Armor of Layla
"So this is her unique item" Malik murmured while looking at the majestic appearance of Lucy's new form in her gear.
Everyone halted the actions they were doing and was stunned as they looked at her.
"What is that?'
"She was hiding her strength all this time?"
"Do we stand a chance against her like this?"
The discoraging thoughts were emerging from their minds because of the intimidating presence standing before their eyes.
"Get a hold of yourselves" Malik shouted and warned his team.
"Just proceed as we planned. There is no way we will lose just because of a single item" he tried to raise the moral.
"Yes"
Whoosh.
They started their attack again.
Asper continued her assault to steal the flag of the blue team with her wind-like speed.
Boom.Boom.
The deadly canon attacks were also started again. However, this time the attacks were not randomly aiming at the area around blue team but to a single individual, Lucy.
Countless canon balls were flying toward her with tremendous speed.
Boom.
Whoosh.
Before the canon balls hit her, she disppeared from where she was standing. Only the cracked ground with the foot prints in the middle was left.
Boom.Boom.Boom.
"Where did she disppear to" Malik wondered panickly as he looked at his canon balls which were hitting the ground and exploded.
She did not disppear to anywhere. She just moved so fast that no one could follow her movements with their eyes.
Whoosh.
Immediately after she disppeared, she appeared before the countless canons in front of Malik. Even the impact erupting from her sudden halt of the movements made the trees shook violently and caused Malik to fall to his hips.
She lifted her right hand while fisting tightly. Enormous pink flames appeared around the fist while making the violent sound of burning. She then thrusted her hand straight and punched the gatherings of <earth canons>.
"<Nova>"
Boom.
Along with the deafthening sound of explosion, all the brown broken pieces of <earth canons> were raining down and filling the battlefield.
"<Acid spear>"
Gozen chanted a spell in the midst of chaos and threw it toward Lucy.
It was a 2 meters long spear made of acid. The spear pierced through the air and flied straight toward Lucy's chest.
"<Nova>"
She threw a straight punch at the front again and hit the tip of <acid spear>.
Boom.
The splashing of acid drops mixed with punk flames of <Nova> caused mini explosions on their own in front of Lucy. However, for Lucy, those explosions were like mosquitoes flying around her while making the sound. She was unscrathed.
Looking at Lucy and her masjectic form in jet-black armor with the pink cape and long pig tailed hairs were dancing as they swayed from left and right becuase of the strong wind, the members of the blue team calmed down a little and felt relief as if something heavy crushing on them had been lifted.
They got their cool and focuses back.
"Alver!!" Lucy turned around and shouted at the tank to warn something.
"Yessss!" Alver whose head had now cooled down replied with a loud voice full of energy.
"!?"
She then noticed Asper who was piercing the air and charging toward the flag like a bullet. Asper had reached very close to the flag and the right hand was already extended to grab the flag.
"<Taunting roar>" the moment she saw that, she spent not even a second and hit the ground with the bottom of her shield violently.
Boom.
With the powerful impact of the hit, the bright golden aura erupted from her body and spread to the sorroundings like a explosion.
"Just a little more. I got this. We win" Asper thought as she desperately made her last leap to reach to the flag.
"!?"
Her movements had halted suddenly. Her mind became clouded and dizzy. However, she was conscious.
Whoosh.
Then suddenly, she charged toward Alver with all her might.
"What are you doing!?" Honda shouted.
But it did not reach Asper.
"That is taunting skill. A spell which makes the enemies to only target all their attentions to the user for a while. It is a dream skill of the tankers. However, because of it's rarity, only a handful of hunters own this skill. To get a hold of this dream skill, the tankers won't hesistate to do anything including risking thier lives. To think, I would see a hunter who have this skill in my first evaluation" Malik thought.
Clank.Clank.Clank.Clank.
Asper swang her blades left and right consectively with great speed aiming at Alver and Alver was repelling the attacks with her shield.
The red team's plan failed because of the unexpected spell of Alver.
"Mr. Honda, Mr. Gozen!! gather all your strength and target the spell at their tank!!" Malik's thunderous voice of desperate command roared through the forest.
"Y-yes"
They replied nervously as they prepared to gather all their soul energy to use it all in a spell.
"Like I'd let you"
However, the blue team did not let them comeback.
Lucy charged toward them with divine speed and aimed to throw a punch burning with pink flames.
"Tsk"
"Earth construction"
Malik stood up in front of Gozen and Honda and constructed an earth shield and tried to block the attack.
Boooooom!
"Grr!!"
Crack.Crack.
The powerful and tremendous impact of the attack was unstoppable even with the earth shield. The moment it came into contact with the punch, the shield was cracked into pieces from the middle.
"Grr!!" Malik roared as he hold the cracked shield and barely hanging on by pushing the shield with all his body's strength.
"I haven't thrust my punch yet" Lucy said it word by word slowly and twisted her body to gain strength to throw the full punch.
"Grrrr!!"
"Gr!!"
The pink flames at the fists started flaring violently and the wind became rougher and stronger. With the roar of both parties, Lucy extended her right hand fully and finished her punch.
Booom.
The tremendous impact of the punch completely broke apart the shield into pieces as it sent both Malik and his team members who he was covering to fly to about 20 meters with unbelievable speed.
Boom.Boom.Boom.
When they hit the ground and stopped, all of them could not lift a finger. Blood were all over their bodies and ribs were broken.
"Huff-huff. We did it" Alver said as she hold down Asper with her body.
It looks like she won against Asper with the help of the buffs she got from Fins.
"Ahh~"
"Are you okay?" Fins said worriedly as he supported Gringer who was badly injured to stand by pulling her up from her left hand.
The bleeding had stopped thanks to the use of healing magic on herself. There was nothing to do about the loss of her right hand.
"Fins, you go and capture their flag. I and Alver will stay guard and wait here" Lucy said.
Fins nodded.
"We can't leave the enemies here alone even if they can't move." he thought as he prepared to depart.
"The game 2 of capture of the flag is over.The winners are blue team" Balor announced the result with his deep thunderous voice as the blue team managed to capture the flag of red team without any trouble.
Some staffs of the ministry came and took the badly injured ones to the infirmary tent which lied at outside of the exam field.
"What is gonna happen to Gringer?" Lucy asked Balor with a concerned face as she arrived at the tower.
"She is fine. We have S ranked supporter who can cure even the lost limbs. You don't need to worry about anything" Balor comforted her.
"That is one deadly item you have. <Armor of Layla> huh? With that item, she can surpass every S ranked hunter in Brklin and even become a hunter who rivals the top hunters of the continent. We might be seeing the future SS ranked hunter" Balor thought as he looked at Lucy who had returned to her normal form without dressing in her unique item.
The power difference between hunters with unique items and without ones are very enormous. It is not salient in the cases of low rankers but for the high rankers hunters, the difference is significant. A talented A rank hunter can try his best and become a barely S ranker but he can't do anything to close the difference in power between him and the same S ranker with unique item. Mastering one unique item is also not enough. Depending on the quality of the unique items, S rankers can actain greater power which tresends the caliber of S rank, SS rank which lies above S rank and there are only 7 people with the godly power of SS rank in the entire continent. Becoming one is almost impossible that the ministry of hunting does not even include that rank in official rankings.
"Now is our turn. Let's work together and win the game" Andrew said excitedly with a tone mixed with encouragment and command.
That time no one knew that the game 3 of capture the flag is going to change something in Noah as it is gonna unlock the new emotions and instincts inside of Noah which defines who Noah is.