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The Pursuit
[Let’s go!]
“HAA!”
Fran propelled herself with a jump with the intent to kill as she slashed at Murellia. Normally in such a battle, Fran would have the advantage due to her ridiculously high skill with the sword. However, in this battle where Murellia had the ability to fly, the odds became less clear. In this scenario, it resulted in a battle in which each attack towards both sides had been prevented. However, Murellia’s ability to fly is pretty shabby in comparison to before I poked her with Evil’s Bane. I guess that confirms that I managed to seal away some of her evil power. There’s a clear delay in when she invokes skills and when they activate. This is our chance.
She can probably already tell from my earlier attack that her barriers won’t stop me. As such, Murellia began to completely ignore Kiara’s attacks and set her attention solely on Fran. Even though Kiara had managed to penetrate Murellia’s barriers, I guess the latter had decided the damage was negligable.
“HA!”
Before we knew it, Mare had jumped into the three-person battle alongside us. Sparing a quick glance at the ground, it looks like she was thrown by Mianoa. We just didn’t notice her approach until she was right on top of us because of Kuina’s illusion magic.
At first, Murellia just ignored Mare, but it wasn’t too long before she adopted a defensive posture. It seems that any Danger Detection skills she had were firing all cylinders. Looks like we’re finally getting a bit of an edge in this fight. If Murellia starts trying to prevent Mare’s attacks with her barrier, she’ll inevitably begin to fail at preventing Fran’s attacks. Suddenly, Murellia’s figure disappears and reappears more than a dozen meters away.
Ah, she’s running.
[She’s running!]
“Geh. Annoying!”
We immediately give chase and continue our assault. Most of our attacks are going to be prevented, but that’s part of the strategy. While Murellia is busy trying to stop my barrier-ignoring blade, if Mare is able to get in a good hit it might be able to decide the battle.
“What, running already? 『Flare Cannon』!”
Shooting straight out from Mare is a beam straight out of a sci-fi movie. Apparently, if she utilizes both her golden and white flame and condenses it, she can even do something like this. If her golden bonfire that destroyed the Valkyrie from before was her ultimate melee attack, this would for sure be her ultimate ranged attack.
Murellia, with her focus on Fran and I, wasn’t able to respond to the attack in time. As the platinum swirl of energy completely destroyed her lower body.
“Geh-”
That was an attack with all of Mare’s power behind it. I guess even Murellia’s barrier hadn’t been enough to stop such a thing. She visibly trembles in pain from losing half of her body. I guess she doesn’t have Pain Resistance.
“You piece of shit! I’ll tear you into shreds!”
Murellia’s power immediately pulses as muscles and flesh almost seem to worm their way out of her wounds and regenerate her. At the same time, an evil mist-like aura begins to seep off of her. As we approach it Danger Detection begins blaring.  It looks like she’s trying to salvage her power and protect herself with this fog. But sorry, it’s not enough to stop us.
Fran raises me above her as we approach. Upon contact with the mist, everything around us appears to slow to complete standstill as Fran unleashes her attack.
『Sword Lord Technique - Broken Sky』
As she invokes the technique, Fran calmly takes a deep breath; our surroundings slow to a crawl as her concentration increases to the breaking point.
And as she swings my blade, the evil energy in front of us fragments into countless pieces.
“Y-YOU!”
Through the aftermath of our attack, we catch a glimpse of Murellia’s figure. Her body, or what remained of it, had been torn from her left shoulder to her right side. Her organs begin spilling to the ground beneath her, as unlike Mare’s attack ours didn’t cauterize her wounds.
Though to her credit, Murellia is truly the toughest enemy we’ve had so far. She’s already started regenerating her freshly received wounds. But Kiara was there to capitalize on her weakened state.
“Can’t ignore me now, can you?”
“You old hag!”
Kiara instantly cuts into Murellia with『Rolling Black Thunder』. Her blade cuts cleanly through all of the Evil Being’s barriers, Murellia herself, and - with an incredible roar - straight through the earth.
Although she dealt a decisive blow to Murellia, unlike Murellia and Fran and I’s combined mana pools, there’s no way she should’ve been able to use Brilliant Lightning Rush without a tremendous burden on her body. Immediately after unleashing her attack fell to the ground, probably exhausted, and drops her awakened state.
