Chapter 1470 (1/2)
Randidly folded his arms as he watched Alana unleash a Skill that may or may not be based on her reverence toward him. As Kayle was rapidly moving back to avoid that light, his long knives crisscrossed in front of him, throwing up several smaller barriers in order to lessen the effect of Alana’s attack. But the intensity of the image that Alana unleashed along with the Skill steadily eviscerated everything in the surrounding area. Even Randidly felt impressed through his sense of awkwardness; it certainly lived up to the moniker of ‘Divinity’.
But he could already tell that particular Skill had a steep usage cost. After the first pulse of that all-consuming light, the illumination swiftly receded, leaving a determined-looking Alana glaring down at Kayle. The flames behind her had shrunk to be about a handspan.
Despite being hit rather directly with the Skill, Kayle managed to leap back up to his feet almost immediately. But his left arm was trembling as he took a fighting stance in front of Alana. Most of his exposed flesh was covered with rapidly reddening burns. Meanwhile, Paolo was grinning from ear to ear as he considered his partner. “That’s exactly right. That is the sort of fight that this should be…”
Paolo raised his hands and the sluggish cheers from the crowd began to warp around his limbs. Streams of partial images swirled through the air, spinning and flowing into his body as he intensified his image of triumph. Those partial images looked like wisps of silk, sleek and light enough to be blown away by a strong breeze.
Sensing the meaning to what he was doing, Wivanya swept her claws at Paolo. But this time, he didn’t even bother to dodge. He stepped into the blow with lowered hands and let his heels grind into the marble as Wivanya smashed him sideways.
Wivanya is reliable, but her image conflicts too directly with Alana’s. Randidly thought to himself. Their combination isn’t ideal.
Paolo’s face twitched but he stayed on his feet. Although the claws shredded the flesh of his shoulder, he was somehow able to endure Wivanya’s attack. Seeing him survive, the noise from the crowd exploded upward. More and more wispy images flowed to Paolo. Even Randidly had to wonder about the physics of the move and narrowed his eyes to examine Paolo’s image. But Wivanya responded with a roar and unleashed a blast of concentrated frost from her mouth.
A pillar of light exploded from Paolo, the cheers and approval of the crowd becoming tinder to the flame burning in his heart. It wasn’t the exact same sort of inviolable light that Alana released, but it at least shared the trait of being bright, which seemed to further excited the audience. They raised their voices and shook their limbs, caught in the frenzy of the conflict.
Alana glanced sideways at Paolo’s ascendant image, then returned her gaze to the panting form of Kayle in front of her. “If he continues to accept all those foreign influences to his image, he is in for a rude awakening.”
“He can handle it,” Kayle exposed a small smile and then both foes blurred into motion. Although she clearly didn’t have as much punch to her image any longer, Alana Donal was still the human on Earth who had done the most combat training over the last several years. Her step, thrust, and then follow up sweep with her spear were blisteringly fast.
At his best, he could hold his own, but he was no longer in peak condition. Kayle deflected the thrust but could only be smashed backward as Alana targeted his wounded arm. Her spear cut deeply into the wrist of his bad arm. But as Kayle was thrown backward, he twisted mid-air and once more manifested his stark image above his head. The line seemed so slender, but it cleanly divided infinity. “The Sword of Triumph!”
Alana tensed, but she wasn’t the target of the Skill. Instead, it appeared that Kayle cast several lightning-fast barriers around Paolo. Randidly chewed on his lip but then understanding gradually bloomed in Randidly’s eyes as Paolo rapidly exploded with the potency of the images that he had been absorbing. Streams continued to flow into him from the crowd, but now nothing could flow out any longer. His body, bounded by Kayle’s Absolute Divides, was the vessel to the rapidly increasing pressure of those images. While he stood there and seemed to rush rapidly towards some sort of detonation, Wivanya’s claws scratched helplessly at the barriers Kayle created.
Randidly felt a small smile taking hold on his face. The result isn’t as integrated as Dinesh and Tykes’ combination Skill, but I can already tell that this effect will be much more exaggerated...
For a split second, Alana frowned. But ultimately, she ignored the trembling Kayle and pounced over toward Paolo. “Wivanya, switch.”
