Already (3)
Already (3)
A searing crimson flame that seemed ready to scorch everything around it engulfed Imi's entire body.
The deep wounds my dagger had carved into her just moments ago had healed without a trace, thanks to her absurd regenerative power.
The flames enveloping her now radiated a much denser, heavier heat than before.
Like a compressed bomb just before detonation, her entire musculature swelled, holding back the propulsion of the fire to its limit.
"Playtime is over!"
With a maddened cry, Imi kicked off the ground.
-Paang!
The earth where she had stood caved in with an explosion, dirt scattering into dust.
The speed was beyond belief.
It easily seemed more than double the speed I'd read and countered earlier.
A crimson trajectory, barely visible as a proper form, sliced through my field of view and dug beneath my chin in an instant.
'Too fast!'
Though supreme swordsmanship dominated my body, simulating tens of thousands of countermeasures in my mind, Imi's movement far transcended all predictions.
My reaction was too slow.
I couldn't raise my Orichalcum dagger to deflect her fist, nor was I at an angle to dodge.
This way, I was sure to take the hit.
I ground my teeth, gathered up the Golden Aura, crossed my arms, and set a rigid guard in front of my chest.
First, I had to block this blow, then think about the next move.
Her crimson fist slammed into my forearm.
-Kwajik!!
"Ughk!"
My prediction missed the mark completely.
To call her rising uppercut, which had surged up violently from below, merely 'strong' was not enough.
Even wearing Orichalcum armor and defending with Aura, her attack crushed right through my defense, driving all the way to the tip of my chin.
My feet left the ground.
As if defying gravity, my body floated lightly upward toward the sky.
-Swiik!
My vision flipped, and the sound of wind tearing at my ears rushed in.
I had lost control, soaring up toward the dizzying void of the sky.
From the ground, Imi's lips spread into a long, cruel, bloody smile.
She sneered at me, flung skyward, her voice brimming with certainty of victory.
"Unless you have wings, you're full of openings the moment you're in the air. This is the most fun I've ever had. So much that it'd be a shame to kill you."
Her eyes gleamed red like a beast about to rend its prey limb from limb.
Planting herself firmly on the ground, she began gathering the full-body flames into her right leg up to the limit.
The surrounding air warped, and a massive hot wind whirled up from the tip of her foot.
She was preparing a decisive strike meant to turn my falling body into a pile of ash in a single blow.
But on my face, soaring high into the sky, there was no despair or fear she'd expected.
Instead, the corner of my mouth was faintly curling upward.
My feet, which had been flailing in the air, stopped rising further.
To be precise, my two feet were standing firmly, as if stepping on solid ground, very steadily treading upon the empty sky.
[Boots of the Free Sky]
Boots crafted from the blue Feather of a Griffin that wrapped softly around my ankle and the white Cloud Stone.
Upon the surface of those boots, a subtle and shimmering cloud energy bloomed, turning the air beneath my soles into a soft yet solid floor of earth.
'Cloud Walking.'
No matter how I was thrown into midair, there was absolutely no reason for me to have an opening.
"Hah?!"
An exclamation that seemed to say 'that's ridiculous' burst from Imi's mouth as she looked up at me from the ground, preparing her strike.
Her red eyes shook wide, as if she couldn't believe it.
It was a natural reaction, faced with the bizarre sight of a wingless human standing dumbly in the void.
Inwardly, I swallowed my admiration for the Cloud Walking ability I was experiencing for the first time.
'Wow... this really is amazing.'
The alien sensation of stepping on thin air was fascinating.
As if loosening up, I bounced on the spot in the void, jumping lightly.
Unlike stepping on a hard floor, I felt an elastic rebounding force, like walking on clouds.
I felt my body adapt to this strange sensation of flying through the sky in an instant.
I leisurely flipped my stance in midair.
A reversed posture: head facing the ground, toes pointing toward the sky.
I squeezed out the Golden Aura that had been circulating in my core and focused it fiercely into both legs.
Then, with all my strength, I kicked away the layer of cloud anchoring me in the void, as if springing off the ground.
-Peoeong!!
With the thunderous sound of an air explosion, my body began to vertically plummet toward the ground like a meteor at a terrifying speed.
