With a flick of her hand, she stole the most dangerous ability the smuggler had; it was the 'lightning manipulation'!
The smuggler stood up in an instant, as the chair he sat on stumbled far back.
He was a sequence 5; even if his pathway did not specialize in divination and foreseeing things, it was not hard for him to realize that this was an ambush and this was a dangerous situation.
His first instinct was to strike down the woman before him with a 'lightning strike', and he tried to do it, but a look of shock appeared on his face—his power of 'lightning manipulation' was gone!
But he wasn't helpless.
The wind around him flared and flowed faster, gathering near him. He called upon a hurricane to surround him as he floated over 5 feet above the floor, looking down at the middle-aged woman.
The smuggler created wind-blades within the hurricane and threw them at the woman.
Zhoop!
Zhoop!
Catherine sensed the imminent damage instantly!
"Distortion!" she shouted out.
The wind blades, instead of hitting her, slashed around the ground instead, leaving deep marks on the floor.
This was due to the black 'belt' she was wearing around her waist; it was a sealed artifact corresponding to sequence 6 of the Lawyer pathway.
Catherine smiled. It had been a long time since she had engaged in a battle; this was going to be fun.
She opened her palm and pointed at the man floating in the small hurricane.
"Flight is prohibited here!" she shouted in ancient Hermes.
Jace had warned her about this wind control power and how it would aid the smuggler in attacking and, more importantly, escaping through flight, so Catherine prohibited flight.
Above, the flowing wind that supported the smuggler to float in the air seemed to weaken as the smuggler floated down in confusion.
He, of course, used wind control to stay afloat, but he felt a premonition that if he went against the 'prohibition', he would face a severe backlash.
So he landed on the ground and prepared for close-quarters combat.
—
When the smuggler gathered wind and gale for his flight, Natalie moved away from Catherine so as to not be a hindrance to her fight.
It was better to leave a sequence 5 to fight a sequence 5; besides, she was confident in Catherine's abilities.
Furthermore, she had a job to do, which was to eliminate the lackeys!
She looked to the right; the 2 guys there were standing alert, seeing that their boss was onto something.
The Pyromaniac turned his head around and looked at Natalie. He realized that this was a fight, so 4 'fire ravens' appeared around him, burning bright and lighting the dark warehouse.
With a gesture of his hand, the burning ravens shot forward towards Natalie.
Natalie was relaxed. 2 fire serpents slithered from behind her and erected a scorching barrier of flames from the ground.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The fire ravens crashed into the barrier without damaging it.
The Pyromaniac had already figured that his ravens wouldn't do much damage, as he felt that the man (Natalie) before him was of a higher sequence than him.
He had sent out the ravens as a cover. Meanwhile, in his hand appeared a long flaming spear; he started compressing the flames on the spear so the attack would be stronger.
But before he could do anything, 6 fire ravens flew out from behind the fire barrier of the enemy, flying faster and straight toward him!
These ravens were obviously faster and more powerful than his. A pair of fire serpents slithered ahead of him and erected a barrier, but he was not sure it would hold against the 6 powerful ravens.
But... something strange happened.
As the fire ravens neared the wall, they grew slower and the fire power within them lowered significantly.
4 of them changed their course and hit the ground, while only 2 hit the fire barrier of the Pyromaniac, damaging it slightly.
The Pyromaniac sighed in relief; he knew exactly what was going on.
It was the guy who had stood behind the boss; he had an artifact that allowed him to jump through fire and control it, so he had controlled the flame ravens and weakened them.
The Pyromaniac's eyes widened in an instant. His danger sense flared, and he turned back instantly to see the source of the danger.
But what he saw was his own subordinate plunging an axe into his chest!?
Khup!
Buzz!
Arcs of lightning exploded through the axe, killing the Pyromaniac on the spot.
The man who killed the Pyromaniac had a glint of craziness in his eyes; he did not know why he did what he did, nor did he care.
"Good job," a pleasant, soft voice entered his ear from behind him.
Stab!
The man looked down. There was a bloody short sword through his chest, stabbed from the back.
The most ridiculous thing was the fact that the sword was made out of newspaper!
