North Shore of Conquest, Truva.
On the edge of the city at night, within the ruins of a mansion, Ben Gecheer, who had shed his human form in the flames and transformed into a stone-like monster, stood upon a pile of rubble. Facing the tattered Corpse Puppets attacking from all directions, he, with orange patterns glowing on his body, directly spewed scorching flames.
Immediately, the area around the entire rubble pile was covered in flames. The surrounding ruins were ignited, and the struggling Corpse Puppets were swallowed by the fire, turning into charcoal in the high temperature.
Amidst the blaze, Barna, who had fallen to the ground nearby, stood up again. Covered in blood, he struggled to raise his pistol and point it at Ben Gecheer, but he was spotted. Then, the terrifying Stone Gargoyles swung the flail in his hand, bringing the heavy stone ball down on Barna. Unable to dodge in time, Barna was brutally smashed to the ground, his skin completely shattered, splattering a large amount of blood. Ben Gecheer then turned his head and covered Barna with the sprayed flames. Barna, whose hardened skin was almost completely destroyed, could not withstand such burning. Immediately, his entire body lost its vitality in the fire.
Having completely cleared the current enemies, Ben Gecheer now turned his gaze towards his next target, the direction from which the flame attack had just come. Standing in the ruins, he spread his wings wide. Silver patterns lit up one after another on his wings. Some of these patterns showed crescent-shaped "Shadow" symbols.
Vibrating his wings, a strong wind erupted from beneath the stone wings. This strong wind not only intensified the surrounding flames but also lifted Ben Gecheer's incredibly heavy body, before he flew straight into the distant night.
Stone Gargoyles can not only absorb elementally transformed Spirituality attacks but also store a small amount of the received attacks within their skin, releasing them when needed. At this moment, Ben Gecheer achieved the effect of flight by releasing the wind power stored in his wings.
"As expected, he came..."
Several hundred meters away from the mansion ruins, on the roof of an unfinished building under construction, Dorothy, clad in a black cloak, moved her gaze away from her lenses and murmured. She had more or less expected that the Stone Gargoyles would immediately counterattack after judging that the attack he received was elemental Spirituality. The greatest characteristic of the Stone Gargoyles, a transcendent profession, is their very obvious counter-effect against almost all Elementalists. After suffering this series of treacherous attacks, Ben Gecheer, full of pent-up anger, would not miss the opportunity to counterattack, especially since his battles with Elementalists are inherently advantageous.
'The ingredients in the basement of the house have all been released. The house is in the yard, so the fire won't spread out, no need to worry too much about causing a city fire... In any case, everything over there has been dealt with now, so I can focus on the enemy.'
Putting away the luxurious rifle in her hand, Dorothy thought to herself. Facing the rapidly approaching Ben Gecheer, she would, for once, face the enemy with her true body.
After putting away the rifle, Dorothy pulled up her hood and put on her mask. After straightening her body, she closed her eyes and activated her ability. Immediately, under the effect of a strange power, Dorothy's petite body, covered by a thick cloak, grew taller by dozens of centimeters out of thin air. Suddenly, Dorothy's height seemed to have increased significantly, like that of an adult.
And even though Dorothy grew taller, the black robe on her body still covered her entire body, as if the robe was made for an adult from the beginning.
Next, Dorothy gazed at the distant night sky. At this moment, she could already hear the sound of strong wind howling coming from that direction; the enemy was getting closer and closer.
Concentrating her mind, Dorothy began to release her ability. With the diffusion of some kind of invisible force, beneath her, pieces of iron slag and iron blocks that had been prepared beforehand floated up out of thin air, hovering around Dorothy. Then, as Dorothy's expression became focused, these floating iron scraps suddenly shot towards the same direction at high speed, directly striking the approaching Stone Gargoyles.
Feeling the disturbance ahead, Ben Gecheer did not make any dodging movements, but maintained his flying posture and directly collided with the small pieces of steel that were attacking him. Those iron pieces sparked against his skin and were immediately bounced away. Ben Gecheer directly blocked this series of attacks with his own hardness. His flying charge showed no signs of weakening; he completely disdained these attacks that were like tickles.
However, what Ben Gecheer did not see was that among the bounced-off iron pieces, there was one with a cylindrical object wrapped in yellowish-brown paper tied to it. After this iron piece was bounced off, during its fall, it was suddenly pulled up again by some force and floated, then Around around behind Ben Gecheer at a strange angle. With a flash of electric light on it, that yellowish-brown cylindrical object erupted with a dazzling firelight.
"Boom!"
The roaring sound echoed through the night sky once again. The flames of the explosion ignited in the sky again. From the smoke caused by the explosion, Ben Gecheer, who had taken a bomb hit on his back upon contact, stumbled out of the smoke generated by the explosion, and managed to regain his flying posture using wind power.
