Chapter 308: Unmatched Synergy
Elyra’s voice slowly faded into the distance as she arrived at the threshold of the crimson and instantly slipped through like a shadow piercing water.
Behind her, Rukia shouted her name in anguish, but Elyra was already gone.
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~ Back to the Battlefield ~
Now, with every eye fixed on her descent, Elyra landed in the center of the broken ground. Dust and ash swirled around her like a miniature storm of emerald light scattering the crimson tint of the cocooned battlefield.
Victor stared at her through blurred eyes with a half-dazed expression. "What are you doing here...?" he muttered with a pained grin.
The air reeked of molten sulfur and blood. Smoke hissed in angry plumes where stone had melted from the brothers’ volcanic spit.
Maro’s massive form had been blasted away by Elyra’s sword attack and his charred scales split as he rolled through shattered masonry.
Garo who was still standing before Victor whirled at Elyra with a roar.
The ground buckled as volcanic heat poured from his maw while he charged at Elyra who had just landed.
But before his he could get to her, a gust of searing wind slammed into his back.
Bam!
"Don’t forget about me," Victor growled with a voice hoarse voice as his fist, laced with Gale Strike, detonated against Garo’s spine.
The impact sent the monster spinning forward before crashing through a pillar with a howl.
Victor staggered as his knees buckled before coughing out another mouthful of blood.
He had just hurriedly pulled himself out of the wall while Garo’s back was turned and unleashed an attack but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still injured.
He could feel his ribs burning in pain and his collarbone grating against itself while jutting grotesquely.
He dropped to one knee and spat out a mouthful of blood.
Elyra arrived beside him and her sharp gaze softened for a fraction. "Are you oka—"
"I’m fine." Victor cut her off with a smirk that looked more painful than reassuring. "Just... need a breather. Nothing a little spit and hand seals can’t fix."
"What?" Elyra blinked.
Victor made a few hand seals and slammed a bloodied palm to the ground.
A glowing circle etched with ancient sigils surrounded him instantly as Celestial Restoration was activated.
Bones cracked back into place. His chest reshaped with wet crunches. Wounds stitched shut as though time reversed itself.
Elyra’s eyes widened. "How... how can you do that? You’re a warrior awakened not a healer. That’s not—"
Victor winced, then shrugged casually as if he hadn’t just rebuilt half his torso. "Bought some obscure healing mana-tech. Cost me a fortune. You like it?"
Her gaze remained suspicious but the roar of the Drakenar brothers stole the moment.
Maro and Garo rose again with smoke curling from their bodies. Their scaled muscles swelled and their glowing veins throbbed with volcanic fury.
"Maro..." Garo’s gravelly tone rumbled like boulders grinding together.
"Another one... double trouble..." Maro’s molten eyes burned like twin suns.
"Let’s destroy them."
The brothers’ steps thundered as they advanced.
Victor grabbed his legacy sword from the ground and slowly rose.
Unlike earlier, all its weight was gone.
He flicked the blade while staring at the approaching monsters with a look of seriousness. "Well, Elyra, looks like we’re the main course tonight."
Her lips curved into a grim smile. "Then let’s make sure they choke on it."
They charged forward and the battlefield exploded.
Elyra went for Garo, who spewed molten projectiles from his throat. Flaming orbs hissed through the air, detonating like meteors.
Elyra swung her blade in a wide arc, causing a silver wave of condensed mana to rip through the barrage, vaporizing every molten spit.
She leapt into the smoke and descending in a whirling cleave.
Victor blurred into afterimages, activating his Phantom Mirage Step.
He scattered a dozen clones across the field while Maro’s fists swelled with half-molten iron until they seemed to churn like bellows.
Despite how heavy both fists seemed, he punched out in such quick successions that the very air changed.
Fifty strikes came in a breath as a cascade of molten fists moved with violent, articulated accuracy.
Each punch carried a pressure so dense it sounded like thunder trapped in a basin.
The punches were aimed at the dozen of shadows flashing forward from every angle with silvery blade in their grasp.
Maro’s barrage met blade after blade with ringing clangs that echoed like a smithy gone mad.
It sounded like metal on metal as sparks showered like a meteor stream while the ground further cracked, taking another dozen of new scars.
Victor felt the burn at the edges... Maro was not merely throwing weight, he was throwing heat.
Nevetheless, he kept the attacks up, clashing with Maro’s fiery fists from every angle.
