endless path, infinite cosmos

chapter 137

As it wasn't the first time he had heard a similar question, Vahn wasn't shocked when she asked if he was human. With still holding his bow fully drawn, he asked, "Why do you ask that when you're focused on trying to kill me?" Since she had yet to begin attacking again, Vahn didn't want to be the one to start the fight back up. He was already injured and hadn't yet recovered his strength from the severe beating he had received.

The woman squinted her eyes and asked Vahn a question without answering his, "Do you think, if I wanted to kill you, you'd still be alive right now?" Her words sent a chill down Vahn's spine, and he prepared to loose the arrow as her hand raised. Though it looked like a slow motion in Vahn's eyes, she completely raised her hand in less time than it took for him to release the arrow. Opening her mouth slightly, the woman uttered, "Nivis Casus."

The area more than 300m surrounding him suddenly exploded with a massive amount of ice and snow. Vahn felt his body enveloped by the cold elements as they started freezing his limbs even against the resistance of the 'eternal flame'. He couldn't breathe as the biting cold slowly tore through his body and seemed intent on freezing his entire being. Any hopes he had against the woman completely faded and Vahn felt a powerful fear as well as rage building up inside his body.

Just as he was about to succumb to the god, he felt a palm press against his chest and a powerful force sending him outside the area of effect of the magical spell. He slid along the ground for hundreds of meters before finally coming to a stop. A light flashed, and the woman was standing over his body while looking down at him with contempt in her eyes. She asked, "Do you still believe I was trying to kill you?"

The fear hadn't faded from Vahn's mind, but he could feel the rage continuing to build as his blood slowly started glowing with a crimson light. The woman seemed dissatisfied by his actions and tried infusing more ice elements in the surroundings to force him to surrender. She spoke in a cold tone, "Give up, boy. Even if you're upset by my treatment, you need to be a lot stronger if you want to stand against me. If you keep up your current actions, I really will kill you."

Vahn felt that her words were true, and he knew she wasn't trying to kill him, but the fact he was being tossed around at her leisure compounded the fear he had felt when he thought he was going to die. Unable to suppress his rising emotions, Vahn transitioned from his turtle form into that of the vermillion sparrow. The moment his body change, the ice elements in the surroundings were dispersed and he sent a massive pillar of flames toward the beautiful girl who looked at him with a face full of scorn.

A gigantic magical circle formed in the air between the two and Vahn's pillar collided against the light blue icy structure with an intense force. The woman frowned her face because she could see that the flames were slowly eroding away at her defensive spell. She teleported away just as the barrier broke and scorched the area where she had been standing for nearly 30m.

Just as she finished the teleportation and was inspecting the damage, a golden sheen lit up the air around her, and her eyes widened in shock after seeing the resplendent figure of [Enkidu] surrounding her. She immediately tried to teleport away but found that the space in the area had been locked and she was unable to move outside of the chains containment. She turned her eyes to the source of the chains and saw Vahn, wreathed in flames, holding his palm toward her where [Enkidu] had emerged. He had a fierce look in his eyes as he pulled the chain and the sphere around the woman quickly closed.

The woman immediately erected an omnidirectional barrier, and it was able to resist the coiling force of [Enkidu], but she noticed that the shield wouldn't last long. She started chanting a spell that resonated in the air and seemed to be bringing the temperature of the entire space down. At this point, Vahn had already overused his energy with the use of the vermillion sparrow transformation and [Enkidu], but he refused to go down before he could teach the contemptuous woman a lesson. Vahn didn't care if people looked down on him, but he wouldn't allow himself to be repressed to such an extent by someone that he didn't know.