415 Chapter 415: Curse

\"Did that do it, I wonder?\"

Miura's lips curled into a smile as she watched the smoking scene. As the fumes dissipated and cleared, her smile faded and was replaced by a frown.

A shimmering water sphere had formed between me and the formation circle, the sturdy barrier protecting me from the crackling black lightning. Clicking her tongue, Miura raised her hand and drew another line of arcane script in the air. With a snap of her fingers, she launched a colossal beam of dark energy in my direction, but it splattered helplessly against the glowing water sphere.

\"What amazing defense,\" she admitted grudgingly.

At that moment, my Canis Minor pounced on her, but she almost casually cut them down with her scythe, and a glowing formation circle sprang to life beneath her feet, forming a defensive array that resembled fencing. Black spikes shot outward and impaled a few of the unlucky hunting hounds who weren't able to evade in time while forcing the rest back. Twirling her scythe about, she cast an annoyed glare at the retreating Canis Minor.

\"Could you not bother me? I'm trying to think of a way to deal with your master.\"

\"Uh huh.\"

I straightened myself as I prepared to leave the safety of my water sphere. Black Tortoise remained where he was, gathering another barrage of icicles to hurl at Miura. However her defensive array held strong, the black spikes surging upward to form a wall upon which the icicles shattered uselessly against.

\"Stalemate, huh?\" Miura sighed exaggeratedly as she waved her scythe around to slice through another wave of Canis Minor who threw themselves at her. Letting go with one hand, she used it to draw another line of runes. The illuminated scripture hovered in the air for a few seconds before turning into deadly beams of shadow that lanced out in all directions.

My Canis Minor all dispersed swiftly, scattering across the stage to avoid the deadly beams. Meanwhile, Black Tortoise and I were protected by a water sphere that held strong against the bombardment. Already I was preparing another arrow, but Miura quickly weaved another row of runic script together.

Not that I cared. Without any hesitation, I launched a second Alnasl in her direction, relying on my surviving Canis Minor to ensure that I wasn't tricked by her illusion spell. Miura didn't bother to evade – she knew that she couldn't get away in time – and instead used her fresh line of runes to augment the defense of her protective array.

Boom!

Alnasl struck the wall of black spikes with devastating effect, the flames washing over the crude shadow barrier and scorching the dark surface crimson. The first couple of defensive layers were incinerated immediately from the sheer power, but the wall otherwise held.

\"My turn,\" Miura smirked.

The wall of spikes split apart and she gathered a bunch of runes with her fingers before pointing at me. A colossal beam of shadow lanced toward me and slammed into the water sphere surrounding me with powerful impact. Beside me, Black Tortoise rocked from the massive amount of force that collided with his water sphere and a trail of blood leaked from his mouth.

However, other than that, the water sphere held. For now. Despite the raw strength of Miura's power, it still possessed nowhere near the penetrative power of Eliza's broadsword. To be fair, Eliza's strength was buffed by her Paladin's Blessing, so it was no wonder she could easily cleave through Black Tortoise's water sphere.

Unfortunately, Celestial Guardian or not, Black Tortoise wasn't going to be able to take much more of such punishment.

Miura didn't seem to notice – she was too far away, and unlike me, she didn't have glasses that possessed zoom-in features and optical enhancement arrays. In any case, she wasn't the brute force type, so even if she had she wouldn't do anything as inelegant as spamming powerful spells until she finally down poor Black Tortoise.

She was the type to scheme and look for other more graceful ways to overcome the current disadvantage. Already she was working on a new script. Try as I might, I couldn't decipher any of them, despite using my glasses' translation features. My lenses displayed \"unidentified language\" and refused to provide any translation.

Well, that was because the script wasn't so much a language than it was symbols of magic. I had not studied black magic, so I didn't know how it worked, but I knew that the dazzling number of different arrays and formations were typical of a black mage.

