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「Ether Pierce!」
Inglis decided to fire an Ether Pierce, not at the Prisma, but at the cage of light surrounding them. The finger-sized ray of ether hit the wall and bounced without a sound, hitting the ground and disappearing. However, the cage of light itself was completely unaffected by the attack.
Inglis was impressed with the toughness of the cage. Despite being small-scaled, her Ether Pierce was completely repelled by the wall without even a scratch. However, she noticed that the cage did not provide any offensive feedback, meaning she could use it as a sort of scaffold or platform.
Inglis had an idea and immediately rushed towards the Prisma, her dragonscale sword held horizontally next to her.
As expected, Prisma positioned itself to block Inglis’ attack. However, the moment it did, Inglis kicked the ground and leaped into the air.
Inglis leaped to the right, quickly escaping from the Prisma’s field of vision. She jumped so fiercely and fast that she almost crashed into the wall of light. However, it worked well for her because she confirmed that the wall could be used as a foothold.
In mid-air, Inglis rotated her body and delivered a powerful kick to the wall, propelling herself upwards. With the speed of a bullet, she ascended to a position above the Prisma’s head, using the wall as a guide.
While the Prisma continued to turn right in search of Inglis, her ricochet off the wall gave her a slight edge over its reaction time, allowing her to move one step ahead.
“This time, I’ll make the first move!” Inglis exclaimed as she kicked the wall and plunged downwards towards the Prisma.
As she descended, Inglis readied her dragonscale sword and converted her Ether into mana, further amplifying her attack.
「Ice!」
The dragonscale sword’s blade became enveloped in a layer of blue ice, which was a common application of Inglis’ ice sword sorcery.
To be precise, Inglis didn’t have to create the sword itself from scratch as she could simply shape her sorcery around it. This made the process simpler and more efficient.
「HAaah!」
Inglis swung her sword towards the Prisma’s neck as she descended.
But the impact felt like striking solid stone as if her sword had rebounded off a hard surface. The scar left on Prisma’s skin was only a superficial scratch.
However, Inglis wasn’t too concerned about her first attack’s minimal effect. She knew that barely scratching her enemy was only a minor setback.
As soon as she landed on the ground, Inglis quickly spun her sword around and slashed upwards, targeting the area around the scratch. This time, the scar she left on Prisma’s skin was only half the size of her previous attempt.
At that moment, the Prisma became aware of Inglis’ movements and swiftly descended upon her, thrusting its sharp beak forward like a spear.
Inglis refused to break the momentum of her sword and instead used it to her advantage. She leaped upwards and twisted her body, evading the Prisma’s beak as it plunged towards her.
The Prisma missed its target and its sharp beak pierced the ground instead.
Inglis had already anticipated the Prisma’s move and was prepared to counterattack. As she spun her body around, her sword was poised for another strike.
The dragonscale sword, encased in a layer of ice, connected with the Prisma’s lowered neck.
However, this time her strike had no effect. Inglis realized that Eris was right: her same attack was becoming increasingly ineffective at an alarming rate.
Inglis decided to strike once again with her ice sword, but once again, her attack failed to injure the Prisma. Moreover, she noticed that the scars from her previous two slashes had completely vanished without a trace.
「I see…!」
Inglis realized that the Prisma had an incredibly high adaptability curve. Her second attack would only have half the effect, the third attack would be completely nullified, and the fourth attack would be completely absorbed.
「However… I’m not done yet!」
Inglis Eux approaches her battles by confronting her opponents’ greatest strength and emerges victorious by surpassing them. The Prisma’s greatest strength was its exceptional learning ability, and Inglis was intrigued to witness more of it. That’s why she decided to take the initiative and continue the fight.
「Flame!」
This time, she had her dragonscale sword engulfed in flames.
Inglis had not yet mastered the control of mana to create a solid sword made of flames. She had never seen such a sorcery before and had no idea how to replicate it. However, she was familiar with creating swords made of ice using sorcery, having seen it in action before.
Despite not being able to create a solid sword made of flames, Inglis could still envelop a physical object in flames, much like what she was doing at the moment. To achieve this effect, she imitated the behavior of a low-grade Artifact.
「What about this?!」
After dodging another attack from the Prisma, Inglis struck with her sword now enveloped in flames. The cage of light provided an advantageous foothold, allowing her to bounce around from multiple angles and move with incredible speed and complexity. Inglis’ movements were too fast and intricate for the Prisma to keep up, leaving it to eat her dust.
