CHAPTER 109: | ESCAPE

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  Her world spun, and it felt like the end of her life.

  She felt the hopelessness that should only belong to the weak, and the currents pooling inside her pulled at her blood along with her last bit of rationale.

  It was fate that she would meet her end in this manner... she knew it, yet she found it profoundly unpleasant to be at the face of death.

  It was unfair that she, who lived an upright life, had met misfortune after misfortune just because she was a tad weaker than these so-called emperors.

  "This world is insane... it condemns me, the one who walked a path of righteousness... it betrayed my expectations, my faith in reality, until I am left alone in this mess..."

  Her gaze was not filled with madness, but with cold rationale and a disappointment too immense for one soul to carry.

  Then she closed her eyes calmly as the atmosphere around her dramatically shifted, becoming eerily peaceful, as if she had finally decided to let go of all her burdens.

  "I've carried the sacred duty... of a leader, leading my subordinates on the right path, but the world wouldn't just let me be... I've suffered misfortune after misfortune, but also I've found my hope..."

  Her voice stopped as the currents all around us settled into an eerie stillness.

  Her amethyst pupils narrowed, watching me, assessing the intent swirling within my body.

  A few seconds later, she nodded, having finished her assessment of my physical and magical capabilities with her eyes alone.

  She spread both her arms into an embrace, and the tendrils behind her followed suit, forming into a grotesque lotus formation, the very image of the Buddha seeking zen.

  Ten seconds passed before she waved her hand and pointed toward me.

  Tens of gigantic eyeballs rose from the platform below, formed from the tentacles I’d buried in the arena while restructuring the castle.

  They floated behind her while the tendrils behind her flickered in and out of reality, cutting through the waters like light itself.

  They moved at supersonic speed, hurtling toward me with the sole intent to riddle my form with holes.

  "Thousand Maidens Fist: Conjured Fist of the Thousands Maidens."

  With her words settling into the currents, the tendrils rushing at me completely stilled, then flickered in and out, reappearing back in reality in a different form.

  They had transformed into the hands of a thousand maidens, ready to end me with their fair hands.

  I was surrounded on all sides by hands performing thousands of connected techniques, like a handseal sequence used by cultivators.

  While it was an impressive technique on its own, know this, Amara, such a technique that doesn't move at a speed where I couldn't react is naught but futile against me.

  "THE SECOND ZEN OF DISTORTION: FALLEN AUTHORITY: EYE OF THE FALLEN."

  Thousands of eyeballs popped up on my skin, breaking through the primitive perception my own two eyes possessed.

  They peered through the unseen colors of the world, and what I saw wasn't merely something deeper in the world of intent, but something more intricate, just like what one could see upon becoming a being unbound by mortality.

  It was mentally taxing to use these techniques since the sensory details overloaded my mind, draining all my mental energy, then delving into the intents that composed the world and everything in it.

  Such a technique was difficult to execute and thus an annoying one, but undeniably useful.

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  I smiled, then clenched my fist.

  The ethereal gauntlet floating behind me disintegrated into motes of flame that then encased my hand with their latent mana, empowering their durability and strength fivefold.

  Still, this pitiful amount of strength wouldn't hold a candle to Amara’s, who had now regained her composure.

  Upon that realization, I had already figured out how to deal with her, since isn't it the duty of the smart ones to come up with a strategy?

  'If brute force won't work, then just punch it until it breaks apart?! Since it’s pretty much annoying to ponder on a plan for something this small, right?'

  Amara, floating above the sky and looking down at her opponent from up above, smiled, noticing that this arrogant man was now preparing for a large-scale attack.

  It was a calculated move for her.

  Amara had been waiting for that technique to be unleashed, the very movements that destroyed his son's powerful armaments in an instant.

  With a flick of her wrist, the eyeballs floating in the sky following her stilled for a moment, then circled around her abruptly while mana gathered at their center, charging them for a concentrated burst of energy.

  While her opponent was preparing countermeasures in the few seconds he had left before her attack, Amara, too, was preparing countermeasures against her opponent, just in case her initial attacks didn't work.

