Reincarnated Into A Dead Woman's Body In Another World-Chapter 279: Arc 4, Act II, - 124: Cindering March Part III
The bright streak of lightning lasted a mere second and the Thundering Blade stood there no longer. Fumeko couldn’t even blink an eye as she screamed her name out...
She knew what happened the last time the blonde casted a spell she was told not to... A bloody mess on the floor and if weren’t for Hotaru being so close by...
Daiyu’s eyes widened, a little impressed before a bullet got her attention back. Arabella continued her fight, the sand around her head giving her a minimal view. The king awaited the next step.
Hotaru was a bit too far for comfort... Asobi? Who knows where exactly she was. So the only one who was left, was the brunette who had attempted to stop her in the critical moment...
In that split second, to be the only one who knows what could happen to Jotou, after being one of the only ones who had witnessed it before... What a horrifying thought...
The battle ensued, hundreds of passing glances to the yellow light that flashed. Fumeko peered straight up into the sky.
She had encouraged Jotou to learn that spell after all. How did she not figure out that Jotou would jump to it as a last resort...? With the situation at hand, there was little room for error...
Meanwhile... she felt a rush of static across her skin, barely able to feel the speed at which she just bolted up. Sparks went down her body like tiny fireworks as the lightning shot out a blonde.
The air past her ears gave her a chill, so thin yet fresh as it entered her lungs. Her entire body felt fuzzy, her gaze akin to being in a fever dream.
The oceans of clouds were just past the tip of her nose, like cotton candy she could reach. The sounds of shouted orders, bullets and fire were no longer existent...
The skies she would so often look to, there she was. In that couple of seconds, fading away into nothingness sounded like the best idea ever; and perhaps, this was the heaven she didn’t believe.
That’s when the wind started howling past her ears and the pull of gravity grasped her form once more. Jotou felt no struggle, no resistance, as she gracefully looked back down, her body entering free fall.
Her coat and ponytail flapped with the vapour in the air as her eyes protected by lightning pierced the scene below. It was truly a wonder how far the human eye could see.
Many dream of flying, soaring through the skies. Not Jotou the smart-ass of course; it was much too impractical and the physics of it would just kill you—the cold, the pressure, the air...
For once, she was happy to eat her words. The child inside of her smiled, just as her lips did. At least she could be certain for now; oh how she would’ve regretted it if she had taken her own life any sooner.
Falling at such a velocity, the thought that she’d have to take so many lives in this moment softened her eyes. Are they all not fighting for life?
Perhaps there was another way; where so many lives would not have to be stolen. But such a day was not today. For the people she cared for, needed her now; and she only muttered an apology for what she was about to do.
She pointed her blade down, the sunlight glittering across the Thundering Blade’s form as she plummeted. Like smoky quartz filled with sparking gold, her eyes found her target; close by the Trailonian soldiers across the narrow path.
"Fzz...BLAST!" Behind the wall a lightning bolt struck down from the heavens, right into the Cindering Brimstone. Electricity coursed through his veins and armour, "GAAHH!!!"
He stood firm as a dome of webbing electricity discharged all around him- "AHHH!!" the large dome conducted onto one of the Trailonian soldiers, creating another dome that webbed out and discharged.
The soldier was shocked into a corpse, as each dome of webbing electricity fizzled and spread across the bodies of the injured and healthy alike, discharging from the metal within the vicinity and even their steeds.
Dozens of yellow umbrellas of lightning flashed across the field in an instant, one after the other. The wall of fire Cinder had put up dissipated ember by ember as Cinder broke out of his short paralysis, his one ear spasming back and forth.
Everyone watched as the lightning continued to spread and web in domes across the entire narrow path, eating away at the soldiers within seconds till they were nothing more than corpses that had lost all motor function.
While the discharges made their way west, up north a few of those domes were on a path of chain reactions through the soldiers. In screams they fled, trying to outrun the lightning before the next wave of webs discharged.
