NOVEL NEXT Ch. 77 – Coming to Blows
An odd, tense silence permeated the room after the barrier broke and the room was filled with thick, obscuring clouds of filthy grey. The ashen smoke was so dense and so packed with strange divine power that not only did Maven lose sight of the two gods, but she even lost sight of her own companions.
“You guys, can you hear me? Are you okay?” Maven shouted, more than a little disconcerted at the sudden loss of her senses, both physical and magical. If she couldn’t still feel or move her body, Maven would almost think she had been thrown into some featureless void.
《You okay, Henna? Kannon?》 Maven asked telepathically. Thank goodness for the reliable old familiar contract, which functioned flawlessly even in the fog.
《We’re fine… Fae and Shayna are alright too. Your barriers are also holding up pretty well, but that fog has some bad juju. You think of a way to get rid of it, Maven, while Kannon and I shore up the defenses. Who knows what else those guys have up their sleeve?》 Henna said calmly, ramping the her production of cold fire up to eleven and stationing them protectively around the group.
Not wanting to be outdone by her sister, Kannon chipped in by creating a fog of her own - filled to the brim with the purest essence of life. It not only possessed the ability interfere with the effect’s of Kurga’s spell and make it more sluggish, but also heal or protect should the need arise.
“I’ve got this covered.” Maven said confidently as she moved to get rid of the murky smog. It’s not she had a real plan or anything, nor did she have a smart solution, but she thought things would be okay if she took the dumb route and played to her strengths, things would turn out okay. Between her absurd amount of divine power and unique attribute, one of them should carry her through. Not knowing how her attribute would do against Kurga’s, she opted to rely on pure quantity.
The simple, dumb solution Maven came up with was encasing the entire building in divinity and filtering out the fog. To do this, she had to create a box that was impermeable to all things intangible and harmless to everything else, but imagination and willpower was everything when it came to magic…… and Maven really wanted to give those guys a punch to the face.
Once her mind was made up, implementing it was quite easy. All it was shooting divinity without reserve, until she felt her power contact something solid. Once that was done, she solidified her power and entrapped the fog. Then, Maven clenched her hand shut and caused the box to shrink down to the size of a dice with a whoosh - trapping Kurga’s power and removing the fog down to the last scrap.
“Oho,” Kurga said admiringly from across the room, all the attacks Maven, Henna, and Kannon threw just nowhere to be seen. “That’s quite the power you have there, Saintess. Can’t say I’ve ever seen someone throw around raw divinity quite so wastefully. You have my admiration”
“Enough, Kurga.” Lidar said. “We came for the elf, not to play games with a bunch of little girls. The Seed of Origin is all that matters.”
“You two having fun, talking like I’m not even here?” Maven said, annoyed. So annoyed, in fact, that she began casting spell after spell, ready to take her pound of flesh. Their discussion positively reeked of bad news. If she let them continue spouting vague villain lines like this, her life was only bound to get more hectic.
First, Maven crafted herself a literal arsenal of divine weapons, imbued with intelligence that were able to pursue and attack on their own. Then, she used a combination of light and life magic to increase her physical ability to the very limit. Finally, she crafted herself a thick set of defensive armor imbued with all the enhancements she could dream up. It was time for Maven to get off her butt and actually fight herself, rather just than leaving it up to golems.
“It’s clobbering time!” Maven said as she agitated space and jumped into action, blinking all the way across the room - directly in front of the two cliche machines. Once there, she swung her at Kurga with all her might. She deemed the uncertain factor his unknown attribute presented as the biggest risk factor.
“You think I’ll let you?” Lidar said, a hint of smugness present in his flat voice as another, stronger space barrier appeared in mid-air.
“That won’t even slow me down!”