novelraw Chapter 323 - 265 - Moonlit Sun
Chapter 323 - 265 - Moonlit Sun
Honestly, the situation Vince found himself in was horrifying.
He watched this man get stabbed in the chest multiple times, stand back up, covered in blood, and laughed it off like a paper cut. Holly used an ultimate spell, aimed to kill, and it did nothing.
According to Shouri and the others, the vampire was weak to solar magic. They were armed to the teeth in that regard, between Mila's solar ossias and the entire suite of solar element magic that Zephyr possessed.
Holly was an unknown in this manner. What magic did she possess? She could fight on her own as far as he was aware.
Head in the game, the young Maestro glared down the vampire. No one was ready for when the battle truly started--the mystery Resonator moved faster than they had anticipated. To them, it was as if he had vanished, but they'd find out where he went in an instant.
THWACK
THWACK
THWACK
Holly, Mila, and then Vince were all thrown off their feet by consecutive punches delivered from a teleporting vampire (or at least that's how it appeared to the victims of the blows.)
Vince sat up with a groan. Mila was already back on her feet and engaged their adversary. She swung fast and hard, wrists ablaze. Desmond weaved in and out of the punches, a sinister cackle escaping from him the entire time. To him this was merely a game. A game with deadly consequences for failure.
Zephyr's tuner beeped a serious warning chime. One Vince recognized; he didn't need to look, he reached into his jacket and pulled out the unmoving body of his loyal fairy. His heart stopped for a moment, but eased when he saw she was only unconscious. Zephyr used her tiny body to cushion the blow of the hit. Even with her giving her all to protect him, it still hurt like hell and the Maestro was fairly certain he was going to have a hell of a bruise later. He held her close, the frustration of letting her get hurt so badly mounting. More than that however--their easy out was now out of the fight.
Holly knelt next to Vince. She looked to the fairy and rifled through her bag by her side, tracing a vial within. "Distract him for a minute, I can revive her," the plant girl spoke quietly, her eyes never leaving the brawl between Desmond and Mila.
He nodded and handed off the battered Zephyr to the zalavan. The young Maestro got to his feet. He scanned the battle line. Mila continued to press Desmond as much as she could. He laughed like a madman. The Maestro holding the vampire's tuner simply stood there, eyes cast into the distance. It really was like Shouri warned them--the Maestro wasn't Desmond's--they were as much of a victim as anyone caught up in this attack.
For that, Vince knew what he had to do. His heart thumped uneasily. He was afraid--yet determination won out and he parted from Holly. He knew this would leave him entirely defenseless--this was by design. Mila's red tuner in his hand shook as his whole body trembled. The next he spoke, he was going to need to move immediately; he was going to paint a massive target on himself with what he planned to do next.
Vince took a breath, primed his rhythm, and cast. "Eruzione Solare, Legato Staccato!"
Desmond blipped out of sight and appeared in front of the Maestro. Vince barely dove out of the way of a jab to the chest. The boy scrambled away as Mila fired off a bright burst of light with a blazing wind at the vampire. Desmond jumped out of the way of the wind part of the attack, and flew high into the air with a single bound.
"Luce Lunare, Fortissimo," called the enemy Maestro, their voice cold, robotic--just as Shouri had described. It was eerie to hear in person.
As Desmond returned to the ground, he threw out a winged mass of shadows aimed at Holly, who was working on healing Zephyr.
"HOLLY MOVE!" Vince screamed.
The zalavan girl did as instructed--she managed to avoid the direct attack, but it exploded in a burst of energy which clipped her and threw her to the ground. She hugged the still knocked out fairy close to her chest as she rolled against the pavement.
"BASTARD! I'M THE ONE YOU'RE FIGHTING!" Mila fired more solar wind at the vampire. He once more avoided the attack. Mila wound up a third round of Eruzione Solare. Roots shot out of the ground and entangled the vampire's legs, preventing the vampire from escaping again. Holly, still on the ground, clenched her teeth as her remaining two berries burned away.
Right as Mila launched her attack, Desmond's body broke into many. One man became a swarm of bats that easily escaped the roots their original form was ensnared in. Just in time too, as a wave of light and super heated wind burned away the roots where he once stood. The bats reformed into Desmond proper behind the cat. She turned to swing on him again, but rather than moving to avoid the strike, his hand shot out and grabbed the cat by the throat, his knife-like nails digging into her flesh as he began to crush the resistance out of her.
Mila wasn't gonna let that pass. The cat pivoted, and grabbed the arm which grasped her. She braced her feet and tightened her grip. Blood began pooling on her collarbone, but she cared not. Right when she had good leverage she shifted her hip, ready to toss the man.
However, the enemy Maestro spoke damning words before the fire element could retaliate: "Idrante, Fortissimo."