\"I still don't understand what this Diabolos thing is supposed to be,\" I muttered with a shake of my head. Even as she drew symbols in the air, Miura continued to scythe down my remaining Canis Minor, and I recalled the survivors before she could annihilate them. I would rather resummons them again later than to lose all of them now – while the deaths of my Constellation spirits were not permanent, it would take me at least a day or two to resurrect them inside my soul sea or whatever alternate space it was that my Constellation spirits dwelled in before I called them into reality.

Essentially I was no longer able to summon Vermillion Phoenix, Golden Kirin and White Tiger, at least for the rest of the day. Add Leo Minor, Leo, Canis Major and Cetus to that list while at it, along with a good number of Canis Minor.

That was fine. I still had a good number of Constellation spirits left. Obviously I didn't have enough mana to summon all 88 of them at once, never mind throwing in the five Celestial Guardians from Chinese astronomy. For the current me, it was impossible.

Miura was aware of that at least subconsciously, but she didn't care. She was presently only concerned with dealing the threats that were directly in front of her.

Such as Serpens. I had summoned the gargantuan serpent and unleashed him upon her. Hissing, my serpentine Constellation spirit now sported azure scales, and his breath billowed forth as cold fog, frost crystallizing in the air as he slid across the stage.

\"Serpens, Serpentis!\" I ordered. Rearing up, Serpens exhaled a gout of freezing breath that washed over Miura's position. She hopped back, almost in panic, conjuring a black sphere to protect herself. Moments later, she shattered the ice, but to my surprise she didn't unleash the script she had been drawing this entire time. Instead, she continued to trace the runes in the air with her fingers, creating more complex scripts.

I had a sudden premonition.

\"Serpens! Black Tortoise!\" I shouted, already issuing a mental order. They fired off an ice breath and a barrage of icicles respectively, only for Miura to defend herself with another barrier. She scowled and paused in the writing of her current script, instead developing a new script in parallel to the previous one. This one was completed much faster, and she launched black bolts at Serpens. The colossal Constellation spirit crawled to a stop, and blew the space around him with his freezing breath, constructing a wall of ice.

The black bolts slammed into the frozen fortress, cracking the ice and sending web-like fissures expanding rapidly across the surface, but was otherwise ineffective. Serpens demolished his crumbling ice wall himself and lunged forward, his fangs gleaming with freezing mana.

Miura parried his charge with her scythe, cursing under her breath as she was thrown back. Cartwheeling in midair, she thrust her scythe downward and plunged the wickedly curved blade into the ground, stabbing the concrete in an effort to arrest her momentum. The sharp weapon left a trail of broken rock as it screeched in protest, but eventually she succeeded.

That was when Serpens closed in on her, his jaws open wide as if to swallow her whole. Letting go of her scythe, Miura used both hands to compelte her script, and she tore half of it apart to throw it at Serpens. The huge Constellaltion spirit responded by stopping and unlashing another wave of freezing breath at her.

However, the script disappeared and instead a glowing circle formation materialized underneath Serpens's colossal body. The gigantic serpent glanced about and tried to freeze a barrier around him, but he couldn't protect himself from the magic enchantment coming from below.

\"Way of Destruction 90, Black Coffin!\" Miura declared calmly, flexing her fingers.

\"!!!\"

Before Serpens could react, a massive black cuboid appeared around him, entombing him inside a destructive space. Miura didn't even bother to look back at her handiwork, casually turning away and striding off.

After what seemed like eternity, the black cuboid faded away from existence, revealing a stunned Serpens. Blood spurted upward like volcanic geysers, amidst broken azure scales and shattered frost fragments. Then the colossal serpent toppled over motionlessly, his long, coiling figure dissipating into blue mana.

\"You've got to be kidding me…!\"

So this was black magic? The power of a Diabolos? Now I understood why they didn't just call Miura a black mage. Diabolos…that came from the Spanish word Diablo, which was translated as devil.

