บท 185: The face of death (2)
The girl grabbed the scythe and thrust it into the ground next to her, easing the tension in her back and neck.
"How can this be?" Katrina hadn't expected her spell to be so weak against her opponent.
"Something's not right? Or did you hope to defeat me with such a feeble trick?" Rizel smirked and poised the scythe for an attack. An enormous column of dark energy flew towards the princess, but she stood her ground.
"I'm tired of running!" For an instant, the princess's golden claws united, and she released a discharge towards the flame-like substance. The two spells collided, canceling each other out and scattering across the arena. "What is this?"
"Tch, you noticed," Rizel clicked her tongue in annoyance.
"This is..." Gathering a small electric web on her fingers, Katrina scooped up a part of the decaying flame from the ground. "This isn't fire, is it?"
"Well, now you've figured it out," Rizel put the scythe on her shoulders and rested her hands on it. "It's not fire at all. They call it the Flame of Decay because it looks quite similar. And of course, your lightning can reflect it. But..."
Rizel released one hand and deftly spun the scythe, grabbing it again with her hand.
"Even if you can reflect my magic, I can also reflect yours! Fighting from a distance is not interesting."
"But we can try!" Katrina released a powerful lightning bolt forward, and Rizel, swinging the staff, unleashed a wave of dark energy. The two forces clashed in the center of the arena, and the destructive magic began to spread across the ground.
Katrina gathered a small web on her fingertips and sent it along the lightning, breaking the spell. The lightning exploded in the center of the arena, scattering the decay flames around. Immediately, the princess released two thin lightning bolts towards her target.
Rizel somersaulted in the air and drove the blade into the ground. Three huge geysers of decay erupted from the ground on their way to the princess, engulfing the lightning bolts. Another one burst from beneath the princess, but she created an electric field under her feet and effortlessly leaped backward. Just before landing, she gathered powerful discharges on her fingertips and intertwined them, releasing a stream of ten powerful lightning bolts towards the necromancer.
Rizel thrust the staff forward and met the torrent with the full force of the Thanatos Shield. Lightning bolts collided with the shield, but some managed to bypass it and rushed towards the sorceress. The pressure of the spell slowly pushed Rizel backward, but Katrina's powers couldn't sustain the spell indefinitely.
Having completed the incantation, the princess darted swiftly towards her enemy. She wanted to reach her with her claws while she was focused on deflecting the spell, but the necromancer was prepared.
Extending the end of her scythe forward, Rizel lifted Katrina with invisible force and tossed her over herself. Maintaining her speed but losing support, Katrina flew until she crashed into the wall with force. The necromancer's shadow swayed again, and Rizel leaped under the dome, quickly catching up with her opponent.
The battle turned into a close combat. Rizel deftly swung the scythe as if it were an extension of her body, showcasing incredible evasive maneuvers against the princess's counterattacks.
Rizel spun on one foot and delivered a circular strike, but Katrina created an electric shield on her glove and pushed away the scythe's handle. Getting in close, Katrina struck at Rizel's head, but the necromancer leaned back and, thrusting the staff's tip into the ground, propelled herself upward. Skillfully balancing on one hand at the staff's end, she performed a somersault and kicked the princess in the chest.
Katrina was thrown against the wall, and as Rizel closed in, she struck with the sharp blade from below. Katrina gathered lightning in her hands and deflected the blade close to her body before pushing the scythe away. The princess took a quick step forward, and two lightning bolts erupted from the ground, targeting the necromancer's shoulders.
Rizel performed a backflip and, grazing one of the lightning bolts, landed a couple of meters away from Katrina. She executed a circular scythe strike, and the princess rolled to her knees, not far from the necromancer.
"It's over for you!" Utilizing the momentum from her previous strike, Rizel swung for the princess's head.
"In your dreams!" The blade stopped a couple of centimeters away from Katrina's head. The princess tilted her head back and smirked at the necromancer. She was holding the blade with her bare hands—no, with her gloves. "Your blade cuts souls, and it's dangerous to touch it with bare hands, but it's harmless if I use gloves, as long as I don't grasp the edge."
With those words, Katrina allowed a powerful discharge to pass through the silver scythe. Rizel tried to pull the weapon away, but it didn't yield.
"Hey! Let go!" The necromancer stomped on the ground, and the decay flames burst from the scythe, dislodging the charge, allowing her to retrieve the weapon. Enveloping the blade of the scythe in violet flames, the necromancer poised it for an attack. "And now, it's truly the end!"
With a wide swing, the necromancer lowered her hands, but nothing happened.
"What?" The scythe was gone from her hands. It had disappeared: "How is this possible?"
Rizel turned around, and the scythe was forcefully embedded in the nearest statue, towering five meters above the girls. It had slipped from her grip in the midst of her attack and plunged into the bronze gargoyle. The necromancer turned around, but it was too late—Katrina was already holding her by the waist.
"Now it's definitely the end." Katrina released a powerful lightning bolt towards her opponent, and upon the impact, Rizel lost consciousness.
