“Phoenix Dance – Kasun!”
Woosh! Fire noises!
Muahaha! Previously when Kiana was fighting the Shadow Chariot and its minions, I briefly mentioned that I knew her phoenix dance but I meant that, I know how to use them. When she used them, they were roughly A rank but, in my case, they will be at S+ rank, three times the power of Cerberus to be quite precise. With my right leg forward a few centimetres and to the right a few others, stretching it fully as I have my left leg fully bent and with my body leaning towards the left, then with both of my hands holding the handle of my Paladin White Sword and with the blade of it facing outwards, I’m ready to do my dance. The blade of my Paladin White Sword in an instant it’s consumed by blazing hot flames. A loud and deep “woosh” follows the blade getting ignited as the sheer temperatures around it quickly climb up, as it pulls the oxygen around it towards itself, using it as fuel so that it can burst into stronger flames. The flames are as hot as you can imagine, reaching 2800 degrees, higher than my previous Scorched Strike and Inferno Strike, much more in fact. Not only those flames are that hot, in the fraction of the second that I held the sword in that position, steam starts to form around it as the sheer temperature starts to vaporize the humidity present in the air.
I’m actually a few good meters from it but nothing that a little dash can’t overcome this “tricky situation”, then with a little magic manipulation and control, I can sneakily close a little more distance without actually getting physically closer to him, taking him by surprise in the process. Quite neat don’t you think? Though, since I’m this far from him, anyone can reach the conclusion that he must be waiting for me to dash towards him so that he then can attack me mid-dash and even if I do the same as before, I’m more than confident that he’s already expecting it as he has seen it multiple times now not only that, he has shown enough intelligent to be able to predict something like this. He does have a Pyro spell ready to be “thrown” at me and from the magic circle and of course the quantity of magic on it I can somewhat say that it’s another Flamethrower but this is exactly the reason why I will be taking him by surprise. Though in case the Flamethrower misses, he’s also at the same time preparing two additional spells from his other heads, one seems to be a Blast Cannon while the other spells I have no clue what spell is… Now that’s the first but, that matters not as I doubt, I will be able to ever know what it is as I will have unleashed something akin to hell, maybe even worse than it since I’m the one doing it.
Lightning noises!
Another Electro spell, the same one as before to be precise though this time around I stop a few meters from him, ready to attack him. At the distance that I was from him, this dash was something akin to you being halfway through your blinking and I’m already at your neck. At this speed and distance, for you to be able to react to it, you must be above SS- rank as otherwise you won’t be able to. I follow it up with a simple vertical swing from left to right with a little angle to it as I do aim a few centimetres upwards, the idea is to hit the head on my left at around the beginning of its neck, hitting then the middle one roughly in the same area and the last one at the end of my strike. A perfect hit, strike, cut, slice or whatever we can call this, with temperatures so high I will basically melt anything on my path so it does not matter. As I begin my swing Cerberus also gets ready to unleash the Blast Cannon and the Flamethrower spell towards me at the same time but unfortunately for him, he won’t be able to do anything as I will be much faster than his brains combined can even process the information of what I’m doing. Once I have my sword in position or in this case, once it’s at one third of the total “action” it’s when I increase the length of the flames of the blade by two or so meters, closing the distance that I left on purpose. Although I did say that he wanted to use the Flamethrower spell to decimate me when I got close enough but now that I think about it, it seems he wanted to use it as a decoy so that once I dodge it, he then can much more comfortable use the Blast Cannon to well, blast me away and in the case that I’m close to him or enough for him to be within the blast radius, since he has that pesky barrier, he might as well come unscaled even if he aimed directly at his own paws. Huh, a suicide attack but without actually being one? Oh well, enough of my unnecessary offside.
Slash!