However, her four strikes yielded the same outcome as before: the second was only half as effective, the third was nullified entirely, and the fourth was absorbed by the Prisma, adding to its power.
「Then, lightning!」
Next, Inglis covered her sword with electrifying sparks, yet the outcome remained unchanged.
「Vacuum! Rock! Poison! Acid rain!」
Inglis dominated the battle with her attacks landing while Prisma missed every time. Her movements were so fast that they were imperceptible to the Knights outside the cage of light.
「What kind of movement is that?! So fast…! How fast can she be?!」
「That’s Lady Inglis?! I can’t see her at all!」
Inglis’ movements were so fast that it seemed impossible to catch with the naked eye.
「Good going! The Prisma’s panicked!」
「This could be it! All right, we’re gonna hold on and stand firm too!」
The Prisma was clearly agitated by Inglis, attempting to swat her down in frustration, but it was no match for her speed and agility. This sight boosted the morale of the Knights, who were inspired by Inglis’s skill and courage.
Despite trying various attributes for her attacks, the outcome remained the same as her initial observation.
And then…
「Ice!」
Inglis stomped the ground, lowering her hips and launching a thrust towards Prisma’s chest.
Her dragonscale blade was once again encased in ice, but this time, even her first attack failed to leave any mark on the Prisma.
「…I see, this is going to be tricky.」
She had tried to attack the Prisma with seven different sorceries enveloping her sword, but none of them were effective. Initially, the sorceries left faint scars on the Prisma, leading Inglis to believe that they were being registered as different types of attacks.
After trying out seven different sorceries, Inglis returned to her first attack with the ice sorcery and realized that it still didn’t work. This led her to conclude that the Prisma was retaining the memory of all seven sorceries, including the ice attribute attack.
If only it had lost its resistance against ice after developing resistance against other attributes, things would have been much easier.
In such a scenario, Inglis would alternate between Ether battle techniques and Dragon Roar as her initial attacks. Once Prisma had become resistant to these attacks, Inglis would switch to using light attacks with sorceries. Finally, when Prisma had forgotten about Inglis’ first attack, she would return to using Ether or Dragon Roar, and then cycle back to using sorceries again.
However, such a tactic did not seem feasible. At least, not with seven different attributes as Inglis had tried. If she wanted to increase the number of attributes to use, she would have to resort to using Ether or Dragon Roar. However, using either of those techniques carried a risk. If the Prisma learned of them, Inglis would be left with nothing else to use.
Inglis realized that she had already used an attack infused with Ether as a greeting and couldn’t afford to waste the second blow. Therefore, she had to abandon the idea of overwhelming the Prisma’s learning ability by using a variety of attacks.
In that case, could it be possible for Prisma’s resistance to fade over time? It was a potential solution worth considering.
「…Accompany me to practice the sword for a bit, will you?」
Inglis dispelled the sorcery from her sword, making it return to its normal state. She decided to use this time to come up with a new plan of attack.
In the meantime, her allies would also retreat to the underground tunnels, which brought her a sense of relief. This reduced the chances of her allies being caught up in her powerful techniques, which was a positive outcome.
As Inglis was lost in thought, the Prisma suddenly let out a deafening cry, even louder than before. Its wings spread wide, unleashing a powerful gust of wind.
「—!」
Using her sword as a shield, Inglis swiftly leaped while holding it in front of her body, utilizing the hurricane’s force to propel herself away instead of resisting it.
Despite the weight of the dragonscale sword in her hand, Inglis was still forced back a considerable distance, highlighting the incredible power of the Prisma’s winds.
Nonetheless, the dust storm was merely a side effect of Prisma’s objective. As the hurricane settled, Inglis caught sight of peculiar lights amidst the debris. Once the dust had cleared, the source of the lights became clear to her.
「Ooh…?!」
Countless prismatic feathers floated in the air, having been shed from the Prisma’s body. These feathers shone brighter than the Prisma itself, and their number wasn’t just in the hundreds. With thousands, no, even several thousand feathers fluttering around, the resulting rainbow-colored display was a truly breathtaking sight. One could say it was nothing short of phenomenal. However…
「Surely you’re not doing this to make a girl happy? Please, do entertain me with your power instead!」
As if in lieu of a response, the rainbow-colored feathers altered their movement and began to shower down on Inglis all at once, each feather trailing behind the other in a mesmerizing display.
If the Prisma couldn’t catch Inglis, it would instead aim to overpower her with a dense attack, leaving her with nowhere to escape. The sheer density of the attack conveyed Prisma’s intention clearly.
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