Cinder waved up his longsword- "TRANG!" King Akimitsu had closed the distance and knocked it aside. Cinder raised his right arm and attempted to form another wall-
The king moved his arm leftwards and with it blasted a slash of orange lightning that roared in between the two, breaking Cinder’s spell in an instant.
The Cravoltan soldiers retreated back, enough to stay away from the electricity discharges. Fumeko watched as the lightning danced and bounced across the entire path and still continue...
Lightning webbed and webbed, arcing and jumping at every chance to conduct it got, till the domes were going nowhere west any longer. She had travelled the distance of the entire chasm and then more within three or four seconds total.
The lightning discharged northwards, up the ranks, leaving a trail of electrocuted corpses, damaged equipment and shattered transport.
With her goal completed, Jotou could sense the need to end the spell... How was she supposed to do that again...? She felt everything going numb, like she was going unconscious or wanting to vomit.
’Just... cancel the spell.’ She forced, but instead travelled backwards. The lightning conducted in webs towards the south, across the corpses which could still act as conduits for the spell to travel.
The remaining webs of lightning going through chain reactions suddenly all fizzled and dissipated in an instant, causing sudden relief to the soldiers still fleeing.
Jotou had limited vision of what was going on; she had no limbs nor body as she travelled with the webs of lightning.
Fumeko watched from afar the brightness of the webs dimming despite remaining the same distance; not to mention going the opposite way of where it was supposed to...
Clearly something had gone wrong... With widened eyes, the brunette blinked forward multiple times till she reached the edge of the chasm, but all she could do was stare across the gigantic gap...
’STOP!’ "BLAST!" The final web of lightning exploded and discharged much larger than the rest and ejected Jotou into the air at the speed she was shot at when she was sent into the sky...
Jotou gasped as breath filled her lungs again and she felt agency all over her body. Her eyes were forced to shut to her velocity now, but she knew the ground was fast approaching.
"THUD! THUMP!" "CRACK! TUFF!" "AHHHH!" Jotou screamed out as the right side of her body landed and bounced off the earth like a ragdoll, breaking a few bones in her right arm and leg in one go.
Fumeko squinted, noticing the crashing blonde and hearing the faintest echo of a scream. "JOTOU!" Fumeko was about to blink, only to realize there was no chance she was making it in time...
The brunette furrowed her brows... If she was going to take a risk. "Okay!" Fumeko planted her feet down and concentrated on the chasm across as she saw Jotou crashing and thudding like she was already a corpse with no control of her speed.
"Just do what Frost did, please, for her, please," shadows formed around her feet... and spread across the ground around her like the roots of a tree.
Purplish-black shadows arose like tendrils as Fumeko’s own shadow extended much, much larger than herself. A single drop of blood trailed down her nose... The spell was still not taking effect however.
"I know I can do it... I know I can do it," her voice cracked, holding back tears and stopping herself from panting. She glared daggers to the edge Jotou was heading towards.
The shadows warped and echoed light eerie sounds, forming around her in a misshapen circle. Fumeko took a deep breath, she needed this to work; in fact, she knew she could make it work.
No doubts left in her mind, "She can believe me; then I can believe in myself. Jotou’ll be fine; I need to get her, I can save her, please-" in a flash of dark purples and blacks, Fumeko disappeared...
"BLAST!" A blue fireball rocketed past the king who slid away as lightning took his boots. With no backup, the Trailonian soldiers retreating, and Daiyu and Arabella keeping the stragglers at bay, the two had a battleground to themselves.
Raging blue fires shot up, scorching the earth across. Orange lightning arced and jumped. Their elements meeting creating a louder boom before the two would close the distance.
Each blast of fire resounded and whistled higher, while each fragment of lightning launched faster with crackles that echoed throughout the troops. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶
Arabella stepped back from the fight and glanced to her left on the ongoing fight the clattered and clashed into her ears. She narrowed her gaze... Getting in between would just be a hinderance at this point.
As Cinder was about to put up another wall to buffet the king back, King Akimitsu would break through without holding back. "BLASTTT!!!!"