Victor further unleashed his qi and swung out his blade forward with all his might.
As fist and steel met again, Maro was sent sliding backwards this time.
Victor proceeded to activate Dragon Breathing Arts and spat draconic fire onto his blade.
The flames licked his blade and the sword drank the fire like a moon swallowing sunlight.
In the next instant, the activation of Shadow Crescent Strike followed.
Darkness and flame merged as Victor swung out his legacy sword and a crescent of living shadow and dragonfire arced through the air.
Maro’s threw his fist out in response and instantly the enlarged area shattered.
Shards of superheated and hardened flesh blasted apart as Maro himself was a sent flying like a ragdoll.
His figure spun across the air like a thrown tree but Victor did not wait to watch the fall.
He activated his Void Emperor’s Grasp and like a force of gravity, an invisible hand snatched Maro in mid air.
"Let me show you how it feels to be a hammer instead of a fist."
With a swipe, Victor slammed Maro into the ground.
Boom!
Loud blasts rang out as he lifted Maro into the air and slammed him onto the ground repeatedly without breaking a sweat.
Each crash sent shockwaves through the earth causing rubble to explode skyward. Then Victor spun him like a ragdoll, smashing him through shattered walls until the monster lay buried under a crater of debris.
And then Victor leapt into the air, becoming a white streak and swung his sword down with phantom moon slash, multiplying his strike until Maro’s form became a sieve.
Across the battlefield, Garo was also being repeatedly damaged by Elyra’s sword strikes so he did the only thing his nature knew: he liquefied.
His figure became flowing heat as his limbs pooled and flattened into a rolling stream of molten flesh.
Elyra swung out her sword once more and her attacks were swallowed.
Garo’s magma would reflow around blades, soak up kinetic force, and reform.
It was the kind of cheat that brute elemental nature gives... adaptability in the face of steel.
Just as Elyra was about to attack again, Maro’s figure was hurled across the air and slammed into Garo, causing a puddle of magma to scatter across the place.
Garo’s liquid body began to reform but Victor pivoted and activated Frost Bloom Palm.
Frost spread across his rippled arm as he thrust his palm towards Garo.
In an instant, frost spread across his magma body causing steam to erupt.
A hiss rang out and a crust formed that cracked like a shell.
Garo staggered as his magma hardened into brittle scales. Frost slowed his motion, circulating through his molten form.
Victor did not let the moment cool into complacency.
He pressed the advantage, sending out strike after strike and then unleashed another Shadow Crescent that cleaved Garo’s arm off.
Elyra on the other hand had switched to Maro while Victor dealt with Garo.
up.
Her blade turned into a reaper’s scythe as she moved like tide, unleashing powerful warrior skills that caused the surroundings to quake.
Both brothers soon found themselves back to back against these two human monsters.
As Elyra charged at Maro to attack, Garo tried to intervene, reforming his molten body so he could tank the attack.
Only for Victor to dash in with his frost bloom palm and freeze him mid-transformation once more.
The synergy between them clicked like clockwork. Elyra’s devastating strikes cracked his defenses, while Victor’s frost stilled his molten recovery.
Again and again, they battered him, driving him backward.
The battlefield quaked as flames and frost warred in a chaotic storm. The Drakenar brothers roared defiantly, but their rhythm faltered.
"These fools are going to lose," Commander Aiz clicked his teeth in annoyance as he watched from a distance.
He then snapped his claws, commanding all the other Drakenar still in the surroundings to join in the attack against Victor and Elyra.
The weaker Drakenars had all move away from the fight this whole time in order to avoid getting blasted since this battle was beyond their capabilities but the moment Commander Aiz gave the instruction, they all charged at the duo.
The Drakenars were still numbered in the hundreds so the ground quaked as their reptilian feet battered in the direction of the fight.
Victor and Elyra paused briefly with qi and magic flaring from their bodies as they prepared to take on the numbers as well as the Drakenar brothers.
But at this moment, a torrent of flames, water and lightning descended upon the battlefield, striking the incoming lower leveled Drakenars.
A bunch of them instantly froze in place and turned towards the east.
"Hyaaaahhh!"
From the east, up to five hundred awakened students were charging in the direction of the Drakenars while activating spells and skills based on their class.
It turned out that they had been freed from their cocoons.
"Victor, Elyra, you guys handle those two monsters... leave the rest to us!" Felix yelled in determination as he charged alongside the other students into the midst of the Drakenar army.