Red-Draft River!
A kilometre-long root slipped into this majestic river’s riverbed and began absorbing nutrients conservatively. Even if it were to go overboard, considering how the river was fed upon by thousands of streams, mixing minerals into it from a quarter of the continent, it was just a matter of months or a few years at most for it to make a full recovery.
This was the safest option available, for the Dralh Sea’s situation wasn’t favourable anymore, for the Transcendent Eater had already consumed most of its abundantly available mineral reserves.
The Dralh Sea had eight channels feeding into it, not to mention the Abyss Fall. So, it could take some damage to its foundation and still make a recovery over time. However, if Blola continued to absorb any more from the place, then the terrain would undergo an irreversible change.
The Dralh Sea had already sustained a severe hit to its ecology when the Cooter Clan branch there got wiped out. After the Mystic Humans took charge, they spent a lot of time and resources to course correct the place and stabilised it.
But even now, the Gold Grade Pranic Beasts that once inhabited the region’s deeper waters hadn’t returned. Only a few started to live there, and even they didn’t seem comfortable with the changes that happened to the place.
If it were to sustain another major change, the region would completely lose its native population. It was a delicate situation, as one of the carnivorous flowers observed the fight between Brangara and Ruvva.
If it seemed like Ruvva was about to be killed, Blola was prepared to take drastic measures, for she was too valuable an existence, whose presence alone would improve the foundation of the region.
Slowly, in the waters of the Dralh Sea, the Transcendent Eater’s roots began to grow at a steady speed.
On the surface above them, Ruvva was getting absolutely destroyed.
"Gah!" She gasped upon being sent flying once again. As her figure rolled on the water, she plunged her arm sockets into the water, turned the outline of her hand into grey sand and reverted it into her hand.
Minor Treasure—Sandy-Grey Deity Assimilation!
Upon making a recovery, she used the Prime Skill of Prana Flash to race across the surface of the Dralh Sea, transforming into a golden flash. However, a red streak kept pace with her and even curved to appear before her.
The golden streak made a sharp turn and moved elsewhere, while the red streak was a lot slower at the turn. However, the streak turned green, and it could now make sharper turns.
As the golden streak continued to flee, the red streak closed in once again, and this time, transformed into a green streak faster to keep pace with Ruvva’s evasive manoeuvres. Depending on the sharpness of the turn, the hue of the red streak changed accordingly.
And the more they moved, the faster the hues changed, and soon, Ruvva was unable to evade anymore. Goosebumps erupted on her skin as small patches of it began to peel off due to the growing presence that was dawning in upon her.
Expert Gold Grade Pranic Beast—Empyrean Tusk!
Ruvva assumed her Empyrean Tusk form, relying on the space expansion to buy at least a couple seconds of leeway. She somersaulted and pointed her trunk towards the figure of Brangara who was blasted away by her space expansion. Prana gathered in the trunk in large volumes as Ruvva trumpeted with desperation.
Kurrallla!
She had also activated her Apogee Bludder form, whose secondary hearts rushed Prana into the trunk spontaneously, which allowed her to unleash a beam of destructive energy at the target.
It was Prana carrying the most violent form of psychokinesis, capable of breaking through the structural integrity of any substance in the way. And unlike when she used it against Gannala at the Kalahatra Desert, it was stabler and could be sustained for longer.
It was the strongest attack she could unleash through her natural talent of dominating Prana. Relying on the might of her Empyrean Tusk form, Ruvva also exhaled, accompanying the destructive beam with a compressed gust of wind.
The gust of wind wasn’t as powerful as an Empyrean Tusk, as she didn’t have Internal Inertial Gravity, but it helped raise the destructive potential of her attack.
The moment Prana gathered in her trunk, Brangara’s eyes shrunk for a moment in surprise, ’That’s...Boul Brimgan’s...!’
Minor Treasure—Spirit Puppet Slip!
He pressed the trigger four times and created four Empyrean Boar King puppets before him, to serve as an impromptu shield. He then pressed the trigger a fifth time to shoot out a Mystic Ewworm puppet.
It appeared like a compressed spring and elongated, using the force to slap Brangara away, all executed in the nick of time.
Brangara’s body moved to the side as he watched his vision become blinded by the destructive beam. He was a few metres to the side of the beam. However, this wasn’t the end, as the trunk shifted to encompass him in the range of the beam.
Brangara shot another Empyrean Boar King puppet and watched the destructive beam rapidly drill through the puppet’s body. The latter used psychokinesis to reinforce its muscles and quickly burned through its reserve of 100 units of Prana.
Once that was consumed, it combusted its flesh to generate more Prana and bought a few more seconds. After that too was expended, the destructive beam vaporised the puppet.
Holding a Mystic Ewworm puppet like a whip, Brangara slapped the Empyrean Boar King puppet and used the rebound to launch himself away from the beam. One hand held the gun to create puppets as a shield while the other held the whip, relying on psychokinesis to expertly control its motion and use it as both a whip and a spear, whichever was convenient for the situation.
The trunk of the Empyrean Tusk cracked open after thirty seconds as Ruvva promptly stopped the destructive beam, assumed her Apogee Bludder form to race across the water surface and launched herself towards Brangara.
Hovering at a height of 1.5 kilometres was Brangara, amidst blood mist and mashed body parts of his puppets. "Time’s up, huh?"
From below, Ruvva approached, spinning rapidly as she was rapidly accumulating Prana in her secondary hearts, overloading them with the pressure behind her spin. Her arms burned, with the vessels across it burst out one after another from sheer stress.
