Chapter 208 Another Mastermind?

Mana circuits.

The complex construct that serves as a bridge between the physical and spiritual for mortal beings. It exists both as physical and ethereal, never fully the other. A means that allows certain beings to perceive the spiritual and an integral factor to the manipulation of the spiritual energy in the world.

The mana circuits were also a manifestation of a soul. For this reason, every single mana circuit was different in its own unique way. That was why there were people with different attributes and so many different branches of magic in the world.

The mana circuit was flexible to a certain extent. If this extent is crossed, it results in the mana circuit collapsing and the soul of the body either being destroyed or forcefully removed. This left a soulless body that could remain immobile or act on simple instinct, basically a mindless beast that would eventually die. The time of death ranges, depending on the body.

There were multiple ways to alter the mana circuits. There were physical means such as hitting the points on the body where some veins of the mana circuits were present. There were spiritual means such as filling up the circuits with spiritual energy.

Currently, what Hinotori was doing was having her mana circuits being filled up with massive amounts of energy all while trying to stabilise the release from the pillars to an appropriate amount that wouldn’t cause the dome to collapse as well as releasing the excess to the environment as aura to keep her physical body protected in case of failure.

The issue with this was the fact that there were 25 pillars currently, all of them releasing erratic volumes of power and that didn’t match up, causing the various levels to fight against each other. Accepting such random levels of energy was potent to the mana circuit.

Were this to be a normal person, they would have died the moment they opened their mana circuits to the pillars. However, Hinotori’s mana circuit’s flexibility was insanely high as well. The random influx was simply pulling her mana circuits wider rather than causing any harm.

Of course, the process to this was extremely painful, one of the reasons most people weren’t able to reach the highest peaks of power in the magical world. Luckily for Hinotori, she didn’t suffer nearly as much as most people did when getting stronger due to the protective barrier known as The System that was set up by the System Master Alpha.

Her unique skill [Evolver] was unable to interfere this time, due to the issue being completely spiritual this time.

‘Woah.’

‘What is this?’

‘F-feels really good.’

‘Right? I expected this to be painful, but it’s not.’

‘Oh? What’s this?’

To Hinotori, her surroundings has simply turned white. And in this white, there were multiple orbs of different colours floating about. Some moving in groups, some moving alone and some just bouncing off of one another.

<<Mana Particles>>

Her skill [God’s Wisdom] responded.

‘Huh? Mana particles?’

She asked in disbelief. Of course, she wouldn’t believe such a thing so easily. Mana particles were basically the embodiment of magical attributes. If one could see them directly, didn’t that make them simply too strong?

Hinotori reached out to touch one of them. It was a bright orange orb that looked no bigger than a tiny bead. The moment she touched it, the orb burnt even brighter before being shot away.

In her eyes, it was simply the orb being shot away. What others could see was possibly the largest flame that the ocean would ever see, being half as large as the city in the dome. A pale blue flame that would have turned anything it touched into ash.

‘That felt weirdly exciting.’

She thought and looked at her hand.

‘Progress on the pillars?’

<<63%... 75%... 81%... 88%... 93%... 100%... energy rectification complete.>>

‘That quickly?’

<<Yes. I have also disconnected your mana circuit from the ley lines.>>

Once that happened, Hinotori’s vision slowly left the white world. The orbs all disappeared, till all she could see was the blue of the deep-sea waters through a translucent veil that was the aura she was constantly releasing.

‘Woah. Is this the aura from the energy the pillars gave me?’

She looked at it, trying to see the edge of the aura, but from her perspective, it was endless. From an objective point of view, it was a massive aura in the shape of a bird.

With the aura, she felt strong enough to be able to match Minerva or even overwhelm her in a fight now. And this was the truth. If she were ever to fight the Minerva she knew, she would completely demolish her, but she couldn’t store this aura forever.

‘Aww, cause it’s aura I’ll have to give it up.’

