Chapter 951: A Threeway Battle
Chapter 951: A Threeway Battle
Lydia stood in the hallway way in front of Eris's door, she didn't move an inch, her blade stabbed into the wooden floor as her divine magic gushed forth and engulfed the room behind her. Her eyes were closed, it's been more than a couple of hours since she stood guard, not moving a muscle.
At the edge of the city, Alaric Lupin stood up perching on a tree, his stance only lasted for a second as he located Eris using the remanet traces of Lunara's magic, to a demon lord, such a feat was trivial. "A church? Huh... damnable sun." He looked back, Lunara was already on his trail, Arad's body was fast, far faster than her, but she still won't take more than seconds to catch up. He must hurry.
He jumped, landing on the city's walls with a single leap. The guards who stood there saw him towering over them, casting a shadow as large as the mountains. Before they could scream, their heads were already divorced from their bodies, rolling on the cold stone.
Using what remained of Lunara's magic as a guiding beacon, Alaric aimed his aura straight toward Eris, trying to overwhelm her soul and curse her into lycanthropy as he did the cultists. His magic surged and he could feel the heat rushing across his veins, his curse sparked, flying toward Eris at lightning speed.
But, suddenly and out of nowhere, he could see a massive titan standing before him. A blond woman with short hair clads in steel armor, holding her sword down. He didn't even match her toes in highest as she opened her golden eyes and glared down at him, "Begone! Vermin!" She lifted her sword, the sun burning behind her. As she swung down, his curse was obliterated as he fell to his knees, gasping.
"The fuck was that?" The iron will he faced, the burning divine magic and the blazing sun. There was no mistaking it, a paladin, and one as powerful as the ones who fought in the ancient wars. He lunged with a single leap, shattering the massive walls as he landed in the church's garden. He immediately bounced up, entering through the window of the hallway. Even if a paladin had an iron will, their bodies are still that of mortals and would break with a single claw strike from him. His eyes immediately landed on Lydia who was standing before Eris's door. She opened her eyes and glared at him with a raging glare.
"Vermin!" She growled, pulling her sword out of the floor.
"Goddess's Bitch!" He cursed, lunging at her with a blinding fast swing. In the blink of an eye, he was standing on the other side of the hallway, and Lydia seems to have moved from her place. A bit of her hair fell as Alaric glared back at her. "Survived by luck."
"So, wounds don't wake you up, Arad." Lydia said and Alaric noticed the blood on his arm, the one he tried to claw Lydia's neck with was struck on the forearm.
Alaric giggled, "So you're not just all divine magic." He licked the wound on his arm and it healed in an instant. This fight should have been fun, but sadly he wasn't looking for that, he wanted to kill Eris. To get to her, he must kill Lydia first as her magic is locking the room.
"By my oath of protection, you shall not harm the one behind me. By my oath of vengeance, I shall take revenge for Arad's violated body, and by my oath of balance, demons belong to the abyss. Begone! Vermin." He was right, she didn't have a single oath, but a whole three of them. Not even in the past one thousand years had he heard of a three-oathed paladin.
BAM! She jumped forth at a blinding speed, swinging her sword at Alaric's face. He blocked by engulfing his arms in demonic bones akin to spikes, but he still got blasted out of the church. The nuns inside the church's main chamber heard the window break at first, followed by the large explosion and the violent shaking caused by Lydia's attack. They held to the wooden benches in bewilderment and only understood the situation when they saw Lydia land in the backyard chasing after a werewolf oozing with demonic magic.
Mundane demons and cursed beings usually die the moment they step into a blessed church, burned by the divine magic surging across its holy walls, yet for such a monster to survive that and still move well enough to contend with Lydia, was unheard of. Everyone immediately guessed it, that demon can't be normal, a demonic general at least, at worst, a demon lord. Lydia too was well aware of this fact and thus didn't hold any punches. Especially since this demonic magic doesn't match the one that she was expecting.
light reflected from the church's windows, the moon stood majestically on the dazzling blue sky. Lunara fell from the heavens with a drop kick straight toward Alaric's head.
