Chương 1311: 1341 - Urnos III

Leon thrust Iron Pride forward, letting black lightning erupt from the blade in one nightmarish flash. Antipatra grinned maniacally as it struck the White Dragon scale. Power flared, white clashed with black, and a moment later, the power receded. Antipatra had been blasted backward, but was otherwise none the worse for wear as far as Leon could tell. But he wasn't done.

He didn't know how she'd gotten her hands on the scale—it certainly didn't look large enough to have been from the Great White Dragon himself—but he wasn't going to leave something like that in her hands. With his power, he carved a rune into the Voidspace around him, one that shone brilliantly in the dark. He thrust his blade forward again, and the 'death' rune flashed. Black lightning passed through it, and with his mind focused, power was imparted.

Antipatra pushed the White Dragon scale forth to meet the next bolt of black lightning, the scale shining like a new sun. But black lightning pierced that light, and again, struck the scale. Again, Antipatra was thrown backward, but she righted herself with the ease of a woman who hadn't been injured. She then pulsed with fire, flames emanating from her like an aura. The flames washed over Leon, but they were so weak that they couldn't have harmed even a fifth-tier mage, let alone him.

Yet the purpose became clear when she spoke, her voice borne by the fire.

"You are out of your league, little pigeon. Fight or run; either way, Khosrow's Law will find you." Leon didn't give her the dignity of a response. All he wanted from her was her death; that was the only fitting response to what she'd done to Anna. In that, he pulled back slightly, observing the results of his black lightning strikes. Antipatra appeared largely unharmed, despite everything.

After invoking the power of the Iron Needle, his arm stung from use of the black lightning, but it had left him otherwise uninjured. He allowed a moment of pride to flow through him before refocusing on the battle. Antipatra surged forward at great speed, but not great enough to catch Leon off guard. He took in her charge, but his eyes were drawn more toward the White Dragon scale that she'd hung from her wrist.

The power of life inherent to the strength of the Great White Dragon, and borne by his descendants, had blocked his black lightning. So long as she had it, then his most devastating powers would be nullified, as he doubted Doomfire would be any more effective against her than it had been against Terris when he'd brandished a Blue Dragon scale. But within the light shining from the scale, he could see a sliver of shadow; his lightning had cracked the scale.

Antipatra thrust her blue-bladed spear as she drew close, and Leon met it with Iron Pride. Fire and silver-blue lightning burst from the meeting of weapons, and the force of it separated them. Leon hurtled back and inscribed another rune—while his more inherent powers hadn't seen much increase in skill or power over the past decade, he'd immersed himself in his runic studies with Nestor.

He'd continued to aid his arksmiths in upgrading his newest arks, which by itself was a show of his improved skills, but arks hadn't been his primary focus… When the rune appeared, Leon wasted no time filling it with power. Antipatra suddenly froze in mid-Void, her eyes swiveling in panic as her body refused to move. Leon, blazing with silver-blue lightning, charged again. Iron Pride gleamed, and the Void itself seemed to scream as his power ran wild.

A pulse of origin power was all that saved Antipatra, allowing her to barely bring her spear up to meet Iron Pride again. This time, however, instead of blasting apart, Leon pushed through the blast of power and pressed. With a silent screech of Adamant on Adamant, 'audible' only to magic senses, he dropped under Antipatra's guard and lunged up. Antipatra had to block with her forearm, Iron Pride glancing off her Adamant shell. Fire burst from her arm, the sheer weight of it forcing Leon back.

When it cleared, Antipatra had gained more distance, and her grin was back. Though she didn't speak, Leon knew what she'd say from her look of untamed pride. She was uninjured still. But his eyes flickered again to the scale. He saw another crack. She hadn't seemed to notice—perhaps it was the dragon in him, or the dragon within him watching the battle—but the scale's power had dimmed, even if its luster hadn't so much.

Keeping her distance, Antipatra conjured a thousand fire serpents and sent them writhing toward Leon. He met them with autonomous lightning raptors. Their battle grew more and more wide-scale, eventually obscuring them from view…

"Push hard in the center!" Anshu ordered. Word had come back that Zhang and Daryun had both been locked down in battle with two of Antipatra's Strategoi, and Anna had been gravely injured. Lana and Graniton were with her, protecting her from further harm, but her condition wasn't improving.

'A chest wound…' he thought, the concern momentarily overcoming his duty. However, a moment later, the weight of the moment came back, and his attention returned to the battle. Zhang and Daryun's duels were above and below the fleets, respectively. The wild cataclysmic clash between Leon and Antipatra was roughly in the center.

The cloud of light formed by their auras was clearing, allowing Antipatra's arks to get better firing solutions, but the two thirteenth-tier mages were still a large hazard that other arks couldn't pass. But there was room there for maneuvers. Smaller arks accelerated first; their maneuverability, especially at the long ranges that the center was fighting at, would keep them protected better than their light shields.

