Chapter 786 S - Summit of contradictions

It was Shaily’s first time losing her head.

Her mind was clear.

Attack now. She ordered her water elemental.

A chain of multicolored sprites sprouted from her cut spine, following her head like a loose thread, before pulling it back to its rightful place with a bang. Fire sprites erupted from the wound as it closed, causing fiery explosions all around her.

Her health bar went from nearly zero to nearly full in an instant, a water shot from the elemental just barely cut through the flames, stopping another beheading swing of Victory’s blade. 

The piercing bolt still searing Victory’s insides, Shaily hoped to seize this moment to inflict a fatal blow, her free hand reaching for the god’s chest. But Victory was still fast, way too fast. Before she could unleash any sprite through direct contact, a knee strike sent her flying. In addition to the direct damage, Shaily lost control of her piercing bolt, suffering the backlash as well.

The water elemental rushed in between them, to stop a follow up attack. Victory’s sword diced up the water creature blocking his way, and dashed through the watery mist that remained.

Shaily was starting to become a bit nervous. She could still regenerate a lot, but her reserve of Sprites was melting like ice on a hot summer day and the crazy orc she was fighting still looked perfectly healthy. Even the wound from the bolt was already healed, if not for him discarding his frozen armor by himself earlier, she would doubt if she had even made any progress.

At least when she was close, she had confirmed one thing through her mana vision, the crown on the god’s head wasn’t linked to him by mana like his sword was.

If I can just weaken him a bit…

A god’s regeneration against mine…

She had accumulated enough elemental energy with the last fiery explosion, so with the time her water elemental had bought her, Shaily toggled her passive specialization [Elemental Order]. All the fire sprites remaining inside her ignited, and her body was engulfed in pure elemental flames, burning hotter than even the piercing bolt from before.

Victory reached her, his sword splitting her from her to toe. It was like striking at the fire in a chimney, sparks flew everywhere, the stone of the arena catching fire, and the twenty percent health Shaily had just lost recovered in an instant as the fire from her two halves became a single flame again.

Shaily was not just standing still, she landed a fiery uppercut against Victory’s chin, a torrent of flames engulfing his head. Victory still grinned through his scorched skin. The two attacked each other again and again, with no regard for defense. Victory’s sword slowly dispersed the flames as Shaily’s burning fists and kicks left dark marks all over his skin.

But Shaily’s flames were not infinite. Her transformation ran out with a whimper, the flames disappearing and her body becoming fully tangible again. Each one of Victory’s previous sword strikes having left a bloody gash across her skin, she looked like a bloody piece of patchwork. Worse, she would need a second or two to fully regain control, her body tired from the strain of the fire form.

Victory’s muscles swelled as he prepared a final strike.

A sword of water erupted from his face. The water elemental had gotten sufficient time to reform, and had ambushed him like Victory had ambushed Shaily before.

Shaily let her legs give out and dropped to the ground.

[Elemental Extraction]!

The stone platform cracked from her magic, the large stone blocks shattering and crumbling, as dozens of Stone sprites emerged from the cracks.

[Elemental Extraction]!

More of the platform shattered while Victory turned around, water sword still imbued in his skull, and annihilated the water elemental with a punch. It had already reformed once, and wouldn’t be able to do it again.

[Elemental Order]!

All the stone sprites Shaily had just created rushed into her, filling up the empty space the burned out fire sprites had left, and Shaily’s body turned into a massive crystalline structure like a golem of diamond.

Victory’s sword viciously struck down.

Shaily punched the incoming sword with a closed fist. Cracks spread all over her crystalline arm, and more crystals sprouted from inside to fill up those cracks before Victory even pulled his sword back up.

To Shaily’s surprise, Victory jumped back, giving her time to stand up.

With a snort, he threw his sword behind him, letting it land blade first into the ground. With rough movements, he used that time to get rid of some of his burned skin, letting perfectly healthy green skin regrow under.

It’s like I did nothing…

Meanwhile, her own max health was starting to suffer temporary debuffs due to the constant healing, from 8980, it had already dwindled down to 8200.

Unwilling to give the god more time to heal, Shaily [Maiden bolt]ed herself into his face. Victory barely side-stepped the incoming stone golem’s, and when Shaily bolted herself at him a second time mid-flight, he was ready to meet her bolt-propelled fist with his own.

Now the fight turned to the polar opposite of what it was before, not only Shaily used her tough diamond-like skin to block Victory’s blow, but he had also switched to a more defensive style. It seemed that just like her his regeneration wasn’t quite infinite, though he still looked in better shape than she did, the hole in his head already almost gone.

The difference in strength and speed was hard to overcome. For every two punches that Shialy threw, Victory could unleash a third one. If not for consent [Maiden bolt]ing around, that quickly depleted her remaining mana, Shaily would have been knocked out of the platform several times.

With not long left on her transformation, she let one of Victory’s kicks send her flying all the way to the border of the platform.

She hoped to lure him into following her, teleport behind him with [Summon Self] that she used so little that not even the system included it in her wildcasts, and bolt into him to knock him out. After all, the seemingly immortal orc had shown no signs of being able to fly.

But her plan failed before she could even attempt it. Instead of following, Victory picked up and raised his sword.

Shaily saw the sword start glowing, filling up with divine energy.

She could tell without even knowing that she wouldn’t be able to just casually regenerate off of this one. If it killed her in one strike, no extreme regeneration would bring her back from the dead.

HELL NO!

Weakly raising a cracked diamond-like arm Shaily used her longest cooldown skill.

“DENIED!”

A plethora of shadow sprites flew out of her hand, forming a giant divine rune in the air. A simplified lord’s rune, to be exact. The regulator.

The sprite formation shone with dark light, as the threads of reality itself sealed Victory’s skill. Divine essences backlash running down his sword and into his mortal avatar.

Shaily saw the opportunity she needed. She summoned herself a few meters closer to Victory and directly in the air, allowing her to [Maiden bolt] toward him without any friction. The backlash wouldn’t stun him for long, she had to seize this chance! Summoning one of every sprite type she was missing, she used her last active skill the instant she was in range. 

[Containment Zone]!

Ten sprites of different colors flew out to encircle Victory, before closing in on him like a chain rope. Their elemental magic tied him down.

Shialy knew it wasn’t going to last long. Bolting the last meters to him as her stone transformation ran out, she grabbed his crown mid-flight, putting it on and her own spell sent her tumbling far away. She landed right in the middle of the platform, struggling to even move a muscle.

Heart pounding in her chest, she watched in horror as Victory started to absorb all the ambient mana. Her mana was already at rock bottom, and now her already slow regeneration was suddenly divided by four as all the mana went to the roaring God instead.

Health: 2240 / 2240  (8980)

Stamina : 452 / 8980

Mana: 34 / 58500

This might be the end…

Even the poor sprites forming a chain around him were absorbed while Shaily forced herself to stand, aided by a sudden surge of strength she couldn’t quite explain.

“I am Victory!” the god shouted in the distance.

His body started to bloat and morph strangely, his green skin taking a darker and darker tone, slowly turning to black.

In Shaily’s eyes, it felt like a nightmare. The tall orc became even taller, a tall black spindly figure of black strands of divine energy.

His mouth disappeared last, a blood-curdling scream echoing through space as myriad unsettling eyes opened all at once all over the strange creature he had become.

“I WILL SEE NO DEFEAT!”