Rizel regained consciousness after a couple of minutes. Katrina was sitting beside her, waiting for the necromancer to wake up.
"Did I lose?" Rizel asked.
"Looks like it," Katrina replied.
"And how did you do it?"
"With great difficulty," Katrina gathered lightning in her hand and released it towards a statue. The silver scythe fell out of the statue and landed right in the princess's hand. "As I said, I can perceive changes in people's auras, or rather, in their electric fields. Your field differed significantly from others. When you used the Thanatos Shield, your field expanded significantly, but even in its passive state, the barrier continued to protect you. That's why my lightning, which hit you in the back, felt like a mosquito bite."
"Ah, I see." Rizel lifted herself and touched her shoulder. "Also, I require a much larger charge than other people."
"But I realized that as long as this barrier was protecting you, I couldn't reach you," Katrina extended the scythe to the necromancer, "The only moment when the shield weakened was when you gathered your power to control the decay flames. So I focused on your weapon during that attack."
The princess lightly tapped the scythe's handle with her claw, and a clear metallic sound resonated.
"It's entirely made of metal, so I decided to magnetize it. First, I charged the statue behind you," Katrina pointed at the bronze statue above their heads, "If an enormous spherical lightning bolt couldn't break your shield, then it naturally couldn't be affected by a stream of electricity. However, it could bend around your shield and head towards that statue."
"I should have realized what you were planning."
"It's not your fault; it just so happened that you were stronger than me, and I had to resort to cunning."
"So when you grabbed the blade, you were trying to charge it?"
"Almost, I tried to charge it with an opposite force to the one I charged the statue with; that's the only way they could attract each other. That's why you couldn't pull the scythe out of my hands."
"And in the end, when I aimed it for the final strike, I unwittingly removed my shield, and magnetism did its work?" Rizel lowered her head in resignation.
"Exactly! All I had to do was seize the moment and knock you out."
"You're still stronger than me," Rizel tried to stand up, but the paralysis hadn't completely left her legs yet.
"I prefer to think of us as equals in strength," Katrina helped her friend to her feet, and they headed towards the exit.
"Oh wait! I need to retrieve my cloak!"
"Do you still want to hide after the whole world knows what a beauty you are?"
"Well, um, I had serious reasons, and I'll explain everything to you if you help me get the mantle back."
The girls entered the lodge, and an awkward silence hung in the air. Everyone scrutinized Rizel, which clearly made the necromancer uncomfortable.
"Well, how should I put it," I tried to start the conversation, but I was abruptly interrupted.
"OH, WHAT A BEAUTY!!!!" With an inhuman cry, the red shadow rushed towards the necromancer. Pushing Katrina aside, Seleria grabbed Rizel, exclaiming, "Such a cutie, I can't let go of you! And why did you hide from us for so long?"
In her enthusiastic pursuit of her hobby, seeking all things cute and lovely, Seleria pressed the poor necromancer against her ample chest and began spinning her around in place.
"P-p-please, stop!!" Rizel barely managed to plead for help and collapsed onto a chair when the tight grip of the red princess finally released her. "Ragni, thank you for defeating her. I dread to think what would have happened in the arena if she had exposed my appearance."
"But you're so beautiful! Delicate fair skin, slender figure, and oh, what a hot gaze. You can burn a hole in a man with it if you wish," Seleria joyfully pranced around the necromancer.
"I deliberately hid!" Rizel lowered her gaze and continued speaking in a soft voice. "My mother had many powerful enemies during her lifetime, and I fear they could have recognized me. That's why I tried to stay hidden."
"Well, you don't have to worry about that," a familiar voice sounded from the crystal in Kurone's hands. "As long as you're in my Academy, I won't allow anyone to touch you. Besides, I owe a lot to your mother."
"Rector!" Rizel narrowed her eyes and angrily jumped up from her seat. "And another reason for that appearance you gave me!"
Rizel pointed to her attire. The tight-fitting top, upon closer inspection, hugged her body so snugly that beneath the black velvet, every detail of her slender form was visible. And the slightly exposed patches of skin on her thighs and shoulders looked very intriguing.
"Sexy," I nodded affirmatively.
"Quite appealing," Algo agreed softly.
"Hard to put it into words, but it's a captivating outfit," Werner nodded thoughtfully, and Grain looked at the necromancer's body with a lustful gaze.
"Tsk, perverts," Katrina snapped her fingers, and sparks of lightning crackled around them. We quickly turned away not to embarrass Rizel.
"THERE YOU HAVE IT! This outfit is too... too revealing!" Rizel yelled at the crystal, waving her scythe.
"Well, what do you want from me? It's actually a form that your mother designed long ago; it's just that almost no one has worn it since then. So, by coincidence, you're the first one to try it on in a couple of millennia," I said, eyeing the girl with suspicion.
"Well, I didn't have money for anything else at first, and then I got used to it. Regardless of how it looks, it's very practical, considering how I prefer to fight."
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