The World's Ego (Book 2)

Inconvenient

Third Person POV

Kondou experienced a brief moment of panic when he saw the pillar of light crashing on Vita and Sushang but his stance relaxed soon after, realizing that it was a toned down version of <Disintegration> with not enough power to kill or greatly harm anyone. As he had expected, the two came out fairly unharmed.

"Oh? That's impressive." Feiyun hummed with a light smirk, "So you two were able to get out of that unharmed."

Vita grunted, "Well, I could have appreciated a warning."

"... This isn't the worst that could happen anyway..." Kondou thought to himself with a wry sigh, "Still... It's their first time with these skills and it's impressive that they can utilize them in this manner."

His opponents had been distracted by the <Disintegration>, likely figuring out how to utilize their skills to defend Vita and Sushang. Of course, <Absolute Defense> was an option that could fully block the attack, which Misteln had done, supported by the barriers formed by Bronya's <Knowledge King, Raphael>. Meanwhile, Sushang had used <Patience King, Gabriel> to stack up another layer of shield while Vita used <Greedy King, Mammon> to try lessening as much power as she could from the <Disintegration>.

"Woah!" Gracia flinched slightly as her shield was hit by Fu Hua's punch in the middle of the distraction, "Hey, hey, that's one hard punch!"

"<Raguel>'s acceleration. I'm not surprised. Since it was the Marshal's skill once, I figured that it was something like this." Kondou frowned slightly, hesitant at first but finally pointed his gun at Fu Hua, "I'm going to have to stop you here."

But before he could pull the trigger, a flash could be seen at the corner of his eye and he bent back to dodge Griseo's strikes, instantly moving to counter her strikes with his sword.

"Not going to happen." Griseo cuts herself between him and Fu Hua

"That's my line." Pico said, appearing behind her, "<Fallen Spear>!"

Griseo's eyes flickered to Pico as she brought her other hand up, holding a familiar paintbrush as a veil of colors appeared with a flick of her wrist. Pico's eyes widened slightly and quickly withdrew her spear just as it touched the paint.

"... Absorption..." Pico muttered with a frown, "What's going on here?"

"Ah..." Kondou belatedly realized a detail and opened a communication line with Dino and the others, "Apologies but it seems like Feiyun had failed to inform you that our opponents have Ultimate Skills. To be exact, it is the skills from the Angelic and Demonic Systems."

"Huh?!" Dino's eyes were wide upon hearing this as his twin swords blocked a simultaneous attack from Senti and 'Seele', "We were not told about that! This is unfair!"

"Well, they are just toned down versions of those Ultimate Skills. In other words, their Ultimate Skills are temporary and weaker than the real thing." Kondou explained while Pico and Gracia frowned at the mere mention of the skills, "But these guys are strong as they are with or without them."

"Well, I kind of figured something was up when I saw this girl." Gracia grumbled as she kept her eyes on Fu Hua's movements, "She's a different Hua, isn't she? She's not the target Feldway wants."

"Yeah." Kondou's eyes narrowed at the reminder, "... If he dares to touch her..."

"Woah, woah, cool down!" Dino exclaimed

"This is inconvenient for us but whatever. What's the motive of them having these Ultimate Skills and how did they obtain them?" Mai asks, pulling on her bowstring to aim at Bronya