Dance with the Nightingale-Chapter 85 - 80: The Atlas’s Blessing.

[Rayne’s POV]

It was a coincidence.

A really strange coincidence.

Just like always, I activated [Split Second] as we blasted off with [Acceleration], to keep myself in control.

It was then that a random thought came into my mind, ’What if whatever happened drives the Baron mad and makes him use some ultra-powerful attacks?’

So, just to make sure that wasn’t the case I activated another skill, [Mana Reading], to keep myself out of crossfire.

And that was when I noticed something strange.

Mana was moving under the Atlas’s trunk.

Was it strange?

No.

Normally, a huge amount of mana travels through the Atlas’s trunk, something that I noticed the very first day I came here. It was like the tree was a massive being of it’s own, it was as if it was alive.

But it was different this time. It wasn’t Atlas’s mana moving, rather a foreign mana signature was moving within its trunk.

’What the hell? Am I really that lucky?’, I thought, as it was obvious what that moving mana signature was.

It was the intruder!

My sword appeared in my hand, as I slowed down a little and infused it with different elements.

"Wait! What are you doing!?"

Ignoring Mark, whom I was kind of towing, I recreated a downgraded version of the finale of my first magical test.

Then with [Attribute Infusion], I made the sword a part of my body as it glowed purple, before throwing it with all my might, not forgetting to add the Accelerations in the throw, of course.

-BOOOMMMM!!!!

With a mighty sonic boom, the sword tore through the air, aiming straight for the intruder lurking beneath Atlas’s trunk.

Noting the fact that all this happened in under three seconds, the intruder was caught unprepared. Unable to dodge, unable to hide, the sword hit the blotch of foreign mana head-on!

The solid bark of the ancient tree crumbled, overwhelmed by physical force of the attack, making way for the magical attack to ravage the intruders.

And that it did, a sphere of multicolored light engulfed that part of the Atlas’s trunk, obliterating everything that stood in its path.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?", Mark shouted, but I wasn’t having any of it.

"Detach yourself if you don’t want to get hurt.", I simply said, before I dived into the still raging spell of mine.

Even with all his anger and the booms around me, Mark heard me, or I think he did. Cause he did detach himself from me just before I jumped into the sphere, which was now fading away...

With [Mana Reading] activated the whole time, I could see that the place I was about to land on was rigged, but I wanted to see what kind of trap it was, so I didn’t change my path.

And just as I expected, vines erupted from the ground, as they tried to trap me. More or less expecting this, I used the emerald barrier to stop them from binding me, before I called back my sword.

It was buried deep inside a tree trunk, but as it was a part of my body, I could still call it back.

Then just as the sword was about to reach me, I expanded the emerald barrier, using it as a force field to push back the vines. Catching my sword, I activated its enchantments before swinging in a wide circle, cutting all the vines attacking me.

During this quick exchange, I confirmed that there were no more hidden enemies, so I decided to not drag this any further.

[Acceleration]

Using an acceleration, I jumped up and stabbed straight into a specific piece charred wood.

"Ahh!!!"

Hearing a muffled scream, I was pretty much convinced that my target was there, before my sword glowed red and I launched another fire based attack from it, at point range.

Was it cruel?

Yes, it was.

But you know what was crueler?

Blowing a whole district, that already killed tens was much crueler. Not to mention, almost blowing up half of the upper city, that would kill hundreds, while paralyzing the whole city.

This content is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

And no, I wasn’t angry. I was just shown what these guys would and could do if left alone.

So, I was just clear on the fact that they needed to be eliminated.

The attack exploded more of the tree trunk, finally revealing one of the culprits behind the incident. A pale-faced girl, with slight eastern features and dirty blond hair which were tied in a single ponytail.

The girl was clad in a black armor and was already escaping as I found her, half of her body already vanishing in the charred wood.

Of course, I wasn’t about let her do as she pleased.

Before she could escape, I threw an explosion talisman on the tree trunk she was trying to escape into, blowing it right in front of her face.

Then while the girl was still off balance, I used a strong current of wind to bring her close to me. It was short window of time between the wind bringing her to me, but in that time the girl had already shaken off the explosion.

