Chapter 364: Deathfull Skulls vs Armored Core
After fighting off several of the golems and reaching a long pathway with a huge door, in the end, Vanessa moved the bandages away from her face, before sighting out loud.
"Sigh~, the one who made those things has a really bad taste. Good thing that Danzel came with us."
Being his name mentioned, Danzel turned to look at Vanessa.
And in the moment of distraction, a portal opened from his side ready to thrust his spear at his skull.
But before he could, Danzel penetrated the golem's head with his sword.
The Golem shook for a moment before stopping moving. Danzel next tested his sword [Breath of Frozen Field] ability, freezing the golem.
Though that wasn't the reason why Danzel could eliminate the golems, instead it was the fact that he could drain their soul essences. Wherever he drained enough, they would still move without showing any pain of the sort, but they would no longer receive a portal.
Compared to the flesh golems that he had to face, those guys were complete constructs and he double-checked their descriptions.
Leaving him to believe that something else was creating the portals.
Although those golems had the spell to make portals, they couldn't use them when they were destroyed, making him deduced that something else was repairing them.
'Though as who or what it is I don't know.' Danzel thought as he pulled his sword out of the frozen golem.
"Hey black armor, how are you keeping them dead?" Sartan asked annoyed.
With only Vanessa and Danzel being capable of completely eliminating those golems, Agares and Sartan were left with temporarily destroying them.
Agares didn't mind, but Sartan being on the receiving end of fighting a seemingly immortal opponent annoyed him quite a bit, as ironic as it was.
"With some kind of death magic. And keeping them dead isn't slightly off. Something else other than their own keeps creating those portals and repairing them before sending them back to fight. I simply cut the... connection from that something." Danzel explained with a cold tone.
"So something is interfering you say..." Vanessa mumbled to herself.
"I felt no presence that was capable of this though out the whole time." Agares said under his silver mask.
"Well, whoever it is, he better come out." Vanessa said while controlling the black bandages covering her head except for her eyes and hair and turning to see the door in front of them.
"I can sense a tremendous amount of mana behind the door, even more, that of the boss. At the very least twice as high."
"So you saying that the core is behind the wall?" Danzel asked while going and touching the door.
"It has a barrier, no?" Agares said while taking a closer look at the wall.
"Yes, and quite a powerful one. Unless the damage exceeds the amount the barrier can hold, it will regenerate by using mana." Danzel explained.
"In other words, it needs a single strong attack." Agares said with a frown.
"Yeah, I myself wouldn't be able to break it. How about you Vanessa, will your chaos flames work?" Danzel asked.
"Well, we won't know till we try." Vanessa said as she walked closer to the gate with her arm slowly catching on fire with chaos flames.
"Let me do it." Sartan said while blocking Vanessa with his large hand from going forward.
Vanessa simply shrugged her shoulder and walked back.
Walking in front of the gate, Sartan pieced his halberd into the ground. Then he took an oi zuki stance with his left palm on the gate and his right curled into a fist.
Then suddenly, a blood red aura started limiting out of Sartan's body, spearing overwhelming pressure through the building and the 3.
He curled his fist and started gathering the bloody aura there.
"Haaah!" Opening his mouth, pure hot smoke came out.
And then as soon as the ground cracked, Agares unleashed his fist towards the gate.
*BOOAHMMM!!!!
Like firing a wind cannon into a piece of paper, the whole gate exploded to its entirety while a huge shock wave made the broken pieces fly to the surroundings with the bullets' speed.
Seeing that, Danzel raised his shield to protect his head.
Agares made his mirror images out of the smoke, blocking every small piece of the gate.
As for Vanessa, she simply stood still and let herself be showered by several small gate pieces. Though she didn't even feel the impact of those flying pieces by one tiny bit.
"Hmpf, so much about the barrier." Sartan scoffed as he picked up his halbert and walked inside. Followed by the rest of the group.
Once they went inside, all they saw was a large and empty room, with a small altar a piece of armor with a mana crystal in his chest.
Except for the armor, it seemed like the mana itself became physical, allowing the armor to move.
"For what reason have you entered the tower, Intruders." A feminine voice devoid of life called out to them.
