117 Homing
“You… you are even more immature than I thought you were in the beginning!”
Ariadne looked at Eren angrily and said out loud. She cast her healing spell on her body while getting ready for his next attack. She looked visibly upset that her seemingly-delicate body had to suffer through so much trouble.
Only now did Eren understand why Jario was used to spinning around himself like a goofball. He was trying to kill the momentum generated by his axes while still holding onto them.
It was his fault for trying to make use of someone else’s artifacts without even testing them first. But in his defense, he had no other choice but to do so. Eren smartly decided to retrace his steps instead of advancing and returned to his previous position. At this point, Ariadne’s illusory double had been nothing but a blurred mass of mana.
Ariadne’s hybrid element was derived from ether and water, which allowed her to cast various types of spells. The illusory double spell made use of water-element mana as well as ether element, enabling her to pull off what she did.
But since the spell was no longer active, Eren was able to recover his Tachi by pulling it off from its stuck position. In the next moment, Ariadne’s clone lost its shape and form and became water before dispersing into thin air.
Ariadne was surprised Eren had kept his cool and decided to retreat. She had a surprise planned for him just in case he decided to press on with the advantage. Even so, his retreat was not completely detrimental to her.
She retrieved vials of all-stats recovery as well as wound recovery potions before gulping them down in one go. She then looked at Eren with a stressed expression on her face.
Ariadne decided on something at this point. There was no point sticking around in this place. Especially when someone like Bulal Blood was here. Dying in front of that crazy guy was the last thing a ranker would want to do in this situation.
Ariadne had only come here to get resources. She would only fight the battles that she knew she could win. Battling with Eren had made her realize that she would be hard-pressed to survive the next round.
Eren on the other hand was thinking of many things at once. He was also keeping track of his team members. A lot of them had already done what Ariadne had done, drinking potions to sustain their long fights.
‘I need to recover those axes!’
Eren knew he wouldn’t be able to control the axes in a short time. But he wanted to try a different approach.
Ariadne and Eren both looked at each other in the next moment before activating their movement spells at the same time. After disappearing from their positions, they clashed in the middle of the battlefield.
Another round of battle ensued at this point. This time, Eren had not focused on attacking Ariadne. Instead, he focused on defense, tiring her out with her relentless assault. As a result, he faced fewer repercussions than before. The injuries he received this time were also minor.
Eren would also use the concepts of Jeet Kune Do once in a while whenever he got the chance to do so. He would convert the momentum Ariadne had generated with her attacks and turn it against her. He would find a chink in her defense before striking her with his free hand while defending against her curved dagger with his Tachi.
Ariadne found herself getting stuck with Eren. She had come to realize that even if she wanted to flee the scene, Eren would treat it as if she were aiming for his team members’ heads. He won’t allow her to leave on her own.
Just when she thought she could land a serious blow to Eren, she heard him mumble.
“Found you!”
Eren said softly to himself before casting the spell that he had not tried in real battles yet.
Blitz Whip!
A lightning whip was conjured into existence in the next moment. Its one end was grabbed by Eren in his free hand while the other end extended towards something that had been resting on the ground for a while.
Eren tugged on the lightning whip as soon as its other end hooked onto the object. An object that he had accidentally thrown. The fire-element ax came flying towards Eren at incredible speed.
Ariadne realized what was going on and she decided to cut the whip with her Bichuas. The lightning whip wasn’t something she couldn’t get rid of. After thinking for a moment, she decided to retreat.
Ariadne had sensed that Eren had also used his other hand to cast the lightning whip. It was apparent he was able to recover his fire-element weapons this way without breaking his stance and generating defects in his defense.
Her quick thinking enabled her to create a safe distance from Eren. She didn’t want to be around the guy when he operated on his axes. He was a danger to himself as well as to others around him.
Eren was holding both his axes in both hands once again. He pumped his fire-element mana into them and charged at them. He still had his stacked Blitz Whip spell. The lightning whips were still attached to the weapons despite their reduced size.
Lightning-element whips couldn’t complement the weapons’ fire-element runes. But they were enough to keep the weapons in check and under Eren’s control.
‘Hm. I thought that spell was useless ever since I used it because it did not have as much damage output as I wanted it to have. I had learned it as a support spell for something else. Turns out, I was just lacking creativity and the right weapons.’
Eren thought to himself before using both his fire and lightning mana at the same time. He had also decided that he would get a fire-element variant of the Blitz Whip from Malcolm in the future. But for now, he wanted to test what he had just come up with.
He was now in possession of homing weapons after combining the inscribed spells on the weapons with his support spell.