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Chapter 101 - Chapter 100: Desperate Rush Against Time, Part ???

664 10/11 3:07 (Autumn, Day, Midrar)

A new wave of power flowed from Luna's orb and into her horns, her five completed Lenses trembling and shifting before they splitted into two parts that soon rejoined together, the first having the purpose of applying a Substance to the Vital Mana while the second would apply the Form of said Attributes to the Energy passing through them.

The palms of Luna's four extra limbs pointed towards Joule-Mark's vague position, her five refined Focusing Lenses floating in place before the Lunarian, her Hands opening wide and from each of them releasing pulses of Energy through the Lenses and erupting into various elemental bursts that fell upon the Human-Spirit Hybrid in a deadly barrage of Altered Attributes derived from both her blood and No-Attribute Magic.

A continuous bombardament of Energy that turned the planure all around into a devastated mess, ash filling the air, trees being uprooted and shattered into falling pieces, rocks being sent flying before crashing down into shards, crystals of all kind erupting from the ground and a thin layer of a mix of blood-like water and a reflective liquid covered the newly made crater, grey and crimson flames raging upon it all, eating into each other and growing ever more violent.

Joule-Mark breathed in deeply, his mad rush towards the Lunarian instead of away being the only thing that saved their life as they were able to stop behind the Lunarian just in the nick of time. "All of her attacks are direct releases of power without being able to be manipulated further once launched. Probably a condition of the Lenses themselves." They noted aloud, glowing eyes narrowed in concentration.

The one enveloped in Shining Bolts immediately turned around, accumulating the Light-Attribute around their flesh and blood arm and throwing it like a javelin towards the white haired one's still turned back, aiming on impaling her right between her shoulder blades.

Luna turned just in time to take a swing with one of her now both sharpened and hardened wings at the attack, turning its feathers into a mass of blades that shredded the spear into pieces, willingly and forcefully lowering her own Status Alteration Nullification to just a Resistance, enough to allow the Light Infection caused by the strike to affect her but far from enough to , this way increasing her understanding of the Light-Attribute itself.

As the Light-Attribute Vital Mana scoured through Luna's insides, finding no purchase in her flesh nor being able to destabilize her holding of her Blank Flames, as those last ones were used as part of the fuel for Luna's sudden new transformation, Luna observed with part of her attention the way that the Light Infection was influencing her.

Vital Mana accumulated around her new tail, condensing upon the eight-sided blade upon its end before she swung towards the Human-Spirit Hybrid, a long crescent blade rupturing a glowing scar in Joule-Mark's previous location, having vanished in a white flash.

Joule-Mark reappeared, the immense speed that they gained while in [Avatar Manifestation] and using the combination of the Light- and Lightning-Attributes, the two Attributes whose speed was in general a particularly important and notable portion of their effectiveness, was more than enough to, for breaf moments, completely escape from Luna's notice.

Especially once they started using brief, one second long, bursts of their Unique Skill Time Walker aiming for the exact moment Luna lost sight of them so that they could prolong the time they were outside of her field of view, moving erratically in order to confuse the Lunarian.

Said red-eyed one simply did her best to follow and keep the Human-Spirit Hybrid in her sight, viewing her difficulty as a new training opportunity.

Her hands rose fully, closing her eyes tightly and breathing in deeply, her five completed Lenses splitting in two layers each and then rejoining together in a different configuration than before, separating the Attributes among the various Focusing Lenses and passing Vital Mana through them.

Joule-Mark's eyes widened in alarm, watching as Terran Lightning, Windswept Tears, Smoldering Winds, Galvanic Embers and Wave Gem manifested around her, the long strings of black and gold lightning, the liquified air, the burning winds, the blue and yellow flames and long blue crystals floating around her body before snapping her eyes wide open.

By using the already high compatibility between the Attributes involved, she caused her Windswept Tears to rain down all over the place before releasing a wave of blue and yellow flames that spread between the transparent droplets that floated in mid-air, the electrifying flames flowing between the liquified water before exploding, filling the air underneath her with a wave of yellow and blue flames, eliminating the matter of not knowing where exactly Joule-Mark's current location by simply destroying everything with the bonus of threatening the other Spirit involved and forcing them to actually rejoin the fight or be annihilated.

And exactly as she immagined, Flux was forced to raise a glowing wall of dense, Purification-Infused waters to disperse the flames around them, saving themselves from the electrifying flames that soon spread all around the ground, surrounding them within a raging wall of Lightning-Attribute flames, sparks flaring violently around and above the flames.

The Flowing Spirit, their body glowing brightly because of the Purification-Attribute currently being imbued within their own body, stood still in a relatively intact patch, the area immediately around her having filled with a relatively dense mist that isolated her from the flames that tried to envelop her in their electrifying grasp, their hiding place having been destroyed in the previous blaze and their previous preparation having needed to be hastily repurposed to protect their temporary Vessel instead of their planned attack.

Luna turned towards the revealed Spirit, her wings starting to beat a couple of times before she launched her following attack, black thunder with a golden shine brightening the area around her, condensating and then erupting in several lightning bolt directed towards the surprised Spirit, the air screaming violently at the speed of the Earth-Attribute Vital Mana.

Flux's eye-like spots all over their fluid body widened briefly, the mist intensifying around them before throwing them as far away as possible from the incoming lightning strikes, being able to pull themselves away from most of the strikes and rising some small obstacles in the way of some more, aiming on detonating them in advance, yet most was not all.

