Daimon quickly gazed at the battlefield just to make sure he wasn’t missing anything, because his instincts told him there was more than what met the eye, but so far everything was going according to the plan.
Aisha and the two princesses were suppressing the Skelefiend leader, and the seven magic beasts were though were being ganged on almost in a 1:10 situation as there were sixty enemies going against them, were fairing pretty well.
The gap between middle and peak Lord ranks was big enough for the pirates and skelefiends to not be able to really wound the magic beasts whose carapaces or scales were part of their innate advantages, with their normal spells, they needed to use their best ones to actually made a significant amount of damage.𝑜𝔳𝑙xt.𝚌𝞸𝓶
But Karmandi’s subordinates though not fully rational, weren’t stupid in any way, they knew that they needed time to cast such spells, and interrupted them in the middle.
At the same time the magic beasts were having a rough time trying to hit the “slippery” small enemies, unless they used wide area abilities, so the situation has more or less found a balance where they were stalling each other.
Unable to find the source of his worries, Daimon sent Aisha a message through the mental connection, so that he could focus on the enemy in front of him.
He also nodded at Karmandi to let him know it wasn’t the time for him to reveal his identity yet, precisely because of that strange sensation he had.
‘Oh well, let’s finish this guy down first’, thought Daimon, he exhaled and then for the first time since he arrived at this magic ruin, he activated Core Synchrony.
Still, he controlled the output to be at the early stage of the Mage Lord rank, and still hid a great part of his aura thanks to the hollow suit, he did it so that the spectators would only think he has only stopped to hide his real rank.
And it worked, the maid Chris for example was having a hard time believing that the “disciple” of the Trident Marshal wasn’t even at the Lord realm, as that was the norm for the remarkably high ranked noble descendants of the young generation, such as Mellie or Jasmine, the only exceptions were the crown prince and the young spear as well as the middle son of the Blackfin family who were the only which had reached the middle stage, thus becoming the top of the food chain, and the favorites to win the events.
‘So he was hiding his real strength this whole time’, she thought as she returned to the first princess’s side, as Daimon asked her to, the upcoming fight was going to be pretty wild.
In comparison the pirate Lucas gritted his teeth as he spat on the ground.
“Hiding your real strength, getting rid of hostages and killing women, you nobles aren’t better than us, and yet you paint yourselves as upright knights, while we are the bad guys…”.
Before Lucas could finish his sentence, Daimon’s image vanished from where he was standing, but unlike the stealth blink which doesn’t cause any sound or effect on Daimon’s surroundings, what he did was simply move using a lightning boosting spell in combination with his abnormal physical strength as a knight.
“Boooom!”, a thunder like sound echoed through the whole area as the ground below Daimon’s feet exploded, and the next thing Lucas knew was that there was a black sword swinging at him from above.
“Clang!”, this time Lucas couldn’t out speed Daimon, so he had to use his weapon to block the attack, and used the blunt side of the sword-breaking dagger, to trap Disaster’s edge.
But he miscalculated how heavy were Daimon’s swings, and while his Arch ranked dagger was able to resist the attack, sparks flew all over the place while he was forced back and even had to bent his knees due to the impact.
Lucas felt his bones creaking due to the strength behind Daimon’s attack, but he still smiled and the formations in his weapon activated, in his mind as long as he got rid of that scary sword, he could deal with Daimon as he was still “just” an early stage lord ranked.
But to his surprise, not only sword-breaking array didn’t activate, the cracking sound he heard was one he recognized as this was his second weapon of the same kind.
“Crack!”, then under Luca’s ash-death expression, his precious weapon was cut in half, and he was sent flying backwards.
Daimon could “feel” Narasha’s excitement, apparently, she who was in part affected by Disaster’s feelings, enjoyed the sensation of fighting other magic weapons and destroying them.
Lucas saw what was left of his dagger and his eyes got bloodshot, as a Lord ranked he practically had to put his life at a stake to get an Arch ranked magic weapon, in the black market and now a random guy who messed up his plans broke it just like that.
“You beast, you forced my hand!”, Lucas ripped his upper clothes and then red symbols appeared all over his body, his body grew to be about two meters of height and his muscles expanded, his skin became gray and his teeth which were normal a moment ago became spiked like the ones of a monster, but the biggest change was his arms.
His arms which were previously proportionated to his body, grew larger until they reached past his knees all the way to his shins, and his fingers enlarged to be about fifteen centimeters each, also his hands became webbed and large sharp claws appeared on his fingers it was strangely similar to a… Bottom Shredder.
“You pirates like to transform yourselves into monsters”, mumbled Daimon remembering the change that pirate underwent in which he gained traits of the Mist Horrors, the only difference is that this time the base was obviously a Bottom Shredder instead.
“Roaarr!”, Lucas tilted his head and then let out a beastly roar, which was answered by another similar roar, coming from the jungle.
Then the air around Lucas trembled and then his aura forcefully jumped form the peak Lord realm to the early stage Arch rank, before it stabilized there.
And that wasn’t all, a turmoil raised on the forest where the Bottom Shredders and Neal were previously having a tight 2v1 fight.
