Helplessness

Sharon was cold in the face of Apeiron’s aggression, “Try me! Are you going to run away again?”

The Empress sneered at the suggestion, “Not this time!”

“Alright.” Sharon didn’t say any more, just drawing the outline of another portal and starting to knead it into a ball of energy. Apeiron truly didn’t dodge, instead assuming her archer’s stance once more as she shot thousands upon thousands of arrows like a tidal wave straight towards the attack. Another mushroom cloud flew over the bay, but the ball of spatial; energy didn’t reach its intended destination and instead crumbled under the assault of so many arrows. Threads of grey energy circled the violent flames weakly, but they destroyed ten times their volume in fire before dying out.

Only a hundred metres away from the weakened explosion, Apeiron kept to her word and summoned a shield of grey energy around her as she curled up to minimise the damage from the scalding winds. The glow flickered and seemed ready to wink out at any time, but it was much stronger than it seemed as it maintained form all the way to the end.

Once the effects of the fireball dissipated, Apeiron stretched out and smiled at Sharon. However, that smile quickly turned around as she saw another blinding flash straight towards her! Immediately fleeing, she barely left a shriek behind, “You’re still not done?!”

“Of course not!” the legendary mage’s eyebrows stood erect as she prepared the outline of another portal.

The skies above Floe Bay filled up with debris as a storm of flames wreaked havoc on its surroundings, the scene almost apocalyptic. Every attack from Sharon threatened the protective sphere of all of Norland, and the mere fact that Apeiron managed to escape them proved her prowess. When it came to damaging the plane, the ashen grey energy was no worse than Sharon’s attacks.

...

“So terrifying!”

“No doubt...”

“They’re insane...”

“They’ll cause irreparable damage to the plane! We have to stop them!”

“And you want to be the one to do it?”

“Yeah, it’s your idea.”

“...”

The powerful conscients in the void continued discussing things amongst themselves.

...

Julian quickly began worrying about the battle, finally understanding the sheer terror that was Sharon. Seeing the Empress getting hunted, he started to worry deeply for her. Richard seized upon this moment of distraction and chased him down ferociously, grabbing the upper hand and forcing the legend to evade with the smallest of margins.

“You lunatic!” Julian cried out in agony, “Aren’t you worried about your master?”

“I’ll kill you before I go to her side,” Richard said calmly.

“Kill me? You motherfucker, just wait for my... my...” Julian suddenly froze up in the middle of his cursing, almost getting cut apart by Richard’s blade. He had just seen Nasia flying over from the other side of the Deepblue, but his clones were nowhere to be seen. The result was obvious.

Nasia flew to Waterflower immediately, who in turn started approaching the paladin. Pulling one of the level 18 clones away to give the assassin some space. This clone was much faster than the others, but she still had no problem evading it and circling around their battlefield.

It was at this point that Julian finally remembered something and yelled out, “Why is your buff still up?!”

Richard had been wondering about this himself for a while. War Fanatic was an insanely powerful ability that gave him two extra levels in one shot; not even Julian had seen something like that before, and logically speaking it had to have come with the tradeoff of a short burst time. However, the effects still lingered on unabated; only now did Richard realise just how confident Nasia had been when she said losing would only be a result of his own weakness.

Now freed up, Waterflower showcased tremendous skill as the Shepherd of Eternal Rest whistled loudly, destroying the one clone with only three attacks. Nasia arrived beside her just as she dealt with the first one, and the young lady didn’t even miss a beat as she chopped this one in two as well. She herself was taken aback by this; she hadn’t expected it to become so easy.

However, the most shocked of all was Julian. The middle-aged man spat out a mouthful of blood as he felt the connection to his level 18 clones breaking; with their deaths, he would face a permanent dip in level. He still had to deal with Richard’s attacks that were only growing faster and more mysterious with each blow, and he was finally starting to realise that death was a possibility.

It was at this moment that his internal chaos took over. Not running any longer, he decided to fight Richard head-on in a crazed battle, blood gushing out only moments after. When the two separated, staring viciously at each other while snorting like bulls, their bodies were bleeding all over.

Waterflower was about to rush forth but she stopped herself, knowing that the battle was too close for her to assist effectively. If she convinced Julian that he had no chance of victory, he might just decide on a suicidal attack that killed everyone.

Nasia’s mask slowly shifted as she floated to Waterflower’s side, whispering in her ear, “Now is your chance, go kill Julian.”

Shocked, the young lady shook her head, “No, he’ll kill Richard!“

“He won’t.”

“He will!”

“He won’t.”

“Get away from me!” Waterflower suddenly screamed, alarming both Julian and Richard who turned to look at her. Nasia merely shrugged, acting as though she had seen nothing.

The two red-eyed men looked back at each other, Julian speaking up after a moment, “You little bastard, your liver is already showing. Why not hurry back and wrap it up? Stop acting like you’re a hero!”

“I’m not as fragile as you, with your lungs out and all. How does Lifesbane feel, by the way? Scared for your life?”

Julian gritted his teeth and gathered up all his remaining energy, getting closer and spitting out, “Do you think the great Julian fears death? Let me show you who’s scared!”

He shot his hands up with some difficulty, fist heading straight for Richard’s nose. A loud crack rang out as the bridge of Richard’s nose was cut open, but in exchange Richard had straight access to Julian’s chest and by extension hearts.

However, Richard seemed to grow dazed as he didn’t go for the instant kill, instead retaliating with a backhand straight to Julian’s face, “Didn’t Her Majesty tell you not to kill me? Where’s your loyalty gone?”

“Her Majesty always comes before me, kid!”

“Lies!”

*Thud!* Julian punched Richard once more, “What do you know about being someone’s follower?”

*Thud!* Richard retaliated, “You clueless little...”

Cursing under his breath, Julian raised a leg to kick Richard in the chest. However, he fell short as Waterflower pulled Richard away before turning around and staring him in the eye, “I’ll kill you!”

The young lady drove the Shepherd of Eternal Rest straight towards the heart. With no way to run or hide, Julian didn’t even bother as he resigned himself to death. He even had the gall to make a kissing face in the moment of his death.

However, the lethal blow only struck air; Apeiron had sped over like the wind and pulled Julian back by the scruff of his neck, saving him inthe last moment. She even had the time to grab the girl by her hair and lick her lips vulgarly before laughing and throwing her a kilometre away, “Tastes good!”

The very next moment, Apeiron flashed in front of Richard and almost crushed him in an embrace, violently kissing him on the lips before shouting, “What’s so great about you, Sharon? I can toy with your lover whenever I want!”

The legendary mage let loose an earth-shattering cry in the distance before dashing over, but the Empress tapped Richard’s face and pinched it hard before throwing him to the side. In the very next moment, she had disappeared.

Sharon suddenly stopped, feeling an extremely bad omen, but Apeiron appeared right behind her and laughed softly before blowing hot air into her ear. Her hand then reached down.

...

Another fireball lit up Floe Bay. Sharon was pale as she moved to cover her buttocks with her hands, but as they moved halfway she stopped and put on a nonchalant expression as though nothing had happened. However, Apeiron shouted from the distance, “Such a supple ass, Sharon! Hahahaha!”

The legendary mage felt powerless for the first time in her life, not even having the strength to curse or flip Apeiron off.