Chapter 260: Nuances

With a flick of his finger Sarganox burst forth with holy aura and zipped towards Mira's location. It moved so fast that it made one wonder whether its size was just an illusion since it seemed to ignore air resistance. Still, even with all that speed Mira had time to transform into her Lepus (Hare) form, dash around the lance, and close the distance. The next moment her legs were raised above Zivon's head ready for a downward axe kick.

Sarganox disappeared in a flash of golden light just as it was about to hit the ground and black light enveloped Zivon just before Mira's kick connected.

"BANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The remnants of the shattered barrier spells that Mira's legs had gone through were blown away due to the shockwave of the collision between Mira's hooves, which resembled obsidian, and the 3 floating black metal arms that crisscrossed in the air blocking Mira's kick.

Zivon stood under the arms covered in armor made of the same black metal armor with one floating arm attached to the arms shoulder. His legs were covered in armor that looked like the abdomen of an insect providing no allowance for his legs to move normally. Floating above his head was a single thin blue filament with a spherical end. The armor and the arms that came with them had blue lines that mapped out the skeleton of the armor.

The light in the blue lines intensified but Mira dashed away before the armor could show its effects. She drew Zivon towards her and noticed that her soul ability wasn't just drawing him but the armor and the floating arms; they all parts of his being.

Mira transformed back to her normal form but she kept her White Countenance mode on as she baptized Zivon in a deluge of punches. Zivon countered with his 4 floating arms blocking and returning their own punches while he created barriers to reduce the power in her blows.

Mira gathered the white flames of drive, preparing to break the stalemate once it was charged up. The lights in the blue lines on Zivon's arms intensified also as Zivon charged them.

Mira's IP denoted the armor as [Tier 5 Armament: Android Insect King Armor: Sarganox]. The name was well placed; unlike when it was a spirit lance Sarganox now emitted a coldblooded aura, the story it told this time revolved around the cold, cruel, unsentimental, unloving and merciless process of continued survival and thriving.

Since Mira was not resisting this mental impact with an experience of her own she had absorbed this story. Mira transformed into her Vulpecula (Fox) form and slapped the hands with her tails freezing them in time.

Mira's tails shot toward Zivon but he swiftly flew away while armor transformed into a set of tattoos around his mouth and throat and his teeth grew ferocious resembling a lions mouth. Mira's IP called this new form [Tier 5 Armament: Alpha Beast Language: Sarganox].

Zivon had swiftly analyzed Mira's new form and took measures to perfectly counter them. Her created barriers to intercept the tails and when the tails hit the barrier it completely stopped their momentum. The tails stopped time so they were useless against objects that weren't trying to go anywhere. In fact they improved the defense of the barriers since they were now more resistant to change as time had frozen for them.

This new form told a story of dominance and predation. It represented the might of an unstoppable force of nature, evolved to kill, to live by killing and killing only. Mira's mind and soul absorbed the story and she transformed to one of her newer forms, Aquarius (Water Bearer).

Mira's form seemed to melt as she put all her focus on freely manipulating her body with her morphing ability. Zivon spoke a language filled with growls and snarls and the world seemed to tremble at the sounds.

An explosion rang out from where Mira was as fire, plasma and red aura formed the image of a lion at the spot where Mira was. Mira flowed out of the area the flame lion occupied while leaving chunks of diamond. The diamonds exploded, rupturing the flame lion.

Zivon spoke again with hisses and a snake made of solid mercury covered in green aura and emitting a chilling temperature appeared and coiled around him. The snake formed a ball around Zivon and nothing happened after.

Mira waited in her liquid form, flowing and changing shape as she waited for Zivon to show his next card. After waiting for a while she condensed all the flames of drive she had been charging up since the start of the battle and with a focused diamond explosion, released a beam of energy toward the balled up snake while checking her surroundings.

The energy beam passed through a bunch of barriers that instantly appeared. The barriers were intangible; they just absorbed the energy in the beam weakening it while expanding. The energy beam eventually reached the snake after losing some power. The beam disintegrated it but it kept consuming energy from the atmosphere and from Zivon to regenerate. The green aura on it tried in vain to convert the energy hitting the snake into green aura; the energy was too condensed.

Still, Zivon had made his move within the snake barrier. The tattoos had disappeared the moment Mira lost sight of him; he had changed the form of Sarganox.

Mira kept her beam up, slowly but surely piercing into the snake while watching out for any teleports or action outside the snake; she didn't remove the possibility that she was prying open an empty can. Her IP notified her about a weapon that was gaining on her [Tier 5 Armament: Apocalyptic Plague: Sarganox].

…

In a room in one of the buildings in Wangin, the hologram of Avatari asked the tense Chao Feng, "Do you know who will win?" Chao Feng said "My money is on Mira, she survived seeing his weapon, beyond its instant knockout effect its nothing too special".

Yu said "My money is on Zivon. I sparred with him, he is only using his weapon, he hasn't used anything apart from barrier magic" while tapping his claws on the table. Avatari looked around the room and noticed that there were only about 5 sponsors in the room apart from them only those who worked for Chao Feng remained.

They all suppressed a deep anxiety, an anxiety toward the unknown. Avatari who had seen through Jade's lies could easily tell that something was up. She thought 'I thought it was this battle that made them tense since all the other battles have ended. I guess I was wrong…'. She looked around before resolving 'I should just ask'.

She asked "You guys are tense, what's happening?" Chao Feng was silent for a while, he contemplated be before saying "Something big might happen after this battle ends. I'll send the rewards to you after". Avatari didn't hide her surprise as she asked "What is happening?"

Chao Feng said "I don't know. People have been contacting the contestants and offering them deals so that they would leave the city for one hour after the last match ends. I interrogated the people but they had completely lost the memories of those actions".

Avatari said "Would you like my help? Don't worry it's for free". Chao Feng said "No, we need to see our security's short comings. If we can't handle this alone this means this city and this population is too big for us to handle currently".

Yu said "It wasn't a problem for me to handle before though". Chao Feng said "That's because human elements didn't come into play when you were the ruler. It was just kill or be killed but now there are a lot of nuances, nuances that we must learn about".

…