Chapter 1271 (1/2)

Yet Derek’s real focus was rooted to a spot directly in front of him, even as the action of the fights grew more intense. While everyone else had moved to fight each other, the Grey Lich had simply drifted forward, its eyes always locked onto the growing crowd in the area around Derek. And now it was nearing them, only five meters away from him and the rest of the crowd.

And as its corrosive aura became apparent, people noticed the threat and began to scream.

With a curl of its lip, the Grey Lich raised its hand to make an attack.

Before Derek could even think his way through what he should do, he was midair. He finally opened his right hand and spun out the three Mana bombs that he had been preparing. The distance was short, so they almost immediately arrived in a triangle pattern in front of the Grey Lich’s chest. There was no space in Derek’s chest for fear; he needed to push that aside in order to act. Because if he had not, the people around him would have been killed.

Sorry, buddy. I need to give these people a little extra time…

BOOOM!

The explosion felt just as powerful as the others that rocked the stadium in the last few minutes, but Derek knew that was only because he was only a few meters away from it. He stumbled backward as he landed, barely able to keep his feet. As the smoke cleared, the Grey Lich’s surprised face was revealed.

Other than the emotion displayed on its dried skull, it was basically unharmed.

Even as the gaze of the Lich plunged Derek into a frozen swimming pool, two other figures wearing the symbol of the Order Valorem landed next to Derek. It seemed that he wasn’t the only one who had noticed the threat. They gave Derek a nod of acknowledgment and then raised their Mana Rifles and unleashed a barrage of projectiles on the Nemesai.

Snorting, the Grey Lich waved its arm.

Derek felt like a rhinoceros had lowered its horn and charged directly into his chest. Before he could even grunt, he was sent flying backward and smashed into the low wall at the edge of the stands. He felt the stone of the wall shatter and cracks. Two thumps indicated that the people from the Order Valorem suffered the same fate.

Releasing a ragged breath, Derek checked his situation; wounded, but nothing that would kill him. But he had been knocked backward with enough force that his vision was swimming. Still, it could be worse.

Of course, that sentiment was ignoring the floating form of the Grey Lich that continued forward without changing its speed. It’s fuzzy form slowly resolved itself to clarity as Derek’s vision recovered and it neared him. “To bar my path? Insolence-”

Further villain trash talking was stopped as almost everyone in the stadium looked upward to a bright surge of light that filled the sky above them. A pillar of energy rushed downward to impact the stadium with all the combined force of one thousand Raid Bosses.

Above him, Derek heard someone shriek in horror. “They are shooting Mjolnir at us?!”

Then the beam of energy landed with a sound like several beaches’ worth of waves crashing at once. There was a rumbling around the barrier that blocked the stadium off from the outside world, but it was a surprisingly sedate experience. The vast energy with no focus pressed against the stadium until it had run its course. Then it slowly dissipated.

No one could find anything to say as the greatest weapon of Zone 1 was spent without having affected the situation at all. Derek pressed his eyes closed as he felt his System empowered body begin to slowly heal the damage he had sustained from the wave of the Grey Lich’s arm. That’s why images are so important. In the System, it takes a lot of energy to overcome a firm image…

The Grey Lich had paused to look up curiously at the blast of energy from Mjolnir, but soon continued to float forward as the attack didn’t hold the lich’s interest. Alana had rushed past the struggling Thea toward the Winged Serpent but had been intercepted by Straud. Although Alana’s image wasn’t as powerful as the Jade Prince’s it possessed a strange sense of resilience that let her fight toe to toe with Straud with her strength burning at its brightest.

But she could not pass him. Her spear met his fists and could proceed no further.

The man with the iron ball earned a horrible gash on his back from the Bandit King but managed to push past his opponent and arrive to help Alana. But even with two of them, they couldn’t break past Straud and his powerful fists in those few short seconds. And soon Thea and the Bandit King came at them from behind. Under the combined assault of the three, Alana’s brilliant image began to flag even with the man’s assistance.

The Jade Prince hadn’t yet recovered enough to overcome the Obsidian Duke. Ghost’s mecha couldn’t quickly beat the giant blood werewolf. Decklan had given up hiding and was now using two daggers to unleash a flurry of blows on Hank. As such, Hank didn’t have time to fire another powerful revolver bullet.

The stone wheel had begun to pulse with power. In Derek’s clearing vision, he could see that drops of blood were floating in the air, slowly being drawn toward the giant wheel.

“Dad!”

Derek had thought that he couldn’t be in a sorrier state than he currently was. He was wrong. His whole body spasmed as he heard Tim’s voice. He turned to look and saw that his son had walked out of the referee booth and was now glaring at the Grey Lich with the sort of all-consuming hatred that could only be planted in a child’s heart.

Adrenaline Rush.Second Wind. Derek heaved himself to his feet and grabbed one of the dropped Mana Rifles from the Order Valorem guards. The model was new, but Derek still remembered how to use his Mana to burn through the sensor that would detect whether the holder was the true owner of the gun. After all, the security measure had been designed to stop petty theft, not a trained professional on a chaotic battlefield.