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From the hand that grasped her neck water erupted like an explosion, and Desmond allowed her free. Mila was ejected from the vampire's personal bubble and landed on the ground with a sickening splat--she didn't move, her flames finally snuffed. He wasn't done with just the cat however, he turned to Holly, who once again had resumed her efforts to heal Zephyr.
"Lanciafiamma, Fortissimo."
Holly was yet again forced to scoop up her patient and try to get away from the ball of winged fire. All she needed to do was escape from the spell. From her observation, the vampire's spells launched in a single path and exploded at the end. With that in mind, she gave herself enough room to avoid it based on the arc it took and accounted for the blast radius. However, she realized her folly too late as the spell changed course and chased her.
"FUCK!"
BOOM!
The zalavan was thrown off her feet and hit the ground again, she groaned as she refused to release the fairy in her grasp, her hair and clothes charred from the explosion. Vince stared in horror--Holly prioritized protecting Zephyr over all else, she must not have had time to grab a spell out of her bag.
Desmond approached the downed zalavan. Vince ground his teeth. There was no one else around. Solana, Lee, and Vivi had already taken off with the victims caught up in the initial attack. Mila, Zephyr, and Holly were all downed. Holly was still moving, however. With how the vampire approached though, she just needed a couple more seconds. Before he realized it, Vince ran at the vampire. He screamed as loud as he could. He wasn't sure what he could do, but if he could buy her even an instant longer…
THWACK!
The vampire whipped around and backhanded the boy, his arm practically a blur. His blade-like nails left their mark on the young Maestro as he was thrown away from the cryptid, like trash. "Hm?" Desmond drew pause. He looked to the hand that just dispatched with the boy. He flexed his digits. "Oh, you will be a problem," he decided.
Now Vince had fully earned the ire of the vampire, as Desmond stepped over to finish the job.
Holly pushed herself up, she dug into her bag to retrieve her seeds, but Desmond had already raised a boot to paint the sidewalk red with Maestro's blood.
"AWOOOOOOOO!"
It pierced the night. A chilling howl that froze even a Resonator as powerful as Desmond. The world itself hushed as those who remained cast their curiosity towards the source of the noise. From the nearby building, a large silhouette flew from the top and lunged toward the vampire. A savage wind ripped across the battle field and a white furred wolf Natural cleared the distance between himself and Desmond in an instant. The wolf tackled the vampire before he could brace himself.
"Nrgh! What the devil--?!" Desmond now found himself on the back foot, forced to dodge claw swipes that came a bit too close for comfort. It wasn't the claws that concerned the solar-weak null-element. It was the mini tornadoes that surrounded his paws, almost like blades of wind.
"Channeling Flusso del Vento into your physical attacks?!" Desmond snarled.
The mystery wolf brought his claws down in the shape of an X, which forced Desmond to split himself into his many tiny bat bodies.
However, he found his folly immediately. The attack wasn't aimed at him--it was aimed at the woman who held his tuner. She wasn't struck by bladed claws, but a maelstrom of solar magic, that threw her hard into the ground. The tuner she held was easily ripped from her grasp and flew into the nearby ocean.
Vince groaned and managed to shake himself out of his shock. He didn't know who this mystery Natural was, but at this point he didn't care.
"AWOOOOOO!"
Another howl marked the renewed assault as the wolf chased the vampire, pure bloodlust in his eyes as he hunted his quarry.
Desmond clicked his teeth and drew a rubato crystal from his robes. Draining the gem dry, he unleashed a Luce Lunare, in Fortissimo.
The bat shaped ball of darkness slammed hard into the wolf, but he tore through it, uncaring of the damage he sustained.
This earned wide-eyed shock from the vampire. "I know what you are--!" Desmond didn't get a chance to speak his proclamation, as he was sliced in two by wind-soaked claws.
Instead of his demise, Desmond's body once more turned into shadows of bats and flew away into the night, leaving the battle to fight another night.
"AWOOOOOOOOO!"
A wolf's chilling howl echoed through the streets as his gaze turned on the barely recovering group.
Vince tensed as the beast stepped toward him. Unlike any Natural Vince had seen before, this wolf's clothes were torn, tatters of what used to be a shirt barely clinging to his body. His pants looked two sizes too small, no shoes to speak of, but all the more horrifying as his razor sharp claws dug into the asphalt underneath them.
Mila stirred, and found the horror of the situation had changed. "Vince--!" She coughed, unable to find the strength to rescue her Maestro.
Holly ground her teeth, only up to a crouch as she held the still unconscious Zephyr in her grasp. She rifled through her bag, and primed a certain seed as she began to chant. Before she could cast however--
"VINCE!"
The wolf tensed at the sound of the new voice that called from a distance.
It was a voice Vince recognized. "SHOURI!" he used every bit of energy he could in that cry.
Before Shouri got a chance to see the strange feral Natural, it jumped away, easily landing atop one of the nearby buildings before vanishing into the night.
"Thank god." Vince allowed his head to drop as the sounds of rushing footsteps and sirens lulled him into unconsciousness.