But now the aura of one of the two Bottom Shredders has become equal or maybe even slightly stronger than Neal’s, meaning it had jumped to the middle stage of the Arch rank.
“Boom!”, Lucas grabbed the two pieces of his dagger and then dashed towards Daimon, apparently in this form he overcame the apprehension he felt earlier, but Daimon snorted and after releasing the rest of the increase he got from Core Synchrony he reached the middle stage of the Lord realm and welcomed Lucas with Disaster, causing a huge clasing sound and a deafening shockwave.
…
The battles stopped for a split of a second due to the oppressive waves of mana caused by the clash of two middle stage Arch ranked magic beasts, then the Skelefiend Miserius who saw from the corner of his eyes at his colleague using their hidden card, sinisterly smiled.
“You should have behaved like good girls and handed in by yourselves, I’ll tell you a little secret, we haven’t gotten totally used to this power, so it’s hard to control ones urges… I must say that you female nobles “taste” delicious”, said Miserius as he licked his lips.
Then just like Lucas his body expanded and gained similar characteristics to a Bottom Shredder, the difference as that he had no flesh as he is a Skelefiend, in fact his resulting appearance was by far more horrible than Lucas, and he also became an early stage Arch rank.
Jasmine didn’t waste a second, she tapped the floor with her spear-like staff and casted her best defensive buff, on the three of them.
“Silver Fortress”, as son as the words left her pretty lips, the image of a brick small castle appeared in front of Aisha, Mellie and her.
The girls saw the effect of the buff and they were once again positively impressed, by Jasmine’s spells effects.
This was her best defense boosting spell exclusive to the Ivory family, of which only she and her grandmother existed.
“300% increase in physical defense and 200% magical defense for the next ten minutes, that’s a bit… too much”, mumbled Mellie.
Jasmine nervously chuckled.
“I can only use it on non-knights and also once every 24 hours, but it is indeed a pretty good spell”, she said with a lightly ashamed expression on her pretty face.
“Well, since we are going all out here, I might as well do the same”, said Mellie, then a vertical dazzling yellow line appeared on her forehead, and her aura jumped to the middle stage of the Lord realm.
“I’ll join in the fun~”, added Aisha
“Silver Skin + Lightning Discharge”, as Aisha casted her spells, first a pretty silver light which combined with her silver hair tone, covered her body, then sparks flew as purple electricity was poured out of some of the accessories she always wore, the result was that now Aisha was bathed in a dim purple light, giving her skin and hair a pretty purple glow, it was as if the goddess of lightness had descended from the skies.
“Lightning Empress”, this was the result of Aisha’s training over the years, an spell created by combining two of her original spells, it was the best she had in her arsenal for boosting purposes.
Daimon at this point had become a white flash that kept clashing against Lucas, creating craters due to the explosions generated by their both monstrous physical strengths colliding, saw from the corner of his eyes Aisha’s current appearance and he prayed for her enemy… because in that form unless he used Core Synchrony Aisha would easily suppress him, and when using it he would win by dragging the fight.
Why do you ask, Aisha isn’t a knight and thus her vitality and stamina is lower than Daimon’s, but in that form even for Daimon who can use blink she is simply too fast.
“I guess you two are indeed brother and sister”, mumbled Mellie, she has never been superficial, still she is aware of her extremely appealing beauty, but even she had to admit that the current Aisha made her feel a bit jealous, her appearance hasn’t changed that much but there was a certain aura she was giving now, which made her feel respect for Aisha, like the kind she would feel for her sister, when she is serious.
“Jasmine can you give me that attack boost one more time?”, asked Aisha, this spell consumed a lot of mana, if not for her large reserves she wouldn’t be able to use it until she has reached the eight star mage realm, and the limit was still about ten or so minutes, that’s how Daimon win her the only time they fought giving almost their all, she ran out of time before him.
Jasmine who was lost in Aisha’s change came out of her daze and nodded.
“Mm, I need a minute”.
“As if I would let you!”, Miserius whose transformation just finished first roared to the sky, as he jumped towards them, he still remembered that silver ray of light, and didn’t want to deal with an even more powerful version of that, so he needed to knock down Jasmine, or get rid of Aisha, in this case he decided to attack Aisha.
Unfortunately there was no correct answer for his predicament, Aisha’s image blurred and the next thing Lucas knew was that a silver armored leg was making contact with his face.
“Get lost”.
“Boooom!”, a thunder reverberated through the battlefield and a sudden purple flash, forced all the nearby pirates and Skelefiends to cover their eyes, as if a lightning had fallen right when Aisha’s leg made contact with Miserius.
“Aghhhh!!!”, the Skelefiend screamed as smoke leaked out of his face, Bottom Shredder or not, he was a darkness oriented being, and Aisha’s lightning was of a extreme positive nature, imagine it like how a demon from the ancient legends would react if it was splashed by holy water, the reaction was pretty much the same, not to mention a kick with a metal reinforced leg accelerated at the speed of lightning.
Daimon had a bitter smile remembering that little training they had some time ago.
‘She was soft on me back then and yet those kicks and punches accelerated by lightning still nearly broke my bones’, he thought.
In that form Aisha was essentially a living railgun.