Miura was truly a demon…

\"Incredible…\"

\"How scary…skipping the incantation for a level 90s Way of Destruction spell, and yet still able to bring out that much destructive power?\"

\"No, it's a failure,\" Miura corrected with a smirk. \"I couldn't even bring out one-third of its original destructive power.\"

\"Stop lying!\" I yelled. \"I know you want to rip off Bleach, but this isn't the way to do it! There's no full incantation for the damned thing anyway! Not for your specific spell!\"

\"Ara, you caught me.\" Miura playfully held up both hands in mock surrender before she picked her scythe back up. She resumed the drawing of her script with one hand while hefting up her scythe with the other. \"I just like trolling people.\"

She then paused and stared at me, perplexed.

\"I didn't know you read Bleach too.\"

\"It was one of my favorite manga,\" I admitted. \"I feel sad that the series ended a few years ago, and the ending felt rushed. I knew the editors at Weekly Shounen Jump were pressuring Tite Kubo Sensei to end the series, but they should have let him finish it however he wanted, instead of forcing him to wrap it up in a couple of chapters. It was the last arc too!\"

\"He did drag Bleach out too long,\" Miura agreed, while using her scythe to conjure a bunch of shadow spikes to destroy the icicles that Black Tortoise had flung in her direction. She then vanished when my third arrow struck her barrier, the crimson flames sweeping across her territory. Stepping out of the inferno, smoldering but otherwise mostly unscathed, she swung her scythe and launched another barrage of shadow bolts in my direction.

Again, the projectiles dissipated harmlessly against the water sphere that Black Tortoise conjured. She scowled and shook her head in displeasure, and then unleashed another colossal beam. This time, I stood in front of Black Tortoise and conjured Scutum Sobiescianum. As I thought, the devastating spell ripped through my Constellation shield without much effort, hurtling past the shrapnel and debris to slam into the water sphere.

Fortunately, my Scutum Sobiescianum had absorbed most of the impact from the spell, and what remained dissipated harmlessly against Black Tortoise's water sphere without injuring him. I could sense my Celestial Guardian nodding his thanks toward me through our mental connection.

However, all of that was but a front for Miura to finish her script. Swinging her hand, she tossed the arcane symbols in my direction. They disappeared after moving a few centimeters away from her fingers, and suddenly a new circle formation appeared below Black Tortoise.

\"!!!\"

I was already jumping and rolling away, but the bulky Black Tortoise's movements were too clumsy and cumbersome for him to move out of the circle in time. I watched in horror as black symbols emerged from the magic circle to plaster themselves onto Black Tortoise's shell and skin.

\"…\"

For a moment, nothing happened. All that occurred was Black Tortoise's body being drawn all over by these strange, ethereal runes. I frowned, expecting an explosion or such, and already my Celestial Guardian was on top of things, enveloping himself in a water sphere to protect himself from black lightning or whatever.

\"It's useless.\"

Miura's voice was thoroughly amused. I glanced at her, still not comprehending what was going on, and she merely snapped her fingers.

\"This is a curse…I'm sure you know about curses, right? One of your teammates…the Demonic Spear, Craig Carlson, I believe? He's famous for using curses.\"

\"…yeah…\"

\"And you know what curses do, I presume?\"

\"What…?\"

I never got to finish my sentence. Black Tortoise wailed, an inhuman sound that sent chills running down my spine. Turning back to my Celestial Guardian, I saw him writhing as boils erupted all over his body. Agony shot through our psychic link and I dropped to my knees from the psychostigmatic feedback.

Black Tortoise was suffering horribly, internal injuries ripping through his innards from an insidious curse. Black tendrils of mana had seeped through the entirety of his body from the black symbols that currently marked his body, working their way into his organs and corrupting them.

There was no defense against it. This wasn't a physical attack or a direct offensive spell – a barrier wouldn't stop the curse from taking effect. Just like Craig's cursed spear, which reversed causality and effect, Miura's curse bypassed all sorts of defenses and directly occurred on the target's body itself, rather than strike from the outside.

Gritting my teeth, I dismissed Black Tortoise before his agony could be prolonged. Wiping the blood from my mouth, I turned to face Miura, who smirked.

\"Well, then,\" she said with a sinister smile. \"What other Soul Beasts do you have to throw against me, my dear?\"