Magical Soul Parade

Chapter 320: Intruiging Duel (I)

The first discharge from the cannons hit the platform with a roar that drowned out the wind, and the entire arena was swallowed by a blinding orange light.

Without giving Finn a single second to process the displacement of air or the heat of the flash, Nova burst forward in a blur of motion that was so fast, it looked like the air itself was being shredded by her passage.

The orange circuits on her skin vibrated with a frequency that made the very atmosphere hum. Behind her, the cannons floating in the air let out a high pitched whine as they drew massive amounts of mana from the white crystal in her chest.

Finn barely had time to bring the iron sword up to a parry position before she was upon him. The impact of her charge sent vibrations through his arms and down into the compacted earth of the platform. Even with his feet rooted to the stone he felt himself slide back an inch as he deflected her strike.

The deflection sent Nova careening towards the edge of the platform. Her speed was so immense and so uncontrolled that her momentum carried her far beyond the point of impact, sending her on a collision course with the barrier itself. But instead of crashing into it, at the last second, she expertly used the invisible barrier as a springboard. She ricocheted off the air wall with a crack like a whip and launched herself back toward the center.

Finn adjusted his footing and watched her trajectory with a focused interest. He could see that she was struggling to contain the raw output of the energy surging through her circuit lines. It was a terrifying power but it was clear that it was still new or perhaps just too volatile for her current state.

So that’s why her brother was trying to intervene. He knows she’s pushing her structure to the point of collapse...

Just as that thought crossed his mind, the floating cannons behind him fired again. They blasted with a furious energy that ionized the air particles in its path.

Bolts of charged lightning and spheres of raw mana energy bore down on his back in the blink of an eye. The heat was so intense that the back of his shirt began to singe before the attacks even landed.

Finn reacted with a grunt of effort. He gritted his teeth and spun on his heel while swinging the iron sword in a wide arc to parry the incoming projectiles. He had strictly limited himself to using just the subpar sword and the physical enhancement of the Crimson Fist Baboon soul mass only. He wanted to see how far he could push this level of power against a high level noble Arcanist...

But even with the baboon soul mass bolstering his muscles he felt the strain. The iron sword groaned under the pressure of the mana blasts and his own arm felt the jarring shock of the energy.

For a brief moment he actually considered breaking his own rule. He felt the urge to tap into the deeper well of strength within his soul and manifest the full strength of the Crimson Fist Baboon.

The Tyrant form.

That form would have made this energy look like a light breeze, but he quickly caught himself and chuckled. The sound of his laughter was lost in the roar of the raging energy around him but his eyes sharpened into excited slits.

This is more like it,

He pushed more soul energy into his legs and ripped through an incoming blast from one of the floating cannons with a vertical slash. The slight possibility of not being able to defeat Nova within these self imposed limits, while absurd, was starting to feel like it could be possible, and that possibility made his blood pump with a rare fervor.

Initially, he had entered this fight simply to secure a sword and to gauge the prowess of the Mechanus nobility, but now the objective had shifted. He saw that he was helping this girl push past her own ceiling and he decided to embrace the flow of the battle.

But he had to admit that he had underestimated her.

The sheer output of her mechanical heart was something that defied standard Arcanist logic. Finn released a long steady breath as he dodged a barrage of lightning strikes from the cannons above. He moved with a series of tight efficient steps while Nova continued her blitz attacks. She was moving in uncontrolled patterns now and her strikes were becoming erratic but the sheer volume of the mana she was throwing was enough to keep him on the defensive.

The cannons suddenly paused. They began to release heavy plumes of steam and dark smoke as the metal of their casings glowed a dull red. The energy radiation coming off them was so high that the air around them distorted like a heat haze. They needed a few seconds to cool down before they could fire again. This provided Finn with a brief window of breathing room and he used it to change the entire dynamic of the fight.

The look in his eyes settled into something cold and final. He had decided to go all out within the bounds of his chosen limits. He realized that if he kept holding back just to see how much she could take he would be doing a disservice to her resolve.

I will not let your efforts go to waste, Finn thought as he leveled the sword.

Before Nova could launch another blitz attack a look of alarm showed in her glowing orange eyes. She was in a hyper focused mechanical state but the heavy aura of a predator suddenly filled the arena. It was an oppressive weight that made the very air feel thick and difficult to breathe.

Without thinking, Nova used a burst of air from her suit to blitz to the other edge of the platform to put as much distance as possible between herself and the human monster.

Just as she moved, the position where she had been standing was hit by a strike of the iron sword. The impact sent heavy tremors through the solid floor and created a web of cracks in the compacted stone. Finn did not stop to admire the damage. In a clean motion that looked like an ape swinging across the canopy of a forest, he redirected his momentum and chased after her. He was only half a step behind her, and his speed was no longer a series of bursts but a continuous terrifying pursuit.

Nova had not even landed fully on her feet at the other end of the platform when Finn was upon her again. He slashed down with the iron sword using a two handed grip. A Nested Geometry artifact on Nova’s forearm unfolded in the blink of an eye and decompacted into a sturdy shield that seemed to meld directly onto her arm. The glowing glyphs and circuit lines on her skin flared with a blinding light as they filled the shield with energy to actualize a layer of compressed air barrier.

Finn’s slash descended like a mountain falling from the sky. He was no longer holding anything back within his current form. The air barrier surrounding the shield shattered on impact with a sound like breaking glass.