Chapter 323 - 323: Searching for The Holy Beats of Earth, Tyrant Ant Drant part 9

"Light and Steel magic: Holy shield. Protect us all" [Aries]

Taking her shield and pouring all her might into it, Mother Aries begin not only to bash her imitator, but also

"Neutral magic: Provocation!" [Aries]

She also let out a taunting magic, one for which the target is her and her only. Normally, it wouldn't work much against a smart and intelligent creature, but somehow, the imitator felt for it. Maybe it has something to do with the imitator pride, trying to prove that she is stronger than the original one. Make sense. It's less effective against smart creature, the provocation magic, but that doesn't mean it will not work. Plus, as someone that played a pivotal role during the succession war, I guess her provocation magic must be at it max, most probably because she keeps on using it during the war to draw enemies attention towards herself

The imitator keeps on thrusting her lance, relentlessly, without any sign of stopping, and even under the constant barrage of lance attack, couple with her devilish miasma trying to pierce the shield and torn it apart, Mother Aries still standing strong. Like an immovable wall.

"This is our chance! Everyone! Attack with everything you have got!" [Rean]

At Rean's command, we do just that. While Mother Aries take the blow for us, we attack.

"Ice and mirage magic: Mirage mist" [Savel]

At Savel command, a thin mirage mist surround the imitator, causing the imitator to slowly but surely

"Lance thrust! Lance thrust! Lance thrust!" [Aries]

It's working! The loud metal banging of lance clashing with shield becoming louder and louder. It's clear that her attack prowess increase, but at the cost of her sanity. She's slowly going berserk, losing more focus toward us

"Whirlpool" [Charlotte]

"Fire magic: boil" [Elise]

Since she went into a berserk state, this is our best chance to further inflict damages to her. Combining my whirlpool magic with Elise's fire magic, the whirlpool becoming hotter, causing scald damage to the imitator. The devilish miasma tried to fend it off, however

"Try and take this!" [Zerolith]

Zerolith spread out his mana. Apart from his usual bullet barrage, he copied out one of the S rank adventure, Kucin's technique when she undergoes her evolved beastly transformation

"Dark mana zone: Devil explosion" [Zerolith]

A zone made out of Zerolith own dark mana surround the imitator. While Kucin's technique produce little kittens made out of her dark mana, this one produce caricature of a devil that one would always find in children drawing. Nonetheless, the two function remain the same and that is

~Explosion~

Countless mini explosion trying to disperse the devilish miasma. The devilish miasma tries to cover the imitator, spreading out nice and evenly, even trying to stomp the ground to disperse the spell, but alas

"It's working!" [Mara]

"Keep it up...!" [Kara]

We forgot, being a homunculus, that mean that she can simply absorb the mana surrounding her and use it back to her advantage. Mahsuri rarely, if not, never done it since, well, someone as powerful as she is never need to. The only time I remember she done that was to help Brother Ash and Mr Filvisar back then. Lara and Nara however, made it their point to use that power of a homunculus to their advantage, but there is a trick or two to circ.u.mvent around it

"Exploding earth needle!" [Karon]

As the imitator tried and to absorb the mana, Karon quickly make his spell to immaturely explode

"Tchh!" [Imitator]

Having fought with the twin multiple of times during our sparring session, we understand that, they might be able to absorb the mana from the spell, but once the spell is activated, there is no way for them to absorb the aftermath of the spell, which in this case, the explosion. Not only that

"Plant magic: Poisonous arrows" [Farhah]

The same can be said regarding status ailments. Of course, the resulting power will be decrease, but some damage are better than zero damage after all

Getting more and more pissed off, the Imitator uses the devilish miasma and make an armour of darkness for her. The armour look imitating, and fair enough

~Crack~

"!" [Aries]

A single lance thrust manage to put a crack into Mother Aries favourite shield, and the second one

"Ice wall!" [Charlotte]

"Thank you" [Aries]

The second one penetrate a small area of the shield, almost stabbing Mother Aries right in her head, but

"Neutral magic: Provocation!" [Aries]

"What are you doing!" [Singa]

"Please! No more! We will..." [Kara]

Kara suddenly stop. As if she get the feeling what Mother Aries will do, and thus continue to support her by healing her through long range healing spell.

Mara also did the same. Taking out her custom made javelin that Karon made for her, she begins charging it with her storm magic and ready to take aim

The rest of us just go along, knowing that Mother Aries really is up to something, so we continue our assault, even when

"Grrhh... Neutral magic: Provocation" [Aries]

Even when her stomach is being pierce, she keeps on going, and just when the imitator lance thrust about to connect, she swiftly evade the attack, and readied her shield to attack her.

"I'll give you a boost! Attack up!" [Elise]

"Counteract! Multiplies!" [Aries]

All the damage she sustain, she transferred it back to her imitator, and by several folds. As the imitator get caught off guard by it (even though she really suppose to see it coming, given how she's modelled after Mother Aries), the devilish armor crack, and expose the magic core of the imitator

"Take this!" [Mara]

Throwing the storm javelin with all her strength, the imitator tried to block it off, but

"Dark hell slash" [Rean]

"Raging torrent!" [Charlotte]

Rean slashing through the imitator shield with all his might, and me shattering the lance with high pressure water

Even then, the devilish miasma still try to protect her, as it change the direction of the javelin storm

""Futile"" [Mara, Karon]

Since the javelin is a product of Karon's racial magic, it tracks the target, and thus

~Shatter~

The javelin of storm pierce the magic core of the imitato