Capítulo 114: To See How Far . . . III
Inside the duel field, Jun and Artoria faced each other with smiles of anticipation for the honorable duel to come.
Well, Artoria did anticipate an honorable duel, Jun on the other hand, wasn't really one to fight honorably, especially when he was already handicapped by not having access to most of his power.
Jun and Scathach had been constantly working on convincing the King of Knights to be more liberal with her Mana Burst and Noble Phantasms since Artoria, had a Dragon Reactor Core that could support the expenditure now that she was properly incarnated with a Transcender class vessel.
Artoria too, realized that the enemies Jun would face in the future would require much less restraint on her part to beat and Jun himself worked on ways to allow for the employment of strategic destruction tactics without too much collateral damage.
In order to allow Artoria to reach the peak of her power, Jun had removed the restraints on her noble phantasms.
Rhongomyniad, much like Proto Excalibur were bound by the Thirteen Restraints of the Round Table which Jun swiftly did away with. Artoria's Excalibur however, also had restrictions, even if not as clearly defined as the Holy Lance's.
Being created through the sacrifice of six Great Mother Class Fairies in the Inner Sea of the World, Excalibur was considered the Ultimate Phantasm, being capable of a Planetary Class output of energy, which was used to beat back the White Titan that single handedly destroyed all of the Gods.
This being the case, a mere A++ Anti Fortress attack was clearly far beneath Excalibur's true power which Jun man aged to make available to Artoria, though she had yet to reach a sufficient level of personal strength to properly wield that full power.
Nevertheless, the current Artoria was far more dangerous than she was during any Holy Grail War, or even in life. With possibly only the Goddess Rhongomyniad version of her being more powerful.
As such, also due to Jun's restraints, Artoria not only had greater parameters than Jun, her maximum output also currently surpassed his, meaning an uphill battle for her beloved.
Jun's advantage, laid in his more diverse arsenal of abilities and his superior skill in using them which he had honed far beyond almost all Heroic Spirits.
Additionally, Artoria, while having some long range option with incredible power, was a melee combatant through and through and even with her increased power, Jun would hold the advantage at long range.
And that's precisely how he planned to fight.
Teleporting with his Ideal Craft into the sky above the battlefield, countless magical circles sprung to life around Nox and a barrage of prismatic light followed as each magic circled spewed multiple curved beams that covered the sky while aiming towards Artoria.
Interesting fact, most of Jun's subordinates and even wives, did not know exactly how his abilities worked.
Morgan seemed to have extensive knowledge that Jun never shared with her, a rather suspicious point, while Scathach knew all of his abilities since she helped him train and optimize Jun's use of them but was about it.
Seeing the barrage of magecraft, Artoria thought to tank it with her magical resistance while charging and delivering a powerful counterattack as each beam only held A rank power which her natural resistance could handle.
However, in the instant before she was hit, a double warning from both her logical thinking that Jun would never do something so wasteful and from her upgraded Instinct Skill, Shining Path, told Artoria not to do it.
Her escape routes were already blocked however and so, left without a choice, Artoria relied on her invincible defence.
"Avalon!" She called out as a thin film of golden light covered her form just before the attack hit.
Jun's Ideal Craft could adapt to any type of defence and nullify it, making all attempt to block or negate his spells useless.
He purposefully baited Artoria into tanking his attack by limiting it to A rank which her Magic Resistance should be able to block while knowing that the skill would be ineffective against his particular brand of magecraft.
Avalon however, was a conceptually perfect defence so there was nothing to adapt to, making it fully capable of blocking the Ideal Craft, one of the few things that could actually accomplish such a thing without overwhelming and eroding it with greatly superior firepower.
The explosions provided perfect cover for a counter and using her improved Mana Burst, Artoria unleashed a golden torrent of light from her holy sword that blasted out from within the smokescreen and reached Jun in the blink of an eye.
His Ars Notoria however, made such covers meaningless as Jun saw the attack being charged and effortlessly dodged it while launching another barrage of prismatic beams.
Unlike the previous one however, this one was not meant to lul Artoria into a false sense of safety and so, all the beams were EX ranked in power and there were a lot more of them.
Artoria could block them with Avalon again but that would just result in a stalemate so she decided on something else.
She had been working hard on mastering every facet of her noble phantasms as she was aware of the outrageous power they held.
Holding out her hand towards the oncoming attacks, Artoria fought back.
"Rhongomyniad!" Without even manifesting the lances physical form, a neat trick she had learned, Artoria unleashed countless golden beams into the sky and Jun was shocked to see the attack overwhelm his own and still have enough strength left to strike at him.
Casually blocking the weakened attack with an Ideal Craft barrier, Jun marveled at Artoria's application of her holy lance.
Using a limited true name release to boost the power of her attack without having to charge up and rather than simply firing a single huge attack as per norm, she managed to masterfully split it into multiple attacks to counter his own.
But while Jun admired Artoria's newfound mastery, she used the time bought by her partial release of her holy lance to perform a full release.
"Holy lance, removing restraints! Light, may you be released from the ends of the world. Split the heavens and tether the earth, anchor of the storm! Rhongomyniad!!"
A spiralling pillar of light in the shape of the holy lance descended from the heavens with unstoppable power towards Jun.
The restraints he was forced to bear during this battle were making it challenging and thus, quite fun as he moved to counter what was essentially an Anti Country attack with massive power and range.
Interestingly, Artoria had learned to use the power of her phantasms to apply pressure that preceded the attack, thus making it difficult to dodge.
In fact, Jun's teleportation was being restrained by the massive power on top of him, making him unable to cover the necessary distance to dodge Rhongomyniad's massive area of effect.
'Counter it is!' He thought as he thrust his palm into the sky.
"Open! Door to the Starry Sky!"
The moment Jun shouted the words, an enormous portal into the star filled void of the Crown of Stars: Ark was opened and from it, a massive torrent of burning light emerged, rising into the sky to meet the descending pillar of light in a titanic clash.
Rhongomyniad plowed through the torrent of weaponized starlight but it slowed down more and more, its power being eroded by the continuous assault it suffered.
Artoria could only stare in wonder, at the fact that, this, this seemingly unlimited power that Jun was showcasing . . . Was him fighting with heavy restraints.
It was true though. If at full power, the Door to the Starry Sky could be used to deliver and Anti World class attack but now, only through continuous use, could it offset an Anti Country attack from Artoria's holy lance.
Taking this opportunity however, while the holy lance and the Door to the Starry Sky clashed, Artoria charged up her holy sword and unleashed the most power she could currently coax out of it, in a massive attack at Jun, this time, from below, thus trapping him in between her two attacks.
"Sheathed in the breath of the planet, a torrent of shining life. Feel its wrath. Excalibur!!"
Turning his attention downwards at the oncoming attack, Jun smiled. He didn't have any other moves that could output that much power individually while he was restrained but he was far from being out of tricks yet . . .
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