Chapter 398 Age of Empyrean VII (2/2)
”... still not enough.” the man said, smiling faintly, clearly enduring her pressure with ease.
”... pathetic,” she said slowly. ”All of you. Simply pathetic.”
”...”
”Now I see why they sent you here,” the man's brows slowly scrounged up as the pressure on him continued increasing, over and over. ”But... you've all miscalculated. Don't you know the tale as old as time, Slayer?”
”....”
”You never... ever...” space around Ella suddenly exploded upon itself, ripped apart from inside out, expanding across like the cracking glass. ”Stand between a mother and her son.”
The man suddenly found himself blasted backward as he crashed against the shielding dome looming the city, sending quakes throughout its entire surface. Rapidly recovering, he wiped the corners of his mouth and swung the spear upwards, meeting Ella's direct strike.
What followed was a flurry of attacks that could not be reasonably quantified inside a timeline; within a second, spacetime around the two ceased to exist; within two, they vanished inside a gaping storm bounding the void; within three, space around bubbled up like blisters, counting in thousands; within four, they all exploded in a shower of invisible Qi, sending shockwaves that toppled the trees over hundreds of miles away; within five, there only was a massive, truly gigantic, gaping hole well above the city of Do'r. Stars alight surrounded nebulae, faint, disk-shaped galaxies shimmering in the fast distance.
Within the scope of cosmos, the two shimmering dots at the center of ripping appeared enormously insignificant... yet their battle hardly was.
The man quickly realized something was wrong; he was completely put on a defensive position -- but not at his own pace. He was not allowed to run or dodge, he had to block every single strike, otherwise, it would mean a loss of a limb or, in the worst case, his own life.
Yet, with each passing second, the speed, precision, lethality and cruelty of her attacks only seemed to grow. Her Will, if compared to a storm previously, was now an ever-consuming hurricane, slowly evolving even further.
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Just as the pressure became too much to bear with his body alone, she stopped and withdrew. They'd long since transferred their battle outside Noterra, to the so-called Expanse of Heaven. A massive, spherical ball drifted across the dark void beneath the two, yet they hardly paid attention to it, staring into each other's eyes.
”... he won't die.” the man said, taking a moment to recover his breath. ”He will hardly even be harmed. I know, in your heart, you aren't fighting for Ataxia, but for him -- I give you my word, nothing will happen to him.”
”... you're right,” Ella said, her black hair suddenly growing golden and then ethereally white, like the birth of first light in the universe, her wrinkled face reforging into a masked one with only two holes for eyes, her voice turning deep and choral. ”I'm not fighting for Ataxia. But, he is. And his fights are my fights. Though I can't kill you, Slayer, if I go all out, I will cripple you until the end of your days. You will never again see the sight of the bounding sky, nor will you ever again feel the warm touch of Qi. And, if I cripple you, your Sect will come undone. It will be devoured. The entire fabric of the world will change. In your heart of hearts, do you believe she will help you?” by now, the man was only capable of staring, stunned in silence. She, in front of his eyes... changed. Not into her Avatar form or the like... but changed... completely. Twenty-four white, feathered wings hung off her back, beyond beautiful to behold, each over two hundred meters long. Upon her head lay a golden tiara with a white gem embedded at the center, a gem so bright he was unable to look directly at it. Two holes for eyes turned into six, three on each side, her ordinary-looking dress transforming into a silver-cast body armor.
Half a meter above her head rested a gold-cast halo, cleaved up front where a small, spherical blurb of light rotated around itself at the speed he couldn't perceive.
Her single sword split into two, each cast in a blazing fire, extending to over a meter and a half in length.
And further behind her back, behind the gigantic wings, was a ring of fire spinning in a circle, seven gems of different colors embedded on its surface.
Slayer stared in awe and terror, tongue-tied. Her appearance had transcended the realms of beauty and holiness and grace; it was, he was certain, not of this world.
”... w-who... who are you?” he mumbled lowly, week in knees. Certainly, if there was ground beneath him, he'd have knelt down. ”No... what are you?”
”... I can't stay like this much longer,” her voice had turned low and warm, wrapping around his whole being and calming him down. Just right then, the barrier that held him back from progressing any further in his Cultivation broke down as light surged from the depths of his soul. ”Make a choice, Slayer.”
”... thank you,” he mumbled as he suddenly stood to the left, bowing his head lowly. ”My withdrawal would cause too many drifts in the immediate future; but, your call to arms... I shall answer.”
”It won't be mine,” the last trace of her whisper pierced through his ears as he looked up, meeting her smiling eyes. ”But his.” she vanished, leaving behind only a faint trace of beyond-holy light that had showered him in warmth. He would stand there for days and months, part of his mind stabilizing his progression... and the other part ensuring he would never, till his dying breath, forget what he had just witnessed.
He had a faint idea of who she might be, though he would never voice aloud. It was too reality-shattering, something the world as it was could in no way, shape or form handle. Perhaps in the distant future, he might share; though, for a time, he settled his heart on being the one who knows. One of the few, probably, who knows.