"Hmph. Just as I suspected, an ambush!" Changli let out a cold scoff. Facing the sudden attack, she displayed absolutely no panic. With a flip of her pale hand, a slender bladed weapon was already in her grasp.
The blade was forged from an unknown material. Usually shimmering with a fluid, multicolored light, it was currently vibrating violently before suddenly erupting in scorching flames!
The fire wreathing the blade was no ordinary fire; it burned a pure, blazing golden-red. With a simple swing of her arm, the flames naturally coalesced into the form of a majestic, crying fire phoenix, dragging a long, brilliant tail of fire behind it!
"Blazing Plumes, Flash-burn!"
She moved, as swift as a bolt of lightning, charging directly into the dense net of enemy fire.
She swung her blade, and the fire phoenix danced and soared in tandem. Wherever it passed, incoming artillery shells were instantly melted and annihilated by the extreme heat, and a storm of bullets was deflected and detonated by the scorching shockwaves.
Her movements were as elegant as a dance, yet laced with lethal precision. With every flash of her blade, Makers or Echoes were swallowed by the True Fire, instantly turning to ash.
The high, piercing cry of the phoenix tore through the battlefield, carrying a radiant, purifying majesty.
"Petty vermin. You dare act so brazenly on Mt. Firmament?!"
At the same time, Cartethyia had also drawn her sword.
A fierce, cyan wind pressure instantly coiled around her blade, emitting a melodious hum.
She let out a fierce battle cry, her sword flashing like a violent storm, precisely deflecting the attacks aimed at the flanks of both herself and Rover.
"Heavens Fall!"
The wind howled from her blade, forming a miniature, razor-sharp cyclone that swept up approaching enemies before shredding them to pieces.
Her sword techniques were expansive and powerful, brimming with the absolute, unyielding resolve of a knight. The power of Aero granted her incredible mobility; she darted across the battlefield like an unpredictable bolt of cyan lightning, efficiently clearing the tidal wave of cannon fodder flooding toward them.
Rover simply stood calmly behind the two women. With a flip of his wrist, he produced his familiar bladed weapon, Blood Pact. His silhouette flickered like a phantom through the hail of bullets. The absolute speed granted by his Aero Resonance allowed him to effortlessly evade all attacks.
Occasionally, he would raise a hand. Aero energy gathered at his fingertips, condensing into arrows of light. Appearing almost as if they were teleporting, they precisely pierced the foreheads of distant gun-wielding Makers.
However, these lowly Fractsidus pawns didn't require much of his attention; most of them were the sort that died in droves with a single slash.
The vast majority of Rover's focus remained locked onto the cloaked Executioners.
"Full of openings."
He gave a cold hmph. The light in his golden eyes flickered slightly, abruptly switching to the power of Spectro.
Time seemed to slow down before his very eyes. The faint, nearly invisible movement trajectories of the enemies became crystal clear to him. The Executioners' supposedly flawless cloaking was utterly exposed before his chronokinetic perception.
One Executioner silently slipped behind Cartethyia, raising a blade glowing with sickly green, toxic light. Just as it was about to swing down—
"Break!"
Rover spat out a single word, and a localized temporal suspension took effect instantly!
Centered entirely on that single Executioner, the space and time within an incredibly small radius abruptly froze! The Executioner maintained its vicious posture of swinging the blade, but was completely immobilized, exactly like an insect trapped in amber.
Although the time stop could only be maintained for a few incredibly short breaths, for powerful Resonators, that was more than enough.
Cartethyia's combat instincts sent a chill down her spine. Just as she was about to spin around, a streak of scorching phoenix fire brushed past her side as if crossing through space itself, precisely blasting the temporarily frozen Executioner!
BOOM!
The fierce flames exploded. The Executioner couldn't even let out a scream before it was turned to charcoal by the all-purifying True Fire, its coupled mechanical components letting out a twisted wail before melting into slag.