“Keh. You are lucky, human.” Wivanya glared at the exultant Paolo and then bounded across toward Kayle. Seeing the dragon’s approach, Kayle gritted his teeth and recovered his footing. Just like Alana, it seemed that the Skill he used cost him quite a bit of his Willpower. He also had to replace another one of his long knives that had been shattered by Alana, but he settled into a defensive stance and waited for Wivanya to approach.
Once more light gathered around Alana while she moved forward, but this light seemed to make the details of the surrounding space clearer, rather than obscuring her person. Her image had shifted once she had exhausted her image of divinity. The color contrast of her person shot upward, making the flames around her vividly orange and her wings almost blindingly white.
The flavor of her image shifted slightly again as she raised her spear. She was no longer a pure valkyrie, but a prophet. When her mouth opened, something sanctified and almost solid flowed out: she spoke the word of a God. “Spear Thrusts so Plentiful They Sound like Rain.”
And Randidly could hear it in the moments that followed, the sizzling impact of hundreds of spear attacks that Alana threw outward, each with a deceptive amount of force behind the attacks. These were strikes that would have laid out any of the contestants below the top 8. But it appeared that Kayle had taken great care in the construction of these barriers because they cracked but didn’t quite shatter. Alana’s eyes sharpened.
She withdrew slightly, the intensity of her image rising further once more. Waves of heat began to rise from her pearly wings, as though the feathers were eternal tongues of flame. Her eyes were determined as she considered the figure of Paolo. “The Fourth Revelation: Divinity.”
The intense brightness that followed was a different sort of brightness from the first activation. Randidly chewed on his lip; she was developing her image further with every use. True, Alana was once again the epicenter of the phenomenon, but rather than being blinded by the light, Alana’s form seemed to swell and fill the attention span of the viewer. In this baser form, the shard of divinity that she channeled in her image became all-consuming. And with that power at the tip of her spear, she thrust her weapon forward.
At the same time, Paolo exploded with a hurricane of force. All of the pressurized energy of his image that had been funneled from the crowd through his body finally broke out through Kayle’s barriers from the inside. So he was swimming at the head of an avalanche of concentrated images, swinging his fists wildly, challenging everything and anything in his path.
The two forces collided and Randidly pressed his lips together in a thin line; the battle was approaching the point that he was confident in his own safety, but it would be more difficult to ensure the health of the participants. His three images swam through his blood, slowly altering his body in preparation for what might follow.
And the confrontation stretched onward as Randidly watched. The clash was a little like two spouts of water spraying at each other; drops were flung in every direction, but no immediate victor was determined. With the addition of the audience’s image, Paolo was able to force Alana into a standstill. What he lacked in detail he made up for with a single-minded pursuit of power.
Into that strained stalemate stepped Kayle. With the deft fingers of his uninjured right hand, he reached up and grabbed the shattered edges of the barriers he had conjured around Paolo. Eventually, he settled on a jagged remnant that shimmered in his hand even as it began to disintegrate and scatter. But while it remained, he slashed downward at Alana. “Victory, Severed.”
A white crescent of light shot forward toward Alana. The shard in Kayle’s hand fell to pieces, even as the hand holding it was torn to pieces.
Randidly’s pupils instantly tightened to the size of a pin tip. A lot of meaning and imagery was seething beneath the surface of Kayle’s gesture, giving the slash vastly increased power based on the symbolism present. But just as quickly as Randidly recognized the threat it presented, Wivanya was moving. She tossed her body in front of the attack and crossed her wings as an extra line of defense. Heavy layers of ice formed across her body-
BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!
Wivanya took the brunt of the slash and crashed into the arena with enough force to shake the surrounding ground. Much of her left wing was shredded and enough blood to fill a small stream gushed out of the wound on her side. Some of her organs were clearly visible through the ripped flesh. Even so, the white crescent had enough force to continue downward and strike Alana.
Her image of divinity was cleanly dispersed by the shattered nature of Kayle and Paolo’s combination attack, but so was Paolo’s; the only problem was that Alana hadn’t been expecting it at all. A quick scan indicated that the damage to Wivanya was severe. Randidly had no way of seeing her Health, but based on the blood, being knocked unconscious, and the way her image was obliterated, he made his decision.
“...Wivanya has been knocked out for the remainder of the match,” Randidly announced. Even as Paolo spear tackled Alana, Randidly used Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil to wrap the heavy dragon’s body with roots and lift her to medical help. Of course, no sooner did Randidly lift Wivanya off the ground than she regained consciousness and began to struggle.