Chapter 759 First Battle
With everything that was happening, the fact that he was here with a practitioner of the Frost Mourn Meditation Art was just the icing on the cake.
It would seem that in the time since he had gained the Endless Vault Meditation Art, someone else had been able to gain access to this power, and now they were here to challenge him.
This should not be the entire story because there was surely something else happening above him, his mother, the planets, the signs of battle, and the Time Stop effect, so many things were simultaneously taking place, but for now, he had to focus on overcoming this hurdle first.
He did not know what abilities the Supreme Meditation Art would grant to a Mage, but he knew that for him to win, he had to fight in a way that a Mage could not easily anticipate. His opponent had already shown certain abilities that he was not sure came from her Meditation Art, to win this fight, he must make sure she never had the chance to make his move.
Yet it might already be too late. He brought himself three seconds, but she had been planning this moment for an unknown amount of time. He was already at a disadvantage.
Andar had blasted forward to her side when any Mage would have retreated to create space to attack more effectively. This action was to get closer to the girl where he would be able to press her I'm close quarters.
Behind him, he heard a loud rumble as the bottom half of the stairs were unexpectedly crushed by a large mouth filled with teeth the size of his body.
The sound from this was deafening since this passageway was created from the Black Tower itself and its structure was extremely durable, crushing it would require extreme force, which would inevitably lead to a massive release of energy.
If he had retreated instead of coming closer to his opponent he would have been crushed to pieces by this mouth, his body was not rough enough to resist such an assault. He activated Gray Will a moment earlier than he had planned in order to adjust to this new variable and time appeared to stand still.
Andar now had the period to observe his surroundings properly, and the first thing he noticed about the girl he was about to attack was that her mouth was opened wide in laughter; her red eyes were emitting so much light it was as if two red suns were about to be born, but what was noteworthy were her fingers.
All ten of her fingers had transformed into green vines that disappeared into the shadows around her body, yet he was able to break through a portion of the barrier blocking his perception from tracing the paths of the vines and he saw that one of her fingers was responsible for the gigantic mouth that crushed the staircase behind him.
That mouth was a gigantic Venus Fly Trap, and it was a single finger from her. Andar knew the body of a Mage transformed the higher their ranking went, but he did not expect that a Rank 3 Mage's body could already be capable of such extreme transformations.
Andar was able to track another of her fingers below them, just lying underneath the stairs, in his perception, he could see and feel the gigantic mouth of the Venus Fly Trap closing up.
There were two fingers above him, and another two were coming from the side, he was effectively surrounded, and the trap was rapidly closing.
Although time appeared to be still, it was just his perception that had been accelerated, and although he could see everything, his body could not move at the same speed as his perception, and it appeared as if he and this mystery girl were frozen in place.
That made the fact that when those red eyes of hers which were brimming with so much pleasure slowly turned towards him even when his perception should have rendered time to an observer to be almost still, increased his wariness, his body could not match such speed, and he should be running but he knew that he was unable to escape unless he finds a way to win.
Gray Will had already wiped away his psi and fury and transformed him into a machine.
Andar had never seen any reason for him to go all out with his powers, but the situation was forcing him to adapt.
It was a good thing that although his body could not move as fast as his perception, the powers that he could control could move even faster than his perception.
From the appearance of the girl to when he attacked, it had barely been two seconds, and instead of scattering his abilities wielding different energies, he focused only on a single one– Wind.
The rest were just flashy props to distract, and the hundred vortices of air he used to push himself forward towards her were his true weapons.
Whatever was happening made it impossible for him to cast spells, and harness the Aether in the air, and was supposed to make it impossible for him to access his Scripts or any Spatial Storage.
However his only weakness here was that he was unable to cast spells, fortunately for him, this was not truly a weakness but an inconvenience, he was still able to access his Scripts, but this passageway was too tight for Cloudy to demonstrate its advantage.
Because he used his Endless Vault as a storage device, he could still access all the items he had placed inside it, but he chose not to reveal this to this girl and whoever was watching.
Usually, a High Order Sigil like his current Aegis script would have to be connected to a separate Aether Crystal to power it or would have a way to gather Aether from the environment, and no one would be crazy enough to link it to their Aether Channels, since no Mage would be able to bear the strain of holding such a Script, but Andar could easily carry it.
He sent all those flashy spells ahead and drowned the body of the girl who had nearly finished healing in a conflagration of flames, lightning, frost, poison, and hundreds of different attacks. Although Andar had called them distractions, they were still powerful enough to kill thousands of Rank 3 Mages and could level a mountain range.
In the same instant, the multiple gigantic Venus Fly Traps slammed into Andar's position.
The entire space imploded. Andar numerous attacks plus six of the girl's fingers clashing in that small space created so much force that a circular cavern was blown open inside this place.
The dust cleared away with supernatural quickness and revealed the girl and Andar, both of whom seemed unhurt. Andar was standing on two vortices of air, and hundreds of air vortices were spinning around him.
Andar pushed his palms together and the air vortices flattened until they were flat and resembled saw blades, and he tapped the air with his fingers and dozens of wind blades flew towards the girl, he expanded his fingers, and the wind blades scattered into a thousand separate blades and then he closed his hands into a fist and they vanished.
The girl had only a chance to widen her eyes before she exploded, as a thousand air blades erupted inside her body.
Gray Will chased the position of her body that had split into 456 parts, and Andar sent precisely 456 wind blades at those body parts, while another seven wind blades suddenly expanded into seven large shields to block the seven large mouths that erupted from the surrounding shadows.
He angled the shields to push the mouths to a position slightly adjacent to his side, where he had placed another twenty Wind blades in wait that grounded them to pieces.
With an ephemeral scream, the body of the girl flashed with a green fire and she reconstituted herself instantly, using that move to avoid the hundreds of wind blades sent to her shattered body parts, but Andar closed his fists once more and the Wind blades vanished.
"How are you doing that?!" With a cry of anger and pain the body of the girl exploded again, her only reply was the cold visage of Andar who had no emotion on his face, only his silver eyes blazing like a bright moon.
Behind him, he was already creating an elaborate weaving of energy as he called on more wind blades.