Before Broccos could realize what happened, Akeru's leg met his face.
Like a broken kite, he was thrown backwards.
However, before he could regain his wits, another kick met his head while he was in mid-air.
His back struck the ground and like a ball, he bounced off the floor, only to meet another kick.
Then another kick.
Kick.
Kick.
This continued for the next half minute, and the worst part was that all of the hits landed on his head.
After 30 seconds of this assault, Akeru was standing in the clearing with Broccos' motionless body.
If somebody removed the ochre covering his face, they would see his eyes rolled back and foam coming from his mouth.
Broccos was correct in his assumption that Akeru's 'Vibratory Chaos' wouldn't be able to penetrate his armor.
However, one thing he hadn't accounted for was the blunt or internal damage Akeru could cause.
The clearing was mostly silent except for the crunching noises of Akeru eating popcorn.
"That was quick," Vespera said with an excited grin.
She was clearly looking forward to the battle that was going to happen.
"Well, old people don't really have that much stamina," Akeru shrugged while storing the rest of the popcorn in his spatial storage.
WHOOSH
In the next instant, Vespera appeared beside Akeru and aimed a punch at his head. He had already ducked, barely dodging the fist.
His purple robe had already turned into a red robe well before she had attacked him.
Akeru punched at Vespera's stomach.
BOOOM
She didn't move much backwards.
In fact, Akeru felt a similar force through his arm, making him stumble backwards.
His hat fell from his head.
'So, she can turn any part of her body into rubber, and not only that, it seems she is absorbing the impact—no, the momentum she received from me,' Akeru thought as he rushed sideways, barely dodging a kick aimed at him.
'Vicious Hush'
Everything in his zone was hushed to 1/100th of its speed, and Vibratory Chaos was activated throughout the zone.
'What the fuck?' Akeru was baffled as he saw the lightning getting bounced off as it came in contact with Vespera.
'She's taking momentum from the molecules? Ridiculous,' Akeru grimly thought.
"Uhh, my speed is slowed down, how annoying," she said while shrugging.
In the next instant, a wave of red mana was released from her body and surrounded her.
"Mana Zone: Rubber World." A red domain clashed with the blue domain.
All efforts of the blue domain to slow down the red domain were futile as the latter was taking momentum from those molecules and making it their strength.
"Fuck," Akeru finally realized the gravity of the situation he was in.
'How could a person have such ridiculous magic?' Akeru quickly started thinking of the options available to him.
Red-green lightning coalesced in his hands as he appeared next to her mana zone and thrust it inside her zone.
He felt the outer layer of lightning mana slowing down, but most of it was undeterred. His mana zone was also furiously working to counter her zone's ability to siphon off Akeru's momentum and slow him down.
He made contact with Vespera's fist, which blocked his hand.
"You are pretty smart, thinking of hitting me with the part of mana that I couldn't slow down with my magic. Well, you are correct in that; however, I still know mana enhancement," she grinned as she held his fist.
The part of 'Vibratory Chaos' which wasn't slowed down much due to her magic was blocked by her mana enhancement.
Normally this wouldn't be possible, especially since her mana enhancement wasn't even extraordinary, but due to her magic, Vibratory Chaos had lost most of its power as it made contact with her.
"We really have similar mana zones," Akeru said with a grin as he jumped backwards.
"Yeah, your mana zone and mine do share the property of slowing things down, but unlike yours, which is an application of water magic, mine is directly related to my magic," she rushed towards Akeru in the next instant.
And thus a chase began.
Vespera and Akeru had similar speeds even when the latter had 'Orion's Ordeal' activated.
In fact, the former was slightly faster than the latter; however, with Ki sensing, Akeru could keep himself from getting caught.
"Where are you going? Fight me properly," Vespera whined like a child who had her candy stolen.
"You are too strong, let me think what to do first," Akeru rolled his eyes.
'Let's backtrack. Though her magic can sap away an object's momentum and use it for herself, it's not exactly that,' Akeru started analyzing all of the interactions he had with her until now.
'This is most likely an advanced application of her Rubber Magic. Her magic probably allows her to turn herself into rubber and replicate it. Her mana zone does the same; everything in that zone, including air, is given the property of rubber.
However, what makes it dangerous is that, just like rubber, she can slow the other party's momentum, and even store it,' Akeru thought while looking back at the previous punch he had made at her stomach.
His fist hadn't been repelled, and after some more observations, he had deduced that she had some way to store all the momentum she received, like a spring, which gets compressed when an object comes at it.
However, unlike the spring throwing the object back just as its compression is done, Vespera seems to have control over when she lets the spring decompress, hence her ability to store momentum.
'I got it. There's no way that there isn't a limit to how much momentum she could absorb. There must be a limit, similar to how a spring or rubber will break if you put too much force on it.
Her ability to increase her speed and strength with her magic also has such limits; otherwise, she could have easily reached speeds multiple times her current speed.'
Akeru had finally deduced his opponent's ability.
'Now, time to think of a countermeasure.'
---
Time-??, Space-??
"No—No Way," a woman said with disbelief in her voice.
"They framed us like this, and from what I can sense, knights are already outside to apprehend us," a man said in a bitter voice while throwing the paper on the ground.
The paper slid on the ground until it passed beneath the door to the other side.
A boy who was secretly listening to their conversation picked up the paper, which seemingly had come to him by chance.
When he read the content, his eyes widened.
"No—No way," the boy muttered as he read the contents of the paper.
His parents were framed for being in cohoots with the Diamond Kingdom.
There were a lot of reasons given, one being due to high tensions between both nations currently, but the boy, who knew a bit about the situation beforehand, focused on one point.
After reading that point, he felt as if somebody had shifted the ground beneath him.
The point mentioned how in the refugee camp, a spy from Diamond Kingdom was seemingly found.
That, along with how the boy himself was in contact with two refugee girls from that nation, and that one of those girls had been in contact with that man for one reason or another, had been enough leverage to sentence his parents to death.
The door suddenly opened. His parents had seemingly noticed his presence and how he was reading the contents of the page.
"It's not your fault. It's due to our incompetence that this happened," the man said while putting his hand on the boy's head, who had tears in his eyes.
"Though I have a lot to say, you have been a very good boy and the best we could expect. Keep it up and don't change," his mother hugged him.
The boy was already crying, seeing what was going to happen.
Seeing how they didn't blame him for their demise made the boy feel even more guilty.
The knights entered their home.
"Take care of Leah, my boy. I don't want to wake her up to this bad news," the man said.
"Though I want you to learn from our mistakes in this incident, there is one thing I only ask of you," his mother finally let go of her hug, her face hardened.
"Don't lose your kindness, Kaiser."
Those were the last statements Kaiser Claymore heard from his parents.
***
Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 20 advanced chapters:
- DESIRE96
(search it up)
Check out my other works too.
Join my Discord to talk to our community. Link in the synopsis.