74 - Disregard it

*

Her power was not only to trick her opponent, but the world itself. As long as people couldn't understand the 'target audience' of her tricks, they will never wrap their minds and unfurl her illusions. The world itself bent to her lies, any sort of detection magic that scanned the world will not yield proper results to determine her position.

For now, her illusion will only consist of one Evaria, any more and the opponent might catch on. Her illusion vanishes into smoke, before appearing before Taneda, as if it had teleported. She thrusts her blade towards her opponent. Taneda reacts instantly at the highest speeds.

*CLANG!*

The shrill collision of metal on metal rings outwards. The defeated illusion fades away. Taneda swings once more, the screeching of metal ensues, then again, and once more. Every illusion fades away after a single attack, however Taneda understood. Not a single hit actually reached Evaria. She's been running around a certain distance, swinging her blade within the range of auto attack, but not far enough to get herself hurt.

Taneda continues swinging, striking at the air on the right, then turning it downwards to pierce the ground. Right after, she pivots 180 and swings her blade far into the air. Whilst her body was exerting a lot of strength to keep up with the auto reaction, Evaria wasn't able to push it into going beyond the limits of her body. Her full speed was still... Insufficient.

Evaria reaches in, Taneda swings. Her sword is caught within Evaria's hilt, the tip of her blade staring straight into Taneda's eyes. After luring out Taneda's auto attack enough, Evaria was able to track its trajectory and trap it. Her blade slips into Taneda's skin at the ridge of her nose, drawing blood and blowing her hood off.

"?!" (Taneda)

"Do you fear a bit more now? Even an A rank like me can get you when your guard is down." (Evaria)

Taneda had meant to user her auto block and auto attack as a means to intimidate and demoralise. She could turn it off and in fact expend less magic by fighting the normal and manual way, leaving the entire fight to her magic to do it for her was a show of arrogance. Evaria jumped back as Taneda swung her blade in one big slash through the air. The pressure crashed into Evaria's blade and dissipated.

She slips back into the cover of her illusions, walking leisurely in the distance. Now that she gave Taneda a little scare, her illusions would be enough to deal with her as she would be extra vigilant.

Gripping her sword, Taneda flicked her right hand and an all encompassing pressurised wind spreader outwards, forming a shallow but far reaching crater around her. The illusion was crushed into paste, turning into smoke and dissolved over a large volume of air, disappearing in an instant.

"Your attacks grew faster and manic. I could only assume something must have changed the way you approached me.

You blatantly use an illusion, yet there is only one of you. When I checked with my magic senses, that single illusion managed to recreate everything. Your soul, your scent, your warmth, all of it.

Forgoing quantity for quality, all of them feel so real... Too real. " (Taneda)

She sent the magic in the area into a frenzied state, preventing the magic from forming any more illusions. Her illusions do not have to be unfurled by logic, rather than finding the key, Taneda can simply break the lock. After all the difference between a mental and physical illusion is the application of magic, mental suggests the magic acts on the target's mind, physical suggests the magic acts on the environment. Disrupt the base foundation holding everything up and it will all collapse.

Evaria's real figure is evinced by the malfunctioning magic. She stares into Taneda's gaze, sweat droplets formed on the back of her neck. Her sword was drawn and sat comfortably in her grip, yet it only felt uncomfortable and out of place right now. Her heart stops and she brings her blade out, supporting the flat side with her other palm.

*BOOM!!!!! *

A devastating impact smashes into her sword, causing fragments to fly liberally. Her left elbow could feel it, the attack hit her sword. It smashed apart the metal blade and blew off more than half of her left arm. A bloody stump left in its place, the droplets hitting the roadside reaches her ears.

Higher output, putting her all into it, she screams. She has to survive!

"{CALAMITY}!!!" (Evaria)

The dull evening light no longer oppressed the cityscape with its presence, a brilliant pale yellow glow pastes itself over most surfaces in the city. The time had changed to the middle of noon. Looking down, Taneda grips the blade's edges in her palm. Evaria's sword was no longer fragmented and it was lodged straight into her heart. An S rank wouldn't ever die to such a wound, but halting the blood flow to her entire body still presented a shock to her. No, the biggest shock was that Evaria could pull this off instantly.

She yelled the name of her skill, likely to push it to its limits. However what was her skill? It was illusions, wasn't it? It wouldn't be strange if a single skill had more than one function, just like her own skill, {Fated one's evanescent dream} did. Then, was this an illusion? Was she willing... To gamble with her life?

The theme of her skill was 'Knight', her aspiration was to be a Knight. In other words it goes against her straight laced honour to gamble or partake in what she saw as severe indulgence. Her target of protection? Peace, order, humanity. Right now, it was the peace... At least that was how she perceived it. If it was to protect her target, she wouldn't hesitate to give up her life.

Gambling... Now, she will simply disregard it. The blade in her heart will not kill her anyway. Blood was flowing out of her mouth profusely, she gritted her tangy iron drenched teeth... And slid forward with her body weight. The blood welled up in her throat and ejected at Evaria's face. Turning her body, she swung her fist even if it couldn't reach Evaria. Two more swords materialised in mid air, blocking the fist and the shock waves that followed, shattering in the process.

Evaria pulled the sword out, and the time changes once more. It was midnight in stark darkness, Evaria was at her 5 o'clock, her sword dripping with blood. This time the scene had changed to the point when Evaria's blade had just reached her skin and tore through it in that moment. This expends copious amounts of magic, she didn't know how long more she could maintain it. This was essentially her trump card, but her blade couldn't cut too deep or deal much damage to Taneda.