The bomb just now was aimed at the joint connecting his wings to his body. Dorothy wanted to cause damage to Ben Gecheer by attacking these key positions, but it had little effect. This attack only left slight, small cracks on Ben Gecheer's body.
'This attack method... not a Wind Art User, what exactly is this guy?'
Ben Gecheer stabilized his body in the air and looked at the figure in the dark cloak on the rooftop, thinking this. Although he was surprised by the strangeness of the opponent's ability, he was also reassured that this ability could not yet pose a threat to him.
The first round of attack did not work, and Dorothy immediately launched the second round of attack. This time, another batch of old iron pieces floated up from beside her and shot towards Ben Gecheer in the sky again.
Facing the incoming barrage of iron pieces, knowing that there were bombs hidden inside, Ben Gecheer chose not to directly resist. Not wanting to be interfered with by bombs again, he vigorously flapped the wings behind him, directly stirring up a strong wind that blew forward.
The strong wind directly blew the iron piece barrage off course. Then, the strong wind continued to blow towards the rooftop below. Seeing this, Dorothy immediately turned her back to the wind. When the wind arrived, her cloak flapped noisily. Eventually, Dorothy's body could not withstand the strong wind blowing, and her entire person was directly blown off the roof, falling straight towards the ground. Fortunately, she immediately manipulated a pile of iron pieces that had been blown off course to return and defend herself. The floating iron pieces lifted her rapidly falling body, preventing her from being injured by the fall.
Seeing Dorothy land safely, Ben Gecheer, who was still flying in the sky, his face sank. Then he flapped his wings again, stirring up a strong wind downwards. At the same time, he continued to spray a mouth full of flames.
At this moment, the flames and the strong wind mixed together. The fire grew stronger with the wind, and the range of the flames expanded greatly under the blowing of the strong wind. For a moment, a large area of flames pressed down from the sky. Under such a wide-area attack, Dorothy seemed to have nowhere to hide.
Facing the large area of flames descending from the sky, Dorothy waved her arm. Immediately, various pieces of scrap iron around her quickly gathered together, assembling above Dorothy's head in a perfectly reasonable order and structure, forming a seamless steel shield that resisted the flames descending from the sky. These iron pieces were very tight under reasonable arrangement and the connection of strange power, and not a single spark could leak out from the gaps.
In the sky, Ben Gecheer finished blowing wind and spitting fire. After the flames dispersed, what he saw was thick and heavy steel shields instead of burning struggling bodies. Seeing that his combo attack didn't work, Ben Gecheer couldn't help but feel his heart sink.
As a Stone Gargoyles, Ben Gecheer's use of Spirituality elemental attacks is not unlimited. The elemental power stored in his skin is very limited and cannot be used for a long time like a true Elementalist. After he released two strong winds and maintained flight for a period of time, the wind power stored in his body was almost used up. If he used a few more wind attacks, he probably wouldn't even have the strength to support his flight. Although Stone Gargoyles have wings, these stone wings cannot carry their heavy bodies to fly. The main reason he can fly is because of the wind power stored in his skin, originating from other Wind Art Users. His own wings are more of a symbolic function.
No longer wasting the elements stored in his body, Ben Gecheer flew directly down from the sky and, after landing on the ground, immediately burrowed underground. His burrowing was also seen by Dorothy. Therefore, in order to avoid being suddenly attacked by Ben Gecheer from underground, Dorothy immediately disassembled the massive metal shield and had several metal pieces lift her up to float in mid-air, seemingly wanting to escape the threat of Ben Gecheer's underground ambush by staying away from the ground.
As expected, shortly after Dorothy had just begun to float, a dark figure suddenly drilled out of the wall of the building to her right and attacked Dorothy, who was still slowly rising. Ben Gecheer, who saw through Dorothy's intentions, intended to keep the enemy on the ground, after all, the ground was his home field.
Holding a heavy flail, Ben Gecheer, who rushed out from the wall of the building, charged directly towards Dorothy at high speed. The incredibly heavy ball rapidly attacked Dorothy. Seeing this, Dorothy immediately mobilized the metal pieces floating around her to rush over and block. However, these metal pieces merely bounced off after hitting Ben Gecheer, unable to harm him in the slightest.
Facing the stone ball rapidly attacking her, Dorothy had no choice but to immediately let the metal pieces lifting her up loosen, allowing herself to be pulled down by gravity and fall back to the ground. Ben Gecheer's attack thus missed, but his goal of preventing Dorothy from ascending had been achieved. Facing Dorothy, who had landed again, Ben Gecheer, who also landed, unceremoniously swung his heavy flail at her again.