And as she planned, Joule-Mark was forced to launch their own Shining Bolts to block Luna's own, revealing their current position to the Lunarian and in this way opening themselves up for the white haired one, long spears of blue crystals raining down upon the Vessel's vague location while at the same time, to stop the Interplanar Being from interfering for right now, launching a tornado of burning wind to bat at the Spirit and force them further back or risk evaporating because of the dry heat contained within the red twister.

As black and white lightnings fougth in the sky above the Flowing Spirit, light golden flashes illuminating their blue body briefly yet still being unable to distract them from the incoming storm of arid winds, the much more pressing danger to her current Vessel, taking the small particles of blue metals within them, the hidden Runic Array through which they could control a Vessel made of water without any issues, hurriedly moving the Array deeper in to shield it as much as possible from the Smoldering Winds.

Yet, Flux wasn't the one most in danger from Luna's attack as while their Vessel's watery body would be ripped apart and evaporate rapidly under that type of assault, this would only mean that their Runic Array would rapidly deteriorate and they would return to rest within their Aler to recover while Flux-Mark instead was in a much more precarious situation than the Spirit themselves.

The attack launched at the one using [Avatar Manifestation] was a rain made by sharpened shards of Wave Gems, the Composite Attribute obtained once Water-Attribute assumes the Form of the Earth-Attribute, and while their sharpness was not something that the one enveloped in Shining Bolts could ignore, the real danger was in the wave of highly-pressurized water explosions that followed the sapphire-like spears impaling themselves in the ground.

Joule-Mark could only blur in place, deflecting away as many of the spears as they could, as gently as they could so that they would not detonate right against their body, tightening a layer of Vital Mana around their body to soften up the shockwave caused by the crystals erupting into intense bursts of water that not only shattered the ground and rose a mix of dust and dirt battered against their body and sending them crashing down on the ground.

Light-Attribute Vital Mana taking the Form of Lightning-Attribute, made thanks to Joule's and Mark's combined comprehension gained from both the Human's previous Timelines and a Roaring Spirit's own innate understanding of Energy, flared violently around and especially deep inside of their body to vastly accelerate their speed.

The Human-Spirit Hybrid turned towards the Lunarian, landing softly on the muddy ground now underneath their feet, starting to work out the particulars of her transformation, quickly being able to figure out that all of her Skills were being externalized in her new form, both directly and indirectly.

And they could also guess what this form was, even if they hated the meaning of it, the ability someone would obtain upon reaching Unleash Aura at A-Rank, the ability called [Auric Manifestation] that forcefully manifests someone's Skills into their physical Form, yet she had that Skill only at C-Rank, far from enough for her to use this ability normally.

In theory at least considering how it was evident that the white haired one was able to use it, in a way that they could guess was based on her nature as a living dead star demonstrated by her Unique Skill Singularity and using as additional fuel plenty of Vital Mana, the Blank Flames she previously created, some Orichalcum and at least a considerable amount of her remaining time, all those while having a Skill like Core Implosion that functioned as a rough blueprint.

Joule-Mark, unknowing of all the matters involved in her acquiring this Form, simply decided to ignore the impossibility of the situation itself and focus on how they could deal with her, trying to figure out the proprierties of the Form before them.

Beyond the obvious fact that some of the Skills would already be part of her, she was now composed entirely out of a mix of Black Blood, Vital Mana and Aura, that would then be enhanced and influenced by Luna's own Divine Power, her two Enhancement Skills, Crafting, Bladesmithing, Blacksmithing, Artifact Mastery, Oath Making and True Calamity Eternal Mastery, all of those Skills influencing the whole that was her body while taking in some physical aspects of her Familiars through her Familiar Summoning.

In addition, her nine Lenses were based on her various Magic-based Skills, her No-Attribute Sorcery, No-Attribute Magecraft, Formalcraft, True Calamity Runic Supremacy and especially her Attribute Conversion while somehow emanating a very small presence to other Being's Senses that was all the same starting to inflict 'Charm' to everyone that looked at her with her armor an evident recall to her Unique Arma.

Finally was the star that floated above her head, demonstrated most strongly her Unique Skill, Soul Harmony, Devouring Evolution and Counterspell, intent on maximizing the amount of Energy she would acquire and have available at any given time.

Joule-Mark immediately sent a bright white lightning bolt at their pale enemy, not waiting for her reaction but instead starting to Channel ever more of their Vital Mana for the next stage of the battle.

Luna, upon seeing the Shining Bolt falling rapidly towards her, merely readjusted her Lenses, a chunk of Hollow Jewel manifesting briefly in front of her to absorb the bright, lightning-like ray of light before she sent the now pulsing crystal up to the orb floating above her head, shredding it apart under its gravity and turning the bright crystal into a mass of Energy that joined that already present there, at the same time refueling her Reserves and increasing her understanding of the Light-Attribute.

The Human-Spirit hybrid dashed left, keeping their eyes stuck to the transformed Lunarian, knowing that the moment they lost sight of her, she would inevitably become invisible to sneak attack them, if nothing else just to remind them to be more careful.

After all, he very well knew that at the moment she was oscillating between a cat playing with its food, a big cat actively hunting prey and someone testing out their own limits, with her current emotional situation constantly changing as her power and their Party's perceived threat fluctuated wildly.

This meant one thing and one thing alone, that they needed to deal with her right here and now, before she fully mastered her new level of power and would turn it against their Party in full.

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