Orange light shot out first, followed by thunder that boomed into Cinder, the earth beneath rumbled and stones broke apart, staggering Cinder back. The king’s thundering strike a lot more potent than Jotou’s.
Cinder kept putting up barriers in between himself and the incoming attacks, shielding himself with an aura of blue flames as well.
He stomped his flaming blue foot into the ground; the fires whistled and roared as the rocks melted. Cinder grunted as he dragged his longsword through the ground as well, creating puddles of smouldering magma.
However, as Cinder was enacting his plan of attack, the king was in the middle of casting a spell... King Akimitsu’s eyes sparked in bits of orange lightning from below.
His sword back in his sheath as he moved his hand in particular motion. Static electricity of orange hues came up in little fragments around Cinder and dissipated just as fast...
Cinder turned the ground around him into molten rock to keep the king at bay. Only then did his ears bristle to the sound akin to that of a revving engine.
Except this was much deeper and nobody else could hear it, for the frequency of the sound could not be picked up by the average person.
Cinder moved to the- "KUH!" his armour clanked as he walked back; it appeared as if something forced him back in. Slowly, the orange hues became bright enough to be visible to the naked eye.
A ring of rapid lightning zoomed around Cinder like an orbit. The sound of fizzling and buzzing now resonated throughout all that remained near.
The atmospheric pressure dropped around everyone in the vicinity, their hairs stood on ends and it was as if the all sound was vacuumed into the pulsating ring.
The muted air persisted for a few mere seconds before the ring spiralled and threw lightning into Cinder before... "CRACKLLE!!! BLAST! BLAST!! BLAST!!!"
Several dozen orange lightning bolts stormed down around the ring in fragments shaped like nerves, striking into Cinder in a cacophony in thunder.
Cinder was forced to drop his longsword, opting to form barriers and shields to protect himself. "CRACK!" While Cinder gritted his teeth, his right arm—alongside the armour— rotated all the way back, breaking his arm.
The lightning died and dissipated as Cinder still survived with bubbling magma and rising smoke around him. He had not given up just yet and picked up the longsword in his left, ignoring his backwards arm.
Surrounded in lightning, King Akimitsu charged forward, unsheathing his blade in one motion to strike Cinder’s head. Cinder blasted the attack back by blue breathing flames from his teeth.
King Akimitsu twisted and stabbed his blade through the cut Fumeko had made earlier across Cinder’s chest. A blast of lightning pierced through as the king forced the-
"FWOOSH! SLICK!"
...
Just as he had forced through, the Cindering Brimstone drove his longsword into the Fragmenting Lightning’s guts... The two stood, looking each other in the eyes.
As much as the king could feel his blood starting to leave him, he could feel them boiling and burning; Cinder’s longsword pierced all the way through his back.
The same as the king’s sword did to Cinder, stopping at the back of his armour; both of them using an immense amount of mana to pierce the other’s enchanted armour.
The two stared and stared, shocked by their defeat... King Akimitsu narrowed his bubbled eyes and with what life he had, surged lightning through his blade.
The electricity ate away at Cinder’s organs like paper, sending his nerves and mind into shock; however, not before blue flames burned around him, travelling up his longsword.
King Akimitsu refused to let his legs buckle as his body started burning from within. The Cindering Brimstone, was taken in blue flames, dying before the king’s eyes without another word...
The heat, the fire was consuming his flesh as he took in his last view. "What a pretty sky..." the king turned his head what little he could, seeing a largely missing Trailonian army...
Had this been the change that this war so desperately needed after so long...? They had finally, taken one of their enemies out of the war; at least let that be what he believed in his final thoughts.
He saw the Undying Princess, just as Daiyu turned to notice him being engulfed in blue flames. Daiyu’s worried and shocked expression was a little too late...
King Akimitsu smiled, realizing the time had come. The fires barely hurt and his eyes slowly closed, "Midori... Hiromi... ...be well."
The blue fires took over his body and the Fragmenting Lightning lost his last breath into the flames as embers danced up into the air, leaving only brimstone and ash...
