Dance With the Nightingale - Chapter 31

Placing my hand, which was shivering in anticipation on the ground, I muttered.

“Initiate…”

Starting my finale.

Mana left my body at an astonishing rate, creating invisible waves of power that coursed through the ground, expanding outwards, before finally reaching the barrier.

Like all spells the wave stopped there, unable to breach it, but breaching the barrier wasn’t my intention anyways.

Instead, the Mana wave seeped into the barrier, travelling through it, as invisible runes making up the barrier got visible for a moment, before returning back to normal as the wave passed by them.

With each wave of my Mana the process repeated itself, as the barrier started humming, resonating with it, as my spell got to work.

Finally, the barrier revealed its structure in full.

Turning opaque, it’s walls transformed into a bright purple screen of light, that was etched with runes to the brim.

A complex structure made up of countless runes, so complex that a normal would get a headache just by looking at it.

And in that complex structure, something strange happened…

The runes started moving, leaving their positions, shuffling out of their trajectories.

Not all of them moved.

Most of them were still there, unmoved, relentlessly working, holding up the barrier.

But some of them, did move.

Leaving their intended trajectories without actually disturbing the barrier, they moved.

Closing up on me, before, the first rune climbed up my body, quite literally.

From the ground to up on my armor, it climbed up. Moving around frantically, but after a short instant, it found its rhythm and started moving in a specific manner.

After the first rune, second came, closely followed by third, and after that, was a veritable swarm of runes rushing up my body.

Starting from my hands to my legs.

Covering my whole body, drowning it in them.

The runes covered not just my armor, but all my body, wrapping me in layers of them, before the last of them finally arrived.

“Just give the permission.”

I whispered lightly.

And as soon as I finished, something clicked, causing the layers of runes wrapping around me to light up.

-BUZZZZBUZ

-VOOOMMM

They voomed, they buzzed, reverberating with power, as they shifted around me.

And then, in next instant, they dug into my body.

-URGHHHH!!!!

Instantly, a severe headache assaulted me, causing the veins on my forehead to bulge up. And not just my head, my whole body was experiencing an intolerable pressure.

The pressure being so intense, that for the first time my armor started overheating, failing to handle this amount of Mana and data.

The armor was simply wasn’t made for this.

But nonetheless, it held on.

And so, did I.

With gritted teeth, I processed all these runes, that were crawling on my skin like maggots, while also channeling the Mana that was required for my spell.

And believe me when I say, you don’t want to experience this, EVER!

My brain felt like it would explode, while my body was being crushed by the magical pressure of these runes. My nose started bleeding, my brain buzzing, and while it was faint, I still could hear the creaking of my bones.

Be it my physical or my mental faculties, both of them were beat, especially my mental faculties.

Thankfully, I was prepared.

As soon as I felt my limit approaching, I activated an artifact, [Sukan’s Spiritual Ring], which was actually a ring, one of the many things that I stocked in the last month, it was worn under my armor.

**

[Sukan’s Spiritual Ring]

Grade: A

Sukan’s cherished magical artifact that the Archmage carried with him even after his death.

Extracted from Sukan’s grave, the ring was affected by the Archmages’ final regret of not being able to reach the next level, giving it an hidden unknown effect.

Effects:

Active:

-When worn increases the wearer’s spiritual-strength by x1.9 for next 15 minutes.

(A/N: I mean processing power here.)

-???

Passive:

-Increases the wearer’s Mana capacity by 5%, along with increasing the Mana recovery by 5%.

Cooldown: 12 hours after a complete usage.

Note passive skills will be deactivated after a complete usage.

**

Activating the ring helped me a lot, giving me a moment of relief.

Of course, a moment was all it could give, because even with x1.9 boost, the process was still beyond me.

But that didn’t mean it was useless, rather it was damn useful.

I used that moment to adjust and prepare myself, before I started enduring again…

-ARGHHH!!!

…with another scream if pain.

But somehow, someway, I continued enduring with gnashed teeth.

And just when I felt like I really couldn’t continue anymore, just when my spirit body and soul were about the crack, just when my bones were about to break and just when I was about to faint.

I heard it.

-Crackle

An underwhelming crackle, with which, the process of spell initialization ended.

Thankfully, the process itself wasn’t too long.

From the start to end, it barely took a single minute, forget a minute, I’m sure I just endured for half a minute, after eliminating other things.

But in just that single half minute made me experience hell.

With the spell completed, I slumped on the ground, sprawling down on my back, as I looked at the still on-going explosion.

Yes, to my surprise, the explosion was still ongoing, thought it was mostly covered in smoke and died down a lot now.

Bloody fucker must have put atleast 90% of his power in this attack.

-Huuuuu

I sighed as I closed my eyes, and inspected my state.

All my bones, were broken.

Some of my organs, failed, many of mine blood vessels burst.