Facing the flail swinging at her again, Dorothy, under the black robe, with a ghostly speed and agility, rapidly retreated, narrowly dodging another blow from the flail. Seeing how agile the mysterious enemy in front of him was, Ben Gecheer decided to take some measures.
Ben Gecheer took out a talisman from his clothes, which had not yet been torn by his large size, and then directly slapped it onto the ground. As the talisman burned out and Spirituality was consumed, the ground of the surrounding streets immediately began to change. The originally solid ground became extremely soft, and all objects still standing on the ground were partially submerged underground at this moment. The solid and reliable foothold suddenly became a man-eating trap.
In an instant, both Dorothy and Ben Gecheer were trapped by the marshy ground, their entire legs were deeply submerged underground. In Ben Gecheer's eyes, the mysterious enemy across from him, who was always under the black cloak, clearly did not expect this move. His figure, suddenly shorter by a significant amount, was frantically trying to pull his legs out but was completely helpless for a while.
Seeing this situation, Ben Gecheer chuckled to himself. The talisman he just used was called the Marsh Talisman; it could turn a very large area of solid rocky ground into a marsh for a short time and then return to normal. The sudden marshification would cause unsuspecting enemies' legs to sink in. After the marshification ended and the ground returned to normal, it would firmly clamp down on the legs trapped within, becoming an incredibly heavy natural leg chain, preventing people from moving freely.
The leg chains of the earth, this was a restraint that was difficult for others to escape, but for Wall Walkers, it could be easily traversed. Therefore, the tactical use of the Marsh Talisman is quite common within the Dark Gold Society.
Seeing that the mysterious enemy in the black cloak was finally restrained, Ben Gecheer unceremoniously burrowed underground again and then began to move around underground. At this moment, he was looking for the right opportunity to launch the final attack from an angle that the black-cloaked enemy would absolutely not be able to detect or react to. The opponent, whose legs were restrained, now had no ability to evade.
Ben Gecheer was confident, the next strike would be the final one.
The fearsome Stone Gargoyles was moving underground, while Dorothy, on the ground at this time, although maintaining an appearance of panic in her movements, the expression above her mask was as calm as still water. Although trapped in a difficult situation, at this moment, there was no panic or fear on her face.
Generally speaking, facing unknown threats and restraints that restrict freedom, anyone should feel fear. However, neither of these existed for Dorothy at this moment.
Yes, Dorothy was not trapped underground at this moment. Under the black robe, her legs were not in the rocks and soil at all, but were directly stepping on the solid ground.
Dorothy did not fall into this marsh trap. The reason was that Dorothy had never truly touched the ground from beginning to end. From the start of the battle, she had always been in a state of suspension. Under the long robe Dorothy wore, she had several metal objects fixed close to her body. Dorothy had always relied on her ability to manipulate these metal objects to make herself float slightly off the ground by several tens of centimeters. The reason this suspension was not discovered by Ben Gecheer was because Dorothy's own height was relatively short compared to ordinary people, so being several tens of centimeters taller wouldn't seem out of place at all. And now Dorothy stood back on the ground, presenting herself at a normal height, which in Ben Gecheer's eyes meant her legs were trapped in the ground.
In the previous battle, Dorothy deliberately manipulated other metal pieces to make herself float, the purpose was to make Ben Gecheer think that her suspension required those external metal pieces, making him think that without those external metal pieces, she had no means of suspension. The reason Dorothy had this design of pretending her height was because before she came here, she had already inquired clearly from Beverly about the common tactics the Dark Gold Society would use in battle, and this one was specifically aimed at their ground-trapping tactic.
Dorothy was not restrained now, and on the other hand, she was not unaware of the movements of the underground Stone Gargoyles. Although she couldn't see with her eyes, hear with her ears, smell, or touch, Dorothy at this moment had another way to sense the presence of the underground Stone Gargoyles.
This was the underground iron sand, fine iron sand scattered everywhere underground. Dorothy could sense this natural iron sand through her ability. By applying subtle Spirituality to this iron sand, Dorothy could sense the Stone Gargoyles moving through the material underground.
Dorothy skillfully used electromagnetic force to manipulate various metals, countering the Stone Gargoyles, which had a great suppressive effect on Elementalist. The reason Dorothy had such precise control over electromagnetic force was because of the new knowledge she had acquired—Misaka Mikoto's superpower mathematical model.
This was the experience in using abilities by a certain Tokiwadai Railgun Princess, and was a great predecessor to Dorothy in the field of electricity usage.
'People are usually most likely to become complacent when they think they have victory assured. You, at this moment, probably think the next strike will be your last strike against me, right? Coincidentally... I also don't plan to drag this out any longer. Let's quickly finish this.'