"Hmmm, I will help you," Mashiro said.
"Good then, let's go," the lightning fairy shouted while wrapping Mashiro in a sky blue armor made of lightning.
Mashiro tried to move and instantly appeared dozens of meters away.
She looked at herself, surprised by how fast she was moving, then changed direction and charged at Morlum before he could defend himself.
"Wait..."
Mashiro did not let him speak, as soon as she reached him she jumped and kicked him, sending him flying into a distant tree and splitting it in half.
Mashiro moved again, appearing in front of him before Morlum could react and continued hitting him without giving him any chance to respond.
"I am like Kaito," Mashiro murmured with admiration for her own speed.
"Haaa, who is Kaito? No one is faster than me," the voice of the lightning fairy echoed in her mind.
For a while Mashiro kept hitting Morlum like she was playing catch with herself, striking him then waiting to intercept him just to hit him again, after several consecutive blows that sent him back and forth and would have left him dizzy if he were not already almost unconscious.
Finally Mashiro stopped and Morlum fell to the ground unable to move.
At that moment the fairy separated from Mashiro.
Morlum used that brief moment to take out a kind of green orb and break it, releasing a green smoke that vanished immediately.
"This is for all those years you stupid old man."
Saying that, the fairy transformed into a bolt of lightning and shot toward Morlum's chest, stopping his heart instantly and frying his internal organs.
"Done." The tiny fairy puffed out her chest proudly after returning to her normal form.
At that moment a voice came from Morlum's body.
"Ha ha ha, whoever you are, you are dead. You may have been able to kill me, but if you are hearing this that means I already notified Barak of my death. Yes, believe it or not, Barak, the famous anti magic berserker from the royal capital, is actually a close friend of mine, and he is coming here just to kill you. Do not think I am lying. As everyone knows, the magic path and the physical path are completely opposite to each other, but because of that they can enhance one another, he helped me develop my magic, and I helped him reach the peak of the physical path. Of course he kept it hidden since I have a terrible reputation in the kingdom, but that does not mean our friendship ended, it is simply concealed." The voice sounded mocking.
"You ask why I am telling you all this? Of course it is to buy time so you do not escape ha ha ha ha ha."
"That was sudden," Mashiro murmured at the speech that came out of nowhere.
"Aaaa, come on," the fairy shouted, returning to Mashiro and wrapping her again in her lightning clad form.
"Follow my directions, quickly," she said, and without waiting for an answer she began to guide Mashiro toward the lord's mansion and into the courtyard, where a large magic circle was starting to shine green before Mashiro made a torrent of lightning crash down on it, destroying it completely along with the entire courtyard.
"Good, with that he will not come," the lightning fairy murmured, who identified herself as Lumina.
"You must know that this Barak is very dangerous, he is even stronger than the old man who kept me trapped, and he does not use tricks, but the worst part is that he is almost completely immune to magic, unless you are extremely powerful it is impossible to defeat him," Lumina explained with excitement.
"Ah," she said as if she remembered something, "he is probably heading to the nearest teleportation point, most likely the village to the west, but do not worry, with my speed it is impossible for him to catch us, let's run, quickly," Lumina said.
However Mashiro did not follow her instructions, instead she ran straight toward the exact village Lumina told her not to go to.
"Hey hey, what are you doing? That is where Barak is coming from, do not go there."
"My friends are there," Mashiro said simply.
"Ah no, I do not want to die, that thing is the nemesis of any mana user, I am pure mana," Lumina cried dramatically.
"I helped you," Mashiro replied simply.
The fairy remained silent for a few seconds before speaking again.
"Fine, let it never be said that Lumina does not repay her debts," Lumina said, "by the way, someone is following us, although he is not hostile."
---
The three girls looked cautiously at the newcomer, unsure how to move.
When the man looked into their eyes, all three felt like prey under the gaze of a predator.
Mashiro acted first, summoning a lightning bolt that struck the man directly and spread across his entire body.
"Aghhh." The man sighed with satisfaction. "What a good massage, just like the ones from that old Morlum."
"So..." he said while turning toward Mashiro, "was it you?"
The moment he said that he vanished from his spot and appeared in front of Mashiro, swinging his sword in a wide horizontal arc.
Mashiro jumped back to dodge him, but the wind pressure from the attack still caught her and pushed her several meters before she regained her balance.
Before Barak could move again Kaguya appeared behind him and used her signature attack. To her surprise it did not work.
