The lances traveled through Langris's zone undeterred.
Langris was unable to control the area around the lances.
"I will take care of it," Akeru said just as multiple small water balls materialized around him and flew at hypersonic speeds toward those lances.
'Even if you could destabilize the mana, it's pointless when you can't do anything about that momentum.' Akeru smirked as those lances were neutralized very easily.
"Well, I always wanted to try th—" Before Aetheris could create a new mana zone, somebody beat him to it.
"Mana Zone: Lord of the Field." A specter wielding a scythe appeared on the boundary of Langris and Aetheris's mana zones.
Akeru shivered as he noted the specter whose face was hidden. 'What the fuck, that thing is fucking scary. I get a very eerie feeling from it; if I didn't know that it was a painting beforehand, I would have thought a devil had appeared.'
"It seems we have a lot of magic at our disposal, so let's create some mana-expensive rules, no?" Rill said with a smirk.
Aetheris's face darkened as he realized that he was unable to add the effects of his other mana zone.
He had already deactivated 'Schrodinger's Gambit' and was going to deploy another mana zone; however, he hadn't expected this outcome at all.
"First Rule: Nobody is allowed to change the state of their mana zones—that is, they cannot deactivate their mana zones or create new ones," Rill announced.
'Wait, wait, what does he mean by that?' Akeru didn't want to believe what his ears were telling him.
He tried to deactivate his mana zone, but to his shock, he wasn't able to.
He chose not to control one part of his mana zone, which would surely lessen the mana expenditure, but it didn't prevent mana from being taken from his body to just keep the mana around him ready to react to his will at a moment's notice.
Normally, that cost wouldn't have been much to be concerned with; however, to all the people present here, especially at the current moment, the cost was not really cheap.
Akeru's mana zone passively slowed things down using vapors, though that could be said to be only activated when an object was in his mana zone, so his mana costs would only increase when an object was present in his zone.
Aetheris had his 'Ouroboros Circuit' activated, which had the cost of taking mana from every individual present, and Langris's cost was to have control over the entire space—quite similar to Akeru's mana zone, which gave him control over all the water vapors.
The other two also realized that they couldn't choose to stop the effects of their mana zones and, hence, frowned.
"Second Rule: No magic that causes instability to other magic is allowed," Rill smirked as a large amount of mana seeped from each person present.
"We are on the same side, right?" Akeru asked for confirmation.
He didn't really like the devilish smirk on Rill's face.
"Isn't it better to face him when we all are mana exhausted? Unlike him, we are not alone; we still have a lot of Senior-level Magic Knights present on the scene." Rill didn't mind explaining his actions.
Aetheris had already realized this fact beforehand, so he had decided the best route of action—stop the Ouroboros Circuit somehow.
He really would be in a very disadvantageous position if he was out of mana in front of so many individuals present.
Contrary to popular belief, Grand-magic knight level individuals are not invincible.
Without mana reinforcement, their hits won't really differ that much from trained people.
Though just having a high amount of mana does give you a better potential physique, that potential is generally never fulfilled as magic knights don't bother wasting time in such endeavors, as the result-to-effort ratio is not really worth it for most.
"Mana Zone: Chaotic Totality."
The eyes of all three individuals widened as they realized that Rill's mana zone got overridden.
'Just how many mana zones does he have?' Akeru was shocked that Aetheris had so many mana zones in his skillset.
"I really didn't want to use this one, but you leave me with no choice," Aetheris sighed as a lance made of steel appeared in his hands.
He had summoned it from his bracelet, which had spatial storage in it.
Akeru, seeing this, had a bad feeling about it.
He followed his instincts and quickly took out a pair of twin daggers from his spatial bag.
Suddenly, Akeru lost control or, more like, connection to mana.
Rill and Langris were the same as everyone's mana zone, which was dismantled except Aetheris's; the latter was rushing at them with his steel lance in hand.
"Fuck, we can't use mana in his zone, and it seems he is not any different. I will stall him; you guys leave the zone and do something from outside," Akeru quickly decided while rushing at Aetheris with a dagger in hand.
He could feel mana in his body but couldn't control any of it.
"Don't die," Rill said while rushing out of the mana zone.
"I will support him," Langris declared; his pride didn't really allow him to leave the battle in such a manner.
"Fine," Rill said as he focused on the quantity of his mana.
'It seems whatever total mana was present between the 4 of us, each of us was given a quadrant of it. I was worried that he could take all of the remaining mana before,' Akeru thought as his dagger made contact with the lance.
KLANG
Akeru felt the bones of his hands rattle at impact.
"By the time your commander leaves my zone, I would be done killing both of you," Aetheris said as he kicked Akeru's other hand, which was trying to stab at him.
Despite Aetheris's current mana zone being way larger than any of his previous mana zones, it wouldn't have taken Rill more than a second to escape it- if he had access to mana, that is.
"We'll see about that." Akeru lost the grip on his other dagger; however, he quickly jumped back and took that dagger back in a reverse grip.
He crossed both of his arms such that both daggers made contact with Aetheris's lance, which had tried to capitalize on the fact that Akeru was mid-air.
Akeru was thrown a few meters back, but he quickly stabilized himself while landing on the ground.
"You don't really know how to use daggers, do you?" Aetheris had an unimpressed expression on his face.
Langris was circling both of them, seemingly choosing to wait for an opening to attack.
'Though I am unarmed, if I could just hit him either in his eyes or some other vital part, it would give Akeru an opening to finish it,' he calmly analyzed as, at the moment, he wanted to kill his opponent.
"Hehe, it won't matter," Akeru taunted as he rushed at Aetheris again.
KLANG KLANG KLANG
Lances and daggers made contact multiple times.
Despite the fact that not only did Aetheris have a superior body due to being specially physically trained, along with being a master of using a lance contrary to Akeru, who had touched his weapon almost the same number of times as people he had killed—Akeru was able to go toe-to-toe against Aetheris.
'It's like he knows exactly how I would move or when I would move,' Aetheris analyzed as he couldn't get a proper opening in the last few seconds of clashing with Akeru.
With his body and stats, he just needed one opening to kill Akeru.
'This guy is really lucky; if I had my 'Still Spectator' with me, I would have already killed you multiple times by now,' Akeru sighed at the unavailability of his favorite spell.
He was barely able to keep up with Aetheris due to his Ki Sense—his ability to see the possible attacks on him in the form of red lines and his ability to see the possible attacks he could land in the form of blue lines.
Suddenly, Aetheris got an opening; he quickly was able to disarm one of Akeru's daggers with his lance.
This caught Akeru off-guard, as the moment he looked at the dagger, which was launched into the air by mistake, he found a kick to his gut as he was forcibly pushed to the ground with Aetheris's leg.
Saliva and blood spewed from Akeru's mouth as he looked up only to find Aetheris's lance heading for his head at blinding speed.
At this moment, Aetheris only saw fear in Akeru's face.
***
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