Chapter 205 (2/2)

I should be safe from her here, Link thought.

He then cast the Levitation spell on himself and continued to drift in the air.

Suddenly, though, Link heard an unusual gust of wind behind him. He drew in a sharp breath when he turned around and saw a Griffin flying towards him at high speed. Sitting on its back was none other than Nana herself!

She’s a smart puppet, alright, thought Link bitterly. Now that she’s found herself a Griffin to fly on, things are no longer as simple as before!

The Griffin’s flying speed wasn’t actually that fast at only about 200 miles per hour. But the more critical point was that it had high endurance and wouldn’t have any problems flying in the air for more than a dozen hours.

Link might have recovered some of his Mana when he was under the Levitation spell, but now that he had summoned the Storm Eagle, he could probably maintain it for no more than five minutes before he ran out of Mana again.

At this point, Nana would catch up to him soon enough!

I must kill the Griffin! Link thought.

He made no more attempts to flee from Nana and waited for her to approach him mid-air.

Half a minute later, Nana had driven the Griffin to about 300 feet away from Link. He could clearly see that the Griffin was reluctantly following Nana’s orders only because her powers had overwhelmed it and rendered it helpless against her will. Three hundred feet was the range limit of Link’s Whistle. The Griffin had no protective gear around its body, so Whistle was more than enough to cause damage to its body.

Link focused his eyesight and activated the Crimson Edelweiss in his bracelet just in case. Then, he raised his wand and directed his Mana into it, casting five Whistles in a row, taking 0.08 seconds for each of them.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh…

The Whistles tore through the air and headed straight towards the Griffin.

The magic puppet Nana quickly blocked the Whistles at an unimaginably fast speed. A series of dings rang out in the air. Nana had quite effortlessly deflected all of Link’s Whistles from the Griffin.

What Link found even more shocking was how nimble and agile Nana’s movements were. Not only did she cut off Link’s Mana from the Whistles, making it impossible for him to control them, she’d also used her tremendous power to deflect the attacks right before the Whistles exploded.

The Whistles had now been flung out about 50 feet away before their spell structures collapsed which triggered their explosions. At that distance, even with the metal fragments in the air, they posed no threats to the Griffin whatsoever.

It was the first time Link had ever seen one of his most powerful attacks get deflected so easily!

As expected from a magic puppet that’s evolved over 400 years, Link thought. Ah, her combat skills almost make her indestructible!

But naturally, Link had other attack strategies up his sleeve other than Whistles alone. He still had his Glass Orbs, which could do nearly as much damage to the Griffin as Whistles could.

Mana flowed into his wand once again, and Glass Orbs took form at an indescribably high speed. With the help of the Domingo crystal, Link managed to cast 50 Glass Orbs per second.

For a moment, there were countless lines of light between Link and the Griffin.

Nana blocked the attacks with her sword as she did before. The Glass Orbs burst like soap bubbles as they hit the blade of her sword. And in no time at all, none of Link’s Glass Orbs remained.

Nana’s swordsmanship was flawless indeed, but there was one tiny problem that was out of her control.

Because of the succession of explosions were so near to the Griffin, the creature was completely spooked, and it fled instinctively away from Link, overruling Nana’s command no matter how much she tried to subdue it.

The Griffin escaped further and further away from Link, and Nana fixed her eyes on him as if she had made a certain decision. She stood up and used the Griffin’s body as the springboard to leap forward towards Link.

Nana had witnessed Link’s reaction speed many times by now so she knew that there was a chance that she could hit him this way. But still, this was her only chance!

Meanwhile, Link entered the state of absolute calm that was the spellcasting state. He amassed all of his energy and attention and dared not relax for even the briefest fraction of a second. He knew that the slightest mistake he made would result in death when faced with such a terrifying opponent.

Nana was insanely fast; she was now only 16 feet away from Link. Seeing this, Link immediately raised his wand and cast the defensive spell, Vector Protective Force Field.

The Level-1 spell got to work instantly and flung the magic puppet away from Link. At almost the same time, Link saw a black stone getting hurled at him by Nana, evidently as a direct attack. Although it was only an ordinary stone, once in the hand of the terrifying magic puppet, it turned into a menacing weapon that shot through the air towards Link at the speed of 2600 feet per second.

In truth, the speed at which a stone traveled would always be faster than the speed that the thrower was moving at. Therefore, because Nana herself was moving at 2000 feet per second, it only made sense that the stone that she threw was moving as fast as a rifle bullet!

This didn’t pose much of a problem to Link, though. He was sure that his Crimson Edelweiss was sturdy enough to deflect the stone. Once the stone hit the edges of the shield, it was met with a ring of scorching light. The heat from the light ring slowed it down at first, then the stone burned up into flames and began to disintegrate. 0.01 seconds later, Link discovered that there was something strange about the stone. Its surface looked normal, but at its core, there were tiny blue sparks of electricity.

Link had seen those sparks before. They were on that dark blue sword she’d used earlier, and they had a strong anti-magic effect.

It seemed that Crimson Edelweiss alone wouldn’t be enough to stop this stone!

“…”

Things were looking bad!

By this point, Link didn’t have any time to do anything to counter the incoming attack. At the very last second, he cast a Level-0 defensive spell, Mage Armor and instantly, a pale green glow enveloped him as the armor took form.

Bam!

The stone smashed into Link’s stomach. It was less than two pounds. When it reached Link’s body after having broken through Crimson Edelweiss, its speed was no more than 30 feet per second.

The problem was that Link’s body…was not much stronger than that of the average person’s.

Link was thrown completely off balance by the impact, and all he could feel was the excruciating pain in his stomach. His black eyes dulled, and he almost lost consciousness for a while, although he soon recovered.

What truly horrified Link was the strange sensations he felt in his stomach as if an alien force had penetrated into his body and interfered with his Mana.

Then there was a flash on the interface showing a warning from the gaming system.

Player has been afflicted. Current state: Mana Disorder.

Estimated total recovery time: three hours.

At that instant, all magical functions in Link’s body were shut down. He could only manage to maintain the Levitation Spell and activated the defensive spell in his bracelet, in case Nana flung her sword at him when he was in his most vulnerable state.

Fortunately, Nana cherished her sword too much to throw it away at Link, so he was safe in that regard. Link sighed in relief and floated down towards the cluster of islands below. While he was in mid-air, he took a deep breath and relaxed his body to speed up its recovery time.

What a fearsome magic puppet, Link thought. Her battle intuitions are amazing! I can’t waste any more time playing cat and mouse with her.

Link decided not to run away any longer. There must be more than one Griffin on these islands, so there was a high possibility that Nana would catch another one to chase him with. Once she caught up with him, there was no saying what she would do then.

It’s time to end this battle once and for all. Link took out the Prophetic White Stone from his storage pendant. If nothing else happened within these two hours, then he would use it to end the battle as soon as his feet landed on the ground.

He’d planned on saving a Level-9 spell originally; it’s too bad that it wouldn’t be possible now.

Meanwhile, Nana was similarly falling to the ground because she’d been struck by the impact of Link’s Vector Protective Force Field. Her falling speed was extremely fast, but she fell right on one of the islands.

Boom!

A crater of about eight feet wide and five feet deep was created on the spot where Nana hit the ground. Still, she stood up and dusted her body off as if completely unhurt. She then turned around and entered the forest to look for a Griffin, while not forgetting to keep an eye on Link, who was slowly drifting downwards from the sky.