Alaric dodged her attack; his time was over now that Lunara had caught up to him. "Another prey for dinner." He swung his claw at her and she blocked with her sword, deflecting the attack down as she swung up a powerful kick.
As the two were in the middle of clashing, they froze in place as they sensed an ominous presence towering over them. No matter how beautiful and majestic the moon was, it never amounts to the glory of the dazzling star dominating the sky.
Lunara and Alaric barely dodged her swing, and just by feeling the sheer presence of divinity, both of them swung at her in their next attack. They were the first to ever realize why is this paladin so powerful, it was too simple, but in that simplicity came power.
Lydia was a fanatic, a woman that nothing exists in her mind beside Amaterasu's beliefs and doctrine. She had measured everything in her life to match that and followed it to the best possible human capabilities.
Paladins are the god's weapons against evil in the mortal world, and Lydia was nothing more than a sword, a divine blade held in Amaterasu's hand, dripping with her divine power.
Lydia blocked Lunara's kick with her forearm and Alaric's claw with her sword, standing between them with a darkened face, only her eyes burned like a blazing sun.
As she swung her sword in a circle around her body, a blast sent the two-demon lord flying outside the city. None of them doubted that Lydia had held back on that divine smite, her goal was only to get them out of the populated city.
As the two demon lords flew out of the city, their bodies smoking from the divine magic. Lunara was busy thinking of a way to convince Lydia she wasn't an enemy but it was nearly impossible to reach an understanding with a hard-headed religious zealot like Lydia. Alaric on the other hand looked around for a way to escape and buy some time.
Even with Doma being a queen of curses, Alaric was still the origin of the lycanthropy curse and his mastery over it was unmatched. By evading damage and trying to always be one step ahead of Doma, he's managing to stay stable by a hair strand. He must run back and kill Eris; he has to find such an opening to win. But if he got hit with a single solid hit, he'd lose control over Arad's body.
Lydia's body flew out of the dust storm in the church's backyard like a log, standing upright, reaching the two terrified demon lords in a split second. To them she seemed as titanic as the mountains, her right eye replacing the sun as she growled at them.
"You leave Arad's body at once, and you'll pay for touching Eris with your life." Lydia's voice shook the air, crackling like thunder on their ears. They couldn't help but sense Amaterasu's presence from her, and the goddess was indeed watching down from the bright sun with an amused smile, dangling her legs down as she tried to test and see how much divine magic she could pump through Lydia's body.
[What do you say? Angels?] Amaterasu said with a smug grin, and the legions, the thousands of angels prostrating themselves behind her all answered at the same time, "About what?" [Giving her a higher rank. If I restrained my power only to this world's sun, then Lydia can withstand the output of one of my fingers.] She lifted her index finger, her nail burning with
divine magic.
Each star in the sky was a sun dominating its world, and Amaterasu represented the combined power of those countless suns, all burning inside her divine essence. The same way she can use all of that power, she can restrain herself to just one of them. Lydia could withstand the output of one of Amaterasu's fingers, which means Lydia could withstand 1/20 of the power of the sun in divine magic thanks to her faith.
Lydia's only limiter now is her mortal and fragile human body, even with the extreme healing magic induced by the rushing divine power in her veins, she could only withstand so much
before breaking.
[What do you say? Shall I resurrect her as an angel if she is to die in battle?] Amaterasu said
with a giggle.
"That won't help in death." One of the highest-ranking angels spoke, "I plead against such a decision, she shouldn't get ranked to an angel. It's just a waste of your divine power. We already have enough angels."
[I said resurrect her; she'll be an angel in the mortal world.] With Amaterasu's words, all of the angels gasped. "Won't the overgod get mad at such a thing?"
[I can convince him to let me do, he always let me play around.] She giggled, looking down, [The fight is reaching a critical point.]
[Elemental Expansion] Alaric crossed his arms. A release can only be used in a demon's true
body, not a possessed one.
[Elemental Expansion] Lunara pulled her sword. She's already too weakened to use her release again, so she has to resort to her expansion.
[Divine Expansion] Lydia lifted her sword before her face, standing beneath the glorious red
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