Celine's group wasn't faring well. Twenty knights had managed to encircle them, the weaker soldiers were immediately made lambs to the slaughter.
Oh God! I gotta- Celine unsheathes her Regalia, a blade glistening with the will to survive. The blinding light was harsh, yet as the enemies were all stunned, Arata took his opportunity.
The acid trick could work with the potential for others to enter the crossfire.
Arata threw out Bloody Mary, pinning down an enemy before dismembering them with Cauterizer.
For the first time in this battle, he had engaged the enemy without a plan. Arata was immediately made the new target.
The fairy knights' heads snapped onto Arata. Below him, the ground began to erode while from above, toxic waters began condensing. Axes, spears, swords were all pointed at Arata yet now, finally, Celine and her squad was out of the way.
"Fireball!" Arata takes in the surrounding mana. Usually, Arata would be helpless in a situation like this.
Yet with the quirks of Demiurge Foundry, this mist practically turned him into a god.
Demiurge Foundry could shape all it could touch. Arata, however, never managed to fully realize its potential, there were always two things he lacked.
1st, range, he converted all he could touch. Demiurge Foundry's effect extended through mana, effectively, all manipulatable mana that touched the mist could be controlled.
2nd, he needed extreme precision. Fire was the first thing he learned. It was simple: you directly converted mana into heat and you had fire. Air pressure grew slightly more complex, you had to envision where you put the energy into, trace along the air, which force you would increase.
Extreme precision required you to imagine the components of the air, how each one interacted with the energy you would provide, how the nitric acid latent around Arata could be pushed into the compressed, heated mist.
Arata had been training in precision but the strain on his mind was violent. His skin would stand up, his emotions more rapid and violent, his eyes temporarily lose sight.
As Arata scatters the acid mist, his eyes fade to black. A stark ringing slowly clears from Arata's ears. His eyes peel open as he stands surrounded by a pool of blood.
Enemy? Foe? It was unclear, all that was clear was that the noise stopped. Am I hallucinating now? It hurts my brain.
Looking around, there were no corpses, merely one presence. In the center of the elven city's plaza, there was a bell tower. The white stone climbed its way up, higher and higher.
*Dong dong*
A creature in armor bursting at the seams bashed against the bell over and over again. With that, the fairy knights all came crawling out of alleyways, forty of them all began to circle Arata and yet none would move.
The creature jumped down, its peacock tail-like feather accessory of light blue and ivory fluttered through the wind. The metal itself pulsated against its flesh and as it moved, the mist spread out, clearing from both sides. The beast bore open a gaping hole in its stomach to help it suck back in all the mist. With that, it finally began to hold itself up, readjusting itself with surprising agility for its over two-meter stature and tumorous growth of muscle interwoven through threads of steel.
*screeeech*
Wielding two claymores chained to its exposed flesh on the ends of its gauntlets, it didn't hold its weapons, rather letting them hang loose as it approached Arata. Despite that, it was cautious, authoritative yet manic.
It was the Erlking's right-hand man, one that Arata had never seen yet one who might have seen him many times. It terrified Arata the way it cleared its own mist, eyed Arata's dominant hand for Bloody Mary and took the singular moment demiurge foundry had blinded Arata to get the jump on him.
When it came time to strike, the creature's arm swung on him hard enough to free his head from its socket. Arata only had the fortune of how stiff it was to skate away with his life. Arata, stumbling back, looked for anywhere to pull mana from but there was none.
Even if there had been, the berserker's wingspan outranged Arata's.
The creature's rage wasn't over, swinging again, scraping the metal helmet of Arata. The strike hurt badly, even with the metal cover shattering to take the impact. Not debilitating per se but it was the only strike he could take.
Arata was dizzy, only able to stumble away yet when he got close to the edge, a fairy knight pointed their spear at Arata. There was fog in the creature's helmet instructing how its nerves should move. These guys know how to work together, geez…
The creature stabbed forward suddenly to which Arata had to sidestep, barely avoiding the point. Strangely enough, the creature's aim was misled by the fog.
The berserker fairy's movements began trembling more and more. In a rage, it charged at Arata and the fairy knight.
No, it wasn't charging at Arata, it saw its own companion attempting to steal the kill it believed was warranted away from it.
The claymore slammed against the creature, the armor initially buckled and then was crushed, just as was Arata's armor. The creature acted as though stricken by temporary blindness. In a rage it pummeled in the soldier.
*Crunch, splat*
The armor was flattened with the fairy knight inside it, the metal welded to skin only serving to deliver a more painful death. That- has it gotten more violent?