The clang of steel echoed once more, as sparks burst into the air upon contact.
Finn struck from the center, his spear thrusting in rapid, precise intervals, while Ais and Tiona pressed from the left and right respectively, their swords carving through the air in fluid, merciless arcs.
They moved in perfect synchronization, forcing the armored man to constantly divide his attention as they relentlessly hammered at his defenses.
However, it was easier said than done.
'What a monster... he's keeping up with all three of us attacking at once... from three different sides.'
Finn's thoughts raced even as his body moved on instinct.
His grip tightened, muscles screaming as he pushed himself harder, faster.
Each successive strike carried more force than the last... his development ability, [Chain Attack], steadily stacking power with every uninterrupted assault.
The spear became a blur.
Yet with every increase in Finn's speed and strength, the armored man responded in kind.
His movements sharpened, accelerated, matching Finn's enhanced tempo as if the growing pressure meant nothing to him.
Steel clashed again and again, the sound overlapping into a continuous roar.
Ais' sword flashed with emerald light as wind magic wrapped around her blade, each strike aimed to exploit the smallest opening.
But even after slashing hundreds of times, she couldn't find one.
'This guy... it's like fighting an impenetrable fortress.'
Even the usually cheerful Tiona couldn't bring herself to smile in this situation.
Facing the combined onslaught of some of Orario's most capable close-combat adventurers, the armored man remained utterly unfazed.
Then... something changed.
Finn's super dynamic vision caught it immediately.
For the first time since the fight began, the enemy made an unnecessary movement.
'He dropped his weapon?'
The armored man loosened his grip, allowing his sword to slip from his hand and plunge point-first into the ground with a heavy thud.
In the same instant, he lashed out with a back kick toward Tiona's side.
"Urgh!"
She blocked it with Urga, but the force still sent her flying into the wall.
His arm shot forward immediately after.
His hand closed around Finn's spear shaft with iron force, stopping the thrust dead in its tracks.
At the same time, his other hand snapped out and caught Ais' sword, fingers wrapping around the blade as the emerald wind surrounding it sputtered violently.
The magic evaporated.
Gone... snuffed out as if it had never existed.
Putting a complete stop to their assault just like that.
"!?"
Before either of them could react, the armored man twisted his body with brutal efficiency.
Using their own momentum against them, he swung his arms and threw both Finn and Ais into the air, still gripping their weapons as they were violently launched skyward.
The ground vanished beneath them.
Wind tore past their ears as their bodies were flung hundreds of feet upward, the courtyard rapidly shrinking below.
Despite the suddenness, both of them reacted instantly... adjusting their posture mid-air, stabilizing their balance through sheer experience.
Their eyes met.
No words were exchanged.
They nodded.
With coordination forged through years of battle, Finn acted first.
Planting his foot against the shaft of his spear, he kicked off with explosive force, redirecting his momentum and giving Ais a powerful boost downward.
The acceleration was insane.
Ais angled her body, sword pointed straight toward the ground, eyes locked firmly on her target.
As gravity and Finn's push combined, she chanted without hesitation... her voice clear despite the rushing wind.
"Tempest!"
Emerald wind erupted around her body and blade, wrapping her like a spiraling storm.
The magic roared as her speed skyrocketed beyond its limits.
A sonic boom detonated in the sky.
To anyone watching from below, all they could see was a green meteor tearing through the heavens, screaming toward the earth as the shockwave thundered against their ears.
The armored man slowly raised his head.
His visor reflected the descending streak of emerald light growing larger by the second.
Yet instead of dodging...
He merely lifted his arm.
And opened his palm.
The air itself seemed to compress.
Ais' instincts howled in protest as she closed the final distance.
The tip of Ais' sword which was enchanted with her wind collided with the man's armored gloves.
While the armored man's open palm met the descending storm.
For a split second, nothing happened.
Then...
BOOM!
A thunderous shockwave erupted outward, the emerald winds of Tempest detonating against his hand like a collapsing cyclone.
The impact pulverized the ground beneath him, stone exploding upward in jagged shards as a crater rapidly formed, spiderweb cracks racing across the courtyard in all directions.
'He completely stopped my attack with just one hand!?'
Ais felt it immediately.
Her wind... her magic... her attack, despite all that momentum, was being crushed.
The violent rotation of Tempest warped, twisted, then unraveled entirely as if an invisible vice had clamped down around it.
The pressure surged back up her arm, rattling her bones and numbing her fingers as her sword screamed in protest.
She was forced to disengage, flipping backward at the last possible moment as the remaining wind burst apart in a violent backlash.
Her boots scraped against the ground as she skidded to a halt, breathing sharp and uneven.
At the center of the crater stood the armored man and was completely unmoved.
His arm was still raised, palm open, faint wisps of distorted wind curling around his fingers before dissipating entirely.
The ground beneath his feet had sunk several inches, yet he hadn't taken a single step back.
The armored man's helmet tilted upward just in time.
With a sharp motion, he reached down and tore his sword from the ground, twisting his wrist as he brought the blade up to meet the incoming attack.
CLANG!
Finn's spear crashed against the sword's flat side, the impact detonating like a thunderclap.
The force rippled through the weapon and straight into Finn's arms.
'Every single move feels like my bones are getting rattled...'
The vibrations traveled up his forearms, numbing his fingers as the recoil shoved him backward.
Gritting his teeth, Finn allowed the momentum to carry him into a clean backflip, boots barely grazing the air before he landed several meters away.
He spun his spear once to bleed off the remaining force before driving its butt firmly into the ground.
Finn straightened slowly, shoulders rising and falling as he exhaled.
'He was only defending this entire time...'
His arms trembled despite his best effort to steady them, a dull, spreading ache running from his wrists to his shoulders.
'...and yet we're the only ones taking damage.'
As Finn, Tiona and Ais exchanged blows with the armored man, the rest of the battlefield was anything but idle.
'These things react to magic...'
A whip-like vine snapped toward her head.
She tilted her body just enough for it to miss, the attack passing so close she could feel the displaced air brush her cheek.
'I'll distract these Violas so everyone else can focus on their fight.'
Thus she began to chant.
The plant monsters turned toward her almost immediately, their flowered maws opening as they screeched and surged forward.
She pivoted, staff snapping forward to crack against a lunging vine, freezing it in place for a split second before she slipped past.
Her boots skimmed the ground as she weaved between strikes.
"The flame will soon be released. Creeping war, unavoidable destruction..."
Her voice carried clearly across the battlefield, steady and unbroken, cutting through the chaos like a guiding thread.
As she spoke, a magic circle bloomed beneath her feet.
"The horn of battle sounds aloud, the cruelty of conflict will envelop all."
Another vine lashed out.
Riveria twisted her staff, parrying it aside while sliding beneath a sweeping branch.
"Come, crimson flames, the ruthless inferno."
Attacking.
Defending.
Dodging.
Chanting.
All at once.
To any lesser mage, maintaining even a fraction of this concentration under such pressure would have been impossible.
Yet Riveria moved as though the chaos around her was nothing more than background noise.
If concurrent chanting was akin to juggling explosives while sprinting through a battlefield, then what Riveria was doing now existed in a realm far beyond that
Very few mages in the history of the mortal world had ever reached such mastery.
"You are the avatar of hellfire. Sweep completely, bring a close to the great war..."
She guided the Violas with subtle positioning, each step baiting them forward, each retreat drawing them into a tighter cluster.
They snapped and lunged, never realizing they were being herded.
"...Burn them through..."
Riveria's movements were not random.
Every step.
Every turn.
Every measured distance.
All of it was calculated.
'Line them all up... annihilate them in one go.'
That had been her objective from the very beginning.
Formulating and executing such a strategy in the midst of chaos was the result of countless battles, of experience carved into instinct.
"Sword of Surtr—my name is Alf."
The air grew heavy as a vast amount of magic power was being gathered.
This was Riveria Ljos Alf.
This was Nine Hell.
"Rea Laevateinn!"
A wide area annihilation magic.
It is the second level of Riveria's attack magic Vas Windheim.
The magic circle detonated into blinding brilliance.
A wave of crimson inferno erupted outward, swallowing the clustered Violas in an instant.
The Violas didn't even have time to scream.
Their bodies were consumed instantly... thick vines curling inward as they were reduced to ash, massive flower maws collapsing in on themselves before disintegrating entirely.
Erased so completely that not even embers remained.
In the span of a single heartbeat, the monsters were annihilated.
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