It went exactly as you can and should expect and since this is the Sword Art Phoenix Dance – Kasun, after the first swing a nice warm cloud that “only wants to give hugs and love to those that are close enough” follows it. I say hug because it will embrace those that were far too unfortunate enough to live through the initial swing and it’s warm because well, the temperatures will be quite close to the initial strike. Unfortunately, just like what happened to my Tempest spell, this one will suffer a similar fate. The attack itself was successful per say or should I say that I did hit him exactly how I wanted to? Since the flames of the blade were increased in length a loud and deep “woosh” follows said phenomenon as the flames themselves consume all the oxygen around them and since I was pretty quickly with that, he had no reaction to it whatsoever to the point I doubt he knows what hit him. Not only that, the acute sound that should’ve been heard was instead swallowed by the sound of the flames themselves; however, even if the sound was indeed swallowed, it still was there informing me that my powerful attack is completely ineffective. Well, maybe not completely ineffective as the “hit” does pack quite the punch and that alone was enough to break the neck of two heads while the last one fortunately to him, the strike lost enough force to not be able to break his neck. Though, he was forcefully sent upwards a few centimetres as thanks to the angle of my swing and of course force behind it, allowing this small situation to happen. Now, just like Kiana’s Swords Art, right after the initial swing, a cloud of flames follows it, the one that I briefly mentioned mere moments ago, a cloud that was more than big enough to consume half of Cerberus’ body.
Fire noises!
As the cloud gently but decisively travels through the “space”, anything on its path is melted with it, not even ashes of such are left behind. The ground where we stand, where he stands is more correct, it was not able to withstand the sheer high temperatures, being melted in that same instant. The air that surrounds us, it was used as fuel thanks to the oxygen present on it, while the humidity of it, it was melted, vaporized should be a better word, leaving a path of steam as the cloud walks through the space in the same way we walk through the park, casually but with a decisive and never changing path. However, even from where Miss Pink Orb is, mind you she’s at least 50 meters from us, I can confidently say that she can feel the sheer heat from the cloud, a heat that is slowly transforming this whole area into a sauna and with this simple fact in full display as we can see it in real time, in good area around us, steam starts to form as said humidity is rapidly being vaporized. The same should’ve happened to him, much more drastically as his body should be slowly melting away and yet, that pesky and way to overpowered barrier protected him fully and because of it...
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
My perfect, powerful and well executed Sword Arts was rendered useless because of it.
He falls on his back as my strike was enough to “lift” him up a whole meter or so, just enough that when gravity did its mandatory job on everything, it forcefully pulled him towards the centre of this universe, making him fall on his back while he complained all the way through said ride with a loud and deep growl or was it a cry instead? Not that it matters now does it? After all-
“Welp, it really seems that slashing and stabbing are useless against you. Magic on the other hand… You did feel the heat, now did you? After all, you did use magic to protect against the tem-”
Roar!
Oh my, someone is mad! I mean, if I was in his shoes, I would also be quite mad and annoying at this pesky human. Although in this case, we also need to add the fact that he's also hurt thanks to that pesky human.
As fast as his body allowed, he got up, throwing himself at me, ready to tear me a new face. Nothing too dramatic, he just wants to eat me in one single swoop. Yep, he’s not mad at all and I’m definitely taking him seriously (I’m not though). He was pretty sloppy and slow at that but to make his attempt even more desperate, he didn’t use magic to power up his bite, it really was a simple, raw, animalistic bite that has no sign of logic or reason to it at all. I was able to dodge it quite easily but I did do so in an exaggerated way, getting quite far from him because of it. There’s a reason for this as I will be switching my strategy as I want to confirm something although, I will only be able to do so in a few moments. Anyway, going back to what I was about to say. He didn’t come unscaled in fact, he suffered quite a bit of damage but not in the way that we all might expect. There’s a physical barrier that embraces his entire body, that’s something that I have noticed a little bit ago, complained about even, this barrier protects him against direct physical impacts meaning that, if I stab him, said barrier will prevent him from getting stabbed however, the impact of the stabbing he will still feel it. That’s why I was able to break his bones even though I was not able to slice or stab him.