The larger arks would keep distant, making use of their heavier weapons to inflict as much damage as they could without exposing themselves. But they still had to push forward. Anshu's envelopment tactic was conventional, and so was the response from Antipatra's fleets. Instead of pushing forward to meet them, they were pulling back, hoping to keep his arks from surrounding them.

'They have good discipline,' he noted.

'No panic. Just coordinated response.' With the cloud of light almost entirely gone, their weapons had greatly grown in effectiveness. It also meant that Anshu's center fleet was more accurate, too, but at these great distances, the enemy still had room to dodge.

"Concentrate cannons on these capital arks," he ordered, designating the largest and least maneuverable of Antipatra's arks with his most powerful.

'If we can't break up their formation, then hit the slowest. Kill or disable them. Let's see how they respond without those behemoths…' Something drew his attention: the high group, commanded by Red-Knuckle, was outpacing the rest of the fleet.

"Red-Knuckle, don't draw too far ahead," he ordered, cloud glass and Storm Herald's comm lotus ensuring his order was delivered immediately. However, the high group continued accelerating hard. It was clear the enemy noticed when their weapons fire turned up to focus on them as they were drawn out.

'He's drawing too close…' Anshu realized, his heart starting to race again even as he kept his exterior cool and composed.

'If he loses the support of the other groups, then the enemy will have local superiority… We can't lose the high group…' They'd inflicted damage upon Antipatra's fleet, but not enough to be decisive. They'd also lost some arks, though few had been outright destroyed. Still, he wasn't going to lose the high group, no matter what. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"All groups, forward at maximum speed," he ordered when Red-Knuckle continued to refuse to respond. The battle was becoming a race to the high group—one side in support, the other to destroy. With most of the center group maneuvering around the extreme hazard that was Antipatra and Leon's duel, their maneuverability was limited. But right, left, and low groups accelerated, their thrusters lighting up the Void like hundreds of new stars. Internally, Anshu scowled.

'This might devolve into a slugfest after all…'

Anger and fear warred within Maia's heart as she stared at the mass of power that was Antipatra and Leon's duel. From the outside, she couldn't see or sense anything, but the constant fire and flashes of lightning told her that neither side had reached a decisive edge. There was little she wanted to do more than to charge in and support her mate, their hearts beating as one as they tore that fiery bitch's head off… … but she knew that she wasn't strong enough to do so.

It pained her to admit it, but if she were to try, she'd only get in Leon's way. But as power rippled across the Void, she knew that there were other places where she could be useful, where her power could aid in carving out a domain that her daughters would one day partially inherit. One particular burst of power drew her attention due to its proximity and its source; Red had attacked the enemy fleet with her, but in the carnage, they'd separated.

Now, the titanic wyvern had been engaged by the coward who ruled these planes before they'd arrived. The gold-bedecked bastard had not only managed to keep her at a distance using a vicious-looking war hammer, but he'd also caused visible damage to Red; one of her wings was bent at a joint, and her normally smooth, scaled body had dents and cracks, and she was surrounded by a glittering constellation of shed scales. Scowling, Maia assumed her ice dragon form and flashed through the Void.

The coward noticed her, though she hadn't attempted to conceal herself. His hammer pulsed, and Red was thrown back; he then swung at Maia as she opened her jaws to swallow him, and a pulse of wind magic hit Maia like she'd hit a wall. Her body almost crushed itself from her sudden and violent deceleration, interrupting her charge long enough for the coward to retreat. She and Red began to pursue, but he was faster and ran like a beaten dog.

[The craven can't stand to fight us,] Red boasted to her, pride shining from her form like fire. [You're injured,] Maia noted, taking the moment to inspect her companion. [Not seriously,] Red responded despite the twitching in her injured wing. They each flew lower as several errant shots from a capital ark passed close by, and Maia saw through Red's bravado. [We will feast upon metal instead of mage,] Maia declared. [The craven runs, and our companions require aid.] She looked up and saw the maneuvering around the high group's reckless charge. She also saw that the coward's arks were in the back, not pushing against their fleet nearly as hard as Antipatra's flamboyant offenses to good design sensibilities. Red looked ready to argue for a moment, but after another twitch in her wing, she acquiesced. [Where shall we hunt first?] Maia's lake blue eyes turned upon the lower part of Antipatra's fleet, where the low group was trying to engage the foe. [Follow me…] Amidst all the raging power, buried within the wrath, Leon felt alive. His Adamant breastplate took a blow and held, as Iron Pride raked across Antipatra's exposed stomach. Fire surrounded them as a thousand bolts of lightning cut through it. Fire snakes and lightning birds courted each other, keeping all the arks around them from seeing them, let alone approaching. And within, Leon was motion and thought. He conjured an ancient rune, his mind focused on a single meaning.

A thrust, and Antipatra's spear was thrown back with extra vigor. He lunged again, the shining scale on Antipatra's wrist having now become cracked enough that even Antipatra was noticing his aim. With no other choice, she released her hold on her blue-bladed spear to pull her arm out of the way, and Iron Pride missed the target. But Antipatra was now unarmed, and Leon pushed against her, lightning arcing over both of their bodies.