This, and considering that she still didn’t have any major wounds despite taking a lot of my attacks, I concluded that she was atleast a C- rank.

The news removed all the inhibitions I had; cause I knew I couldn’t accidently kill a C ranked magic user.

So, I stopped holding back.

[Split Second]

A single second split into tens, as I activated numerous spells, [Enchantment Reading] and [Decryption] to read and guess the things her artifacts could do. Finding that they were mostly illusion and stealth oriented, with a few hidden weapons, making her role quite obvious.

But all that farce was useless against my [Mana Reading], so I didn’t worry about them much, and just noted that I might have hidden weapons thrown at me.

When that was done, I activated [Enchantment Enhancement] and [Temporary Enchant] to increase the power of my armor and its enchantments, not Overloading them as I still didn’t have any means to repair my equipment.

Then, there was no more time, we clashed.

First came the hidden weapons. Made of energy, each possessed considerable penetrating power that would have stinged quite a lot if taken head on, and it looked like they were poisoned.

But they were called hidden weapons for a reason, without the element of surprise they lost their lethality.

So while facing them, I did the obvious, and dodged. Quite easily, since I kind-of knew they were coming.

Then, I slashed at girl who was like a trapped lamb.

But as a C rank magic user, of course she wasn’t a ’lamb’.

Using minor affinity of wind she had, the girl changed her direction at the last second. Landing a few meters off mark that made her dodge my slash and make a move of her own.

Just as her legs touched the Atlas, vines erupted from it. This time thicker and darker in color, clearly imbued with demonic power, but to both of our surprise, the Atlas who was unmoving and unshaking, the ancient impervious tree who had braved various centuries and wars, suddenly intervened!

The whole tree glowed with light, showing its majesty as the tree that touched the heavens. The tree suddenly awoke with power! Aura of light, life and holy leaking out of it, making it look divine.

And then, the divine tree acted. The branches that had demonic power imbued in them suddenly shook and shriveled, as if something was destroying them from within.

As if the light was destroying them from within.

The charred wood, the broken splinters, the broken tree suddenly all of them stopped burning, light permeating through them as they visibly healed back.

The tree, the Atlas, it was awake and it was healing itself back!

Suddenly, I felt light, I felt fresh as if someone healed me. And when I looked at myself, I saw light strings flowing through my body, making it obvious who did. The tree, it was healing me, curing me, taking off all my fatigue.

But then…

"Ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!"

…I heard a scream, the girl’s scream. A scream filled with great pain, and as I looked at her legs that had golden streams of energy filling them.

I knew what happened.

Someone’s blessing was someone’s curse. And Atlas’s blessing was her curse.

The holy light it feed me with was the bane of demonic energy, and by having that said energy in her body... Let’s just say the tree was purifying her in the most painful and horrific way.

It took a second to process this all for me, and I commend myself that it only took a second, cause the girl I was fighting was still screaming in pain.

Knowing it was the best chance I would ever get, I ran to grab her.

Why?

Cause I wanted to throw her out of the tree. Of course, not to save her, but to capture her.

With what I saw it didn’t take much to guess that trees were her domain, so with such a giant tree beneath her feet, it was obvious it was her home ground.

Why would I give her the home ground advantage?

Yes, the tree was purifying her demonic energy but how long would it last? And would the girl even be alive when all her demonic energy was ’purified’?

I didn’t know, so I didn’t give her the chance. Neither to escape nor to die.

So, I after using an purifying talisman to give my sword a purifying property, I stabbed the girl who was hysterically screaming with my sword, and threw her out.

Of course, I followed by jumping out myself, screaming, "MARKKK! Capture that girl, she is one of the culprits!"

I knew he was nearby, I saw his mana signature with [Mana Reading]. With his chivalrous nature and the information I just announced, there was no doubt he would come and catch us.

And I was right, he did come, and he did save. Just a few meters above the ground, he did the saving.

The only thing I was wrong about, was ’us’.

Huh? Did I crash miserably on ground?

Of course not!

...I somehow managed to land...face first...