Chapter 521 Ritual
Seeing that quite a few people were on the brink of death, Estrella knew that she had to do something so that the medics had some time to heal everyone. Dashing towards Aekari with Nan Tian next to her, she swiped her hand and opened several portals around him.
From the portals, long ghastly hands could be seen stretching out and trying to restrain Aekari where he stood.
"Hmph!" Scoffing lightly, a swirl of energy erupted out of Aekari as he forcefully dispelled the portal and reached towards Estrella's neck.
From what he'd seen so far, she was one of the more annoying ones as she could easily send Shiro away should he start to win. Therefore, by killing her, he ensures that they stay in here with him.
However, before he could reach Estrella, Nan Tian blocked his path and slammed his first against Aekari's chest.
"Urg…" Gritting his teeth, Aekari grappled Nan Tian's arm and tried to break it. Unfortunately for him, Nan Tian was long prepared. Using the momentum to move his body, he pierced his knuckles towards Aekari's ribs.
"Sorry to say but I'm pretty adept in martial arts." Nan Tian chuckled as he charged towards Aekari once more. Since he couldn't use light, he was going to make sure that he forced Aekari into melee combat so that he couldn't attack their allies.
Trading blow after blow, the deep crunching sounds of bones teetering on the brink of breaking could be heard.
Furrowing his brows with frustration, Aekari pushed his palms outwards as two more tier 6 magic circles appeared in front of him.
"Tch." Clicking his tongue, Nan Tian dodged back as the disruption mages tried to stop the spell.
Once again, Aekari's activation time was simply on another level as they failed to cancel out his spells.
Suddenly, two spheres of light formed above the tier 6 magic circles and shot towards Nan Tian.
"Estrella! Send them away or else it'll be bad!" Shiro shouted out.
Nodding her head, Estrella immediately opened two portals and sent the attacks to a separate realm.
Just as she was about to close the portal, she widened her eyes in surprise as Aekari flickered in front of her and reached for her head once more.
Quickly raising up her hands so that she could block his grab, she was not able to close the portal on time.
Detonating inside the realm, the light spheres started to expand rapidly. Everything that the light touched disintegrated in an instant as some of the spell was able to escape the portal.
Seeing this, one of the elders tried to activate a barrier around the portal but the barrier was shredded apart in an instant.
"Retreat!" Nan Tian shouted out while helping Estrella escape Aekari's grasp.
Gritting her teeth, Shiro looked at the situation and knew that things were dire. Apart from a few elders, Nan Tian and Estrella, most of the attack force were trying to get their health back to a stable level so that they could return to the fight.
While Shiro could activate her grace skill once more, it would be a waste of a cast since Aekari could use another tier 6 area of effect skill in order to try to wipe everyone out at the same time. Once he does, she'll need to make sure that her grace skill was ready.
'What can I do…' She thought with a frown and quickly looked towards her status page. Briefly looking through her skills, she noticed that she hadn't used the Eyes of the Gorgon yet. While it may not affect Aekari as much as it did her, it should still provide them with a short moment of relief while Aekari's distraction.
Closing her eyes, she circulated her mana according to her knowledge on how to activate the skill.
Waiting for a short moment, she could feel a slight burning sensation which wasn't painful but wasn't comfy either. Opening her eyes, she focused her gaze on Aekari's neck.
*Krr…
Feeling a thin layer of stone being formed on his neck, Aekari snapped his head towards Shiro's direction and knew that this was her doing. Seeing a pair of mesmerising lights that seemed to radiate from her eyes, Aekari found himself in a slight daze as the illusion of a Gorgon could be seen behind her.
Sensing the sudden gap in defence, Nan Tian didn't hesitate to gather mana into his palm and slam it against Aekari's chest.
"Burst!" He commanded.
*BANG!!!
The sudden impact brought Aekari out of his daze as his body was sent crashing back towards the attack force. Using this moment to activate a few of his skills to stop the tier 6 spell from killing everyone, Nan Tian signalled for Keiko to attack Aekari while he was not prepared.
"ARHHH!!! Impotent beings! You dare stand in the way of a god! Die for your transgression!" Aekari shouted out in annoyance as he raised his arm into the air.
Pushing mana through his body, a barrier formed around him while a multi layered tier 6 magic circle could be seen flickering into existence.
Seeing this, the attack force knew that this was going to be bad should it be activated without Shiro even needing to remind them.
Activating their best skills that they had access to, the attack force sent their attacks flying towards Aekari which was blocked by his barrier.
While this was happening, Shiro was making some distance between her and the battlefield.
'Tch, what a f*cking annoying barrier. The harder they hit, the stronger the defences. Unless they can surpass the threshold, there's nothing they can do.' Shiro thought with a frown.
Once she was far enough from the battlefield, she slammed her arms on the ground and started to construct a huge orbital rail gun that should help destroy some of his spell circles.
{if the barrier has this feature, why don't you tell them?} Nimue asked with a concerned expression.
'Because it'll do f*ck all even if I tell them. They have two choices. Either straight up pierce that barrier with an anti magic skill/spell or surpass the threshold and break it forcefully.' Shiro replied while crafting the base of this orbital rail gun.
Hearing her response, Nimue stayed silent as that was indeed the truth. With Shiro's current state, the best she could hope for was to cancel a few spells here and there while the main attack force was responsible for the damage. Naturally, she also had her grace spell but that was limited.
"Shiro, got any tips of holding this b*stard off?" Nan Tian's voice rang out through her earpiece as she could tell that his voice was not as confident as before.
"Not much other than hit him as hard as you can. I'm making an orbital rail gun to try to weaken his spells but I'm not too sure on how that's going to work out." Shiro replied.
"I see… In that case good luck. Hopefully we won't need your orbital cannon with what I'm planning next." Nan Tian smiled as Shiro was confused about what he meant. However, before she could ask him, the connection was cut off.
Back at the battlefield, Nan Tian activated one of the skills on the earpiece and started to position everyone in a certain way.
"Listen up! Right now, you may have an urge to move to a different location. Follow that urge since I'll need you to be in that spot so that I can cast a spell!" Nan Tian ordered through the comms.
Hearing his order, the attack force started to follow this 'urge' as they were split into groups of 1,000's and positioned in 6 different corners.
Pulling out a silver sword that was adorned with delicate engravings, Nan Tian sliced his palm against the blade and allowed his blood to taint the silver colour.
Taking a deep breath, he twirled the sword and stabbed it into his own chest.
"What the f*ck!" Shiro shouted out in a mix of confusion and shock.
*BOOM!!!!
Just as Nan tian stabbed himself with the sword, a deep murderous aura started to radiate from his as his face turned pale.
Pulling the sword out of his chest, he threw it up into the air as a magic circle formed around the blade.
As the tier of the magic circle increased, Aekari couldn't help but furrow his brows at the sword. He didn't know how a mortal like Nan Tian got his hands on something like this but he could sense a few traces of divinity from that sword. Soon, his guesses were correct as the magic circle upgraded to tier 6.
However, it wasn't one yet. Mana surged around it in a frenzy as a 7th layer was formed.
Tier 7 magic circle!
Shocked at the fact that a demi god tier item was being used, Aekari forcefully activated his spell.
A miniature sun appeared in the air as the night sky was lit up in a warm radiance.
"Genesis." Aekari commanded coldly as the sun started to descend.
"Sorry, I'll be borrowing your mana a little." Nan Tian smiled as he raised his bloodied palm towards the sun.
"War God Blood Ritual."