The incredible velocity of cleaving through the wind wrapped around my whole body.
Imi, who had been watching my charge, momentarily erased her flustered look and soon broke into an even darker grin.
"Kahahahat! Yeah! Better to struggle to the bitter end than die a boring death!"
She had no intention of dodging my approach.
Rather, she waited with even more amusement for the collision of her accumulated power with my charge.
As Imi tightened her right leg where she had been gathering energy, the ground she stood on couldn't withstand it, cracking and splitting deep like a spider's web.
The crimson flame swallowed her leg, surging upward like a gigantic pillar of fire.
The distance between Imi and me narrowed in the blink of an eye.
Imi kicked upward with the fiery strike she'd been holding, as if she'd been waiting for this moment.
Overwhelming heat and destructive power, enough to burn through the atmosphere, rushed toward the crown of my head.
As I dropped vertically, I tightened my grip on the handle of the Orichalcum dagger with both hands.
I pulled the dagger, loaded with Aura to its limit, deep toward my right hip.
At the perfect instant where my body's elasticity, the acceleration of the fall, and her attack met, I cast the skill.
[2nd Form: Sunrise]
[Depicts with the sword the moment the morning sun violently rises, tearing through the pitch-black darkness beyond the horizon. The light of dawn that awakens the slumbering world is imbued into the tip of the blade and powerfully slashed upward.]
*For physical attacks only, counterattacks, returning the original damage with twice the power.
*Consumes 10 Aura
I fiercely slashed the dagger I had gathered at my right hip upward, catching Imi's kick head-on.
-Kwaaaaang!!!
The moment my dagger met her foot, the sound of explosion swallowed the entire forest.
Imi's crimson flame and my Golden Aura fiercely tangled and intertwined in the air, struggling for dominance.
Sparks scattering in all directions and dazzling shards of light created a massive whirlwind.
But that deadlock lasted only an instant.
The counter effect of [Sunrise] was activated.
The overwhelming flame Imi had poured all her power into was amplified by twofold destructive force the very moment it touched the tip of my dagger, and it began to flow back.
The crimson fiery energy Imi had released was devoured by the Golden Aura radiating from my dagger, dyed instantly into the brilliant light of dawn.
"What...?!"
At the bizarre phenomenon of her own power doubling to swallow her, Imi's red eyes widened in shock.
But she had not even the time to panic.
The doubled destructive power completely fused with my Golden Aura, crashing down upon Imi's whole body like a colossal tidal wave.
-Kugugugung!
With a tremendous roar, the ground caved in deeply, and dirt and smoke exploded in all directions.
Surrounding trees were ripped out by the roots, the ground split, and everything was devastated.
I pierced through the dust, landing lightly on the ground, gasping for breath.
My wrist ached from the violent clash just now, but the Aura in my core was still welling up.
The thick dirt cloud slowly cleared, revealing the ruined center.
There, in a horrible state, sat Imi.
Her condition after taking the direct hit of [Sunrise] was dire.
Her right leg, which she had kicked up toward me, had vanished without a trace below the knee, and the left side of her face was horrifically twisted, having completely lost her left eye as well.
Scarlet blood poured from her whole body, but perhaps because the attack surpassed her regeneration, that ability wasn't activating.
Imi stared blankly down at her own wretched form, then soon twisted her blood-soaked lips upward and let out a hollow laugh.
"A loss. I can't remember the last time."
She neither screamed in pain nor begged for her life.
She simply wore the empty smile of a loser who'd lost everything, looking straight at me.
In her right eye, she who had become one-eyed, a thick madness and bloodlust still glistened.
"Human. Next time, I'll definitely kill you."
With those cold words, Imi's body began to crumble like dry, parched sand, just as when the old beastman had died before.
Among the scattering dust, a single tail with a pink hue was left behind on the floor.
And just as before, that pink tail vanished into the void in an instant, as if pulled by a magnet, disappearing without a trace, even before the fear of hitting the ground could settle.
I stared blankly down at the empty center.
My breath heaved all the way up, and perhaps because the tension had released, my legs trembled minutely.
"It's over."
I murmured shortly, sliding the dagger I'd been holding into the inventory.