Chapter 1566: She Does Not Make Sense (4)
The on-the-field Kintar pulled on Rias’ wrist and clung to it with her arms while pushing against his side with a foot. Another Kintar, hair catching fire, sent a flurry of invisible blows bashing against Rias to distract him while another rushed in and attempted to touch him with a palm livid with Infinitesimal Division.
Rias unleashed a sharp pulse of Amras, forcing all three Kintars away and then lunged, dealing each of them a fatal blow that killed them.
...But not before three more Kintars appeared.
’Enough of this.’
Rias used his Undeath energy as a conduit for telekinesis. He drew Nana to his side and held her by the neck. She had already taken down two more Drakkens at this point, but the strain was getting to her. Her powers had long reached the limit because of Rias’ influence: a complete 100% increase.
Her teeth were gritted, blood oozed from her ears, and purple veins riddled her skin. Her agony was unimaginable.
But the masked man wasn’t done using her. Reaching in close to her ear, he whispered a command, ending it a tease of hope:
"...and I’ll give you sweet release from this pain."
And thus, Nana, hopeful, did as he commanded, with her hands shaking. She stuttered a little, but managed all the same to say:
"M-majestic Territory Expulsion, Wolverine’s Testimony."
Nitros flooded out in an instant, almost desperately, and Rias mixed in his Amras into it.
It was clever that he did so, because the three new Kintars had already been working to turn Nana’s Nitros against her before it could form a Territory.
But Wolverine’s Testimony was forged all the same. It enclosed Nana, Rias and the Kintars into its fold, but before it could finish establishing the Imaginary GeoScape, the masked man had already hurtled towards the Kintars. He managed to kill one in instant, crushing her head.
...And then it was Nana’s cue.
When something tiny spilled from the Kintar corpse, Nana sensed it. This was her Territory after all and she could do more than just sense it. Even if it was only for 0.00000000000000000000003 of a second, she managed to stall the rapid emergence of the replacement Kintar – its rapid life cycle from a microscopic organism to a full-fledged, demented Unlimited Star.
Rias did not miss that.
His hand snapped faster than it had ever done and was coated with the vengeful red blaze of Undeath.
Throughout his entire battle with Kintar, it wasn’t that he couldn’t see the emerging the clones when they spilled from the corpses he left behind. The speed at which they bloomed was just a tad bit faster than he could react to. He simply couldn’t stop them from becoming the complete clones in time.
But now...
TSSSS!
It was like crushing a fly in a burning fist. As Rias caught the emerging Kintar in his palm, it was destroyed instantly by raging tendrils Undeath. Rias then blasted the corpse it had sprouted from with a condensed blast of Undeath.
With Nana offering her modest assistance with the Territory...
"I won’t be giving you a lady’s courtesy, like I intended before," the masked man said, fired up, and he flashed over to another Kintar, snatched both her arms in his one hand (they were quite small and delicate, after all) and slapped her so hard the top of her dome came off.
His eyes snapped in multiple directions. He noticed it when four miniature buds for clones were released from the corpse. It must have been the desperation building from Kintar, he judged.
Nana managed to stall three of them with her Territory, but the rest were suddenly covered with a wad of Nitros that came from the remaining Kintar, shielding them. This Kintar immediately charged at Rias to stall him further.
But it made no difference to the masked man. He extinguished the first three by crushing them with his hands, each whipping out faster than light. At the same time, he expelled a dense pulse of Undeath energy around him to engulf those that remained. They were incinerated without resistance before they could bloom.
This move cost him a large chunk of Undeath energy (nearly two-thirds), which he had dreaded since Aimon was currently busy with another task to come to his aid; Undeath energy and Amras were the only viable means of offense and defence he had in his arsenal at this point.
But in the name of finally crushing Kintar, this risky move was worth.
Rias had the remaining Kintar in his grasp in the next instance. He squeezed her throat while watching for any tricks she might pull.
BOOM!
The Territory shattered into colourful shards right then, dismissing the fascinating GeoScape which had only just formed by the time Rias had eliminated the Kintar clones.
A Drakken had swatted it with its gigantic tail.
But Rias had only expected this. He didn’t care. The fact remained.
"Burn," he said to Kintar while infusing Undeath energy into her body. It spewed out of her mouth, eyes, nose and ears. It was to be an agonizing death for Kintar. It should have been. But...
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!"
It wasn’t the burning clone that laughed.
No.
It was the Kintar flying in the sky, spreading her arms, the cape attached to her Granted Star Armament rippling in the fierce scorching winds.
She wasn’t looking below, where Rias was, holding the clone while a Drakken circled him.
This confused the masked man just as much as it infuriated him.
What now? How was this woman alive even still? How had he been fooled?
Kintar didn’t deign to answer. What she said next might not have been for Rias’ ears. She cried while looking up at the skies, the beginnings of tears spilling from her narrowed eyes. (She had a wide smile that distorted her features terribly.)
"I...I never imagined it would be this easy! I thought to make myself a Herald of Aigas, but that didn’t tickle my fancy. No! I wouldn’t have wanted to make myself a puppy for Deities as a consequence of inheriting these secret powers! I was desperate, I’ll admit, but I should have trusted my genius a bit more!" She laughed again, chitteringly – annoyingly. Then she looked down at the masked man, mana exploding from her in tempestuous swirls. She seemed to pull her hair out as her pupils dilated. "Can you believe it, you masked, impotent fool?! I can cheat Transcendence, and that’s without even relying on that fancy Fundamental Barter!"
Rias grew even more incensed by Kintar.
’I have a bad feeling about this,’ he thought, and in a flash, he scaled the air as though it were a flat surface, hurtling towards Kintar.
...But before he reached her, he heard her voice coming from elsewhere.
He turned to his left, and saw, on the back of an Eternal Drakken, another Kintar grinning at him.
This one was chanting freely.
"I, KINTAR ALADASTER, COMMON-BORN, HUMBLE AND ECCENTRIC, HEREBY DECLARE TO THE SKIES, TO THE LAND, TO THE SEAS, AND TO THE UNDER WITH A RULE COMBED BY MY RIGHTEOUS ENLIGHTMENT... THAT I HAVE A NATURAL SOUL EQUAL TO THAT OF THE BAREST OF DIVINES!"
...And it happened as the Unlimited Star declared.
It was clean and swift.
But even cleaner, and even swifter, was how Kintar immediately forged within herself a Vermillion core that dwarfed Sila’s by leagues!