CH 362

The pillar guardians are placed about 10 meters apart. Their movement is slow and we have an overwhelming advantage in maneuverability, but they have a range of about 30 meters, which means that we can’t attack them unless we’re in the range of multiple Guardians at the same time.

My Arleo-2 and Linnecarlo’s Viktor have long range attacks, but Nagisa’s Diatena and Kiyone’s Kiku-Ichimonji, which are close combat types, don’t have that means, so they really need to get close.

The two of them should have understood that they would be in range of several Guardians at the same time, but without hesitation, they headed towards the pillar Guardians.

When I approached roughly 30 meters away, as Feri had said, the pillar guardian reacted. It flashed, and the entire pillar lit up, emitting a blinding lightning bolt.

Nagisa’s Diatena bounced back the chattering, painful thunderbolt with a glowing fist and approached the pillar guardians. After entering the range of the guardians they started firing concentrating lightning bolts at her. Diatena, unconcerned about this, struck the thunderbolts away with her fist as if she was swatting insects.

As she approached the pillar guardian, Diatena slammed her fist into the pillar. The powerful thrust of her fist shattered the pillar guardian as easily as if she had struck a ceramic pot.

Kiyone followed Nagisa and approached the pillar guardian. Kiyone’s Kiku Ichimonji was indeed not strong enough to imitate Nagisa’s Diatena. I was worried about what she would do, but there was no need to worry about that. When Kiyone sensed the Pillar Guardian’s attack, she read the trajectory of the attack and quickly evaded it.

Kiyone’s evasive maneuvers were perfect, as if she knew every move ahead of time. It was as if she had eyes in the back of her head, and the way she reacted to attacks from blind spots was almost divine. I’m not sure if even a barrage of Arleo-2’s magic light bullets would hit her.

Kiyone used her speed and managed to cut a Pillar Guardian. It was as if she had slashed it with a lump of straw, cutting it in two diagonally.

Later, Feri told me that the strength of the Pillar Guardian far exceeds that of the Kiku Ichimonji sword, and that it was usually difficult for it to even scratch it. It is the power of the technique that made it so easy to do so.

Linnecarlo doesn’t seem to think about avoiding or blocking the attacks. She countered lightning strike with lightning strike and hit the Pillar Guardians with her own lighting strike. The Guardians were charred black by the intense discharge.

Linnecarlo’s lightning strike was not half bad. She created more lightning balls and shot them all at the Pillar Guardians at once.

They tried to shoot them down with thunderbolts, but Linnecarlo’s thunderbolts seemed to be much more massive and none of them could be blocked so all the thunderbolts hit the guardians. Many of the pillar Guardians ceased to function, emitting a loud cracking sound

I had planned to use long-range attacks, but when I saw Nagisa and Kiyone’s movements, I changed my mind.

I rushed at the guardians like them and tried to avoid the attacks like Kiku Ichimonji but I couldn’t do the same, and I was hit by at least one out of every two shots. However thanks to Arleo-2 armor I felt like I took no damage.

Relying on my strong armor, I approached forcibly and slashed at the Pillar Guardian. It’s not as clean as Kiyone’s, but I shattered the guardian with my sword.

All the pillars were cleared in a few minutes and Feri was surprised by this.

“I knew we wouldn’t lose, but I’m surprised we got rid of them so quickly.”

It seems that we’ve surpassed Feri’s analysis of our strength. I guess the fact that we were able to move beyond the capabilities of the magicrafts is proof that we are growing as riders.