Uyuniya scowled at the sight of her opponent. It hadn't surprised her that Rias had sent something to stall her after he'd cast her far from him.
'This one is different…' the alien thought as she scanned the opponent.
Indeed, it was different. It was another giant skeleton, heavily armoured and ancient, but it had a different feel to it. The black armour, oozing with Undeath energy, as well as the red glow spilling from its visor were telling. The creature wielded an old rapier, large, long and lethal. It brandished the weapon with a single hand, the other behind its back.
Uyuniya brandished her greatsword and took a breath to maintain her Void Clot. The technique was extremely taxing, after all.
'I'll demolish it in one go!' she thought and lunged at the enemy. She was outrageously fast and her sword couldn't have missed the target, but…
OOOM!
…!!!
The Undeath energy flaring from the undead creature shuddered outward as harsh, dark red pennons. When Uyuniya was only a meter away, the monster lurched forth, hunching, and stabbed at her chest. Even though the alien's sword was poised to strike at the enemy's neck still, the Undead summon didn't care.
Its attack and Uyuniya's struck their targets at the same time.
Sparks flew…on both ends.
Uyuniya was shocked to find that her Void Clot empowered sword refused to go through the undead monster's defence of Undeath. Even more frightening was the fact that its attack power was similar to hers. She felt the weight against her Void Clot shielding her chest.
'It's better at manipulating Undeath energy than that masked man?' Uyuniya thought, scowled and pointed at the creature with her free hand.
Voided Death Essence gathered at the point of her index finger and detonated unceremoniously. The attack punished the surroundings, but harmed neither the undead monster nor Uyuniya herself. She had only hoped to use it as cover for her next attack.
She flashed around the creature's flank while thinning her Void Clot, and then had it erupt again at full force when she charged for a stab at the creature's head.
Parrying wasn't exactly a rapier's strong suit, but Uyuniya found her greatsword's momentum being diverted by a stalwart, thin length of steel coated with Undeath. Her opponent had responded accordingly to her move and even made to counter after Uyuniya's sword was out of the way.
Even though the Void Clot was guarding her, Uyuniya didn't like the monster's confidence. She condensed Voided Death Essence on the air, kicked off it, and created distance, but then she flashed forward and launched a flurry of attacks while wielding her greatsword with both hands.
Sparks the size of men flew in every direction as the Voided Death user and the undead summon exchanged over ten thousand blows in a less than a half a second.
'This thing…' Uyuniya frowned. 'Is it actually… a Death Knight?'
She'd rarely seen Death Knights. After all, where there was a Death Knight, there was usually a Lich, and if there was a Lich, the option of escaping with your life subscription intact was very slim for most.
It confounded Uyuniya that a mere necromancer could summon a Death Knight. Was this masked man that much of a threat? She'd heard he was a problem, but…
'Even so, there's only one Death Knight. I'll have to use my Aspect. I'm certain this counts!'
During the rapid exchange, Uyuniya suddenly pulled back, reverse handled her greatsword, cocked back her arm, and threw the weapon at the enemy with all her might. As it streaked forward, she allowed her Void Clot to leave her and completely envelope the weapon, empowering it.
The attack was too much for the Undead monster to absorb without any repercussions. A shocking impact coursed through all matter, shattering the minion's rapier, fracturing its arms and blowing it back a distance.
…And then Uyuniya surged forth while the creature was struggling for balance. Her hands surged with Voided Death Essence and rained a flurry of blows all over her opponent.
None of the attacks did significant damage, but all sixteen of them counted!
The enemy was about to recover when suddenly, the Undeath energy bubbling around it started fazing in and out of existence. Uyuniya grinned.
'It worked!'
Immediately, she re-equipped her Void Clot, charged and hit the creature with a full force straight punch that blasted off its torso and sent its limbs and head flying in different directions.
It was flawless work, indeed.
Uyuniya had expanded the function of her Mastered Void Gate Aspect.
Originally, it allowed her to make an opponent lose touch with their powers – even their Broader Existence for a short period – which usually netted her an instant win, but after witnessing the way Aurolio divided his Aspect, she'd felt inspired.
It wasn't that she'd never thought to do it the same way, but after reaching Divinity, Uyuniya decided to prepare for opponents with varying powers – some of which wouldn't be thwarted by her one-note Aspect.
She gave her powers nuance. Instead of her Aspect only being able to force her opponent to temporarily detach from all their powers, she could now make them lose touch with individual abilities permanently under certain conditions.
Sixteen consecutive blows marked the opponent for her Aspect – all of which didn't do much physical harm but caused the target's active powers to fluster – and from there, sixteen more would guarantee that the opponent would lose their ability to use one of their powers for good. The selection for which ability was lost was random; it could be the opponent's ability to manipulate energies, for instance.
Of course, such a powerful application of the Aspect hadn't spawned out of nowhere. During the battle with the Doom Knight, Uyuniya had added a second Fundamental Barter to her Aspect. She had limited it to only opponents with a Broader Existence, allowing her to actually apply it against the Doom Knight.
This new application of her Aspect wasn't as strong as that, though. It was detached from her second Fundamental Barter, meaning it only had the benefit of the first one she made. Naturally, this meant that Uyuniya couldn't use this new option for her Aspect on multiple people at once. In this case, she was able to start using it on her undead opponent because it was part of Rias' abilities.
The alien princess took a sharp breath. She'd obliterated the enemy in one hit, meaning she didn't need to continue attacking.
'Tough bastard,' she thought.
…
…But then Undeath energy poured in great torrents down from Aimon, and onto the remains of the undead monster Uyuniya had just defeated.
As she scowled, she learned then that she'd been wrong.
Her opponent hadn't been a Death Knight… until now.