The Harvester

Chapter 416: Inversion u0026 Order

Lilia twirled her wrist and healed her tamed beast's arm as easily as breathing. And then, without need for her input, the dragon dashed forward again. But this time, instead of summoning a new sword, it held its ax with both hands before coating it in magma.

The Aqerite twisted in shape, a second element being unified with it, and before long, a war ax of much larger proportions was created, with magma veins over the surface of its material. One of Sonata's blades collided against it and a stray slash opened a trench in the ocean.

Rakna squinted past the entangled weapons, his body immune to the war ax's flames or heat. Even if the Obsidian Star had become dominant, his immunities originating from the other two had not gone away in the slightest. In fact, his aura passively absorbed some of it.

'I need about 2000 Attributes just to keep up with its speed,' the werewolf noted, Pronos' thoughts agreeing with him in parallel; both of them sharing a mind. 'And if I want to overpower it, I need to give up on either dexterity or intelligence; or both. The balance of values is just as important as any high figure, so it's a bit tricky. This guy's better off than me in that regard.'

"{It just goes to show that your Sage Beast Trait has its limits,}" Fray commented. "{You can bridge the gap between you and much stronger foes but depending on how far a gap you're trying to get over, the more flaws appear in the process.}"

'No shit,' Rakna grunted and was pushed away from the deadlock after the Aqerite became even heavier. Then, he noticed Lilia casting a new spell and the next thing he knew, the dragon turned into a blur, reaching another level of speed.

'That little…!' The werewolf's eye twitched as he sensed the next target of the World Boss. He put even more points into speed and caught up in time to kick the war ax off its path toward Varq. At the same time, three of his serpent tails fired a Slātta Raja at the evolved Wilden.

The dragon swiftly dodged them, even using one of its wings to deflect one, and faded out of view once again. Rakna gritted his teeth and teleported again, protecting another guildmate and nearly getting his arm cut off because of it.

This cycle repeated itself at least ten times in the next few minutes. Each time they clashed, waves of raw force would cleave into the water, and they were moving at such speeds that the ocean never had time to recover. It looked like they were digging into the water as if it was dirt.

And despite the tedious strategy of the dragon, Rakna couldn't help but laugh. He had to give it to his guild leader, this was by far the most fun he'd had fighting. Something about this test felt like a challenging and fun game, one that kept his focus and mind occupied at all times. And the fact that Lilia was a fascinating opponent to go against only made it more interesting.

"He sounds happy," Tairen mused as a bolt of Star Magic brushed past him.

"Even more than when he fought his uncle," Gray agreed. "Maybe it's the circumstances? He's getting a kick out of fighting his all without worry?"

"…his Resonance," Merlina muttered quietly.

"Oh!" Caer cupped his hands. "There is that too. A resonance of minds could have done that. Maybe the happiest between the two of them is actually the little Hydra."

As he finished speaking, an explosion resounded in the sky. A Union Spell from the dragon, glowing dark blue and shaped like a fireball, colliding with an Everfrost Cataract.

Rakna spread out his wings to parachute the knockback and swung his katanas. He activated two of his weapon's perks; Falling Star and Severance, fusing them into one attack. At the same time, his tails each fired a full-powered Flare.

The World Boss roared in return and breathed out a wave of blue fire, swallowing and detonating everything together.

"Hahaha!" The werewolf laughed and turned into a Comet, using a Quantic Leap with his wings at the same time. He hacked down at the dragon as soon as he appeared in front of it and when it was blocked, he gripped his second katana in a reverse grip and activated its strongest perk.

"[Skulk Life Down!]" He growled out and both Lilia and her beast felt the danger. But the nature of such a skill was too sly to react in time. In the blink of an eye, the Wilden's chest was bisected starting from its shoulder.

Lilia's expression grew serious and she extended a hand toward the dragon. "[Scrap,]" she uttered, and as if denying the action from ever happening, the wound disappeared. It was a variant of her damage redirection, with much greater limitations, but an even more terrifying use...

