Chapter 95: Ragnarok
I dashed towards Saevio and bashed him hard on the head with both hands, sending a sonic shockwave rippling out from underneath him. His armour cracked slightly and I grabbed his pincers as he tried to grab me, snapping them off in two deft flashes of my claws. "Um. 70%." Saevio chuckled. He began growing again, and a few seconds later, he was three times taller than I was. Three extras pairs of claws had also grown out of his sides along with ten tails on his back. "YOU'RE A MONSTER!" I shrieked, grabbing Saevio by the body and lifting him up bodily. I turned him upside down and smashed his head into the ground repeatedly. However, his tails shot towards me, knocking me to the ground. I rolled aside before he could grip me with his pincers and sent a blazing kick flying into his chest.
I was at 100% of my power right now, and I couldn't afford to go any higher. I knew that going any higher would decrease my lifespan by a year for every percent I went over, and I only had about 30 years left in myself. Not much, considering what I would be going through when Saevio would be at the peak of his powers. All my enraged mind could think of now was beating Saevio up. Tears streamed out of my eyes as I remembered the fact that Alexis was dead. "She will be alive as long as I remember her......" I blinked the tears away and continued punching away at Saevio's hard shell. "METEOR BREAKER!" I roared, concentrating my powers in my clenched right fist and punched him in the stomach. A massive fireball formed around my right hand for a second, then disappeared, leaving no visible marks. Then, he sandwiched me between his belly and a claw, knocking all the air out of my lungs. "Oof." I moaned. I couldn't breathe!
I flapped my wings with all my might, trying to get free. The wings didn't rely on my breath, they relied on the almost limitless magic inside me for power, what with the limiter removed. In fact, this was the first time I had managed to remove the limiter. One of the instructors I had trained with had told me about the fabled magic limiter inside the human body, preventing the magic inside us from flowing too powerfully. It was supposed to be breakable by extreme emotional pain, which I had experienced form Alexis's death.
Eventually, I managed to break free and I picked up my bow. I had dropped it when I transformed, and now it was radiating intense magic. It expanded to suit my new height, and the mana orbs on the tips expanded. In fact, it seemed that my blood had been replaced with liquid mana. The blood vessels had expanded, showing through the thin epidermis of my skin. Clear white had replaced the crimson red of my blood.
I loaded an gigantic arrow that was twice as long as my height and launched it right at Saevio. He grabbed the arrow and threw it away before it hit him, but I dashed around him, launching similar arrows on the fly. Not even one arrow found it's mark. "Damn." I swore, jumping into the air to dodge his tails. I fired off an explosive arrow in mid-air, then resumed running. Suddenly, one of Saevio's tails burst out of the ground, knocking me off balance and onto the ground. Another tail shot up just beside my head, it's sting pointed right at my forehead. "Check and mate." Saevio's devil-like voice chuckled.
"Not if I can help it." I smiled and teleported out of his grasp and onto his neck, with my bow loaded with a blazing huge arrow thrice my size. "Check and mate." I smiled, blasting Saevio's oversized scorpion head to pieces. The Decimator Shot was a one-shot kill at point blank range, and no material I had encountered before was capable of stopping it. It was even powerful enough to blow a crater in a diamond field. "Looks like I let my guard down again. 100 percent." Saevio's demonic voice echoed throughout the cavern hollowed out by our blasts and his head regenerated itself. I gasped and leapt off his neck just as an entire field of spikes grew out of his shell. Now, he resembled an overgrown and multi-tailed porcupine-scorpion hybrid. He even had the horns of the Horntail's side heads. The monstrosity turned to face me as I prepared another Decimator Shot. The sight of his thickening shell was starting to scare me though, and my shooting hand was trembling. "This is...... What's this feeling?" I stared at the trembling hand. I felt cold inside. Now, I realized it with a pang.
I was terrified.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts as Saevio tried to knock me off my feet. He suceeded and my Decimator Shot misfired. It ricocheted off the ceiling and nearly hit myself. The splash damage was sufficient to blow me several metres away, causing Saevio's tails to miss. I started losing control over my own body, cowering in a corner. "Fight it......" A calm, warm voice sounded in my head. I knew instantly that it was the Phoenix. "But...... He's so..." I stammered. "Fight it......" The Phoenix repeated, fainter this time. I tried standing up, but my legs were wobbling badly and I soon fell over. "What's going... on...?" I crawled backwards as Saevio advanced menacingly. I couldn't get up!
"Saevio's releasing powerful suppression magic through his shell, causing anyone in the vicinity to feel terrified and degrading their fighting power. You need to fight it." The Phoenix explained. I shook my head and tried to stand, but the atmosphere was just too heavy...... I even felt like surrendering right there. I felt my wings flapping, generating a magical field around myself. However, it didn't do much. "Spare me..." I whispered as Saevio's claws rushed towards me.
Because of Saevio's magic, I was too terrified to dodge the attack, and the claws went right through my chest. I coughed out blood as I fell to the ground. My wings stopped flapping and turned a dull gray colour as I came to rest in a pool of my own blood. My life was straining to leave my body, yet it couldn't. "Al...le...xis... I...m sorry..." I croaked. Then, it happened. I saw Alexis hovering above me, reaching her hand out. My hand rose up, but it didn't get a few centimetres before it stopped and I fell limp after seeing a flash of light.
"I wasn't able to kill him......"
......
"Too easy." Saevio chuckled as he left Artemis's corpse to rot and proceeded out of the door to greet his army.
To be continued......
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Is anyone crying?