Noticing that Horell was looking at him with a slightly intrigued aura surrounding him, Argentum took in a deep breath before saying, ”The purple bolts are slowly replacing the red bolts with each round. This means that the difficulty of withstanding through each round greatly increases as the number of bolts continue to increase, unlike the first five rounds wherein the difficulty only came from the increase in quantity.”
”I presume that the last round of lightning bolts would be made up of purple lightning bolts,” Argentum said not long after, prompting Horell to ask him, ”Then what should we do? You've explained earlier that casting buffs on Herellia would increase the difficulty of the next trial to a greater degree. Is there any way to help her out without affecting the trial?”
”Unfortunately, there is none,” Argentum said in a slightly despondent tone as he let out a sigh of slight disappointment. Looking at Herellia's current state, he then told Horell, ”We must hope that Herellia can last as long as possible with the buffs we've given her. We can only sparingly give her buffs along the way. In other words…”
”It's more or less up to Herellia right now if she survives this trial or not.”
At this moment, the lavender and crimson lightning bolts were heading towards Herellia in pairs, as if they were mocking the number of crimson thorns Herellia had conjured. Just as she thought that it was the best time to ask Argentum and Horell to increase her abilities once more, she remembered what Argentum told her a while ago, eventually deciding to not ask them as it would affect the difficulty of her subsequent trials.
She then hastily scanned through the skills she had in her arsenal, even taking into consideration the skills she considered as her trump cards. Eventually, her sense of vision was fixed on a certain skill she was saving for a later round. Looking at the crimson thorns around her body before looking at the oncoming lightning bolts, Herellia could not help but let out an inward sigh as she muttered to herself, ”Good thing I acc.u.mulated enough energy from the members before undergoing this trial. If not, this might be the only trump card I can use.”
Whoosh! Whoosh!
In less than an instant, the crimson thorns around her body had exploded into multiple pieces of shrapnel, slightly weakening the oncoming lightning bolts as a great amount of red viscous fluid scattered throughout the process. At this moment, it looked like Herellia was a branch that was used to kill someone. But in great contrast to her appearance, the aura surrounding her had experienced a great increase in intensity as the amount of power coursing throughout Herellia's body had ascended one more grade.
As the crimson veins surrounding her body started to emanate a faint white glow, she went ahead and conjured multiple crimson red tendrils before manipulating them to head towards the lightning bolts as she shouted…
”[Grand Sanguine Arts]…”
”[Amaranthine Release]!”
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