664 10/11 2:55 (Autumn, Day, Midrar)
Soon enough Mark forgo pelting Luna with small bolts and instead decided to send a large, pillar-like lightning bolt that covered her form in its entirety, paradoxically obscuring her with the overwhelming brightness of his attack.
The pillar continued on for a while, too long in Grug's opinion for the crystal to contain all of the energy contained in the continuously falling lightning bolt yet the barrier had no sign of exploding despite this fact.
He could guess that some, most probably a minimum amount to be completely realistic, of the force of the lightning was let through to rain down upon Luna herself, bypassing the crystal barrier only to then be blocked in its entirety by her weak yet present Damage Mitigation yet this was far from enough to justify the lack of destabilization caused by the rest of the force falling upon her.
The Half-Dwarf examined as best as he could the continuous stream of lightning, scowling when he noticed nothing in particular messing with the attack of his Party Leader, deciding that he didn't know enough about Lightning-Attribute Magic to find any possible reason behind the barrier's continued existence.
Grug scowled, giving up on searching the lightning bolt for any irregularies and turning his attention away from it and towards something that he would much more easily being able to interpret and understand, to his own chagrin to be completely honest given the material involved.
His eyes examined the ground underneath the Lunarian and after a couple of seconds, his lips twisting in a frown as he noted the cracks rapidly expanding in it, thing that shouldn't be as the blonde explicitely trained to use the Light-Attribute to contain the Lightning-Attribute inside and in so doing concentrating the energy entirely towards his target.
Immediately he understood.
Luna was using her crystal barrier as a lightning rod, channeling the lightning that fell upon her directly to the ground, safeguarding herself from needing to deal with it while otherwise busy while at the same time being able to bleed off her barrier's excess energy.
Grug immediately sent a message to his whole Party. "Luna is channeling the electricity in the ground, she is unharmed from Mark's attack." Following that message he stomped downwards, trying to send a spike of condensed stone upwards from beneath Luna to impale her, well aware that the condensed lightning would impede him if he tried to simply throw a boulder at her.
Yet his plan failed as the continuous release of lightning in the ground disrupted his control over the earth, stopping his attack before it could ever really impact their opponent in any way.
Mark's blue eyes widened once he recieved the message, briefly moving his attention away from controlling his attack, leaving such a job to Joules, and towards the ground underneath his target, noting for the first time the cracks caused by his own attack, cracks that shouldn't exist.
His lips twisted in a pronunced grimace upon seeing the confirmation of what Grug warned his Party of, stopping his attack and once more seeing his hated enemy, finally understanding how she could have possibly survived his deadly strike.
Luna's body was covered in two thin layers of Black Blood with different purposes to each other, the inner one that he was barely able to see was a thin coating with bright yellow stripes while the outer layer was a much heavier, metallic and armored layer with scale-like patterns on it.
His eyes moved downwards, towards the feet of the white haired one and noting them to be impaled in the ground, a way to maximize the ease involved in deflecting the electricity away from her body.
"Simple, right? I just need to use my Blitz's Magnetic Amplification, Electrify, Lightning-Attribute Amplification and Lightning-Attribute Druidry to deal with your electricity, especially once I involved my Warden's Metallic Body." She explained mockingly gently to the Human, her eyes narrowed in a visible smile.
The blonde instinctively moved towards his adversary, his hands opening and closing as he struggled to calm down his raging hatred, stimolated by the Lunarian's continued existence and mockery.
After all while he could handle insults and mockery from other People just fine, the one before him was the only Person from whom he was unable to endure being looked down upon or being insulted by, thing that didn't change despite all the times he Regressed back in time.
It was only thanks to the pink glow surrounding his body and stopping him from moving was he able to contain his temper enough to still his anger and focus fully on his adversary without letting his emotions cloud his judgement.
Soon after the glow vanished back into nothing, dodging the pulse emanated from Luna that was intent on inflicting her the Status Alteration "Charm", not so much for the Status Alteration itself that, to be completely honest was not too effective in a fight, but to enter in a contest of will and remove her from the fight that way.