With the armor moving and the voice coming from it, the 4 of them realized that the armor was alive.
"Everyone, that mana crystal inside that armor is the core. So don't break it, Sartan." Vanessa said.
"Hmpf." Sartan scoffed at being singled out.
"You have no right in being here. So as intruders, I will eliminate you!" The core spoke as it raised the armors hands wide open.
Once she did, Danzel felt his [Existential Sense Danger] warning him.
"No, you won't!" He yelled as he swung his sword, releasing one [Soul Reaping Wind] towards the armor core flying at immense speed.
"For my master's sake!" As the armor core spoke those words, a huge magic circle covered the whole empty room.
Seeing that, Agares, Vaness, Sartan, and Danzel dashed toward the armor core.
"Change Reality! [My Worlds Will]!"
Before the [Soul Reaping Wind] and the 4 of them managed to reach the armor core, the magic circle let out a blinding light that was engufling the room itself.
And once the light disappeared, the 4 of them found themself free-falling through the sky under a golden bright sphere letting illuminating everything and magically eliminating all shadows to be cast down.
That's right, there was a sky.
The previous empty room with the small altar now gone, they found themself somewhere that had several levitating pillars circling around. Which reflected the light from the bright golden sphere.
"Aggghhhh!" Danzel let out an echoing scream.
Not one out of panic from free falling, but one of true pain.
"Danzel! What's wrong!?" Vanessa yelled, surprised by the sudden scream of pain.
Suddenly though, a portal appeared in front of Sartan, revealing a light elemental with magical armor shooting towards Sartan and kicking him to the stomach with such force that it made him being sent flying towards one of the flying pillars, breaking through one of them and crashing into another one.
The equipped light elemental then moved by the speed of light and appeared where Sartan was and sending another blow, raising a large smoke cloud.
Meanwhile, on the ground, another portal appeared letting out the armored core.
"Fall and Crumble, [Weight of the World.]" The armored core cast as it pushed both her hands to the ground.
Making a large purple magic circle appear.
Once the magic circle lighten up, the gravity of the area that the magic circle covered increased by an immense amount, turning Agares, Vanessa, and Danzel into living anvils.
It happend so suddenly that except for Agares, the other two fell with their whole body face down to the ground.
The gravity was so strong that it made the ground itself compress and lower.
Having his jingasa destroyed by the seer gravity and being the only one standing on his own two feet, Agares dashed forward at a speed that questioned if the gravity spell worked or not.
"Unknown race intruders need to be re-evaluated in the memory space." The armored core said as she escaped from her location with the use of a portal while also keeping the gravity spell active.
Agares eyes moved sharply to a certain location and disappeared from his location like a ghost.
And as if he saw through the future itself, the location he appeared was the same as the portal of the armored core.
"Re-evaluated is needed." The armored core said as it created a mana barrier around itself almost instantly.
"Sword Art of the Reversed Demon." Agares mumbled as he stared at the armored core with cold eyes.
"Jakino~"
7 mist mirror images moved in an instant and surrounded the armored core with their reversed blades.
And at the same time, they all swung at the barrier.
Not once, but every single mist mirror imaged swung a total of seven times. Completely destroying the barrier and hitting the armor several times, trashing the armored core, and leaving several cuts to everyone except the core itself as it was protected by another barrier.
The mist mirror images disappeared then after, leaving Agares to yet swing his blade.
"~Mezasi." Agares said in complete apathy as he swung his reaper sword, directly aiming to cut down his open in one singular and accurate swing.
Realizing where Agares was aiming, the armored core put his hands in front of his core while bringing out 2 magic gauntlets.
Barely saving itself in the process.
Agares then disappeared and repeated behind the armored core, moving and swinging at such speed that even the armored core couldn't keep track of him.
Resulting in both its hands with the gauntlets together with the "neck" of the armor being cut off.
The armored core then created a portal and went through it, teleporting into one of the floating pillars with her cut-down body. But that didn't last long as the cut pieces fly back to her armor, completely repairing it.
"Raising evaluation of target from calamity to disaster level." The armored core said.
While a dark mist was forming into a death knight behind it.