664 10/11 2:53 (Autumn, Day, Midrar)
Mark recognized at once both that Luna was currently in a very unstable state and that once that unstable state ended, she would almost certaintly increase the Rank of her Racial Skill, becoming a proper Lunarian and becoming beyond his reach at this point in time.
Yet this was their greatest opportunity to slay her, considering how even if the Well of the lingering Spell against Vampiric Entities was completely spent and it would soon cease functioning in its entirety, the constant internal Damage she was currently suffering lowered Luna's Regeneration speed significantly.
In addition to that, her ability to use Vital Mana, her Aura and even the amount of power that her Familiars could bring to bear was significantly hampered, the white-haired one needing to constantly dedicate a great part of her attention to deal with the Energy that she was currently in the process of devouring.
Mark silently signaled Aler, the final member of their Party if one was to exclude their Lilze considering how she was way too young and not-combat focused to partecipate in this battle directly, to continue preparing for his turn thanks to the subtle comunicator that he helped make by using blueprints that he remembered from the previous Regressions and inspired from the memories of his previous life.
Immediately after, Mark worked with his Joules to combine the Lightning- and Light-Attributes in a long yet thin string that aimed not for Luna's Cores or one of her Artifacts with the purpose of weakening them even if only temporarily but instead aiming for the sphere of Blank Flames within her body, trying to destabilize it and harm the Lunarian greatly at a pratically absent cost.
His attack was not especially large or powerful on his own, sure, but what he did was exchanging those things to maximize his piercing power and more importantly his speed, as expected of the result gained by combining the two fastest Attributes.
While this last thing was far from reaching the speed of light, or even the speed of lightning to be completely honest, it was still a movement that vastly surpassed the speed of sound various times, crossing the distance between the two.
Fortunately for Luna, however, she had already prepared in advance a ressponse to that kind of attack, well aware of her own momentary vulnerability at this moment, the air before her twisting in on itself as her automatic defense composed by No-Attribute Altered Earth-Attribute, her mirror sheen barrier appearing around her and deflecting the ray of Mana away from herself.
Luna smiled wide, almost taunting him to try again as her latest barrier vanished once more, invisible but ever-present around her body, before she jumped away, evading the stalagmites that erupted underneath her, spinning in mid-air to gently land on one of them before launching herself at Grug, landing only briefly to move left around a pillar that would have otherwise sent her flying upwards.
Aura and Vital Mana briefly accumulated in her left hand before she smashed it in the pillar that was now to her left, grabbing it and throwing the mass back towards Mark, interrupting him from Casting another Spell and crossing the distance separating her and the Half-Dwarf.
Grug did not hesitate, stomping hard on the ground and in so doing causing a shockwave to emanate from there, following soon after by the earth spiking up violently rom around her, trying to impale her once she was distracted by having to deal with the shockwave.
This failed, naturally, as Luna jumped over the shockwave before landing briefly on one of the spikes and using it as a launchpad for her following leap, the taller one raising one of his arms before himself to block the kick launched by the red-eyed one.
Luna launched herself back to dodge the follow-up swing of the black-haired one, land shortly away from him before throwing herself down to dodge the boulder thrown by the more Earth- and Fire-Attribute-aligned one aimed right at her head, landing on her hands before flipping herself upwards in a brief handstand and continuing on to land back on her feet while sending back a sharp, vertical wave of Vital Mana.
Before she could continue attacking her out-of-balance adversary, she was stopped by trees being uprooted before being thrown at her as a group of high-speed make-shift spears, Luna turning towards them and scowling slightly, the wind around her starting to twist and more importantly burn.
Before the trees could reach her, the air-currents around her catching aflame thanks to her use of the Composite Attribute called Smoldering Winds, made by using the Fire-Attribute with the Form of the Wind-Attribute and in so doing creating a storm that ripped apart the trees and reduced them to ash.
However the fact that she bothered to use even more Vital Mana instead of simply letting her barrier handle the blow rendered clear the fact that her Earth-Attribute Altered by No-Attribute that functioned as the center and cause of her barrier was not good against more physical-based attacks, being specialized against more energy-based ones.
Almost as if to test this out, Grug launched a wave of fire from his mouth, a roar that washed over the Lunarian.
Soon after, he flared his own Mana, tightening around his body as he created an highly condensed armor of Earth-Attribute while at the same time reinforcing his body with his Vital Energy to increase his Durability.
Just in time too as from the wall of fire emerged the unscathed form of the Lunarian, her body surrounded in a transparent layer that from this distance he was able to recognize as being crystalline in nature.
This may mean absolutely nothing for most individuals, sure, but his mother was very intent on him being a smith and so he was able to understand what it would have meant for the barrier to not be metal-like but instead similar to crystals in nature, which would complicate the way to surpass it and deal real damage to their opponent.
His own arms blurred forward, his right one moving forward to block Luna's heavy punch while his left swung back his own punch while at the same time ordering the ground beneath his feet to ripple upwards in harsh spikes that moved to impale the Lunarian's feet to the ground, their opponent shifting downwards underneath his attack while responding to the stakes by releasing a weak shockwave underneath her to create long cracks on the ground that disrupted the barbs.
Luna's hands grabbed onto Grug's arms, pulling herself upwards vertically over his body before letting herself fall in a knee strike to his shoulder, throwing herself away from the taller one's body to dodge the elbow strike that would have otherwise struck her, red eyes carefully watching as the black-haired one fell to one of his knees, their gaze briefly meeting before her own eyes widened.
The ground beneath her feet brightened slightly before erupting in a series of burning spikes that impaled her feet to the ground, tearing a scream away from her mouth, the rocks burning her body from the inside out, her eyes narrowing ssharply as the pain caused by the burning stakes flipped her intentions from playfully murderous to a chillingly calm intent to destroy and kill.
Grug waited no time at all, rising a wall before himself just in time for a crash to sound out, Luna having forcefully smashed apart the stone sticking her in place before launching herself at him at full speed, almost smashing the wall apart at once, wall that did not survive long as the Lunarian released various sharp shockwaves that ripped the wall apart and left deep gashes in the Half-Dwarf's body.
Yet even so Grug did not hesitate, having long since trained to deal with life as an Adventurer and especially having prepared himself to a fight with the Person before him thanks to Mark having shared informations about what exactly to expect in a fight with this opponent. "Her barrier is specialized to absorb energy but I don't think that it is any good against kinetic one. And it has a similar pattern to the Earth-Attribute Forms of Composite Attributes. She cannot move too fast while it is active and a good physical blow should be enough to destroy it."
Luna's eyes glowed brightly from amid the falling rocks and dust as her mouth opened wide to release a shockwave, sending him flying back despite his increased weight and his preparation, Grug thrusting his hands downwards against the ground, flipping himself around and forcefully stopping himself, using his "Volcanic Might" to turn the ground around in a sea of magma, stopping his adversary from pressing her advantage.
The Lunarian made to move in before being stopped by a series of lightning bolts falling on her position, forcing her Void Crystal barrier to flare up more strongly and stopping her from just crossing the distance between the two, mostly confirming his guess that the barrier while in an active state was way too fragile for her to go all out physically.
Yet this did not explain where exactly the energy that she absorbed actually ended up in as all of them doubted that she simply ate it too, considering how she was already being limited by needing to digest the previous amount and taking in even more of it would be way too dangerous and foolish, if one would want to be brutally honest, for her to do.
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