"[Reject,]" she raised her voice coldly and the next thing he knew, Rakna felt himself cut in two.

His eyes widened in surprise as his energies hastily started sewing him back together. But it wasn't fast enough to stop the next swing of the war ax; further splitting his body vertically before a blast of magma scattered the rest. 

The World Boss was aware such damage wouldn't be enough to stop the werewolf, so without even a second of hesitation, it focused on the primary goal given by its master. It pointed a hand at the closest member of Throne of Glory and conjured a spinning rock of cerulean magma.

Ganymede was about to intervene but stopped in his tracks when he saw an infinity sign appear in his summoner's eyes. As if time slowed down, everyone heard the werewolf's next words.

"[Invert All Creation, Anastrofa.]"

Then, everything around the regenerating werewolf collapsed. Light became dimmer, the sky and ground switched places, the wind began to blow in the opposite direction, the gravity pulled them upward, and north turned into south.

Without Rakna doing anything, the dragon fired his spell into empty air, going nowhere near where it was aimed at. To those outside the range of influence, they looked on in confusion, only seeing a sphere of distorted images; as if the werewolf and the World Boss were trapped in a hazy bubble.

Before long, Rakna got his body back together with a smirk and grasped the dragon's throat. The creature tried to swing its weapon at him, but inexplicably, it missed completely.

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"The intensity of the inversion is still weak, but it's enough," Rakna chuckled. "Otherwise, you'd be unable to even aim something in my general direction." As he said that, Lilia caught onto what the field was. She prepared to cast something but the werewolf manifested Infinity Magic once again.

"[Field Expansion,]" he intoned and Anastrofa's area expanded rapidly.

Instantaneously, everyone entered its range and felt sick as all their senses were thrown over their heads. It was to the point that whatever Lilia was channeling failed due to the cognitive loss of her objective.

'Enthymio?' She frowned and looked around. She felt buoyant, almost as if she was about to fly up, and along a plethora of weird sensations, she noted that… colors seemed different. As if they were slowly being flipped toward their opposite spectrum.

It was then that she noticed what her body was doing. Whenever she looked right, her head would turn left and she couldn't believe she hadn't noticed. It's not like her mind was being controlled. It was as if a fundamental truth had been altered; where a motion was triggered by counterthought.

Lilia tried to expel mana out of her body but it instead was compressed and she fully realized what was happening. On cue, she saw Rakna pointing both his fists in parallel to each other at her tamed dragon. His arms were buzzing and blurring.

"[Hammer of Rupture,]" he grunted out and space broke apart like glass, his Internal Art bursting like a cannon. For a moment, the World Boss looked like it had been split into hundreds of small pieces and then displaced as if a misaligned puzzle.

It lasted less than a second but when it was restored, the dragon immediately vomited blood and the scales on its torso crumbled like sand. Lilia closed her eyes and focused on her magic. If it was her, she could easily adapt and cast spells like normal in this inverted field, but her dragon would be stunted, aside from its physical capabilities. 

First, she needed to heal it and then give it a method to fight back until Rakna couldn't keep the Enthymio layer active. Considering that he had forcefully expanded its size, Anastrofa would soon apply too much toll for even him to handle.

As soon as she organized the situation in her head, Lilia had already gotten around to conjuring a proper spell, casting on herself the 'Grace of The White Saint' and acquiring healing magic strong enough to save someone from near death, which she immediately demonstrated on her dragon.

The World Boss was bestowed a cape of white light, healing its injuries as soon as they had been inflicted. It returned to full health and in a surprising display of awareness, it didn't try to use its weapon inside Anastrofa and instead punched its own ax, shattering it.

The fiery blue fragments glittered as they began to spin around the Wilden, who decided to release everything in its rawest form. Discharging its mana over the broken Aqerite, the dragon designed a crude frag attack and ravaged every direction possible to ensure a hit.