  Time seemed to stop as the two merely watched each other, preparing their own sets of movements.

  Then both smiled in understanding.

  Alister Von Fai, who was down below, smiled softly like he always does, then took a step.

  He flickered hundreds of meters with that single step, then took another, vanishing from reality itself.

  Amara, watching him move at an incredible speed, smiled as her pupils darted at an insane rate, pinpointing his trajectory.

  'Where would I go next if I were him?'

  She smiled, then extended her hand in front of her, pointing her index finger.

  The eyeballs that were accumulating mana for a large burst of energy snapped into motion, the colors of their pupils turning purple.

  Then, in the next second, the world flashed with purple as a beam of light struck a shadowy figure that seemed to be charging at her.

  Amara, watching as the figure disintegrated into dust, smirked at her victory.

  Then she pointed her hand toward the figures down below as the eyeballs snapped into action, glowing an incandescent purple before firing at them.

  Step!

  The sound of a step echoed, and Amara's face went extremely pale as she felt the aura of that arrogant man reappearing behind her back.

  'Impossible! This can't be possible?! How?! Just how could you be alive after taking that attack?'

  Amara screamed in her mind, but before she could fully turn her head or command her tendrils to block his attack, a sharp, acute pain had already pierced through her neck.

  Blood flooded her respiratory system as her throat was impaled by an incandescent purple spear burning with intense heat that sought to incinerate her.

  "THE FIRST ZEN OF DISTORTION: VALKYRIE STYLE: SPEAR OF THE HIGH HEAVENS."

  His ever-arrogant words soon followed as the ridiculously named technique echoed through the air hundreds of meters away from them.

  Amara, who only now fully registered the pain, clenched her teeth until her gums bled.

  She reached out for the tip of the spear protruding from her neck in a desperate attempt to minimize the damage, even though she knew it would burn her hands.

  Thwack!

  Pain flared through her rear before she could reach for the tip of the spear in an attempt to remove it.

  Then she saw him appear in front of her with wings screaming with holiness protruding from his back.

  He vanished in an instant, only to reappear meters away from her, then vanish yet again from a single step.

  Step!

  The world stilled in Amara's point of view as she saw him vanish from her sight in an instant.

  Then pain struck her nerves as her stomach, which was already riddled with a hole, was pressured by the impact of a single thrust of his fist, sending her already-messed-up insides spiraling into a greater catastrophe.

  Step!

  Then he vanished like a ghost again from a single step as pain flared through her chin.

  All she could see was her bloodied nose bleeding and the shadow of his leg striking her chin, then her neck, yanking out the spear impaling her throat before his unforgiving foot struck her nether regions, sending her cringing from the pain as he then vanished like a ghost.

  Step!

  With another step he took, Amara's nervousness could be seen on her face as she saw the shadow of his foot about to strike her nether regions again.

  Amara clenched her teeth as tens of tendrils formed into a shield to block his kick.

  But as soon as his foot struck the tentacles, he moved it without losing momentum, shifting its trajectory into the hole of her stomach.

  Then, with a powerful blow, he sent her insides spilling out into the open air, her intestines flying across the currents grotesquely.

  It was a powerful blow, but it didn't end there.

  He connected his kicks with his fist, unleashing a flurry of connected strikes at Amara, whose desperation grew with his every blow.

  She knew it was dirty, yet it was an effective method to exploit an opponent's weaknesses with superior speed.

  Still, she felt wronged by this exchange, at the pain she felt from her nether region being axed by his knee, of her intestine being ripped out inside of her, of how dirty his movements were.

  But there was nothing she could do in this situation.

  She was powerless.

  She couldn't escape from this situation...

  'Wait, escape! That’s right, I can escape from this gruesome hell! At the cost of abandoning Lumicor here...'

  Whoosh!

  Amara pondered for a bit more, then shook her head as she saw his foot about to strike her nether regions again.

  She glanced at Lumicor, who was knocked out cold, now held captive by a golem.

  She smiled since she could already guess that Lumicor was safe for now.

  Then she waved her hand as a magic circle appeared below her.

  It shone violently as she shouted.

  "Greater Teleportation spell. Activate!"