Laurier's eyes lit up and she gave Aura a thumbs up.
"Nice work, Aura!"
"Now watch this. Hurricane Arrow, rapid fire!"
Laurier and Aura worked in perfect sync, pinning down one whole direction of the monster horde. The fighting power their teamwork produced let them clear entire swaths of Lv.3 monsters without regard for the level gap, and as for the Lv.4 elites mixed in among them...
A silver flash cut into the horde, light as a startled swan, supple as a coiling dragon. Everywhere it passed it left only afterimages with a cold, sharp posture, and then...
Fountains of blood burst from the monsters it brushed past. A moment later they went down in swaths, like wheat under a scythe.
Lv.3 or Lv.4, under that cold silver blade there was no difference at all.
"Holy Sword!"
Kureha slid the blade back into its sheath, sank her stance slightly, and shifted into the standard form for an Iai draw.
A deep breath. Her eyes snapped open.
...
...
A low shout cracked out, and a straight line of silver light appeared and vanished in the horde like lightning tearing space apart, and she was already standing on the dune on the far side, silver hair flying, her blade sweeping a cold half-arc from low to high. Only a lingering afterimage remained where she had been.
The sword clicked home in its sheath.
Behind her, every monster stood frozen in place.
One second passed.
Then a whole string of heads parted from their necks and flew skyward, blood spraying in a wild curtain. Against the dim yellow backdrop of the sandstorm the scene was magnificent and gory, the art of slaughter with overwhelming visual impact.
"Clyret Style: Holy Sword!"
...
"Holy shit!"
Leon was controlling several ice clones scattered across the field, hammering the Mirage Sand Dragon nonstop with charged Water-Ice Great Magic Spears (water guns). While his real body kept the barrage pouring and stayed alert for his own safety, he always kept a share of his attention on the small-fry battlefield.
Which meant he caught Kureha's moment of absolute violence in full.
"Holy shit, that Iai... insane."
Leon couldn't hide the envy on his face.
"So damn cool."
"If Kureha ever gets the chance to pick up a trick or two of that residual-light stuff, what then? Is the art style going to turn into the Grand Line set next door? Are we going to have flying slashes everywhere?"
Leon's imagination ran wild at the thought.
Right then a transparent vacuum bullet swelled to fill his pupils, and by the time he came back to himself it was already a hair's breadth from his face. His pupils shrank, and following the line of fire he even saw the flicker of cunning across the Mirage Sand Dragon's ugly face as the ambush was about to land.
At the last possible instant, a flash of pure white light.
A kite shield made entirely of radiance formed across the bullet's path and, by the narrowest margin, blocked the fatal shot, then cracked apart inch by inch and scattered on the wind.
That had been far too close.
Faster than the eye could follow he pulled an ice clone in front of himself, then raised a hand and wrapped himself in ice armor. It still didn't feel like enough, so he layered on two more coats, until the biting cold sealed him in on all sides. Only then did he breathe easier.
The whole thing was a pure waste of Mind, but he didn't care.
He had mana to burn, so he could afford to be reckless.
Not far off, Rose was going toe to toe with the towering beast, over ten meters of it, with sword and shield. She angled her shield to slip aside a savage claw, and the bundle of water-blue braid behind her flew up with the motion.
In the middle of the fight she still had enough slack to turn her head. Her pretty brows drew together slightly and she raised her voice toward Leon, her tone full of "concern."
"My, my... dear Mr. Leon, you're letting your mind wander against a monster like this? What am I supposed to say to you..."
She sighed. Before she could go on, her shield rang under another heavy lunge and knocked it away again. Her voice carried through the storm and the roaring, still leisurely, still dripping with sarcasm.
"Do try to concentrate, idiot."
A vein ticked at Leon's temple. Had this been a manga, three black lines would have dropped down his face.
It wasn't his fault he got distracted. Kureha's clean, stylish Iai a moment ago had hit him too hard. That scene looked like a blockbuster shot by burning through stacks of Benjamins, every frame glowing with the light of a budget going up in flames.
So yes, he had been thoroughly stunned.
He drew a deep breath, forced his mind back into order, and gathered his focus again.
He brought up his staff, and the magic circle at its head spread open once more, outer ring and inner ring turning slowly in opposite directions. As Magic poured in like a tidal surge, the frost gathered and tightened.
In an instant a massive Ice Lance stood formed.
"Water-Ice Great Magic Spear!"
The blast tore the air apart like artillery fire, shot through with a shrill crack.
The next second another huge hole was blown clean through the Mirage Sand Dragon's body, front to back. Not only that, frost from the ice blast clung to the walls of the punched-through channel, radiating a bitter chill that held back its regeneration.
Pain, so much pain. Any other attack, whether a slash from Jeanne, Rose, or Persephone, or magic like withering or pure white light, and it could have drawn on the power of the sand around it and its own mechanics to close the wound fast.
Like Crocodile with his Sand-Sand Fruit, going elemental at will.
But Leon's frost magic, the Ice Lance, was another matter entirely. This attribute was one of the perfect counters to the Mirage Sand Dragon's yellow-sand body and its hyper-speed regeneration.
"Now!"
In the instant the Mirage Sand Dragon stiffened from the pain, a sharp light flashed in the eyes of Jeanne, Rose, and Persephone. They accelerated, leapt into the air, and blades and sword-light poured down like a rainstorm, countless slashes carving deep into its armor of sand, steel ringing on sand in a continuous clash.