Rakna laughed lightly and mentally commanded Atlas. The Titan moved unaffected by the field of Enthymio just as his summoner was. He struggled to straighten his damaged body after taking on the volley of swords and grasped the air toward the Aqerite fragments in the same way he had for the meteors.

The improvised attack of the dragon was halted, frozen in space until it completely lost all its force. Even the Wilden itself was caught in an invisible prison, and whenever it tried to free itself, one could see Atlas' hands tremble, slightly being pushed apart.

Simultaneously, Rakna began to craft a new spell, duplicating it with his multi-casting. "[Forger of The Stars,]" he chanted and the obsidian outlines of eight spears manifested into reality.

Lilia opened her eyes with a grave expression and pointed her staff at Atlas. "[Break,]" she uttered and for a split second, the giant figure fizzled out. Normally, this skill of hers was meant to break a spell and should have completely gotten rid of the God but, as she had expected, the combination of Divinity and Domain, inside an Obsidian Star Puppet, was too convoluted to dispel.

Nevertheless, at least, her dragon was freed from his grasp. "[Marionette,]" she immediately used a more indiscreet type of skill to take control of half of her tamed beast's mind. She influenced the dragon like it was a remote limb and made it face Rakna.

Lilia didn't even try to target her guildmates. It would only give Rakna an opening that her dragon or herself wouldn't be able to correctly respond to in this reverse field. Therefore, she poured all of her beast's energy into its Breath.

The World Boss' wings rattled and began to split into floating black scales. They flew into its mouth where a crimson and blue fire was rising dangerously.

Rakna grinned at the sight, ignoring the fissures appearing on his own body due to Anastrofa. The dimensional layer was starting to pierce through his physical defenses and harm his soul. At this rate, he would be forced to disengage within a minute.

Not to mention…

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The Debuff, Shackles of Time, has been cast on you!

The Debuff, Shackles of Space, has been cast on you!

The Curse, Eye of Cauchemar, has been cast on you!

The Curse, The Mortal's Land, has been cast on you!

The Curse, The Poor's Dream, has been cast on you!

The Spell, Grace of The Martyr, has been cast on you!

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Tenth Tail of The Sage Nephilim is resisting the Debuffs & Curses!

Authority of The Law-Breaker is resisting the Debuffs & Curses!

Limitless Traveler is resisting the Debuffs & Curses!

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Effects cannot be fully resisted due to Level disparity!

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You have gained the temporary Skill; Defiance of Respite!

You have gained the temporary Trait; Martyr's Sacrifice!

Defiance of Respite partly rejects the negation of the burdens!

Martyr's Sacrifice has increased the effects of the burdens!

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The space and time contained inside your body have been shackled! You will not be able to teleport or influence time flows for the next 15 seconds!

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Your body has stopped responding! You will not be able to move for the next 2 seconds.

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For the next three minutes, as long as you do not stand on firm ground, your will speed will decrease by 42%.

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For the next 23 seconds, your skills or spells have a 62% chance of backfiring!

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Rakna couldn't help but shiver as he witnessed Lilia cast all of this with just a wave of her staff as well as a terrifying surge of mana. 'To think all this comes from one magic affinity…'

"{Infirmity Magic…}" Fray whispered. "{To be able to cast curses and debuffs of such strength and at such a rate… I have never heard of it before today. If it wasn't for your resistance, I'd say it would be impossible for you to win.}"

The werewolf snickered. 'This was never about winning,' he said and his eyes flashed, finishing the creation of the eight spears. All of them were exact copies; a golden and red spear with an intricate blade resembling a trident, but with each spike converging into one tip.

"[A Dragon You Felled, A Princess You Saved,]" Rakna chanted with a humorous smile hanging on his lips due to the incantation. "[A Name You Were Granted.]" His eyes glowed with the power of infinity, but he wasn't the only one who accelerated his attack.