Changli and Rover exchanged a brief glance in the air. Without a single word spoken, a perfect synergy was established.
However, these Executioners were far more troublesome than anticipated.
Seeing that their stealthy ambushes were ineffective, they immediately changed tactics. The remaining three Executioners abandoned their cloaking. Instead, relying on the monstrous strength and speed granted by their mechanical coupling, they coordinated with the large number of surviving Makers to launch a frenzied, head-on assault!
Their objective no longer seemed entirely focused on killing the trio, but carried an underlying intent to force their hands, attempting to pressure Rover and the others into revealing more of their true strength.
Only half a minute had passed since the battle began. Although more than half of the attacking enemies had been slain, the situation temporarily fell into a bizarre, brief stalemate.
Firelight, wind blades, and grotesque mechanical Tacet Discords clashed violently. The sounds of explosions, crossing weapons, and the crying phoenix wove into a chaotic symphony.
During the fierce struggle, the leader of the Executioners seemed to receive some sort of command, a blood-red light flashing in its eyes.
It forcefully threw off Cartethyia's wind blade. Enduring the heavy clash of their weapons, the coupled limbs emitted a harsh, screeching sound as the armor on its shoulder suddenly popped open, revealing a complex launcher inside.
Hum!
A silent energy pulse fired out—not aimed at anyone in the group, but straight up at a massive, overhanging boulder precariously perched above them!
The boulder had already been teetering on the edge. Struck precisely at its base by the energy pulse, it let out a sharp, deafening crack. Carrying the crushing weight of a collapsing mountain, it plummeted straight down toward Cartethyia, who was currently busy fending off attacks from both sides!
The shadow instantly swallowed her, and Cartethyia's icy blue eyes shrank violently!
She had just deflected a blade from the left, and the sound of wind was already approaching from the right. Evasion was impossible!
"Cartethyia!" Changli cried out in alarm, but she was desperately tangled up by two Executioners fighting tooth and nail. Even with the fire phoenix screeching, she couldn't break free in time.
The massive falling rock crashed downward!
As the sudden shadow descended, the deafening roar of cracking stone nearly drowned out all other noise on the battlefield.
Cartethyia's pupils shrank to pinpricks. An icy sense of powerlessness gripped her completely—I can't dodge it!
Just in this absolute nick of time—
"Don't be afraid."
A calm voice sounded right by her ear, carrying a profoundly reassuring power.
It was Rover!
He didn't even look up at the crushing boulder. His silhouette merely flickered, and he appeared right beside Cartethyia as if he had teleported.
His right hand still grasped Blood Pact, but he casually raised his left hand upward, aiming it directly at the colossal object crashing down with apocalyptic force.
There was no earth-shattering explosion of energy, only the sudden surge of an invisible, immeasurably majestic Aero force!
WUMM—!
As if caught by an invisible giant hand, the rapidly plummeting boulder suddenly seized up less than a few meters above Cartethyia's head, its downward momentum stopping dead!
Crushed rocks and dust rained down, but the main body was firmly locked in mid-air by that exquisite, overwhelmingly powerful force of wind.
Rover didn't so much as furrow his brow. The fingers of his raised left hand spread slightly before making a gentle sweeping motion to the side.
As if pushed by an invisible tidal wave, the massive boulder flew horizontally as light as a feather, crashing heavily into an empty clearing in the distance. It kicked up a massive cloud of dust, but didn't harm a single hair on the trio's heads.
The entire process was handled with effortless ease, as if he had merely brushed away a speck of dust.
"Righteous One..." Cartethyia stared blankly at Rover beside her. Her heart was still pounding violently, but it had morphed into an entirely different kind of flutter.
He was always like this. So powerful that it put her heart entirely at ease.
"Th... Thank you," she said softly, her voice carrying the faint tremble of someone who had just survived a disaster.
"Be careful." Rover lowered his hand, his gaze returning to the battlefield. His tone was perfectly flat, as if what he had just done was entirely trivial.
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