Arifureta Vol 8 Chapter 1 (2/2)
Furthermore, Eri, who caught the blown away Suzu, thrusted her hand out, began to chant when she felt the same crisis as Suzu, and powerful fire magic was activated. It was a mid-ranked magic called “Sea of Flame,” and just like the name, it was a ranged magic that manipulated tidal waves of flame. Even agile enemy would not be able to easily avoid it.
With sublime power and speed, Kouki swung the Holy Sword down from an upper stance. While Ryuutarou’s thrusted fist drew out a form that couldn’t even be more splendid and resulted in a violent shock wave that went forward just like a cannonball. Eri’s deathbringer, crimson tidal wave surged to swallow its target, turning it into ashes and dusts.
However…
“”ROOOAAAR!!””
“GuUURawwwr!!”
Unbeknownst to them, some things had hidden themselves. Three shadows roared and attacked Kouki’s party right before their attacks would directly hit their targets.
“”Hmmmph!?””
The suddenness of this situation made Kouki and Ryuutarou felt chills running down their spines. Two of the shadow rushed towards Kouki and Ryuutarou with tremendous power, and the metal maces in their hands were swung with great speed.
Kouki immediately used the sword’s centrifugal force to twist his body while Ryuutarou raised his left hand towards the incoming mace instead of his thrusted out right hand. With his balance broken, Kouki rolled on the ground, and Ryuutarou was blown away by the enemy’s second attack, a punch, after he defended against the mace.
What attacked Kouki and Ryuutarou were demonic beasts with appearances similar to Brutal, with a height of 2.5 meters. However, even though they were similar to monsters in RPGs such as Orc and Ogre, the Brutals were like pigs while these demonic beasts were considerably smart. Furthermore, their Brutal-like bodies were strengthened to their limits. In fact, the strength and speed from the previous surprise attack could not be compared to Brutals.
On the other side, even though Eri didn’t receive any direct attack, the psychological impact she received was greater than Kouki and Ryuutarou’s. Reason being, the shadow that suddenly appeared opened its mouth and begun to inhale the surging tidal waves at once. WoOOOoos.h.!.+ The expansive flame gathered at a single point and disappeared. The shadow inhaled all of the flame in only tens of seconds.
What appeared in the s.p.a.ce where the flame and heat disappeared was turtle-like demonic beast with six feet. The sh.e.l.l on its back was dyed in crimson, just like the rampaging flame that earlier changed its target to ashes.
In the next moment, the turtle with six feet finished absorbing the flame and once again opened its mouth wide. At the same time, the sh.e.l.l on its back s.h.i.+ned intensely and red light appeared inside its opened mouth. It was just like how energy was collected before a laser beam was fired.
Seeing that, an impatient expression appeared on Eri’s face; she had no room to spare since she had just fired her magic. However, her impatient was blown off by the usual cheerful voice of her best friend in her arms.
“Don’t underestimate me! Come in succession o’ light of protection and be revived as long as I have the will, “Heaven’s Interruption”!”
In a moment, ten light s.h.i.+elds appeared in succession before Suzu and Eri. All of the s.h.i.+elds were set up diagonally at 45 degree angle. The super-high temperature beam was fired by the six-legged turtle at the same time the s.h.i.+elds appeared, and parried upward through where the s.h.i.+elds were crushed.
Even so, the power of the beam was greatly above the attack from the previous demonic beasts, since it only needed a moment to pulverize a s.h.i.+eld. Suzu was gritting her teeth and chanted in succession to construct new s.h.i.+elds one after another. It could be said it was as expected of a “Barrier-user,” the s.h.i.+eld’s construction speed rivaled the speed of the s.h.i.+eld’s destruction and succeeded in parrying the six-legged turtle’s beam, barely.
The parried beam hit the dungeon’s ceiling accompanied with great tremor, pulverizing its surroundings, and the scattered scorching minerals fell down like a rain.
“d.a.m.n it! What’s just happened!?”
“Just what are those demonic beasts!?”
“s.h.i.+t, let’s defeat them now!”
Only until the situation progressed this much did Hiyama’s gang and Nagayama’s party slipped out of their confusion and prepared to fight. The wounded s.h.i.+zuku and Nagayama were also healed completely, and they began to respectively attack the Chimeras.
s.h.i.+zuku entered the super-high-speed world, and not even her after image could be seen. Voom! Her figure disappeared with a sound of exploded air, appearing right behind the Chimera in the next moment, and she used the sword drawing technique to unsheathe her swords that had returned to their sheaths before anyone noticed.