"[No Cast,]" Lilia uttered dryly, and without even an extra millisecond, the charging of the dragon's breath was over. Dark blue flames, highlighted by red, spewed out of its mouth. Their movement disturbed Anastrofa's rules and appeared heavy… as if the flames were solid. 

Rakna watched the incoming breath in awe. The way those flames flickered… he wasn't looking at fire; this was stone behaving like fire. He laughed and spread his arms; the best he could do under the Eye of Cauchemar curse. Yet, he didn't launch his spears.

He smirked. "[Imperial Order,]" he calmly uttered and the wave swallowed him. A crackling noise echoed on contact, and before long, the 'blue flames' erupted. The force behind it parted the seas and reached several islands on Atlantis, New Athens included, causing several earthquakes.

Ganymede barely managed to keep his charges safe with the help of Atlas, who exhausted every last bit of his energy in exchange, dissipating into particles of star energy.

On the other hand, Anastrofa disappeared as soon as the dragon breath hit its mark. But Lilia had no delusion to believe it was because of the attack itself. Rakna had consciously withdrawn it. And as she observed the upshot of the blue flames, she shuddered and looked up.

A winged werewolf leaped through a cloud of steam crowning the explosion with almost no visible damage, aside from a few cuts and some internal injuries that were already being fixed.

Lilia's eyes widened in shock. She was indeed surprised to see him with so little damage, but the most shocking part was that the spears he had created earlier were still hovering around him. She could understand if he had used them to defend himself from the Dragon Breath, but it was evident he hadn't.

And most importantly, none of them had been dispelled. It was practically impossible to maintain a spell active if everything around you was utter chaos. Those spears shouldn't have lasted even a second inside the blue flames. But here they were.

"…what is… Imperial Order?" She asked, recalling the words he had spoken.

Rakna grinned but didn't answer her question, instead waving his hand at the World Boss before it could recover from shooting such a powerful breath. "[Ascalon,]" he uttered and the spears flew fast and true.

The time it took them to reach their target was close to non-existent and the evolved Wilden roared in pain and anger as the weapons impaled it from eight different directions.

Lilia winced and attempted to negate the spears' Anti-Dragon damage, only for a wave of tiredness to fall over her. Much to her confusion, she literally felt too lazy to do anything.

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The Spell, Lazy Actor, has been cast on you! 8x

Resistance-Check failed! You are overcome with Sloth!

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Skills and spells will become mentally harder to cast. This will not make them unusable or increase their costs, but if the person afflicted with this hex tries to cast anything with a normal level of concentration, there is a high chance for the activation to fail.

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Lilia gaped. She just stared at the System window, feeling amazed, embarrassed, and insulted that someone had given her a taste of her own medicine.

And before she could get out of her daze, Rakna dashed toward the World Boss and coated Sonata with a layer of Obsidian and Soul Flames. The Guandao vibrated and the werewolf blurred out of view.

In the next instant, he reappeared on the opposite side of the dragon, his back facing it. The Wilden had coincidentally stopped moving with an empty expression.

"[Apciṭiyaṉiṉ Naṭaṉam,]" Rakna breathed out. He slowly whirled Sonata and shouldered it with a grin, staring at Lilia in the eyes. Behind him, a purple line spontaneously traced itself on the body of the dragon, curving a few times from the top to the bottom.

It was a 'road' paved over Focal Points. Soon after it appeared, the Wilden's body crumbled along the line. A leg, half the skull, half the torso, and the remainder; four pieces. There was not even a single drop of blood to be seen.

The dragon had been 'sliced' by the Obsidian Star, targeting the Focal Points. Its body had already lost the properties of a living organism and its soul had been cut apart. The World Boss was dead beyond doubt.

"Well then," Rakna cracked his neck, his tails hissing softly as they grinned the same way Pronos would when he acts mischievously. "Did I pass?"