[Kiara’s in trouble!]
“Nn.”
Fran begins to rush towards Kiara, but gets a scolding instead.
“Gah, I’m fine. Shouldn’t you be focussing on the battle?!”
“...!”
Kiara’s glare seals the deal. Fran immediately changes her momentum towards the downed Murellia. Even if she’s used up her entire mana pool, it’s Kiara, I have no doubt she’ll be able to manage.
Sigrun, finally understanding that her master is in serious danger, rushes to seperate us and her mistress.  Upon inspection, she has a jet-black stone in a tight grip. It’s probably one of those Evil Magic Stones, though strangely it appears that she’s retained her reason, with the only noticeable effect being her black-stained eyes.
Her movements are incredibly more refined compared to the battle from before. It seems she’s using the stones to not only boost her stats, but probably even give her skills a few extra levels. I can’t even tell since she’s become saturated with the Evil God’s power though.
[Hey, aren’t they supposed to go berserk when they use one of those stones?]
“... Why still in control?”
The Valkyrie answers Fran’s question.
“Fuhahaha! Unlike my inferior sisters, I was born as a Kin of the War God! Now that I have the Evil God’s power as well, there’s no way I’d go insane from something like this!”
I see, so there’s still some kind of relationship from when the Evil God was still considered one of the actual gods? Through her genealogy from the War God, it somehow makes her resistant- No, maybe it gives her some affinity to the Evil God?
I guess it’s somewhat like the Beastmen’s tribes inheriting the power of the founding beast?
“Hah!”
“Tch”
Each time Fran and Sigrun clash, the stone that’s enhancing her will become a little less powerful due to Evil’s Bane. Likewise, as the stone weakens, the bonus that the Valkyrie gets to her stats gets lower and lower. This is basically a countdown until Fran and I win, but we’re in a rush.
After all, the more time we spend on this fight, the more Murellia recovers.
[Let’s finish this up Fran!]
“Nn!”
[Alright, here we go!]
「Kanna Kamui!」
『Kanna Kamui!』
Up to this day, I don’t even know how many times we’ve used this spell. But this is probably the first time we’ve used it at minimal power. Or so I say, but even though that’s the case, Evil’s Bane is incorporated into the attack, so it’ll still do pretty decent damage. Though even saying that, with this amount of power, it’ll only trip up our opponents for a second. That is, that would be the case if that was the end of the story.
I stretched my little decorative chain, slowly lengthening it until it was long enough to form a loose net. The goal here is to try and mirror Fermus’ attacks against us in the 3rd round of the martial arts tournament: a tsunami of threads that attacks from all directions at once. Or so I tried, but I’m not quite there yet, at only being created a fine wave.
The disadvantage of this technique is that I don’t have anywhere near enough threads to do any meaningful damage. Unless the target is an Evil Being, that damage this would do is pretty much negligible. On the upside though, is that it’s very tricky to avoid. In a word, this is an extremely effective technique against Evil Beings.
Sigrun, who has made every effort to prevent our Kanna Kamui, has stopped dead in her tracks. Not wanting to miss this obvious opening, Fran and I attacked.
“GYAA!”
After our strike the threads did their work, shredding her body apart into tiny pieces. It probably looked really cool to those watching, as it looked like our single slash had resulted in over 100 cuts.
[Tch, her magic stone was barely worth anything!]
Even if she didn’t go insane just from using the stone, it looks like using it had the same effect on her stone as it did to the first Valkyrie we fought. It’s a shame!
Murellia watches as her subordinate is shred apart and grinds her teeth together. It seems her regeneration has just finished restoring her.
“Oho, now… now you’ve done it!!”
[Fran, she’s in terrible shape, this is it!]
“Nn!”
Fran rushes in to cut down Murellia as she begins to take flight… just as another figure bars her way.
“Uoooo!!!”
“Who?”
[Is that a human?]
It was indeed a human. A man dressed as a knight takes a fighting stance as he assists Murellia. Apparently he had been skulking around while hiding his presence. Is he a friend to Murellia or something?
“Murellia hasn’t done anything wrong, leave her alone!”