As soon as Conall had finished 'inverting' every prophet on the planet with his Totem, he and his seer friends said their goodbyes to Ivan who quickly went to lend assistance to other people caught in Chevreuse's death game.
"Catch!" Eloise said as she threw a branch at Cinis. The Seer caught it in his palm then begun to slowly trim its surface with his thoughts.
"Ehh. You guys are still at that?" Conall groaned, already mentally drained as he watched.
Conall and the others no longer looked like themselves. After all, their Sin halves were on the outside, thanks to the McLoughlin's Totem. Conall looked like three children holding each other close as they walked. One of them had his eyes closed as he was blind as well as deaf, the other had neither arms nor legs and was tied to the back of the last child that looked perfectly fit, but could not act until ordered carefully by the one tied to his back.
Eloise on the other hand looked like an older dark haired woman past her prime, while Cinis had the form of fox-eyed man with bowl cut hair and a stern face.
"Of course." The fox-eyed Seer replied, quickly trimming the branch into a smooth shape and throwing it away. "Although this is a very inefficient method of Hallowing, at the very least, I'll have some kind of headstart when we actually get into a fight that needs my Totem again."
"Tch." The child without limbs spat. "Boring!!!"
Eloise gave him a stink eye and then shoved a branch into his hair. Conall could not remove the stick.
"Serves you right. You're the one who chose the many little fights over simply wacking that guy who caused all this. Didn't know you were such a scaredy cat." The woman laughed.
Conall clicked his tongue, finding offence in the Seer's taunt. "Ha! I ain't scared of Camille for nothin'!"
"Then why'd you chicken out?" Eloise continued to poke, curious as to why he had refused to do something about the man at the centre of so much destruction and chaos in the exams.
Conall was the type of person to jump into other people's problems to play the hero and help them get by. His moral code was not fragile either, nor was he someone to back down from a fight on the basis of being the weaker contender. So why let Chevreuse do as he pleases?
Conall shook his head, falling for Eloise's provocations. "Chicken out?! No one in the Lokahs gives Camille a run for his money better than I do. It's the law!" He scoffed right after boasting, "Yet it's the same law that governs the concept of 'right and wrong' in matters concerning people like him. Be rest assured though. He may be ruthless, but Camille is one of the more... reasonable Prophets of his kind. Hasn't caused any trouble for me so far at least."
"Huh? You're talking like he's a whole different species or something. Aren't you guys from the same Omen?" Cinis asked.
"Yeah!" Eloise agreed, dropping her hand on Conall's head as they continued to tread through the forest.
"You'll get it when you're older..." Conall slowly shifted his head under Eloise's palm. "Don't worry, my sweet sweet Eloise, no matter what you end up doing, the routes you choose to take, I'll always be right by your side." He added in an unconvincing tone, "Oh uh, and you too, Godfrey."
———
Izel understood perfectly. As a Believer herself, she has also been faced with the more morally complicated aspects of Prophethood. So had Astrid done right by her role, she might have let things slide. However,
"You sneaky goose, you're trying to hide it aren't you!" Izel pointed with her sword.
"No." Astrid shook her head with a straight face; despite knowing Izel could sense an obvious proof of her lie.
Izel clenched her teeth in annoyance. The woman still looked the same as ever— round happy head on her neck in top armor and free pants— somehow unaffected by the Inversion.
Astrid on the other hand was far from the same. Her long ivory hair flowed down her bare peach flushed fair body, the face underneath the few scattered strands of ivory had alluring lazy black eyes and rosy red lips while her silhouette was the unmistakable form of a woman, one as tall as two hundred and fourteen centimeters.
Looking at her standing posture alone, and it would take very few people to realize that Astrid's form was very deliberate. And those that did realize before she takes any strained step, would be walking far away from whatever she was supposed to be.
"You liar! Revoke your Edict, and gimme Ikky!" Izel ordered.
"No." Astrid replied again, only this time, adding a few more words. "I do not believe I made the wrong choice. But it's your job to convince me, is it not?"
Her left hand reached for her back, her hair splitting on its own and revealing a large scar running along the length of where a spine should be. That scar soon turned into a tear, and then a wide maw with sharp teeth shifting over each other before widening to expose an abyss churning with dark energy. From this abyss, Astrid pulled out two ivory hiltless longswords and stood hunched as she waited for Izel's move.
Izel watched as black slimy substance slid down Astrid's swords and asked, "You gonna shake that off or...?"
Astrid took a look at one of the swords, before swinging an arc of the fluid at Izel without warning. "It's poison."
Axe shot a fire ball right at the poison arc, the two attacks meeting and setting off an explosion.
Izel grimaced as she lifted her sword, supported by her arm up to block. And sure enough, Astrid's swords came for her.
Endless Fault's body shot through the forest like a torpedo, crashing through a few trees before being cushioned by her feathered serpent.
Sitting with her back against Axe's body, Izel cracked her neck, groaning. "That stupid Virtue of yours still packs quite a punch, huh?"
"Yours is more annoying."
Another arc of black poison rushed at Endless Fault, however, Quetzcoat simply made a wind crescent to blow it apart.
Kneeling Light placed her palm on her cheek, feeling a slight burning sensation on it. Astrid rolled her eyes as she felt the black paper talisman stuck to her face. The talisman burst, covering her body with slim fitted black overalls.
"What? You think I wanna fight Ass-trid?" Izel said, spreading her arms out on the serpent as if she were sitting on a couch. She pointed at Astrid's head, prompting the dual wielding Believer to follow her movements and feel a paper talisman stuck in it. Astrid's face went from stoic to unimpressed before her entire head exploded in a fire.
"Bahahahaha!— Woah!!" Izel let out a hysterical laugh before quickly jumping up to dodge a two-meter-long arc of poison.
Quetzcoat took the hit, groaning in pain as it stood up and flew into the sky with Endless Fault on its back. Flying high enough, the dragon whipped Izel higher into the sky before rushing at her with its maw opened wide. The serpent merged with her sword, turning it into a curved blade the length of 2.3 meters.
Izel pointed the sword down as she ascended and carved a line of windy night in the sky. The slash expanded into a bowl and then a sphere, encasing her in it before squeezing around her form.
Astrid walked beneath the trees, looking at the sky with guesses of what Izel was doing.
'Judging by her movements, she's imbuing her Virtue with sword strikes. If I take one hit from her blade it'll multiply by— Just one?" She squinted, surprised that Izel had only used one slash on her Virtue.
From what Astrid could remember, one of Izel's two Virtues allows her to absorb similar attacks that have no designated target or missed their designated target. She can then repeatedly pile up attacks like this and unload multiple or all of them at the same time on her opponent.
The catch however is that every attack she absorbs has to be the exact same replica of the last, be it in damage they will deal, area of effect, size and a lot more other technicality. If she absorbs an attack that is different from previous ones in anyway, the damage of every absorbed attack will inflict damage on her own body instead. Moreover, to release those absorbed attacks on her opponent, she has to land one of the exact same kinds of attack on the enemy once.
Despite its incredibly risky Vice it was a powerful Virtue with an infinite scaling in terms of potency, so Astrid could not afford to slack off and allow the Endless Fault to fulfill the conditions of activating that Virtue— even better if she gets Izel to make a mistake while absorbing missed attacks.
"Heh!" Izel snickered as she yelled, "Guess you didn't think up your new form right! You can't do anything to me from down there~" She held the sword in both her arms and begun to send crescents of wind down at Kneeling Light while she descended as well.
The dark-eyed Believer measured where the crescents would fall, dashed to a safe zone and ran up a tree before sprouting wings out of the gaping maw on her back.
"Is that a prayer, Starlight?"