Chapter 1486 (2/2)

While making a mental note to really work on the Skill Levels for this Skillset even further, Randidly shot upward at a vicious speed. Behind him, he felt the cloud dragon stir and ponderously pull its jaws shut. The motion appeared slow because of its immense size, but as the lips smashed together right behind him with enough force to ruffle his clothes, Randidly chuckled. Almost. Missed me by a full meter though.

Randidly shot directly toward the alert Hank Howard, who instantly trained his revolver on the three-meter orb of Mantle that Randidly had woven together in preparation for this. Hank narrowed his eyes. Then he closed them. Just as Randidly was bewildered by the choice, the man pulled the trigger.

Bang!

Of course, his damned instincts!

Because he was carefully hoarding his mental energy for his next trick, Randidly only relied on his physical body to dodge. But to his surprise, even as he cut sharply sideways and twisted, that bullet seemed to curve toward him as though it caught and rode a gust of wind. It smashed into his right shoulder, boring a hole through his Mantle and revealing his physical position within the grey smog.

Even worse was Hank’s image. Although it wasn’t flashy, the bullet that cut into Randidly’s flesh flared to life and fought against his image physicalizations immediately. The narrative leaning of Hank’s image tried to pull Randidly into the role of an overpowered villain. Before that could get any traction, Randidly gritted his teeth and squashed the image. The bullet flickered and was ejected from his body a split second later before it could inflict too much damage. But the sudden show of force did end up costing him much of his spare mental energy.

Just as he was about to recreate the Mantle, Alana Donal was there. Her eyes shone with a brilliant white light and met Randidly’s gaze. “The Third Revelation: Anguish.”

The blow was invisible and vicious. Everything was twisted and torn. Even Randidly, who was used to immense amounts of pain, grunted and froze for an instant as that invisible pain lashed across his body. And that moment of pause was exactly what they had been waiting for. Randidly felt the air around him become thin and filmy like glass. Then it shattered.

*****

Alana felt something close to relief as Dinesh activated his ability for one more massive usage. The strange smog that the Ghosthound kept close to his body seemed to twist in the air to try and escape it, but then it exploded outward and revealed that he had been successfully shifted. At the moment, he probably was slamming into the ground below. He would react quickly, but not quickly enough.

But that was just the smaller of the two workings that Dinesh accomplished. The bigger one was shifting the entirety of the massive cloud dragon that Huang Li manipulated, flipping it upside down. At the moment, it screamed down toward the ground where Randidly had been sent. It was a veritable bomb of tightly compacted winds, ready to test the limits of the Ghosthound’s physical resilience.

The wings of Alana’s Fate beat several times, slowing her descent toward the impact point. She glanced around and raised her voice to cut above the dull roar of the wind. “Prepare for landing! We will be going in as soon as the Sky-Slaying Sword dissipates. Hank-”

But then Alana blinked and glanced around. Where was Hank Howard? Now was a bad time for him to uphold his aloof Western trope of appearing only when they needed-

Then Alana grimaced.

A split second before the dragon hit the ground, Alana heard Dinesh shout. “You-! How?”

“I avoided it.” Alana could hear the grin in Randidly Ghosthound’s voice.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Even twenty meters in the air, the impact of Huang Li’s impressive Skill hitting the ground shook Alana. Winds churned through the ground like teeth of an invisible leviathan, moving at speeds that they gripped huge slabs of rock and heaved them out of the ground. These huge pieces of debris were smashed against each other and then tossed by the air currents back toward the ground, smashing into their more stubborn fellows. Very quickly an area about one hundred meters in diameter had all of its rock of significant size reduced to spiraling sand particles.

Then the exterior winds ceased hitting the ground and the maw itself impacted the space.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!

This impact was a different beast entirely than the initial contact, manifesting as a massive concussive wave that slapped the surrounding space. Alana was tossed to the side, losing sight of her fellow attackers in the chaos. The ground rumbled and dropped as stone chipped and cracked. Behind the maw of the cloud dragon, its massive body began to collapse as its energy was spent. Then the air filled with a horrible hissing sound. The speed of the winds on impact was so fast that the sand that wasn’t blasted away was melted into gleaming glass.

Alana’s image had to flare with the aspect of inviolability in order to prevent her from crashing into the ground. Quickly, she steadied herself and began to glide. As the debris began to settle, the crater was revealed. It spread outward in beautiful waves, delicate sheets of overlapping glass giving the stone space the beautiful curve of flower petals.

However, this attack ended up being an utter failure. When Alana hit the ground and could effectively examine the area, she found that Randidly Ghosthound was holding the bodies of Dinesh and Glendel. Likely he had already tossed the unconscious form of Hank Howard to the side.

Only she, Lyra, Huang Li, and Paolo remained.