"An attack on the soul, completely useless against me," Barak mocked.
At the same time he lifted each foot one by one, freeing himself from the shadows trying to bind him discreetly.
"Is that supposed to do something to me?" he said while turning toward Ai, sensing her as the source of the shadows.
"Kaguya sama, we have a protocol for these situations."
"I already called her, but it will take a few minutes even with her speed," Kaguya said.
"Hey," Barak said, and a pressure burst out of him, destabilizing the three for a second.
"Isn't it a little rude to ignore me like that?"
Mashiro overcame the pressure first and advanced toward him, trying to hit him, but Barak blocked her easily with his arm.
Next, two magic chains rose from the ground and wrapped around his arms, immobilizing him.
"Since you cannot pierce me you use them to restrain me, clever, but..." Barak swung his arms and the chains were ripped out from the ground completely, rising into the air with such force that the sound of the air breaking echoed.
Mashiro did not get intimidated, she did not miss the chance and made the chains spin, wrapping them around Barak's massive body, Kaguya split into dozens of clones that surrounded him and began attacking with their sound based technique.
Even though Barak began bleeding lightly from his ears, he ignored it, then spread his arms and easily shattered the chains around him.
Mashiro's magic is powerful, but its strength depends on Mashiro herself, and although she has the mana to do incredible things, her physical strength is not actually that high, something she normally compensates with quantity, after all even if one arrow cannot harm you, what would you do against a million?
Unfortunately, this trick does not work on Barak.
Kaguya made a similar decision, choosing quantity over quality. Since a soul attack did not work, she attacked in waves, splitting into hundreds of intangible Kaguyas that attacked again and again, however Barak's expression did not change at all, as if the attack had no effect.
Barak countered by releasing his pressure again, something that easily overwhelmed Kaguya since it was a direct attack to the soul. Dozens of clones were destroyed instantly and the rest collapsed weakly on the ground, only the original Kaguya remained standing.
So, Mashiro and Kaguya's attacks, even though they were not entirely useless, did not have much effect. As for Ai, with her strength being even lower than both and without attacks based on quantity or Mashiro's overwhelming mana, she could not intervene.
While the other two fought she could only watch anxiously, hoping they would not get hurt.
But Barak would not give her the luxury of being just a spectator. Once he noticed her he suddenly appeared in front of her, trying to attack, but she activated a recently obtained ability. Her body turned into energy for a second before being split in two, each half divided into even smaller parts that formed tiny chibi versions of Ai.
All of them extended their hands and attacked Barak with energy blasts while fluttering around him.
"As expected it does not work," all the Ais murmured at once in high pitched voices when they saw their attacks were ineffective.
Barak ignored her when he realized she was not a threat, redirecting his attention back to Kaguya and Mashiro. In front of Ai's eyes he leaped high into the sky, blocking the sun for a moment.
However when Barak's strike fell, not only the girls but even Barak himself were surprised to see that the attack did no harm, because his sword was being effortlessly held by a small feminine hand with claws.
Barak tried to pull his sword back, but Koneko's grip tightened. No matter how much strength he applied, the sword did not move.
Barak released the sword and stepped back cautiously.
"So you are their reinforcement," he said with a grin.
Koneko did not answer.
"Koneko sama, be careful, he is..." Ai tried to warn Koneko about the man's strength, but Koneko, already in her nekomata form, moved the moment the man attacked her with a clean punch.
Holding the sword by its handle she swung it hard against Barak as he approached.
Barak protected himself with both arms, but the pink haired girl struck him with full force, shattering his arms into countless fragments and pushing Barak back.
"Around the peak of high class, you are strong," Koneko murmured to herself while surrounding her fist with touki.
"But not strong enough," Koneko murmured before her figure vanished and reappeared right in front of Barak, striking him with a punch.
Barak held his stance with his arms crossed to defend himself, but as soon as the punch touched him a hole thirty centimeters wide appeared, breaking through his arms and his entire chest.
Because of the position of his arms most of them disappeared, causing his detached hands to fall to the ground still clenched into fists, followed a moment later by Barak's body collapsing lifelessly.
Koneko walked slowly and began moving Barak's body as if searching for something.
"Koneko sama, are you looking for something?" Ai was the first to approach and ask, soon joined by Kaguya and Mashiro.
"Yes, it is..." Koneko frowned for a second, then lifted Barak's body and threw it aside with annoyance. When she saw the hands her eyes lit up and she picked one up, showing its palm. "...this"
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)