[Aura Burst] caused a massive release of power at my opponents.
[Your physical stats have shot up by 10%]
It felt like I just dropped unnecessary weights. My body was freer and more comfortable. It was a nice feeling.
[Mana converted into Aura]
[Warning! Your body is incapable of properly storing aura, and you will keep leaking it]
My skill warned me of the dangers. Well, just throwing away energy was definitely something to avoid at all cost.
‘Use this too.’
A white naginata appeared before me. I grabbed it immediately and received a message.
[[Crushing Void] is pleased to be out again]
[[Crushing Void] thanks you]
‘Huh? This guy… completely forgot about him. But he’s nicer than that stupid sword.’
‘Yeah. I talked him into helping us. Unlike that stupid sword, he agreed with no comments, saying the last time was fun although we didn’t manage to activate his true effects.’
‘His true effects?’
‘That’s right, he cuts space!’
‘Yeah, but he said we can’t use that effect. Something about us not being his chosen master.’
‘Oi, [Crushing Void], why won’t you allow me to use your proper effects.’
[[Crushing Void] hasn’t denied access to its effects]
‘Eh?’
‘Yeah, the thing is, there’s penalties for using a [Soul Weapon]’s special abilities when it hasn’t chosen you.’
‘Oh… now that you mention it, [Scorching Winter] did mess me up in the last fight.’
[[Crushing Void] apologises for the inconvenience]
‘If you were sorry, you could just accept me as your master.’
[[Crushing Void] refuses the offer]
‘Thought so… whatever, I’ll just take the penalties like a man!’
I spun the naginata around and fired off a slash, ripping through the space. The blade was about to cut out the mana bomb from where I stood, but one of the pillar men blocked against the blade with his gauntlets.
‘No.’
The guy who was coming after me managed to trap me in place.
“[White Shot].”
He muttered as his speed increased. He put his spear above him, pointing towards me. The way he moved, as if he was cutting through the water. I saw the shape of a white shark forming around both him and the spear as he came, with its large jaw wide open and fangs laid bare for my heart to cry.
“[Pressure Crusher]!”
He roared as he drew closer, the shark’s teeth glowing. Then, the form of large, sharper teeth formed around the shark, sending my heart into a state of temporary rest.
The closer he got, the lighter it felt. As if the pressure from being deep down was being eaten away. I guess this was the effect of the skill he was about to use on me. Still, this wasn’t where I’d lose.
‘[Sea Crunch]!’
I used Osveta’s supposedly lethal skills, [Sea Crunch] and [Sea God Bite]. My mouth opened wide to an abnormal degree and sharp fangs replaced all my teeth, with a weird substance escaping into the substance. My head was starting to look like a wolf’s just like Osveta’s. I also included [Monstrous Bite], [Paralysing Vomit] and [Acid Spit], while reinforcing my teeth with a large amount of aura in hopes of causing actual damage.
Both attacks clashed, sending a powerful shockwave that forced even the other pillar men to brace themselves for impact. I hardened my body with [Aura] to take a little amount of damage.
[You have lost 450 health points]
The results of using [Aura] for defence in tandem with the other defence skills was beyond phenomenal. I felt like I’d normally be dead by now without any of my skills. The biggest and best shock for me was the fact that my attack actually managed to pierce the armour of the pillar man.
Albeit, the attack did him no harm, the fact that it created holes in his armour alone was something amazing. The pillar man tried to use my moment of shock against me. I evaded his snatch, and grabbed his wrist.
‘[Overflow]!’
With a gentle gesture, I twisted the man’s wrist by willing the water to spin him around. His entire body spun around uncontrollably, and I gave him a powerful aura kick in the chest, throwing him some distance away.
I looked at the others who were now simply guarding the pillar, pretending like I didn’t exist.
‘Ah! I just threw one of your members away now! I can finally fight you guys! Come after me!’
I tried using [Taunt], but they were immune to its effects. The pillar man who I’d spun around had already recovered and was ready to take revenge.
‘Oh god, this sucks ass.’
‘To hell with it!’
I put my arm up and opened up a portal in front of the pillar man, where a massive tentacle shot out and slapped him right in the face.
My secret trick that I had been preserving for a really desperate moment was the baby kraken I befriended earlier on. I didn’t summon him completely because I was afraid they’d treat him the same way Bastien did. Even worse, they could possibly kill him and I wasn’t up for it.
‘You mad men want to play? Let’s play!’
I opened up several portals all around them, all of which shot out random tentacles at them.
‘Oi… can I use aura on something else?’
‘As in giving a person your aura?’
<<Yes. With the skill [Aura Share], this is possible>>
‘[Aura Share], huh? Hyakun, can we get that?’
‘I’d need to sacrifice some gold for it.’
‘Do it.’
I deactivated my devil form as it was just taking away my health points and not even permitting [Auto Health Regeneration] to do its job.
[You have purchased the skill [Aura Share]]
‘Nice.’
After receiving the alert, I went to work quickly. I encased the kraken’s tentacles in my aura, allowing for it to cause more damage whenever it hit the pillar men, as well as causing their attacks to have less of an effect on it.
This created a large space for me to finally sneak in and remove the mana bomb placed there. Still, I didn’t want to get too close.
‘You’re up again, [Crushing Void]!’
