The Sword and The Shadow

Chapter 616

Kneading

The violent forces were released in an instant. The elemental aspects could remain in a stabilized state thanks to the synchronicity of the tidal fluctuations before, but the explosion caused all of them to spike in an instant, sending out destructive elemental aspects throughout space. It was a banquet of destruction with a radius of about 400 metres. All sorts of elemental aspects collided and mutually obliterated one another, causing a secondary chain explosion. When the explosions subsided, Nidhogg’s little house was reduced to nothing. There was a crater tens of meters in depth in the wood and in the middle of it, a building remained standing and unharmed. However, the building lost support from the vaporized ground beneath it and fell to the bottom of the crater.

That was Nidhogg’s basement laboratory and also where the core of Tide of Death was located.

Thankfully I have Shadow Blink, Leguna said, looking at the giant crater in the distance. It was easily the most terrifying spell he had witnessed. Even Annelotte’s spells paled in comparison to Myr’s Chaos Orb. That was proof of the difference in their powers. Even Nidhogg might not be able to survive being struck with something so destructive head-on.

Myr and Annelotte flew to his side. She held him with a concerned look. "How is it?"

"I’m fine." He shook his head with a smile. There was a fist-sized hole in his right shoulder. Annelotte could see the night sky through the gigantic hole. Fortunately, there were no organs in that area, so it was only a flesh wound. Eirinn could certainly heal it up in no time when they got back.

"Alright..." She nodded.

"Over... over there... I can feel the pulse of mana waves..." Myr pointed to the basement building. After releasing a spell of that magnitude, he felt incredibly weak. Not only was he in a mana-drained state, even his body was wrecked from the spell. He was literally burning his life to fuel the spell.

"So we only have to destroy the formation and all will end, right?" Leguna muttered as he looked at the light shining through the seams of the building.

"End? I don’t think so." Nidhogg’s voice came from behind them.

Everyone felt a chill down their spines. Annelotte was the one to react the fastest. She instant cast teleport to move away from the voice and Leguna blinked away too. Myr, on the other hand, was completely spent. It was already a miracle he could stand up.

Nidhogg no longer looked as refreshed as he did before. His head bled and his clothes were tattered. His wounds were visible through the holes in his clothing and some even revealed his bone. Even so, he remained really composed. He didn’t chase after Leguna or Annelotte immediately and instead held Myr by the neck, lifting the poor old man until their eyes were level. "Not bad, Myr. You didn’t disappoint me."

Myr looked weakly at Nidhogg. He didn’t even have any energy remaining to struggle.

"But you got old. It’s about time you left the stage. Sleep. Let me deal with the rest," he whispered, before he applied force to his hand and watched a little melancholically as Myr’s life faded away. Half a minute later, he felt his pulse stop and tossed him to the side, before turning to Annelotte.

"Grandmaster Myr!" she yelled like an angry lion cub. She dictated a spell and gathered huge amounts of mana.

A gigantic palm fell from the sky on her will. It attacked Nidhogg like a frenzied beast.

It was Bigsby’s Crushing Palm, a level-nine spell that didn’t have an attack range like Meteor Storm, but was no doubt more destructive.

However, Nidhogg completely ignored the attacks. He charged with the wind and appeared before her in the blink of an eye. He was using Host of Gust, the same gift as Saron.

"Now, it’s your turn." He raised his hand and Annelotte’s Crushing Palm was countered by another. He had used Bigsby’s Vajra Palm. While it was a weakened version of Crushing Palm, it had been used by a myth-realm magus. She couldn’t possibly measure up to him in terms of spell quality and intensity.

He punched her in the lower abdomen as his body lit up in flames in an instant. It was a punch infused with the flames from Host of Flame. Annelotte vomited blood as she was sent flying like a kite that had its string cut, before ramming into a large tree.

"Hack, hack!" She coughed out even more blood and looked down. The punch had cauterized her wound the moment it struck. She didn’t even bleed from her abdomen.

"Now, goodbye!" Nidhogg’s Vajra Palm came crashing down from the skies.

Fwooom! The instant the giant palm landed, a fatal slash came for Nidhogg’s neck. It was such a plain strike that didn’t draw any attention, but it was more lethal than ever! The sudden threat of death caused Nidhogg to surge all the forces in his body in an instant. His impetus and mana blasted outwards and crushed a few trees in his vicinity.

Leybecca, who was the nearest to the explosion, broke out of stealth with blood trailing out of her mouth. The explosion had wounded her considerably, but she didn’t stop attacking because of that. She adjusted her posture mid-air and threw the transparent dagger towards Nidhogg’s head.

"Hmph!" He used a wall of solidified air to stop it, but the dagger didn’t seem to be affected by it.

Nidhogg tried to evade, and while he was quick, he still got struck by the dagger on the thigh.

Right that instant, two more killing intents came from behind. Godslay and Heartslay came at him from behind with their daggers.

Nidhogg turned around with great difficulty due to his injured thigh. He tried to stop their attacks with a wall of air again and used his gift to change the properties of the air around him. The two brothers immediately felt like they were inside a quagmire. Nidhogg grabbed both of them by the heads and said with disdain, "Little insects..."

He applied force to his hands and crushed their brains immediately.

"Annie! Annie!" Leguna anxiously looked at her in his arms. He had blinked to her side at the first instant and managed to save her from the fate of being flattened.

"I... I’m fine," she weakly replied. Nidhogg’s punch had done too much damage. She would be affected by the pain from dictation alone, to say no more of moving. If she couldn’t activate Host of Glacier, she was as good as out of the fight.

"Look out! The battle hasn’t ended yet!" Leybecca warned.

The next instant, Leguna and Annelotte were sent flying by Bigsby’s Vajra Palm.