Chapter 71: Battle Witches (2) (2/2)
Thus Katrin stepped forward, despite the gnawing feeling urging her to do the opposite. A bead of sweat slowly dripped down her brow as she leveled her hands at Gigi and fired both orbs of magic at her. She didn't even wait to see whether the spells made contact, she then began to activate two Scribe Script runes to activate Terra Rising and Earth Shard. By using her Scripts she would have less freedom than using free-form magic, but more speed.
Agni took several deep breaths as she watched Gigi step out of the small crater created by the explosion. The sudden flurry of spells activated by Katrin snapped her out of her distracted mind.
*Is this some kind of intimidation spell?* Agni thought to herself as she recovered and quickly began to follow suit. This time Agni decided on adopting a tactic similar to Katrin's first attempt. Agni disliked using water element for one reason only, it was much too weighty. Conjuring and manipulating the magic simply felt ”heavy” in comparison to all of her other elements save earth. In fact, this was also the reason that Agni avoided using earth element whenever possible. Agni noticed that Gigi only used fire and wind elements thus far, so she decided to try using opposing elements for the time being.
Much like before, Gigi swatted her rune blade to destroy Katrin's projectiles, but this time a single wave of her blade caused the flames to extend several meters in an arcing strike. The rolling wave of flames destroyed several of Katrin's earth shards and also moved like a whip, threatening to lash Agni across the chest. She bought her arms up at the last moment but the impact once again caused her mind to briefly flicker. In that instant Gigi chose to strike her first. With her quick step it was a simple matter to bridge the distance and perform two strikes. Agni half expected her arms to be cleaved in two, instead she felt a heavy, oppressive weight as Gigi's magic infused blade bared down on her, forcing her guard apart. The second blow came just moments later, catching Agni on the shoulder. She instantly knew that if she weren't in a training area her clavicle would most likely have been shattered.
*How can she be so powerful!* Agni thought, her mind racing back to their encounter with the snatchers.
*Were they really just that weak?*
Agni was forced to kneel by the consecutive blows but she still leapt backwards and released a small flurry of water element orbs. They stretched and undulated as they flew forward, pelting Gigi across her chest several times before she was able to swing her blade again. Despite her speed, when swinging her weapon she couldn't manage to deflect smaller more accurate attacks. Agni thanked Katrin for exposing this weakness and quickly began the process of creating more magic orbs. While Agni didn't need to use her hands for this task, it simply felt more natural for her to do so.
Gigi didn't stick around to take more water blasts though and she twisted, pivoting on the balls of her foot as she swung her blade once again. Another large wave of fire magic lashed out, this time it was much faster and difficult to evade. As Gigi used several mid range attacks, Katrin focused on long ranged ones to provide support. Since she was now using Scribe Script to activate spells she was forced to abandon any measure of control, these were more like summoning spells that performed a set action. She used her magic with both precision and aggression, her hands seemed to almost blur as several pillars of condensed earth jutted upwards and quickly began to catch up with Gigi who skillfully darted around them. Now that Katrin was using spells Gigi could easily anticipate the size and shape of the strikes, thus they were little more than distractions.
At first Gigi thought that Katrin might be the more troublesome of the two, after all she had seen Grimoire users in action quite often and their ability to combine spells was something to watch out for. But when Agni used such a powerful attack it forced Gigi to not only use a great portion of her mana on a mana expensive barrier, but she also took quite a bit of damage as well.
If she wanted to end the battle and not be shown up by two complete novices she needed to end things quickly. The pot shots the pair were peppering her body with weren't helping either.
*When did zero ranks get so strong? This is nuts!* Gigi thought to herself as she felt her senses sharpen. Although she was slowly being pressured by both of her opponents her Spellsword ability 'Dominion' was now in full effect. It was responsible for the change in her appearance and had the added effect of enhancing the power of her own elemental strikes within a certain radius -- ten meters.
This could be considered a medium range on any battlefield, the only trade off was increased mana costs. In addition to this , Gigi was now using wind magic in combination with fire magic to extend the range of her flame strikes even further. With less than six more swipes she would be running on fumes practically. Still, she couldn't complain, more than anything she felt alive when pushed to her limits. Gigi couldn't help but smile as the two new recruits rose to meet her expectations!
*Wind steps, each one uses mana.* Gigi thought to herself as she used mana enhanced evasion magic to help avoid Katrin's cascading earth strikes.
*Flame Strikes..* She thought as she swung her rune blade towards Agni who was struck by the first blow and even managed to retaliate before using some of her own fire magic to lessen the impact of Gigi's second flame strike. At this point even infusing her blade with mana was becoming difficult. She noticed the mass of flames covering her weapon flicker slightly even as she had this thought.
*At best one or two more strikes. I better make them count.* Gigi thought inwardly as she reared back and cleaved downward with her blade. The vertical flame strike was meant for Agni who, as Gigi predicted, would side step it. She purposely slowed the attack and used less energy to bait her opponent. With Agni now leaping to the side both she and Katrin had become aligned. Gigi stepped to her left even further and then dashed forth at an awkward angle for Agni. Gigi's body maintained a low posture and rose into the strike, at the last possible moment she flared up the remainder of her magical energy, choosing to commit fully to the attack.
A large wave of vertical fire magic, twice as powerful as the previous one was released at near point blank range against the Succubus. Katrin was just three meters behind Agni and also directly in line with this blow. Gigi's intent was to strike them both with a single blow and either way after this bold move the spar would be done!