[[Crushing Void] is excited]
I decided to use its effects again to whack the bomb to a far-off distance. Once again, now that I was free to do as I pleased, I slashed before me.
CRACK!
‘Eh?’
‘Y-You d-didn’t…’
‘Huh?’
‘Fuck.’
Rather than hitting the bomb away, I’d cut right into it. There ball started to go pop with golden lights randomly going off. I gulped, but in an anti-climatic manner, the light simply faded.
‘Huh?’
‘Did it.’
‘Just.’
Stop?
I let out a relieved breath. For a second there, I’d assumed that this was the end of it all. Instead of recklessly attempting to hit it with [Crushing Voice], it’d probably be better to just go take it.
[Vector Control] got me there in a second.
SKRIIIIIIIT! BOOM!
‘Seriously!?’
The mana bomb went off without any warning. There was flash of various colours up in my eyes, but I wasn’t going to take the brunt of the explosion.
‘[Energy Converter]!’
I tried to absorb in all the energy to fill up my mana reserves.
‘O-Oi! Absorbing this energy’s not doing us any favours.’
‘But if we allow it to go free...’
‘I have an idea!’
Akkun suggested something. We all listened and asked Hyakun if it would work. He said it was worth a shot, so we did.
In the end, we were just left floating there with a sore hand and absolutely nothing in front of us. The bomb, with the pillar had completely disappeared.
‘I can’t believe that worked.’
‘Right? That was deadly.’
“The pillar!”
One of the pillar men, who literally planted a bomb to destroy it asked me. The answer was as obvious as day.
‘You nitwits blew it up!’
I yelled at them while they were being kept busy by the kraken. Calling it the kraken was getting annoying. I would think up a name for it later.
WRRREEEWWWWWW! SKIIIIIIIT! BOOOM!
BOOOOM! BOOOOOM! BOOOOOOM!
While talking to the pillar men, I heard several more explosions. Not just four more, but at least a dozen explosions.
‘O-Oi. Why are there so many explosions? Did the invaders begin their offensive?’
“Invaders? What are you talking about?”
‘Huh? You’re not working with invaders?’
“Who are you? What did you do with the pillars?”
‘The other pillars! I forgot they also had bombs on them.’
“Bombs!? When did you plant them?”
‘What are talki-?! No.’
Dread fell upon me the moment I realised what was happening. This was all going according to someone’s plan. However, it should have been impossible to use magic to manipulate the guards. That left only one person who could give the guards commands.
He wielder of the [Royal Trident]. But why would the king do that? Did he not have the [Royal Trident]? If he doesn’t have it, then does Elriek have it? If she did, why come up with all of this unnecessary planning? Then, was there even an invasion?
‘Oi! How many pillars are there?’
“Huh? You haven’t answered my qu-”
I cut him off with all my skills for intimidation and glared at him.
“25 pillars then the Master Pillar at the center of Atlantis, Yorul.”
I teleported out of there, above the dome, where all the ley lines connected. I looked up and noticed that the cities were all interconnected through multiple smaller ley lines that were not visible from far apart. It was a network of multiple ley lines, that allowed for direct travel between each and every single one of the domes.
And they all through somehow connected at the centre, where I was standing at the moment. There were two regular guards standing guard, but they were on high alert after hearing the noise.
I saw all the ley lines transporting massive sums of energy between the domes, causing powerful ripples against the domes.
‘What’s happening?’
<<The mana bombs caused an instability in the flow of energy between the pillars. Without a mechanism for monitoring this overflow, the pillars will keep producing excess energy and will eventually overload, causing the domes to self-destruct and the pillars to implode several times over till its shards are too small to cause significant damage.>>
‘Huh? How long could that take?’
<<Estimating… 34,567,291.34 years>>
‘That’s basically forever. This place would become the largest, most inhabitable place known to merman. This is way worse than the princess said. Why is it way worse than the princess said!?’
‘Agent?’
<<The best option would be to channel all the excess energy out of the current network while recalculating the energy output from each pillar.>>
‘Eh? How do we do that?’
‘Bruh…’
‘Oh, come on, it’s gonna hurt like hell.’
‘N-No way out of this. W-We need the Grand Court Mage.’
‘Why don’t we just grab him and run?’
‘Just do it! I’ve already messaged Kawaii and Yokino to prioritize the safety of the Grand Court Mage. If push comes to shove, they’ll teleport him out of there and we’ll go as well. Everyone else can go to hell for all I care.’
Hyakun had already come up with a plan. I groaned, knowing exactly how painful this plan of theirs was going to be. The only reason they could be so calm about it was that they weren’t experiencing the physical pain. Shitty parallel minds! Evil bastards! They were evil bastards, I say!
I steeled myself with every form of defensive ability I had, then put my hands on the centre. One of the guards tried to ask what I was doing but, but I grabbed him and his partners and teleported them away.
‘No bullshit today.’
From there on, I activated [Energy Converter] and forcefully connected my mana circuits to the ley lines. Through this, the agent could calculate the levels of power that the pillars would release and since it was a network, I was connected to every single pillar.
What was the problem then, you might ask?
Well, my mana circuit was basically my soul.
I was exposing my soul to copious amounts of very potent raw energy. I could be afflicted with [Mana Overload] or if worse, my soul could be destroyed.
<A/N: Uuhh... Haha, I can't believe it escalated into this while I was writing. This chapter was fun for me to write! XD.
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