“No Beat,” it was a skill that enable movement without preliminary action. Rather than simply moving with speed without leaving any after images, one just could not catch up with her movement, which rapidly quicken and slowed. In addition, her sword drawing and slas.h.i.+ng speed were further increased by the skills derived from Swordsmans.h.i.+p. The speed of the naked blades was even faster than what an ordinary living being would recognize as a swift flash.
To return the blow she received a while ago, she used one of the Yaegas.h.i.+-style secret techniques, “Void Severing.” It cut even the s.p.a.ce just like its name; at one moment one could see the silver-colored trajectory of the sword, and the Chimera’s snake tail was severed into two in the next moment.
“GURAaaaaWR!!”
Raising roar of anger, the Chimera turned around and swung its sharp claws. However, its attack only cut through the air; s.h.i.+zuku had already moved to the other side. She swung her two swords, and cut the Chimera’s flank.
“Kuh!”
s.h.i.+zuku used her speed to steadily damage the Chimera. However, s.h.i.+zuku’s expression didn’t clear up, inadvertently leaking a sound as though she had been bitten a bitter bug. It was because her calculation had been wrong. In reality, s.h.i.+zuku had wanted to cut the Chimera’s body apart with the first strike, but she could not do that, and the snake tail entered her slas.h.i.+ng range instead. Even the second slash that supposed to cut the Chimera’s body in even halves were stopped when it quickly bent its body right before the slashes reached it.
The Chimera could not keep up with s.h.i.+zuku’s speed. However, it was not like it could not respond to her. It could not see her figure, so it was barely able to respond to s.h.i.+zuku’s extreme speed using its reflex speed; a truly troublesome opponent. It was something more than troublesome for s.h.i.+zuku who wanted to finish the fight quickly and rescue the others.
Afterwards, she swung her swords for the third and fourth times, and though there were numerous wounds on the Chimera’s body, they were too shallow to become a mortal wound. In addition, the Chimera began to become accustomed to s.h.i.+zuku’s speed. An impatient expression appeared on s.h.i.+zuku’s face.
The bad things continued for s.h.i.+zuku, no for all of them.
“CAAAWWWW!!”
When she heard a shriek suddenly resounding around the room, dark red light wrapped the severed tail and wings before her, and the Chimera’s wounds immediately healed. Kaori’s “Heavenly Perimeter”‘s effect had been significantly lowered, and thus, wounds were not supposed to be healed easily no matter how shallow they were. s.h.i.+zuku opened her eyes wide and looked at the source of the shriek, while she kept caution towards the healed Chimera.
Thus, unbeknownst to her, the Demon race woman who was standing idly like an unconcerned spectator had a double-headed white crow riding on her shoulder, with one head turned towards s.h.i.+zuku. More accurately, it was facing the Chimera before s.h.i.+zuku.
“There’s even a healer!?”
She thought she finally wounded the difficult enemy, but it was immediately healed. Even at the best of times, lots of time would have pa.s.sed before she could attain the victory. However, now, there was an excellent healer in stand by for the Chimera. Such a situation made s.h.i.+zuku screamed instinctively.
Not only s.h.i.+zuku, her comrades at the other places similarly raised bitter screams.
Kouki, who fought the Brutal-look-alike while receiving support, had almost finished after he deeply cut the Brutal-like body from shoulder to the waist, but the crow’s other head was looking at the wound, and when it shrieked, it was healed as though time had rewinded.
The same thing happened to Ryuutarou and Nagayama. The second Brutal-look-alike Ryuutarou was fighting had its abdomen hollowed out as though it had exploded, and one of its arm was broken. However, it was immediately healed when the head that was looking at the Chimera s.h.i.+zuku was fighting against, turned towards it and shrieked. Even the Chimera Nagayama had battled against that had parts of its body caved in was immediately healed.
“Looks like you have quite the hard time. What will you do? Will you come to our side now? If it is now, I will let you think for a while, you know?”
Seeing Kouki’s party having a hard fight, the woman of the Demon race clapped her hands with composed att.i.tude and once again spoke to invite them. To begin with, she asked the question knowing what the answer will be, and her expression remained cold. Her expectation turned to be right.
“Don’t joke around! We won’t yield to your threat! We won’t be defeated! And I will give you the proof! Here I go, “Limit Break”!”
The words of the woman of the Demon race made Kouki raised an expression of indignation. He used the Holy Sword to counter the Brutal-look-alike’s swung down mace, and used the chance to activate “Limit Break”.
Cladded in divine light, Kouki shouted this would be the end, and charged towards the woman of the Demon race.
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