—
Natalie felt her fire raven power weaken and her control over them diminish for some reason, as such 4 of them hit the ground and only 2 hit the target with less power than the original.
But it didn't matter, because the fire ravens were a distraction.
In her left hand was a fire ball that she had been compressing ever since she erected the fire barrier.
It was her plan to throw the fire ball at the Pyromaniac and the sequence 8 behind him, and finish them at once.
A chill ran through her spine as her danger premonition flared—it was behind her!
Behind her was the man that initially stood behind the sequence 5 smuggler. After the fight started, Natalie had tried to search for him but couldn't find him, until now...
she could feel it. The guy was behind her, with a knife aiming at her side!
Fortunately for her, she wasn't afraid of getting hurt, as she was wearing the vampire's bracelet, which had some really good regeneration capabilities.
So she tried to take advantage of the situation. She turned her left hand, which had the fire ball in it, and with easy flexibility, she moved her hand behind her back and pointed the fire ball at the person behind her.
Zhup!
In an instant, she felt the person behind her disappear, and with him, the danger premonition calmed as well.
Natalie turned around and saw that no one was behind her.
She looked at the place where the Pyromaniac and the sequence 8 were, only to see them dead on the ground.
She brought her left hand before her; on it was a floating, incandescent, fully compressed fire ball.
'What am I supposed to do with this?' she wondered.
A realization dawned on her as she turned around, thinking she should help Catherine.
—
Catherine looked at the Ocean Songster as he floated down to the ground, unable to fly due to her prohibition.
She felt empowered as he tried to resist the prohibition; this was one of the attributes she gained after becoming a Disciplinary Paladin.
When she was a sequence 6, her prohibition would only stop someone from doing something; if that someone was strong enough, they could even overcome the prohibition.
But that was not the case for a sequence 5 Disciplinary Paladin. Now, when someone through power disobeyed her prohibition, they would suffer a severe backlash. Not only that, even their resistance to the prohibition would empower her physical and mystical capabilities.
Sequence 5 of the Arbiter pathway was different than other sequence 5s. The Arbiter pathway's true powers didn't lie in combat or trickery; it was based on order and authority.
So for Catherine to fight another sequence 5 was pretty simple and straightforward.
The smuggler, meanwhile, still seemed pretty confident, which was likely due to his wind control power, as he could increase his speed and destructive power with it.
It was probably his plan to engage in close-quarters combat, but Catherine had no intention of such a thing.
She smiled and flicked her hand!
"Theft!"
She had already used the Prometheus Ring to steal one power, so she couldn't use it again.
So she used the Polymath Ring to imitate the Prometheus's 'Theft' and stole his ability to control the wind.
The smuggler felt a great shock again—his two most powerful powers were just gone!
His intuition flared as he looked to the side, only to find a bright fireball flying at him. He was too shocked to notice it earlier, and now it was too close to him!
Booooom!
The fire ball blasted with bright light and a large boom.
The smuggler was thrown far away through the wall of the warehouse, outside onto the ground.
He was not dead yet, no; this was because of the Phantom scales on his body, which were strong enough to endure the fire ball's blast.
But it did damage his body significantly.
Breathing heavily, he got on his knees with his hands on the ground and vomited blood.
"Sea..." he whispered. He needed the sea; that was the only way for him to get out of this predicament.
He could hear the stream of the river flowing behind him. He got up and started running limply towards it.
Khup!
His eyes widened as he looked below. At his side, there was an axe buried in his ribs. He recognized it; his subordinate of a lower sequence had it.
Normally, such a weapon would not have been able to stab through his skin, but this was the same place the fireball had hit him, where his body was already damaged.
Buzz!
The axe burst into lightning, releasing arcs of electricity throughout his body.
He fell down on his back. He looked up with his hazy sight and saw a figure standing over him.
"...You died quite easily for a sequence 5... Is it because you were away from water...?" the figure spoke.
His ears were ringing due to the blast, but he could make out some words.
"...Not dead yet? ...I suppose that's a sequence 5 for you..." the figure spoke as he pointed what seemed like fingers at him.
Then everything went dark.
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A/N:- I thought a lot about it, and this is what i came up with...
Hope you guys like it...