A few minutes earlier

The Green twisted his body into the space between the two scythes, narrowly evading the spinning blades. Still, the last-second manoeuvre left him in an awkward orientation, forcing him to eat several throwing stars right to his soul. He landed on the grass with a muted thud, spasming in pain.

As much as Percy wanted to follow up with a finisher, the guy’s teammate had already launched a few wind blades at him, each cutting shrilly through the air.

Percy barely managed to avoid most of them, though one still hooked around his leg, making a crisp ting against his armour. The good news was that the reinforced construct held, the hardness runes ensuring the attack left little more than a shallow scratch on the legguard. A scratch that was already closing as the self-repair enchantment devoured part of the Shroud.

‘Wow. I guess the two spells complement each other nicely.’

He hadn’t really planned for this. The Shroud enveloped his body out of necessity, as the mana gushed out of his pores faster than he could use it. It tightly wrapped around his armour like a strip of cloth, since that was simply the best way to keep it from dissipating until he shaped it into an attack. Luckily, the runes seemed to benefit from the abundance of mana in the meantime. Overall, it did give his armour an almost regal appearance. Percy currently looked like a magical knight cloaked in an eerie fog. Or, well… he would have – if his mana was visible.

That said, the force on his leg still tripped him, bringing him down to one knee. By then, the first mage had stood up again, supporting his teammate with some wind crescents of his own.

‘So, they both have an air affinity…’ Percy realised, rolling out of the way.

It wasn’t the best possible matchup for him – their high mobility would make landing his spells a pain. Not the worst either though. At least, their attacks didn’t pack as much of a punch as fire or lightning magic might. Getting through his armour wouldn’t be that easy for them either.

Percy ignored the crescents, not even glancing at them as they dug deep grooves through the soil where he previously stood. Instead, he hurled his third scythe at the first opponent. The guy struggled to conceal his pained expression, still suffering from soul damage. At the same time, Percy called the other pair of scythes back, trying to catch him from behind.

More attacks flew towards Percy in the meantime, though their shadows preceded them. His eyes had already adjusted to his enemies’ common affinity. The fact that they fought in the same manner didn’t work in their favour either. Sure enough, Percy didn’t have much trouble evading the attacks, though his target wasn’t as lucky.

One of the scythes nicked his thigh, eliciting a pained cry. He clearly hadn’t expected three to surround him at once. Percy called the fourth one to his hand too, estimating he’d already exhausted the element of surprise by now.

‘It was a good start. I just need to keep pressuring the injured one.’

Letting the Grim Dance run rampant, Percy allowed the shadows of his opponents’ attacks to blend with his own, taking control of the battle’s flow. He showered the first guy with a rain of scythes, knives and throwing stars, instantly putting him on the backfoot.

That said, inflicting more wounds didn’t prove nearly as easy. The guy did an admirable job propelling himself out of the attacks’ paths with some expertly placed bursts of wind. Still, Percy did land a few here and there, the man’s injuries noticeably gnawing at his reaction speed.

Of course, several air spells hit Percy too – he couldn’t dodge them all. Fortunately, he didn’t need to, his armour allowing him to shrug most of the damage off, his Shroud helping him undo the rest.

Suffice to say, he was still in a lot of pain, though that was mostly self-inflicted. It was his own potion breaking his body down from within. It tore his tendons apart with every step he took, nearly ripping his arms out of their sockets every time he swung them. Yet, he gritted his teeth, knowing he needed the boost to win. And that it wouldn’t last for much longer.

‘At least, they’re weaker than Jason…’

Percy was keenly aware of how lucky he was. Not that he was afraid of losing a rematch against the karma user – certainly not now that he had his armour. But he doubted he could handle two opponents at that level. Fortunately, it appeared that not all the Root’s Greens were nearly as strong.

He was about to redouble his attacks on the injured guy, when something unexpected happened. A powerful blast splashed into him from the side, slamming him into the ground a few metres away. His armour cracked – the spell clearly had a lot more concentrated force behind it than what his own opponents had demonstrated.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

And this was just the start. A second projectile followed, and then a third. Teal fragments flew off him as his armour’s outer layer got peeled off, his bones creaking in protest.

Ignoring the pain, Percy gathered the teal fog in front of him to serve as a cushion. It barely helped, sapping some strength from the blasts – though they still pierced through the soft mana without much difficulty. He focused on the network of threads holding his armour together, trying to keep the reinforced strings from snapping. The whole spell would come undone should that happen.

