The sky was a disaster, covered in weapons. The green hue of the Emerald Rain, the light blue thundering slashes by Dior, the huge cloud burst bombs thrown at the flick of Rickert's fingers. The royal rankers were damaging the ship more than the octopus.
All of the noble rankers and commander rankers unleashed their affinity and tried to create a shield around the ship. And they were successful. A strong, bound shield appeared around the ship, freeing it from the grasp of the octopus. As the shield was made by many people, it had no cracks, but there were clear shifts in the colour and property of the shield that distinguished the powers.
The shield was made of many colours, or affinities to be precise. Six big patches that covered more than 60% of the shield, and many smaller patches. The big patches were the powers of the noble rankers, while the rest of the shield was of the commander rankers' powers.
Dior manifested his weapon: a silver war axe with a light blue handle and a dark blue grip. He swung his axe twice, and one of the octopus's arms got minced into goo. The octopus let out a painful screech. Three of its eight arms were greatly damaged. Not lost, but greatly damaged.
Ector looked awestruck at the shield and the octopus's regenerating arms. Vincent Motsari did not even divert his gaze from the nimbus blade on the table.
"What is your rank?" he asked.
"What?" Ector asked, not grasping what Vincent was asking.
Rickert dropped a bigger and more deadlier bomb on the octopus, but it hit it towards the ship before it could explode with a burst of thunder and white light. The bomb hit the shield and exploded. The sky was filled with clouds, and the entire thunder hit the dome.
The entire dome shook at the explosion, but it did not even get a scratch.
"Thank Rickert that he is not going all out. That is only his base power. Hope he does not pull out his aura beast. That trainer you have—is she Divalina Nario, 'The Emerald Rain'?" Vincent asked.
"Yes, she is. And why are you so calm? They are fighting a divine rank beast," Ector said.
"So that's the Emerald Rain in action. My father talked so highly about her," Vincent said, looking at Madam Diva.
The large emerald block was throwing shards at the octopus every time Madam Diva hit the octopus. It looked like it was raining emeralds. One arm of the octopus was covered in green shards of emeralds that dug deeper every time the octopus tried to move that limb.
"I asked you a question, Prince Ector," Vincent said, looking up for the first time.
"Soldier rank," Ector said.
"Fine then. You need protection," Vincent said, touching the two shields around Ector like they were as thin as paper and as delicate as flowers. The two shields around Ector were made of clouds and emeralds, but they were transparent, like all shield skills.
Dior was throwing parts of the ocean at the octopus, but it did not affect it too much. The ever-increasing speed of the cloud attacks by Rickert and the boulders of emeralds Madam Diva was throwing at it were of little effect.
The royal rankers had their fun. Dior took out a rapier made of ocean-shaded metal; Ector could say it had some cores of the ocean used in it. Rickert, with his elegant demeanor, conjured a revolver made of cloud material. Madam Diva took out Viridian, her core conjured weapon, and the royal rankers flew at the monster at blinding speed.
The monster's hunger did not last long. It turned into irritation, then into anger, and slowly into fear. The royal rankers butchered the octopus quite literally. Dior chopped its limbs out, Rickert blasted its eyes, and at each swing of Viridian, Madam Diva covered the cut stumps of the octopus with emerald dust, making it unable to regenerate.
Rickert conjured a large cloud weapon in the sky that engulfed the ship in its shade. Ector recognized it to resemble the Star Detonator he saw in manuscripts left by his ancestor during the Era of Void.
The original Star Detonator was larger than the planet of Terra, made of broken pieces of some wall in the Between Lands brought back by the Almighties to help in their fight with some kind of a king. But it was never used in battle.
Rickert shot his version of star detonator at the octopus with deadly effect. The cloud weapon blasted through the head off the octopus.
The immense Star Detonator faded as quickly as it appeared, the cloud material dissolving back into the atmosphere, leaving only the scent of ozone and salt. Silence fell, broken only by the lapping of water against the ship's hull and the distant, slow descent of the octopus's remains.
The royal rankers returned, landing on the deck with light steps. Dior wiped a drop of goo from his rapier with a slight frown. Ector, still processing the sheer display of power, finally turned back to Vincent.
"It's gone," Ector stated, feeling the cloud and emerald shields around him vanish.
"The divine rank beast is dead." Vincent Motsari finally put his hand on the nimbus blade, his gaze intense.
"It was a young Divine Ranker. A fledgling, barely strong enough to keep its hunger focused. The true threats require more than a coordinated strike," Vincent said, his tone devoid of congratulations.
He paused, looking Ector over from his casual clothes to his shocked expression. "A Soldier rank is barely a footnote in a battle like this. Your protection was a formality, nothing more."
Before Ector could formulate a reply, the atmosphere shattered. The distant horizon, which had been clear save for the dissipating cloud trails, suddenly warped. It didn't ripple or distort; it cracked, like a massive pane of obsidian glass, and through the fissure poured not the blue of the sky, but a swirling, deep violet that smelled of lightning and burnt copper.
A creature emerged, dwarfing the previous octopus. It was a serpent, hundreds of feet long, its scales a shimmering, oiled black that seemed to absorb all light. Instead of fins, massive, crystalline purple wings beat the air, creating sonic booms that rattled the ship's reinforced hull. Its head was crowned with twin, spiraling horns made of what looked like solidified shadows. Its immense presence instantly smothered the residual magical energy of the previous fight.
"That," whispered Madam Diva, her voice completely drained of its usual confidence as she instinctively raised her Viridian weapon, "is the Khaos Wyrm of the Void. A full-grown Divine Ranker."
The Wyrm opened its jaws, and the sound was not a screech, but a deep, resonating hum that vibrated in their bones. A concentrated beam of violet energy, impossibly fast and thick as the ship itself, shot toward them.