He felt the flaring of her armor's protective enchantments almost as acutely as he felt her slamming her other arm into him. With fire and raw physical power, she threw him back. But he conjured another 'halt' rune and arrested all of his momentum immediately. He was upon her again before she managed to rearm herself, and the last traces of her arrogance vanished. No longer was she smiling like she'd already won; no longer was she refusing to attack in favor of boasting about his imminent loss.

Now, she could barely keep up with his assault, and her greatest defense against his power was starting to fail. From her soul realm, she conjured another spear, though this one, instead of being made entirely of Adamant, had a haft of curious dark red wood, and a head of enchanted Aurichalcum. When its blade met Iron Pride, Leon felt the sword vibrate painfully hard in his hand. But with his other hand, he conjured a lightning spear and thrust it forward.

Antipatra met it with the other end of the spear, and a burst of fire consumed the bolt. The spear was well-made; Leon had to admit that. Though he couldn't study it in great detail, he could tell that it was inscribed with many powerful runes, some that he could tell were ancient. One of those runes flared bright red, and a dozen hands of fire shot from the haft of the weapon and caught him mid-charge. For a moment, he was immobilized, and Antipatra lunged, the blade of her weapon trailing intense white fire.

But Leon was no stranger to fire, and summoned the strength of his scaled Ancestor; black fire billowed from his body and consumed the hands of fire. He switched back to lightning and, with the added speed, brought Iron Pride in to deflect Antipatra's thrust away from his body. As the spear slid past him, a lion of fire burst from her just as she dropped one hand from the haft of her spear and conjured another rune.

Leon felt his inherited power painfully slip from his control just as the lion clamped down on his left arm. He felt the pressure through his Adamant armor and saw Antipatra, wild-eyed and desperate, thrust her spear again. Without his power, he'd have no chance to save himself from at least a hard hit, and possibly a mortal blow, depending on what the ancient rune on the blade of her new spear did. So, he showed off something he'd been working on but hadn't had much of an opportunity to test.

He conjured another rune of his own, this one based on select parts of his transformation enchantment. His blood suddenly surged as if the amount of blood rushing through his veins had doubled. Every part of him screamed in protest, but his power, banished by her Wailing Dirge-esque rune, returned in force. Silver-blue lightning exploded from him, while a silver-blue eagle tore into the fire lion, releasing its hold on his arm. Leon then ducked under Antipatra's thrust and swept Iron Pride toward her wrist.

She twisted just enough for Iron Pride to taste nothing but Void, but she was still close, and Leon concentrated his origin power. In a burst of power, a spike appeared positioned perfectly for her wrist to slam into it. Her Adamant armor protected her wrist, but the spike still sliced into the delicate-seeming chain keeping the White Dragon scale secure, and the rune he'd inscribed upon the spike activated. The chain snapped, and in an instant, Leon snatched the scale.

If Antipatra could scream, Leon guessed she would be based on her reaction. She stared in momentary disbelief at what had just happened, and when the realization properly hit, she shot backward as fast as she was able. Though fire magic couldn't compete with lightning magic for speed, it still excelled in brief bursts, which Antipatra displayed well. But Leon charged after her, the familiar pain of summoning his black lightning rushing down his arm.

He swung Iron Pride, and a bolt of lightning blacker than the Void flashed from the blade. Antipatra looked like she screamed with such force that she coughed up blood, but she managed to call upon her origin power and conjured a rod of iron that intercepted the black lightning. Runes on the rod burned brightly before the rod was destroyed so thoroughly that it looked like it had been erased from existence, but the bolt was stopped.

Antipatra desperately fled, laying down several ancient runes that Leon wasn't familiar with to cover her retreat. When Leon tried to push past one, it pushed back just as hard, forming an invisible barrier to his advance. As he pushed against it, preparing a rune of his own to cut through this invisible barrier, he felt the fatigue of the duel catching up with him. His strength wasn't gone yet, but his limbs were starting to feel heavy, and his power wasn't responding as readily as he wanted it to.

With a deep breath, the stale air within his armor tasting like sweat and blood, he evaluated the situation. Antipatra was still close enough to feasibly catch, and his anger demanded that he do so. But the battle around him was starting to turn, his fleet hammering Antipatra's fleet hard as it tried to catch the high group out of position. He felt a burst of power from Antipatra, and a moment later, her fleet began a proper retreat rather than backwards maneuvers.

Leon then turned his attention to the source of the deep anger he felt for Antipatra: Lana and Graniton were with Anna, inundating her in healing magic. Leon's heart sank when he sensed specific magic similar to newly developed healing spells that invoked the rubies that Nestor used to store his magic body. That was not a good sign. Leon took one last look at the fleeing Antipatra, his heart sinking knowing that she was going to get away. Then, he turned back to his fallen Paladin.

He grabbed Antipatra's discarded spear on his way and sensed Maia and Red rushing to join him after breaking off their own attacks. Antipatra's fleet started to jump away before he reached Anna, making it clear that the battle was essentially over. Now, it was time to figure out what the win had cost him.