The self-repair enchantments all over his body greedily drank his mana, doing what they could to restore the construct. Still, the runes couldn’t fix themselves, so any component damaged beyond a certain threshold was lost for good. This was one of the few drawbacks of his armour’s modularity. An issue he couldn’t solve quite yet…

Either way, he gritted his teeth, absorbing the attacks as best as he could, trying to minimize the damage. His only option was to trust his cousin to stop the assailant. And she had to do it fast.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until after the fifth blow that the barrage came to a halt. And the damage was already done.

His opponents didn’t waste their chance, taking advantage of the interference to pile more spells onto him. Even worse, he wasn’t sure he could endure them all given the current state of his armour.

Percy clumsily evaded whatever he could, grimacing as the rest caused the cracks to expand. The self-repair runes fought like crazy to restore whatever was still salvageable, though teal shards kept falling rapidly as the spell crumbled faster than he could mend it.

‘I need to cut their momentum short.’ he realized, pulling two of his scythes from behind the first mage.

Of course, the man wouldn’t fall for this trick again. That said, the distraction did cause the barrage to slow a little, giving Percy a chance to extricate himself.

Admittedly, things weren’t going very well. Percy’s body was as banged up as his armour at this point, if not more. Still, he could win this as long as his cousin didn’t let her opponents sneak up on him again.

‘Come on Elaine… I’m counting on you.’

Shifting his focus back to his enemies, he thought hard as to how he could turn this around. The first of them was already injured rather severely, but it would take Percy a while to kill him. The potion wouldn’t last that long. Percy estimated he only had a couple minutes at best.

The situation was rather bleak, though a spark of hope lit up in his eyes as he glanced at the crater he’d formed on the ground during the attack. That could work.

Oblivious to his thoughts, his opponents never stopped pressuring him, launching one spell at him after another. Percy allowed himself to fall in their tempo, slowly backtracking as they advanced towards him.

‘Just a little farther…’

It wasn’t until half a minute later that everything was in place. If this didn’t work, he’d die not long after. And Elaine would soon follow.

‘Here goes nothing.’

Dodging a wave of attacks, he hurled both of his scythes at the injured mage, pulling the last two from behind him. At the same time, he tore off over 80% of his Shroud, turning it into a wave of throwing stars to supplement his main weapons.

His opponent didn’t panic, however, despite being surrounded by spells in every direction. He was already moving to avoid the constructs, well accustomed to the routine by now. Sadly for him, Percy had forced him to step right where he wanted him. And he’d planned a small surprise there.

With a wave of his hand, Percy called some more mana back to him. This time, it wasn’t his scythes, nor the throwing stars, however. He was looking at the crater behind the air mage. The very crater that he’d dug into just minutes ago. Or, more specifically, the invisible shards of his broken armour that lay there.

Just like that, a wave of shrapnel sank into the man’s back, a shocked expression painting his face.

The shards might have not been as sharp as the throwing stars, but they were made of reinforced mana, packing quite a punch. And dozens of fragments landed into the guy’s soul, leaving it full of holes.

Percy knew this was more than enough to kill him, so he didn’t even bother looking at him for a second longer, his focus already shifting to the remaining opponent.

Grabbing the pair of scythes that had just returned to him, he took advantage of the second guy’s surprise as he hurled them towards him, following up with more projectiles from his Shroud.

To his credit, the man recovered quickly enough to dodge most of them, though Percy had anticipated it to an extent, having spread the throwing stars as widely as possible. A few found their mark, stabbing into the guy’s lower body. His knees buckled as he finally got to experience the agonizing soul pain his late comrade had suffered repeatedly.

‘Tsch. Not enough.’ Percy clicked his tongue.

He was already out of spare scythes and out of mana. Even worse, his opponent would regain his wits within moments. If he failed to finish him now, he might never get a second chance.

Thinking on his feet, he willed the remaining layers of his armour to shatter, grabbing as many shards as his hands could hold, before hurling them at the mage.

The guy tried to leap out of the way, but he failed to summon enough strength in his legs. He barely managed to sway to the side, several shards still finding their mark, lodging themselves in his torso.

Unsure whether this was enough, Percy called upon the rest of the fragments he’d just shed off his spell, drawing them to his hands. A few actually stabbed into his flesh, but he didn’t care. He launched them at his opponent too, pinning him into the ground with another wave.

And he didn’t stop there either, doing it a third time, and a fourth.

By the time he saw his opponent’s soul fizz away into nothing, blood was pouring out of Percy’s hands – even more so than the rest of his body. But it didn’t matter. It was done.

[Congratulations! Your spells have merged: Shroud of Deceit – Refined + Phantomscale Raiment – Refined -> Spectral Art: Phantomscale Regalia – Masterful!]

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep