NOVEL NEXT Book 2: Chapter 14-3: Hero
「What’s the point of such trivial things!?」
She cried out and roughly attacked me with even greater speed and ferocity. Among the sword swings she mixed in punches and kicks.
However, I was dodging these attacks with more and more ease. No matter how many attacks came I was dodging them safely.
My automatic movement magic 【Program】 was evolving. 【Program】 was a spell that would only read data from an opponent’s body and choose the optimal movements to deal with their actions. However, along the way it would collect data on how they moved, what habits they had, and it would build a pattern. The accumulated data would improve my responses and my movements would increase in speed and accuracy.
It would start to catch up and predict what the opponent would do even before they started their movements.
She had been fighting me for quite some time. The longer I observed her movements the more pronounced my advantage would be.
A short while ago I had removed 【Wind Armor】. At this point I was able to dodge her blows even without the added assistance.
Once again I spotted an opening. This time I moved the right hand that she still assumed was broken and thrust my palm into her chest.
「Kwaa」
「It feels bad doesn’t it? The surface is hard, but impacts still travel through it.」
What I had used was a technique that pierces through armor. I had aimed at her heart with it and hit. No matter what kind of monster you were a strike directly at your heart would slow or stop your movements for some time.
Since I had no need for 【Wind Armor】 I had replaced the fourth spell with 【Self-Healing Enhancement】.
Finally my dominant hand had completely recovered.
「Plus if you’re only hardening yourself then I can do this as well.」
I crouched low and used the instant she was still stunned to kick her feet out from under her. Her body began falling to the ground.
As she was still in the midst of falling I called a powerful gust of wind to send her flying up into the sky.
Since her feet hadn’t been touching the ground she had no way to brace herself and so she was flung into the air like a doll. I instantly bound her in the air using my wind magic.
「Lucy, Kuu!」
「Got it!」
「Leave it to me!」
Ever since I had kicked Kuu away she had sat on the sidelines biding her time and charging her flames for the moment she got the opportunity to attack.
She knew after the first failed strike that she wouldn’t be able to hit this girl on her own, but she believed that I would provide her a chance to attack and waited for it.
Furthermore Lucy was next to her. She knew. She knew that our wind magic could make Kuu’s flames incredibly powerful.
As Kuu extended her hand Lucy placed her own hand on top.
「Know our pain and rage! 【Fox Fire】!」
「【Squall】!」
Kuu’s white flames were enveloped in Lucy’s powerful wind and they exploded into a raging inferno that rushed towards the girl still suspended in the air. The temperature was raised so high that it surpassed white and changed to violet. The power was incomparable to what Kuu had fired by herself. It would perfectly hit the girl I had left suspended in the air.
As the flames shot towards her I released my wind restraints.
She was being incinerated by the flames as she fell to the ground. Her body was covered in carbonized flesh.
Dead. I thought for a moment, but that blackened lump slowly stood up.
「I let my guard down~ I died…」
The blackened and carbonized flesh began to fall off of her body as beautiful and unblemished skin was revealed beneath it.
Her sword and armor had been burnt to nothingness and she stood their naked…but not a burn was left on her skin.
「You know flames? Apparently I have some resistance to them, but not for those with that kind of power it seems…Really…It hurt. This is the most I’ve been hurt since I was born.」
Her gaze sharpened with enormous killing intent, but I merely sneered back at her.
「I see, then would you like to try it once more? I can send you into the sky and grill you as much as you please.」
Her movements were fast but clumsy. If things continued then I could simply repeat this over and over.
「Uh-uh. I’m good. I’m sick of this. I won’t even take a step and I’ll still kill you. With my trump card.」
I felt her magic power swell. Her hair rose into the air along with her power.
It was the sign that she was preparing the inherent magic that was common to all Heroes.
「Don’t worry, you won’t have any time to feel pain. Good bye.」
She said with a smile as lightning shot from her hand.
The lightning moved at a speed exceeding 200km per second and it had an output of 90,000,000,000 watts exceeding the power of the real thing.
Let aside dodging you couldn’t even react. It had enough power to kill me a thousand times over.
But that lightning strike would never reach me.
「I’ll return your previous line back to you! 【That’s your trump card? What a let down】」
「This can’t be!」
Once again she summoned her magic power and fired more lightning bolts than seemed possible.
It seems she had absolute faith in this lightning attack.
No matter how unbelievable the amount of magic power Heroes possessed, they did not borrow aid from the mana around them and could only use the magic inherent in their bodies. Even with her storage capacity she kept firing off these lightning bolts that consumed incredible amounts of energy…before long her limits would appear.
However, no matter how hard she tried the lightning bolts would never reach me.
「It’s useless. That level of power will never be able to pierce my defenses.」
I lied with a complete poker face.
Indeed, even though I had constructed a magical defense, piercing it was a matter of power.
Of course the truth was something different. Originally air was an insulator that didn’t allow electricity to pass through. A lightning strike was when the electrical discharge built up enough power to burn through it and strike its target.
However, if the air was too high pressure and thick the destructive bolt would be unable to pass through. I had raised the atmospheric pressure of the air around me to stop the bolt from passing through. No matter how powerful the strike it would be unable to pierce my defenses.
「Then how do you like this!!」
She was easily provoked and summoned an extra large lightning strike.
I easily blocked it while taking no damage. However, I acted like the strike had pierced through my defenses a bit and damaged me.
「Ku!」
「Hahaha! This is my power! Don’t you see!? That’s nothing, I can go even stronger!」
As long as she raised the power of her attacks she would be able to burn me to cinders. She believed that silly lie and continued to put all her power into wasting her magic.