The Lunarian's armor vanished into nothing once more, subtly inviting him to try again and maybe this time he would succeed.
But Mark didn't bite, trying instead to seek with his eyes any traces of the layers around her. "I see, you are still surrounded by your layers of armor, aren't you? You just rendered them invisible." He realized aloud. "And not one or two but at least one for each of your Familiars so that you could Channel any or even all of them in your armors without wait, maximizing the options you can access at a time both offensively and defensively."
"You are correct." Luna smiled, her deadly cold eyes clearly showing how despite her current almost playful stance she was even more murderous than ever before, Mark's death becoming a certainty in her future, causing the Human to step back as briefly memories of all the times he was a step away from death returned to a lazer-sharp focus, her gaze alone being more than enough to force him to step back.
Mark forcefully calmed himself down, well aware that otherwise he risked losing control of himself in a fit of rage and then as a conseguence causing himself and his friends to lose and probably die soon after.
While by this time he was well accustomed to losing the People he comes to care about, this doesn't mean that this cyclical loss would hurt him any less, especially if their death would become permanent.
At his silent signal, seven more steel pillars were launched to rain down upon Luna only for six snake heads to appear around her, their identical liquid forms made of Black Blood quickly separating into various different configurations in order.
One of the heads started writhing faster and faster, a bright third eye opening on its foreheads, long blades forming in the connection between its head and "neck", a violent whirl accumulating between its jaws; The second becoming metallic and scaled as within its maws, Earth-Attribute and barriers formed and then dissolved, condensing power over and over again.
The third head was quickly enveloped into flames that formed vaguely feather-like patterns, its opened mouth holding a flame that spun faster and faster, forming a blazing tornado that was barely held in place; The fourth snake quickly gained lightning bolt-like patterns on its hide before it was enveloped in electric shocks, electric shocks that accumulated rapidly.
The fifth was the one that changed the least, an ashen skeletal pattern forming on its scales, a simple mass of Vital Mana accumulating in its maw before it was tainted by shadow and blood; Finally the sixth head changed, losing its snake-like traits and becoming the head of a serpentine Drake, horns and mane forming on it as it opened its mouth, pure force accumulating within.
Under the gaze of her opponents, six destructive beams erupted upwards, fusing together into a pillar that connected her to the sky before it exploded in a tornado of power imbued with four different Attributes entirely that sweeped over the seven pillars, washing over them again and again, shearing apart their delicate Rune patterns and their much less delicate steel frames with heat, electricity and pure destructive force.
After all she had already the other pillars for later analysis, she had no need to store any more of them for the future.
Mark was barely able to raise a wall of solid Light-Attribute Mana in front of himself before it shattered, the luminous sparks falling around him as Luna crashed into it at full speed, the Lunarian being barely slowed down by his wall as she launched a rain of blows against the Human, forcing him to retreat farther and farther back while using his body as a shield against his allies.
The ground beneath his feet constantly shattered, rippling upwards and destroying the blonde's footing as shockwave after shockwave were being emanated by the white-haired one's whole body, dust and grass being constantly ripped apart while forcing the Human to augment his own body to deal with the force raining down on him.
As bruises and cuts formed on his body only to then be healed by his use of Vital Energy, he decided that remaining on the defensive for any longer would be a terrible idea, especially considering how Luna's digestion was not being affected by her fighting.
In other words, the longer this continued the closer his Party would be to simply lose.
Mark released a wave of Lightning-Attribute Mana from his whole body, condensing around his immediate body to fry any traces of her blood on his body, stopping time for a brief instant to grab onto one of the Lunarian's arms with his hands, launching a kick to one of the Lunarian's knees.
Yet upon his end of his Time Walker's effects, the only thing damaged by his blow was the thin layer of Black Blood that she erected around her body and not only that but the Lunarian took advantage of his own grapple to pull him to herself, grabbing his shoulder and launching a knee strike directly to his chest, forcing her adversary to his knees before a second strike landed on his face.
Seven steel pillars were thrown precisely upon the Lunarian, forcing her to dodge away from the Party Leader and in so doing moving right into the flight path of a great, glowing boulder launched by the Half-Dwarf.
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