The lightning bolts conjured by the frenzied merchant were tier one spells, but their power was on par with those produced by a tier three one . Lith was far enough from the caster to not have problems dodging the attack, whereas Jirni wasn't so lucky .
Her Royal Constable uniform was able to tank a lot of damage before she would get seriously injured, yet she couldn't afford to get hit . It was because of her orders that no one had stopped the woman from laying waste to the building .
If the target died before they captured her, it would have been all for naught . To make things worse, Jirni hadn't missed that the woman had been casting spells non stop since their arrival .
'If she gets me once, she'll keep attacking until I'm dead . ' Jirni thought . She extended forward her right hand, with which she was holding in between her fingers the three needles she had planned to use to paralyze her target .
They reacted to the incoming spell by turning into lightning rods that diverted and trapped the energy making it harmless . Jirni exploited the surprise effect to get close enough to incapacitate her enemy, but the merchant reacted so fast that her movements were almost a blur .
She dodged Jirni's needles and kicked her at the same time . The woman was no fighter . Her attack was sloppy and telegraphed, allowing Jirni to jump back to significantly reduce the impact .
The kick was still too fast to avoid and so violent that it squeezed the air out of her lungs .
Lith too was in a pinch, but of a completely different kind . After extinguishing the fire, he had no idea what to do . He had countless ways of stopping the crazy merchant, but they all required him to use magic .
'I don't even know if I can get close without killing her . ' He thought .
'Life Vision shows me that she is sucking even more world energy than the last psycho I fought . She might be able to feed on the mana I naturally emit as an Awakened one and die of mana poisoning because of it . Any ideas?'
'Violence is not an option . ' Solus pointed out . 'If ten centimeters long blazing splinters piercing her body don't cause her any discomfort, I doubt even fractures could hinder her .
'I can block your mana flow, but that would mean no spirit nor fusion magic . You would be left with only your enhanced body as an asset . '
Lith inwardly nodded and joined the fray . Jirni was one of the few persons he really liked, maybe too much . They were so similar that it almost scared him . Mostly because he was afraid to end up like her, with a family of his own .
Yet he didn't want to lose her, nor he wanted her relatives to experience what he had went through with Carl . They were all his friends, even Orion . The merchant saw Lith's approaching and reacted accordingly .
Or at least she tried .
The gap in height, training, and physique was overwhelming . Even without fusion magic, she was moving in slow motion in Lith's eyes . His right fist struck the tip of her chin with pinpoint precision to induce a concussion that would make her faint .
The hit dislocated the jaw with a snap, but the woman kept standing . Lith followed through with a liver shot with his left that would have incapacitated a man triple her size .
The jaw fixed itself with another snap as the woman flexed her muscles turning the splinters stuck in her body into deadly projectiles . Not a single drop of blood came from the open wounds, which instantly healed .
"Light magic too? This wasn't in any report!" Jirni grunted while stopping the improvised bullets with her bare hands . They were no threat to any enchanted armor, but a single stray shot was enough to kill a civilian .
'More like a full elemental fusion . ' Solus explained . 'No sense of pain, rapid healing, an endless supply of world energy . I don't think we can take her alive . '
'You are right, we can't . At least by ourselves . '
Lith cursed at his bad luck and unleashed a barrage of attacks . He adjusted their speed to make them slow enough for the merchant to see them but too fast to be dodged . Once she was focused on the defense, Jirni closed in as silent as a ghost .
She stabbed the merchant at the base of her neck with two needles, severing her spinal cord and making her fall limp like a puppet the strings of which had been cut .
"I can feel her body regenerating so fast it's rejecting my needles . I can't let go of them or we'll be back to square one . Whatever you have to do, do it now!" Jirni said .
Solus released Lith's mana flow allowing him to use Invigoration after pretending to chant a short spell . Just as he had feared during his previous encounter with another 'made mage', whatever was force feeding the woman with world energy attempted to suck his mana too .
This time Lith was prepared and true magic was all about willpower . The vortex located in the woman's mana core and Lith fought a tug of war for his mana . He had to scan the merchant's body for anomalies while preventing his energies from reaching her core .
Even with all his years of practice and the new powers his blue core granted him, it was one of the hardest things Lith had ever done . Keeping the mana from Invigoration in one place long enough for it to detect something required his utmost focus .
Whenever even a small sliver of mana slipped out of his control, he was forced to reclaim it and start everything from scratch . Seconds turned into minutes as the constant strain on Lith's mind and body wore him out .
In normal circumstances, Invigoration would constantly restore his energies . Because of the vortex, however, the world energy would get stuck between him and the merchant, unable to replenish his core .
In such a situation Lith was no different from a fake mage using a tier five spell .
"I can't do it anymore . Professor, you can give it a shot . " Lith wheezed at every word, his face was pale and sweaty from the effort .
"Only use tier five spells, otherwise you'll kill her . " He warned Manohar .
"You make no sense, kid . Why would one use lesser spells?" The Professor made it sound like tier four and below were just cantrips . The moment his hands finished performing the necessary hand signs, his expression changed .
Manohar felt that something was trying to steal his mana and reacted accordingly . It wasn't his first rodeo, but he had never encountered such a fierce opponent before . Suddenly Manohar didn't look arrogant, bored, or excited .
For the first time in his life, the god of healing couldn't even afford to have a stray thought . What usually came natural to him to the point of being trivial was now a demanding task .
"How long do you need? I'm getting tired . " Jirni's muscles were sore from the constant strain . Tista would have liked to give her some life force, but she knew her spell would be disrupted before it could do any good .
"Don't worry, I'm done . " Manohar said while pulling away from the woman . Jirni's needles blocked her body, but her face could still move . It turned into a mask of horror and pain as the Professor pulled out a yellow sphere from her abdomen killing her on the spot .
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