As Pei had expected, the two generals jumped down from the sky bridge in an attempt to lure one of Baal’s ‘guards’ away from him and the Crane Fox followed them willingly to whatever battlefield they were choosing.
For the remaining ‘guards’, Prideblood, the Demon Rat Mage General had finally entered the fray. There was no grandiose in his arrival and merely flew towards the group asking for an opponent to challenge. He would have wished to fight against Baal himself to prove that manipulation of his magic spells was not the only thing that could subvert a fight but Peppers already stepped in and pointed her wooden staff at him, demanding for the duel to be with her instead
Compared to Baal, who had nonchalantly released his magical aura, Peppers for once kept her magical aura suppressed. It was a trick she unwillingly picked up as a promise by Ayse and the rest of the Science Branch to make sure that she controls her mana better. Thus, Prideblood did not take too much notice of the small little girl and only assumed that she was doing this because she was part of the guards that Baal had employed around him.
“I will get rid of this obstacle and challenge you.” The Mage General said as he swirled his head to beckon Peppers to come with him.
However, everyone knows how defiant that little pepperish girl could be.
In the middle of this fight where there could be potential friendly fire, Peppers had daringly fired an explosive flare spell right at where the Demon Rat Mage General was standing. While it did startle the soldiers of Gem, Princess Gaap who was their commander had already used all the gems in her possession to protect not only herself but her army from the flare attack.
At the same time, Gaap also held her priciest Ruby Gem up to absorb Peppers’ residual fire mana so that she could have an easy time casting high level magical fire attacks if there was a need to do so.
“I did not expect such an attitude from a human, to attack preemptively for a duel.” Prideblood cleared the air around him, undoubtedly surviving from the entire attack unscathed with a magic barrier. But before he could insult Peppers once more, a beam of energy came straight from the sky bridge and towards him. While his magic barrier was able to withstand the attack, Prideblood was being pushed back by it. The attack by the little girl was not meant to be destructive, but to push him out of the current battlefield as well. That was when he realised that the humans and monsters were as gullible as he thought they would be.
He was initially planning to use the aspects of a duel to bring Baal’s mage to a ‘neutral’ ground where he could have the initiative of having the familiarity of the area. Traps were also set up and it involved the very same counterspells that had been seen used against the soldiers of Gem.
However, he does not have the idea whether his motive to do so had been discovered or the mage girl was able to read his mind, causing her to be aggressive and have the duel location of her choosing instead.
Prideblood wanted to counter the attack but he was not given any chance as the colour of the energy beam suddenly turned multicoloured like a rainbow and splinters of the energy beam emerged from the main beam to shoot at him. This forced him to not just concentrate his defence at the centre of the barrier where the beam had been focused but also on his sides and rear.
There was no chance for him to counter when he had his mind filled with trying to stop the attacks and hence he could only be pushed in a direction of the current duel to how Peppers would like him to be. It was a bad start but Prideblood had to make do with what he had at the moment.
“Hopefully he can last longer than the other opponents you had fought against.” Jin waved at Peppers but it seemed like the Mage Bellator was already getting bored.
“The other opponents you forced me to face could have cut this energy beam into half, deflected the rest and retaliated without too much of a hassle. I think you might have severely overestimated the enemy this time around.” Peppers said as she twisted her wooden staff a little more and the rainbow colour beam started to show even more hues of colours and Jin could already imagine the increase in difficulty that the Mage General had to handle.
And unsurprisingly, Prideblood was indeed going to swallow his pride now that he found out that his magic barrier had been proven to be useless. The energy beam splintered, even more, shooting mini beams at a continuous pace against the Mage General that he could not keep up with the blocking.
The Demon Rat Mage General might have been able to block ten mini beams of the same intensity at one time, but in a split second, another ten beams emerged out of his sight and hit ten other different spots. Only those who are mana sensitive, and are meticulous in their preparations for defence could stop this attack, otherwise, the definite way to defeat it was to counterattack with an explosive amount of magic.
And sadly, Prideblood did not belong in any of those. He thought that being infected by the lifestream energy would make him invincible but it was clear without a doubt that the humans and monsters were stronger than him by many folds.
? Still, that did not mean he was left without any other means.
Even as he was injured by multiple energy beam attacks, he was looking at the right time to activate the lifestream energies within him so that he could not just effectively block the beams but also counter them. After all, his speciality spell was the mana absorption spell. As he got hit by those beams, he was also taking in those spell attacks as mana. Once he was ready, he could fire off the very same beam with greater intensity than what Peppers was producing.
“Heh, for a Mage General. He is easy to read.” Peppers said to herself as she now placed two hands onto her wooden staff and poured more mana into the attack while changing the spell configuration she was dishing out.
As calculated, it looked like it was gonna be an easy victory for her.
