Chapter 20.3 – A Mountain Between
Even while flying forward, Persephone seemed to have enough time to raise her left hand to hold her messy hair. With a twirl, a pencil had already entered her right hand. Then, like a streak of lightning, it pierced towards the edge of Death Prison! The pencil in her hand looked extremely frail. Forget about a single one, even if it was a box of pencils, Death Prison would still crush right through them with its weight alone. However, the current scene completely defied normal reasoning. Her seemingly useless attack caused the demonic eye like gemstones on Death Prison to show a reaction. They suddenly released thick blood-colored radiance, and the piercing noises that were emitted increased several times, as if the small pencil it faced was also a natural enemy it needed to fight a life and death battle against.
No one could see what kind of expression Madeline who hid behind her mask had. The only thing that could be seen was that she completely ignored Death Prison’s reaction and continued to slice out horizontally. There wasn’t the slightest change in her actions.
When the pencil made contact with Death Prison, it immediately shattered into splinters without a second of delay. There wasn’t a transitional phase at all, as if time did not exist here. An invisible shockwave quickly rippled outwards from the point where the pencil and Death Prison collided, immediately covering the entire mountain peak!
Su suddenly felt the mountains underneath his feet shake. Before he knew it, the shockwaves already changed their frequency countless times, so not even he could produce proper reactions. All of the muscles inside his body immediately sank into a state of disorder. He first left the ground, and then he heavily slammed back onto the floor. His mind completely lost control over his body, to the extent where he couldn’t even crawl back up. Fortunately, this wave was gone in a flash, because if the wave was still travelling through the ground when he landed, it would throw his body into disorder a second time and leave him with serious injuries.
On top of the mountain, after the shockwave covered the entire mountaintop, it quietly disappeared, leaving just as abruptly as it came. However, the several meter tall mountain beneath these two death goddesses’ feet immediately became semi-transparent before noiselessly collapsing. The mountain turned into dust, and under an invisible force, began to spread outwards and rise slowly like an ascending cloud. Madeline and Persephone stood on the empty air inside of this cloud.
Borrowing the force of the pencil’s explosion, Persephone floated upwards like a leaf, unexpectedly towards Madeline. Madeline took large steps forward, and with just two steps, she already reached Persephone’s original position. With a flip of her hand, Death Prison whistled towards Persephone!
If one looked carefully, they would find that there was a tiny chip on Death Prison’s blade. This was the place the pencil originally landed. Numerous cracks extended outwards in all directions from this chip like a spiderweb, with some of the cracks being especially long, almost reaching the blood-colored gemstone at the spine of the blade. That demonic eye-like gemstone had a slight crack as well, and the black energy swirling inside of the gemstone like a pupil already narrowed into a line, as if it was experiencing unbearable suffering. Droplets of red liquid continuously seeped out from the cracks, as if what was trickling out were droplets of blood.
If one didn’t see this for themselves, it would truly be hard to imagine that such a frail-looking pencil could inflict damage on something as sturdy as Death Prison. However, the price Persephone paid was quite clear as well, as her right hand that was tightly clenched was drenched with blood. Even though one couldn’t see the damage at the center of her hand, blood continuously dripped out from the gaps between her fingers without any sign of stopping.
Persephone didn’t have the time to stop the bleeding at all. The enormous Death Prison didn’t seem to be shackled by space or time as it descended on her shoulder.
Persephone removed the pencil that she had sloppily put up her hair, and while holding it in her left hand, she lightly tapped it against Death Prison.
Bang!
The sound that was emitted this time was like a thousand year old church bell as it rang through the air. The long and drawn out sound resounded through the ice-cold tundra, sounding incredibly desolate and bleak.
Death Prison suddenly flew high into the air. Cracks already covered most of the sword, and countless metal fragments flew in the sky. Many small pieces directly flew towards the frozen rocks that were as tough as steel and unexpectedly entered them without any resistance. They only left behind a small and deep hole whose end couldn’t be seen. Even more pieces directly passed through the cold winds and dense clouds into the endless distance.