The aura seeped out into the area slowly. Eventually, it was spread far and wide, causing any dangerous monsters to stay even further way from Atlantis. It would leave the impression that this was a strong monster’s new nest. The only issue with this would be attracting monsters of equivalent power that wanted to be the only strongest.

For instance, there were currently creatures in the Deep and Bloody seas that had sensed this aura and were getting riled up. There was even a beast in the dome that was getting excited by the dangerous aura atop the dome. It now had more of a reason to finish its fight faster.

The creature’s own pitch-black aura erupted, alerting Hinotori to its rampage.

***

‘Oi, is that Daxia?’

‘Looks like it. That black energy is definitely chaos energy.’

‘What’s she doing here? Isn’t she supposed to be fighting the Exsuole Empire?’

‘A-And w-who is she f-fighting?’

‘Uuh, that looks like… the prince?’

‘Daxia will kill him.’

‘That’s like… waging war on a country, isn’t it?’

‘What do you guys say we should do about that?’

‘Yeah, let’s go flex our new power on Daxia.’

‘Uuuhh…’

‘P-Probably not a g-good idea.’

Hyakun and Akkun were against us doing it. Akira and I on the other hand were ready to finally have the upper hand against her.

Faster than I’d ever been able to move, I moved down in between both of them. The prince was moving slowly in my eyes, but Daxia was moving unbelievably fast, scaring me to hell and back.

I decided that I would simply stop both of their attacks, but knowing Daxia, I used all of my defensive skills just in case. It wasn’t like I was scared or anything.

I spread my arms to block both attacks; Nanek with his spear and Daxia with her claws.

It all happened in an instant and the clash of my aura with Daxia’s black chaos energy and Nanek’s red aura created a weird disturbing explosion of black, red and purple, forcing me to wince.

When I opened my eyes, I saw blood floating to my side, followed by an arm.

‘Uuuuuhhh!’

‘Y-You see? W-We told you!’

‘S-Seriously? Again?’

‘My arm!’

Daxia had cleanly cleaved my left arm off whereas Nanek managed to make my right arm numb.

“Hinotori?”

Daxia sounded surprised, but smiled upon recognising me.

‘Daxia! My arm! This shouldn’t become a thing.’

“Hinotori!”

She grabbed me in her palms and all the immense power I felt was sucked up, returning me to my normal level. The seemingly godly power leaving my body filled me up with a weird tiny bit of depression. I didn’t know how to describe it. Maybe like I was on the verge of getting addicted?

“You lied to me! There was no army waiting for us. I waited a whole day and there was nothing there.”

I could see a tear of disappointment forming. She really was an annoying child. My mind was simply going on thinking about my arm that was going away.

“Oi! Are you listening to me? Where is the fight I was promised? Give it to me!”

‘Not now, Daxia. Can you pass me my arm?’

“Hmm? This?”

She reached out for it and passed it to me. I grabbed it with my still shaking arm and used [Slime Body] on it, and forcefully reattached it to my shoulder. With [Auto Health Regeneration], the arm was fixed back, clean as new.

I moved it around a bit to make sure.

‘Ok, my arm is better. Now for the problem at hand.’

“You lying to me?”

‘No. I didn’t lie to you. The princess did, but that’s not even the problem here.’

“Eh? What’s more important than me getting to fight?”

‘The person who made the pillar men do all of this. The true mastermind of today’s fiasco.’

I pried open Daxia’s hands and swam towards the person to cause all of this. Everyone was stuck in place, probably still stunned by the rapidity at which everything was happening. Even if they weren’t, they wouldn’t have been able to see me move and stop me.

In front of the person, I pointed my finger.

‘It took me a while of thinking, but after much deliberation and once I saw that, I knew it had to be you. It all makes sense when it’s you and now your status confirms it all.’

“S-Seriously?”

“C-Chicken? You can’t be real right now.”

“How dare you?”

“My fight…”

<A/N: LOL, Daxia. XD. Please give me your power stones, reviews, comments and golden tickets! 50 reviews this month!

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