With this I can reach the conclusion that blunt attacks might be able to indirectly damage him as with each impact that follows each hit of mine, in this case the vibrations of such will travel through the barrier and unto his body, explaining why I was able to “lift” him up in my previous Sword Arts and of course why I was able to damage him somewhat. Now, the second phenomenon that I noticed is that the barrier does not fully protect him against magical attacks or spells, it just protects the physical aspect of them. If I shoot a Fireball against him, the initial hit and even the explosion that follows it, said barrier will protect him (albeit he still will feel the impact of both) but the same cannot be said about the flames in both situations. Yep, he will suffer the consequences of getting hit by high temperatures, the first one from the spell and the second one from the explosion, getting “roasted” in the process. That’s why in my previous attack he used magic to protect himself against the cloud of flames but even then, since my Swords Arts was in the upper realm of S+, the temperatures from it were far too much for him to be able to fully protect himself from them.
“Enough of this technical stuff, I just need to hit him hard, that’s all.”
Exactly just how a boonga woonga would explain back in the day, nice one me! I truly am not the stereotype of a strong man but smoll brain… To make it even more evident of such disparity, the big smile on my face does tell the world and those who are watching my battle that, I’m quite confident to what I just affirmed. Either way, moving on to the next stage, now I need to confirm two theories. The first one is obvious; will I be able to properly damage him with blunt attacks? Or will the impact from such blunt attacks do the damage instead? The other theory… well, I will leave it for once I’m done experiment with the first one.
Howl!
Cannot say that I was expecting this from him but, he’s powering up, it seems he’s also ready for what’s about to come. An aura made of Dark Magic surrounds his entire fearsome body, if before he was terrifying to look at then, with this ominous aura gently and swiftly surrounding his body, he has just become something akin to a “Dark Demon”, something that should only belong to horror stories and not the real world. Maybe he actually is one as he does have several common characteristics with Shadows although in this case maybe I should say “Shadow Demon” instead. But, while his magic energy is slowly increasing, his total increase in magic power is a “measly” 20% higher than before or in other terms, a small boost to his strength I will say. Nothing drastic- Wait a second, is that a magic circle underneath him?
Magic noises!
Upon closer inspection or more so I used both Magical Eyes and Magic Sense for such, it really is a magic circle, one that is a little bigger than him, coloured with several shades of blue but it does not seem to be a Hydro magic circle… Just what in tarnation is that? The magic present there is nothing special but I can see a magical connection between him and the circle, something as expected is not normal at all. It seems like he’s constantly sending magic towards the magic circle but, what for and why? It’s just like before, another spell that I have no clue what it is however, my instincts are quite calm and quiet so, maybe don’t worry too much about it?
And I’m going to jinx myself, aren’t I?
“Martial Arts - Air Punch!”
Swoosh!
Let’s start small and progressively increase the intensity and strength of my attacks. From all the way back here per say, I have easily 25 meters of distance between us, I shoot at him with an Air Punch, reaching him a few seconds later. The power of this Air Punch was roughly A rank, nothing out of this world and well below his S rank strength and to make this even weaker, at this distance the skill loses strength as it travels. However, as I said before, I’m going to start small. I want to see how he reacts first. A simple punch towards the air but one aimed at him, something akin to punching someone in the guts. A shockwave the size of my fist then is shot towards him but even though it closed the distance between us in said few seconds, thanks to its lower force behind it and the sheer distance that it had to travel, the Cerberus didn’t even feel it even though he got hit directly on his chest.
“Here’s another one!”
Swoosh!
This time at A+ strength, I do the exact same but with the opposite hand/fist. The strength behind it is easily two times higher than before and while the speed is “only” 20% more, it’s enough to close the distance between us one whole half a second faster. Again, the same happens, the skill hits right in the middle of his chest but this time around, I was able to see him feel the recoil from the impact. Nothing too drastic at all as if he moved backwards a whole centimetre and that’s already too much in my opinion. Think of this, you try to push someone but instead of using both of your hands you use a single finger for such but to make it even more worthless of an attempt, you use your pinkie finger. Though, this easily indicates that he does indeed feel the impact or should I say the shock that comes from the impact? Either way, otherwise the barrier would prevent him from feeling this “pathetic” skill. Hmm, he does seem ready to throw a magic spell at me and yet, here I am wasting my precious time thinking about this random crap. The usual, no?
