943 Lesser Prophecy Spell Part 2 (2/2)
”Acknowledged, master.” Flare sped up his stead and rushed at Imposa.
Imposa was facing Saleen on his disk. The leader of the Vermillion Knights shot out of Saleen's cloud, and Imposa was filled with nothing but envy and jealousy. ”Just why does this Saleen have such good luck? I myself advanced to grade-9 when I was young myself. If I had not been so into alchemy, I would have advanced to grade-10 and become the most powerful mage in existence.”
Imposa traveled everywhere and failed to find any elemental creatures worthy of his command. Despite being of such a young age, Saleen had been able to gather all six badges!
Dark Blue had not been able to make it still. He simply flew in the sky quietly and watched Imposa's battle from afar. Seeing how Imposa fled about in a panic within the vicinity of the towers, there simply were no words to describe how pleased he was.
”That wretched sorcerer forced me and Belivare out of our seats ever since he came to Dragon Island. The grand duke listened to every word he said and gave him all the materials and resources he could have ever wanted, yet when I asked for just a single weapon, all I got was him rolling his eyes instead. Paying the price for all you have done, I guess? You are far too cocky, mage. Now I am just going to sit here and see how you will hold out on your own.”
Dark Blue was born and raised in Cloudflow, and Cloudflow people were known to hold grudges. Imposa had no idea that he had been on the bad side of the golden grand swordmaster, and even hoped that the lauded swordsman would have been able to help him get rid of the pesky trouble that was Saleen.
The Vermillion Knight leader charged at him with four other Vermillion Knights riding Flaming Horses tagging behind. Imposa was unable to hold anything back anymore. If he was unable to kill off the grade-10 elemental creature coming for his neck, he would have been the one to end up dead instead.
The speed of the metallic disk beneath Imposa's feet slowed considerably and let out a grinding noise. The disk with a diameter of over thirty yards folded in surreal ways, encasing Imposa in the center. The huge disk transformed shortly after into something over twenty yards tall and looked like Imposa himself.
Not even the Mechanical Soul would have been able to reach such speeds with transformation. Saleen had nothing but admiration for Imposa's art at alchemy, yet Saleen had no choice but to kill one such talented person. That was because he was able to see nothing but greed in Imposa's eyes, greed fulfilled at his expense. As such, Imposa's desire was something that he could never satiate, and that made it impossible to have the alchemist serve him.
There was no way Saleen would have given himself up to Imposa for research after all, making their conflict of interests an irreconcilable one.
Flare rammed into the large alchemic machine Imposa turned into without second thoughts. Sparks flew, and both recoiled more than one-hundred yards away respectively from the collision. A ferocious smirk was seen on the alchemic machine, unlike Imposa's own that was incapable of showing expressions. The huge machine recovered itself and charged at Saleen.
Saleen felt a chill. Flare's charging attack would have been able to burn even average grade-9 beings to death right there and then, yet Imposa's alchemic machine had not suffered so much as a dent. It went pouncing at him right after instead. Saleen's reflexes were quick enough, summoning Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers, who brought two massive magic warhammers down onto Imposa's machine.
Saleen took personal command of the two Elemental Stone Statue Soldiers, unlike how he did Flare. The blunt impact of the warhammers rendered Imposa, who was inside the machine, dizzy for a moment. The momentary dizziness enabled Flare to show up right before Imposa's face. That time, his Flaming Halberd pierced right through the shell of the alchemic machine.
Flare was obviously hundreds of times more cunning than Gloria. After his halberd pierced the machine, he let go right there and then, leaving the weapon lodged into the machine while he himself went straight back to Saleen's elemental badge.
The machine's massive hands lunged at him in response and missed as expected. If Flare had continued attacking, he would have been clapped by the machine. Saleen's ears were ringing from that unimaginable noise resulting from those metallic hands clapping. The arms linking to hands were armed with powerful magic arrays. The impact from the collision between both hands was far more potent than attacks from golden grand swordmasters.
Jola was unable to hold himself back any longer. Despite Flare being a sly one, the elemental creature was nonetheless able to leave a big hole at the shell of the machine. With the Flaming Halberd dispersed, the gaping hole was like a big red target mark.
Golden sword aura gathered to a fine thread and stabbed right through the hole. Jola had not hoped to be able to kill off Imposa right there. Given how complex the structure of the machine was, there was bound to be more than one defense mechanism to it. He was simply doing his best to wreck the machine in front of him with golden sword aura.
Creaking, snapping metal noises were heard from inside the machine, as the golden sword aura tore through an unknown number of parts within. Imposa's movements were hardly slowed though. The long metal tail behind whipped at Saleen like a scorpion whipping its tail.
Saleen summoned the Midnight Fang leader prior, who cut off the large metal tail with one swing of the dark element short sword in their hand. The broken tail did not simply fall or fly off after being cut; it wriggled for a bit before making for Saleen.
There was a very pointy needle at the end of the metal tail. Saleen was very familiar with such needles, as they resembled Nailisi's Dragon Crystal Needles used for ambushing enemies. Other than being very pointy, all that was left was the elemental attributes inherent within the original magic nucleus used to make it.
Nailisi's needle was crafted from Dragon Crystals, and Imposa's needle would definitely not have been something made of magic nucleus below grade-9. The point of the needle was less than one foot away from Saleen's brow, and Jola felt like his soul was about to burst out of his own body. He could not have imagined himself to be making such a dire mistake—leaving Saleen's side.
There was no way he could have blocked the metal tail's attack in time, and no matter how strong Saleen's body was, he was still a mage. If the needle hit its intended target, death would have been upon the target in one hit.