With me being in such a condition, even with my armor’s support, I couldn’t even move a finger, let alone stand.

Same was the condition of my mind. I couldn’t cast any new spells, I had abused it way too much today, for it to allow that…

And most importantly, my body was shivering.

But not because my condition.

But because of my thrill.

Because of what I could sense, because of what I could feel, because of what I could do.

Instead of thousand of runes running on my skin, right now, I had just a few of them that covered my hands and chest.

The runes kept moving though, the ones floating on my chest diving on the ground, while new runes kept replacing them, it was simple cycle.

And because of this spell, I sensed him.

A sneaky cockroach whose time had come.

“HOW Dare You SLEEP KiD!!”

The cockroach squealed, as he tried to sneak up on me, by using that stealth skill he had along with the smoke that provided him cover.

He slashed, with the same menacing greatsword that he held before.

But he stopped midway.

-Ding!

Of course, not because he wanted to.

But because, he couldn’t go any further.

The demon was still as majestic, still as scary, still as powerful as before.

But the image of him not being able to even scratch the purple screen between us was truly enjoyable.

Did the Earl save me?

No.

He didn’t.

This wasn’t the Magus.

It was me.

It was my spell.

My spell to highjack other spells.

Of course, due to difference in ranks I could do this only because the Earl allowed me to.

But even then, this barrier was now my spell.

Another purple screen appeared underneath me, and lifted me up just as I ordered.

I wanted to see this with my own eyes.

And honestly, it was funny.

Like a joker, the demon did a lot of things.

He slashed out with a lot of power, his arms swelled up twice their normal size while his greatsword was coated with reddish-black mana, probably one of his skills.

Then he lifted his tail as he fired some kind of black needle that contained extremely concentrated power of death, at me.

And when even that didn’t work, he split open his chest, his flesh moving back revealing a pulsating crystalline ball, his demonic core, as he fired a powerful black beam of light straight out from his core.

A thick truck sized beam, of powerful black light hit my barrier.

It was so powerful, that it almost reached the B- rank!

But that was it.

That was his finale, and it couldn’t do anything, his show ended there.

I knew that it did, by the look on his face as he stood there.

Suddenly, he felt…

…boring.

And, I didn’t need boring.

Especially, not an boring cockroach.

So, I decided to crush him…

…just like a cockroach.

Second method of killing a Demon Contractor.

Crush them so thoroughly, that there is nothing left to regenerate from.

Controlling the barrier with my mind, I did just that.

-BANG

-BANG

-BANG

From the walls of the barrier, two purple screens came out so fast, that the demon couldn’t react.

In an single instant, they crushed him between them three times, turning him into an meat paste, before he could even scream.

But of course, he was alive.

‘Not for long…’

I hummed, as I waited, waiting for him to be healed for a bit before continuing.

And as soon as his body structure got formed, he was suddenly thrown in air.

This time instead of flat screens, waiting for him were hundreds of pikes.

They pierced through his body, leaving it dangling in mid-air.

Supported only by the pikes that pierced through his body, I wanted to see this for a while, but…

‘There will be no break for you now!’

A pillar made up of purple light, came from the ground.

Pushing his body deeper on the pikes, and continued doing so, all the way, smashing his body on the sealing of the barrier.

Then, the pikes in his body changed shape, from pikes they turned into thin screens of light that-

-SLASH,

Slashed through his body like Swiss cheese.

His arms, legs, wings, tail, his everything, was separated from his torso, that now, only had his head attached to it.

But, of course, he wasn’t dead yet.

So, I continued.

Smashing his body again and again, beating him just like he beat me, until all I had left was slightly squirming meat paste that wriggled from time to time, on the ground.

-Huuuuuu

I inwardly sighed, because outwardly I couldn’t, my body was too broken for that.

I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be a bloody mess as soon as I deactivate my attribute infusion, but still…

‘That was enough payback.’

Thinking that, I made my last move.

It wasn’t something flashy, I just created a barrier that split up and transformed into hundreds of small cubes, each of them holding a small part of the meat paste, and then, raised the temperature inside it to 3000°C.

And that was it.

The black squirming flesh, got surrounded by a purple film, turning white in the next instant.

After a minute, I retracted the purple film, finding was nothing left there…

An anticlimactic end, I must say…

With that, I did one last scan.

Which confirmed that there was nothing of the vessel left, atleast nothing inside the barrier.

I relaxed, at the thought, at my victory.

Causing the spell to slip out of my control.

Instantly, the purple screen lifting me disappeared, causing my body to fall.

I closed my eyes, as I expected another wave of pain from the fall.

But before my body could touch the ground, it was caught.

Caught by a gentle power, that started healing me.

“You did well, Rayne.”

And with it came a gentle voice.

“Now rest.”

I knew the power, I knew the voice, so without bothering to open my eyes, as even that was taxing on my body…

….I fainted.