Chapter 211: Chapter 211
Chapter 174: To Be Beyond the Boundary
“Well, shit, you do be everywhere.”
My comment wasn’t taken exactly very well by the people around me, who, I might add, were only standing up right up and alive thanks to the barrier I was providing them.
“Complaints on my behaviour can be taken to my manager after the fact.”
I wonder if Nina or Espr would be more of my manager in this situation?
Never knowing that any complaints would lead nowhere, the people who were so ungrateful about their survival grumbled as they thought about what they would say later.
“You think you can match me?”
I wonder if completing his transition to a Spiritual Being would be worth... nah... probably too much hassle. The energy he is making isn’t enough to complete the process anytime soon, and if I did manage, then the problem would simply be moved away, and I would lose out on the joy of killing him.
If he did complete the transformation, then he would be limited by Existence like me, but the chance he would just up and vanish to his own domain wasn’t zero. From feeling out the situation, Espr would probably say something similar and that it was better to kill him here and now.
It really doesn’t seem like it is going to happen anytime soon.
My barriers protected everyone in this icky domain of black tar metal, but it would be best if they could escape so I could focus my energy better. Sadly, I didn’t know whether exiting the barrier was a death sentence or not for the weaker riffraff. They weren’t even that weak, and in any human terms, such a definition would be misplaced, but the barrier of entry had jumped far beyond human norms.
Metal spikes launched from the ground and came down from the sky like missiles.
“Match? Please.” I scoffed at his response. “Of course not, I would never be on your level.”
He clearly was irritated by my notion but breathed in as he looked to have regained some level of mental well-being.
Taunting was still working. Made even better as he became more mentally unstable as his energy was going wild–I didn’t believe this mental recovery was going to last. The wild energy was still very much affecting his mind. My taunts were effective, but it looked like he was trying to finally push back, getting a little bit of that pride and god complex back. The damage I had done to him before and my immunity to his power were what had shaken him, but he began doubling down on his looking down on me, which appeared to help his ego.
My form began to haze, and I refocused my Starlight to sharpen the edges. I was beginning to leak a little too much energy, so I put more lids on to address that issue. I wasn’t losing much because of the heat being emitted, which was negligible at worst, but I wasn’t used to fighting as my new self yet and was running into my own hurdles.
…Everyone is doing well destroying his parts… But his mana in the air is affecting people’s ability to fight.
The area in his vicinity was basically under a more intense curse, impacting everyone who wasn’t his ally–and me. I created a large lance, and with my other hand open, I went in for a charge.
Breaking through a wall that appeared in front of me, then making an immediate turn to protect someone who had just been stabbed in the back. A powerful individual who had simply been worn down by all the combat.
“Let me get you out of here.”
The man didn’t have room to argue as I picked him up with my open arm and threw him out of the area—he was safely protected in a barrier.
In the process of the throw, the ground bubbled and lunged at me. I dodged the gunk that went towards my body, but the black liquid metal grabbed onto my lance.
The sludge latched onto my weapon and wouldn’t disperse. The foul mana tried stretching down the weapon, and I chose to chuck the weapon before it did something else–not before dumping a large amount of energy into it.
The explosion destroyed more of his toys in the process, but he was getting increasingly harder to actually hit. His automatic defences were improving by the second, and I wasn’t sure of the best method to deal with them.
Do I destroy the whole area?
My thought was interrupted as I was jumped by more of his enhanced goons. My hands melted through the weapon that I instinctively tried to grab, and so I had to change my approach. The trio that attacked me were placing curses on my body simply by being in proximity to me, but they were ineffective. I grew a dozen spiked chains from my back, which launched towards the trio to impale them.
The spikes broke through their armour, which, despite its strength, felt like thick paper. These chains held a physical connection to me, so they were easier to control, and I made them easily detachable. By the time I killed them, more of the bastard's toys had emerged to attack me. He wasn’t staring at me directly, but I could tell he was looking at me.
A massive storm of water and lightning flooded the area suddenly, larger than all the fireballs and cannon fire that had been continually happening. This large attack was similar to my wildfire based attacks that consumed everything in their paths.
Back to my thoughts of nuking the whole area, I was worried that it simply wasn’t feasible at the moment. My energy, despite having recovered a good amount that made fighting in this state reasonable, it wasn't exactly enough to have hellfire rain down from the sky.
It’s hard to track his mana now, since it is everywhere.
His energy being so spread out interfered with my ability to track it. It had to still be going down, but not being able to properly watch it was more frustrating than I expected. I didn't even have this ability before, but having a taste of it once was enticing. It was mostly due to the fact that I needed to track his mana so I knew what stage of ‘evolution’ he was going through. The number of questions I needed to ask Espr was increasing every minute. I was genuinely worried that something could trigger which would make him begin absorbing the whole planet–he was already eating plenty of the surface. It wasn’t even an impossible act in my mind; I consumed a small world while I became a Spiritual Being. I understood there was a difference, but I didn’t know where that dividing line this man sat on was.
The water destroyed so many of his constructs, and the ones that survived were severely damaged, but the numbers were soon replaced and repaired.
Black missiles similar to my arrow barrage from earlier in the day came falling down from the sky, aiming at everyone from the allied force in the area.
The missiles came, and I intercepted them with a storm of fire arrows, but it wasn’t only one wave. Numerous waves of these missiles came down; some were tracked, while others just wanted to land and explode.
I cleaved through a number of individuals who tried to attack when the missiles hit, but then the bastard, seeing an opportunity, blasted a large beam of silver energy that sucked in his matter around it as it flew towards me, increasing its power.
I wasn’t afraid of being unable to dodge but—a beam of light fell down besides me, which protected a crowd of people that collapsed to the ground due to a recent attack.
I told Nina. “This is not the best place to be in.” Landing next to me was my mech-slaying friend.
Nina reflected another black missile. “Thanks for the warning."
Spinning my halberd, I chopped the black tentacles that tried to grab us and morphed it into a throwing lance. My weapons glowed bright as I created another weapon bomb.
“Though please, I would like you to leave. I don’t know what you did to recover your mana, but it is not good enough. Protecting everyone here will just get you killed.” The lance left my hand, and the heat scorched the black mana that was thick in the air as it homed towards the target.
“...I will only be here for a moment. Lila also says, stay safe.”
“Tell her thanks, and that I like what she has done with my gift.”
I stepped forward. “If you want to help the rest who can no longer keep up, retreat, then please do that,” I said solemnly.
I respected everyone who chose to fight and felt sad for those who did, even the people who got overconfident. Mistakes happened, and even if they were the worst ones in their now-ended life they could’ve made. Despite what some may think, everyone had been playing a part. It was an endurance battle where everyone had to chip away as much of their resources as possible.
In a way, it was kind of like a stupid boss fight from a video game. Which was almost a good taunt to use, but I decided not to for the sole reason of him not realising the state he was in.
Stepping forward, I condensed the energy within my body to create a core.
Let’s see if I can do something stellar.