Chapter 242: The Strongest Rose (5)

3rd Person POV

"Trevor, can you help explain how the gun work?" Sarah asked once the atmosphere calmed down.

"Alright." Trevor then took it out to show her, he also double-checked to see whether the safety was on "Though Perseus calls it a gun, it's a bit too generalized, well probably because he doesn't have any knowledge of it due to him being from his world. Unlike our regular pistols where there are magazines in the handle, they put a small flat slab of mana stone.

"And as you know, mana stones or mana crystals are basically used as batteries, and each bullet uses a small charge of the mana, to recharge the mana crystal, you can use your own mana or just leave it out as it also absorbs the surrounding mana." Trevor explained, "As for how it accurately shaped the mana into a bullet shape or other complicated features, you're going to have to ask John, he was the one I got to work on this."

"Edward." Sarah called "Can you help explain to me why Phineas isn't going on the attack? He's clearly much stronger, and we all know not to play along with Perseus' plans, the longer you're in the fight, the more it goes his way."

Edward was watching the fight and in his heart were feelings of disappointment in both his father and himself, despite his father now agreeing with his plans of wanting to recruit Perseus, he clearly isn't trying his best to convince the other rulers to do it, he's still hesitant.

As for the disappointment in himself, he regretted the fact that he was one of the first to find Perseus and yet couldn't capitalize on the opportunity, Perseus was young then no matter how smart he was, he was obviously more gullible. Now it's a challenge to recruit him, he's also being sought out by the demons.

"The dust is the pollens of the black rose." Edward answered "Though normal roses have low pollen and most of them are heavy to be airborne, it's quite the opposite for the original roses created by the moon god. And the black rose in particular has a legend that whoever smelled its scent or inhaled its pollen, will go mad with insanity or in some cases die in an instant.

"But that's only one of the black rose's powers." Edward added "The black rose is called the strongest rose or the last rose, the latter because of the fact that she's been missing for so long, the former is...well...we can only trust the words of the other rose guardians, if they call the black rose the strongest rose, we have to believe it."

*****

Perseus POV

It's a battle of endurance now, I can use mana and the power of the roses to protect myself, but it's up to whether my mental strength can outlast his mana capacity, these illusions are to pick up the many pistols I have with me and shoot them at the guy in his barriers, as long as I can deplete his mana, he should have around 4-7 minutes, I don't know the exact time of how long he can hold his breath, but I'll say 7 minutes just to be a bit cautious.

I also use the pistol to continuously shoot at the man who is now hunting down my clone one by one instead of using a large wasteful spell. He is reserving his mana and going with his stamina and powers as Michael, it's going to exhaust him nonetheless.

And as I expected, the audience isn't necessarily enjoying this, it's interesting that I revealed myself to possess the black rose and it was a bit exciting that they see me split into dozens of clones, but now the fight is going in a slow pace, we're both trying to reserve our energy and the one who lose their reserves first is the loser.

I kept shooting and I can see him repairing his barrier over and over, but I know that I'm far from fully exhausting his mana, so I then summon up many whirlwinds of black rose petals and I had them sharpen their edges and fly at him like homing sharp daggers.

It didn't fully destroy his barriers in one go, but it definitely did more damage than the mana bullets, and unlike the bullets, the part of his barrier spell that was hit by the black rose petals started to disintegrate and it took him an extra effort to keep repairing it.

I then sent both rose petals into the shadows and had them come out of his shadow that was within his barrier and despite not cutting his armor, the blunt force did more than enough to hit him upward in the air.

A black rose petal seems to have cut an unprotected part of his body because I can see him apply a lot of mana on that part and can see his puzzled face as his healing magic doesn't seem to work and it only did when he wastes a bit more mana.

The black rose has the power over death, and if I want to, I can make kill the cells of their body if I hit it, the black rose is good in a fight against any living thing, and Phineas is a chicken man with a healthy body that I can slowly kill.

If only Leilah was here, then I can cheat, because then I don't have to alter the output of the power by myself, she can do it while I focus on doing other things, she can make them stronger and I'll drain myself slower.

But I'll make do, Ruka isn't gonna help me cheat, so I'll have to think of other methods, the hardest part is controlling my clones to shoot Finn because I require them to be solid enough to hold the gun and I have to have them all aim at one target all at the same time.

"Fight me with honor, you coward!" he shouted

Nah, I already asked the refs, I can do this and it's legal. And honor? Hah, you chose the wrong guy to taunt with that.