Death Prison was full of stains and cracks, with a few more nicks on the blade’s edge. The three demonic eye gemstones engraved on top had two that already cracked open and were continuously seeping out viscous red and black liquid. The demonic eye was frantically moving about, and it even released a shrill screech! Madeline, however, remained completely unmoved. With a majestic step, she rushed outwards and returned. With both hands holding the sword, the screaming Death Prison erupted with mountain shattering force before directly hacking towards Persephone again!
Persephone’s left hand was now badly mangled as well. Her well trimmed and carefully tailored outfit was in tatters, exposing her pair of snow white arms that were dripping with scratches and wisps of blood. The bottom of her trousers had long turned into rags, exposing her long legs that could make others spray out blood. Her black heels had long gone missing, so her feet were naked as they pointed towards the ground. Her dainty and delicate toes were like little shells as they stepped onto the rough ground, white to an almost ridiculous level. Even Persephone’s fine and porcelain like face was left with a few bloody scars from the flying fragments. The black framed glasses were similarly covered in sparks with the lenses nowhere to be found.
Faced against the Death Prison that descended again, Persephone’s long hair suddenly rose like wind. A faint gray radiance erupted from her pupils, completely suppressing the wisps of green originally present. Her feet stepped on the void and unexpectedly took a step forward. Her hands rose and clasped towards the sky, as if what she held in her hands was a dragon lance. She then thrusted it towards Death Prison!
Death Prison’s descent immediately stopped and it bounced backwards as if it had really been parried by the invisible dragon lance in Persephone’s hands. Persephone even took a step forward, sending the formless dragon lance piercing towards Madeline’s chest!
It was still impossible to see the expression behind her mask. One could only see the calm and completely expressionless face carved on that mask. This was a face without any characteristics. One would recall seeing this face afterwards, but they wouldn’t be able to find any words to describe it at all.
Madeline held Death Prison steadily in her right hand and pressed it downwards, directly slamming Persephone’s spear downwards. Then, the enormous sword moved out diagonally to neutralize its enormous momentum and send the edge full of nicks towards Persephone. In front of this sword, even an iron pillar would be easily sliced through.
Persephone rose with the wind, maintaining a meter of distance between herself and the sword’s edge. It was as if she would be hacked through at any moment. However, time and space seemed to have been frozen in place, and this distance couldn’t be closed. Her arms reached out, using the dragon lance to fend off Death Prison. The instant the spear and sword collided, Persephone’s face suddenly became as pale as snow, and no color could be seen on it at all. Meanwhile, her lips became bright red, as if they would drip out blood any moment now.
Madeline would sometimes move the sword with a single hand, and other times, she would brandish it with both hands. Her steps were great, and her advance and retreat only required two or three steps. Her attacks were extremely simple, simple to the point where there were only horizontal slices, straight chops, stabs and pulls, slamming, or other simple motions. However, every single attack carried a mountain-like force that blasted through mountains. No one could say exactly just how much weight rested beneath Death Prison, but they could see deep gashes interweave on the ground beneath Madeline’s feet, so they could well imagine how great this sword’s power was!
Persephone was like a small boat in the middle of a stormy sea, one that might be shattered at any moment by a giant wave.
The battle between the two seemed extremely long, but in reality, it all happened in a short instant, so short that when Su who fell down raised his head, the battle had already entered a desperate state.
“No!” Su released a world-shaking roar from deep within his chest. He never thought that this kind of scene would play out before his eyes, nor did he understand why a life and death battle was being carried out by Persephone and Madeline.
His thoughts were already completely blank. In that instant, data that carried the highest level of authority were sent to various part of his body, seizing control of almost every cell in his body. Su’s body surged with tremendous strength, and with a sudden leap, he rushed into the center of the battlefield in spite of the fatal fragments and crushed stone flying about in the air.