She was going overboard. However, it was a necessity, as without it, she couldn’t see her attack wounding the opponent.
T-Thump!
Using psychokinesis, she seeped all the blood in her body towards the wrist of her right hand, so much so that the arm bulged to four times its usual size. The blood in the rest of her body plummeted, and this lack of pressure caused her heart muscles to close up for an instant, causing her a heart attack. "Urgh!"
Boom!
At the same time, bursting out of the water in an arc, like the lash of a whip, were a dozen roots. As they lashed forth, blades of Prana appeared on their ends, with the focus of their attacks being Brangara.
Tertiary Nature—Eddy Blade!
"Die!" Ruvva roared as she glared at Brangara and slashed forth with her arm, congealing a tough blade of Prana, so dense it appeared like a solid construct.
Prime Skill—Eddy Blade x14!
From below came Ruvva’s Eddy Blade, stacked fourteen times. And from above descended twelve Eddy Blades, and falling around the intersection of the two attacks was none other than Brangara.
As the two attacks made contact, there was a flash, a burst of lightning, and the formation of a sphere of plasma.
Crackle!
A thunderclap resounded, reverberating with successive claps one after another as the flash illuminated the entirety of the Dralh Sea. Anyone in a five-hundred-kilometre radius of the attack would have gone blind.
Her eyes burned as Ruvva free-fell towards the water. A leaf sprouted from a root and caught her. Her body continued to twitch as her recovery process had become a snail’s pace.
Ruvva had truly expended her everything in the attack and blasted her right arm in the process. Her Prana had turned sluggish due to the heart attack and was struggling to heal the strain wreaked across her body.
It would take a while to make a full recovery, before her healing speed would return to normal.
New eyes sprouted across the Transcendent Eater’s roots, allowing it to see as they searched across the place for traces of Brangara. And then, the pupils of all widened in shock. ’When did he...?’
For at the spot where Brangara had been was an aurora. It was dispersed thanks to the attack. At the moment of impact, Blola felt it strange that Brangara didn’t express any resistance. He looked like he would defend himself until the last moment, when he simply tanked the attack. It was plainly obvious now.
"Yawn!" Appearing from the seabed was a Mystic Ewworm that assumed Brangara’s form to land on the surface. His Tratham boots gently dispersed a violet radiance into the water and allowed him to stand stably on the surface.
"How did you do it?" Blola was stunned, "When did you switch your body with a puppet?"
"When Ruvva unleashed her destructive beam at me." Brangara chuckled, "One of the Mystic Ewworms that appeared during my evasion was my actual transformation. I simply placed that tusk of mine with the aurora into a puppet body while I plunged into the water."
The tusk continued to emanate such a strong presence it seemed like the puppet was Brangara all along.
"But all the puppets were destroyed." Blola blurted out in a fluster.
"Well, as long as my heart is fine, rest doesn’t matter." Brangara laughed, "The Mystic Ewworm puppet was fully destroyed, which is why you didn’t bother to focus on it. But within it was my heart, which regenerated me."
It was the darkest under a lamp, and that was exactly what Brangara had taken advantage of here, "In the face of that ridiculously powerful destructive beam, no other existence would even get registered in a Prana detection means. That makes it the best moment to run away."
With the hiding capabilities of a Mystic Ewworm, fleeing to safety was child’s play for Brangara. And then, he simply chilled at the depth of the Dralh Sea while Blola and Ruvva used all their strength to destroy a puppet.
"How does it feel to do all that and accomplish nothing?" Brangara chuckled as he condensed two Mystic Ewworms and wielded them as whips, "Both of you have extremely destructive powers, enough to destroy large terrains. However,"
"It means nothing when you cannot hit your target. And now," He eyed the immobile figure of Ruvva and then stared at a carnivorous flower, "She’s out of the fight for a few minutes and you..."
He grinned upon noticing faint tremors across the roots, "It seems the influence from those two Nature Weapons has already begun affecting you. What a pity, Blola."
"It was your mistake to think you could face me without your army." Brangara chuckled as he rushed forward and waved his whips to latch upon and cut through the roots one after another. He specifically targeted Ruvva and forced Blola to defend her, which made it easy for the roots to be cut by the whips.
Secondary Nature—Bone-Melting Artillery!
The tremors across the roots reduced by a fraction as a dozen carnivorous mouths appeared and bloomed, following which a sea of artillery spikes rained upon Brangara.
There was a flash of crimson as the latter retreated deep into the Dralh Sea and burrowed further underground. There, he simply waited it out until the artillery strike was completed.
Sizzling sounds resounded as Brangara swam through the acidic water and stood on the surface. His skin was merely red from the acid’s effects, which vanished a second later as his Prana healed him. "You switched Internal Inertial Gravity with Bone-Melting Artillery. However,"
"A Centinger’s Nature?" Brangara stared with disdain, "I’m pretty sure you have a few Millingers stored in your memory. Revive them and use them to attack me. Otherwise, you can forget harming me."
"There’s nothing else you can delude yourself into thinking you can accomplish..." Brangara stopped speaking as he severed through the last of the roots in his immediate vicinity. And then, he felt it, a powerful spike in presence from a distance over a hundred kilometres away.
It was a familiar presence, at the sight of which his mouth curled into a wide grin. Casually, stared at the sky and watched an Empyrean Boar Aurora begin to form, "You brought her out."
"Hehe...hehehe!" He flashed his buttocks as a dozen Gold Ewworms targeted him one after another while he walked in the direction of the surging presence. His Prana soon recovered to its peak as a portion of his skin peeled off, "Just detecting her is making my skin crawl and fall off."