Mimic Awakening

Boom!

An explosion occurs on Azrael’s floating island and sends dirt, dust, and rocks in all directions. At the epicenter of the explosion, there is a shallow crater, and there are two figures at the center of it. The knight just swung his blade downwards powerfully. In response, Azrael has to raise his sword horizontally to block it.

"Hey, you are destroying my island!" Azrael complains.

"As if I care!"

The knight takes a step back before swinging his blade horizontally, aiming at Azrael’s side. The young man quickly moves his blade to block another of his opponent’s blow once more.

Since the beginning of their fight, Azrael has been on the defense, blocking and intercepting his opponent’s attacks since he is afraid that he might partially destroy the floating island if he went all out.

He can fly, sure, by sprouting out griffin wings on his back, but he cannot say the same for his opponent. In case he would take the offensive, Azrael would have held back his full strength in order to not damage the surroundings.

But at that level, his opponent would go toe to toe with him. Given the armored man’s raw power, Azrael presumes that his mediocre magic spells would be effective against him. Since he cannot use powerful wild magic spells either, Azrael decides to use weaker wild magic to try on him.

"Hah!"

After deflecting the knight’s attack with his longsword, Azrael steps back before thrusting his left palm toward the target. Using a minuscule amount of his maximum mana, he quickly creates a small greater dragon fireball and fires it at his opponent.

"!"

The knight is surprised upon seeing him casting magic so quickly. Since it is too late to move in order to avoid a supersonic attack, he just raises his non-dominant left arms to cover his face.

Boom.

The basketball-sized blueish-white ball of concentrated flames instantly exploded upon making contact with the target, causing smoke and dust to cover the target. But before the dust could settle, the knight emerges from the smokes and dashes forward.

Boom!

Azrael fires another greater dragon fireball, but this time, he doubles its firepower, or about a percent of his mana. The bigger and more powerful fireball once again hit the incoming target. The increased power is great enough that the knight is even knocked back for a few feet.

"Haha! You got some power, kid. But I can tell that it isn’t your full power. Come on! Show me your real power!"

"Hmph! Prove it to me that you are worth using it!" Azrael declares as he holds the hilt of his sword tight.

"Hahh!!"

The knight lunges himself forward at an astonishing speed as he swings his massive blade sideways. Azrael quickly dashes and crosses his blade with his, creating a large explosion that is followed by a powerful shockwave on the site.

◆◇◆

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Meanwhile, on the other battlefield, multiple explosions disturb the sky above the bigger floating island. Two individuals are rapidly flying in the air as they take turns to chase and exchange powerful spells against each other.

Currently, Claire is flying fast toward the sky, and she just breaks the altitude of twelve thousand meters, almost exiting the troposphere. A few hundred meters behind her, the elder lich is in pursuit of her. They are flying about the same speed, so he is not going to catch her yet.

"I advise you to stop flying higher." The lich magically increases the volume of his voice. "You are not escaping me."

"Who said I am escaping?!"

Immediately after saying that, Claire turns around and points her wooden staff at the undead. Utilizing her awakened abilities, Claire instantly conjures a large magic circle in front of her before unleashing the spell she had precast earlier.

Divine Lighting!

Consuming a fourth the amount of her maximum mana, Claire unleashes a combat-class ultimate magic spell at the approaching lich, releasing over ten purple lightning strikes from the magic circle. Basically moving at the speed of light, all the lightning strikes hit the target in an instant.

Crackle! Boom!

Smokes cover the target for seconds after the lightning bolts land. When the results of the attack slowly come into Claire’s view, her eyes widen upon seeing the lich seemingly fine. Around him, she can see a translucent spherical barrier, which she suspects blocks her attacks.

"Impossible!" She gasps. "How can you survive an ultimate magic spell?!"

"It seems like magic has deteriorated in this era," he calmly states. "But it’s not bad given that you triggered my automatic defense, which blocks fatal attacks."

"I never heard some kind of magic that can neutralize ultimate magic!"

It’s not even in the Gramarye, she says to herself.

"You haven’t heard it because we are using entirely different magic systems, Miss. You see, I am a magus of the primeval magic. If I remember correctly, you called it ancient magic."

"Ancient magic?!" Claire yells in disbelief. "That’s why your magic seems to work differently from mine."

Before the modern magic system, primeval or ancient magic ruled the world. Unlike the magic of this era, which has complex fundamentals, ancient magic has a less set of rules to follow but has vague boundaries.

Instead of magic circles, ancient magic primarily cast spells using the caster’s mind or imagination. Pretty much everything is possible as long as the caster has a strong mind to comprehend the nature of the spell and enough mana to burn.

Primeval magic is an unexplainable power that the ancient inhabitants of this world once wielded. It is said that the usage of primeval magic started to decline since the arrival of the two gods tens of thousands of years ago.

The reason is still unknown, but one theory states that the sacrifice of the Magic God degraded the energy that the ancient magic casters used.

That is what Claire learned from the books, but seeing an actual ancient magic caster before her tells a different story. It is that she thinks that the number of ancient magic casters was declining at that time.

She once heard a few legends about the near extinction of most races and life in the world way before the arrival of the two gods, which suggests the decline of ancient magic. But she has no time to think about it as she has to face her opponent.

"It saddens me to learn how much magic has deteriorated in this era. Let me end this duel at once."

"I’m not going to give up yet!"

"Show me what this era is capable of!"

Judging how powerful her opponent can be, Claire decides not to hold back any longer. This is the first time she feels she is being pushed back since her encounter with Azrael.

Firstly, she puts her staff back into her subspace. The staff actually does not benefit her but limits her power instead. She usually does this to conceal her full capabilities. During her fight with Azrael, she just concluded that she could not beat him no matter what she did.

"Evanescent Apotheosis!"

Without any restrictions, Claire can now perform to her full power. Suddenly, her whole body radiates a golden glow, and her eyes glow vividly. At that moment, the elder lich feels like her magic power has multiplied by at least seven times.

"Oho. This is quite interesting," the undead remarks. "Multiplying your magic power without cutting off your max mana, huh? It’s kind of similar to a certain technique that I know. Let me show off as well."

As Claire is preparing herself, the lich suddenly unleashes most of his mana, and then a dark aura veils his whole body. The aura stretches dozens of meters before quickly compressing and condensing it into his body.

In a matter of seconds, his maximum mana capacity increases by eight times. But in exchange for that power, he has sixteen breathspan or eight minutes left before his mana runs out.

Before, both of them were almost equally matched in terms of maximum mana capacity. Currently, Claire has amplified his magic power sevenfold, while the undead increase his maximum mana capacity eight times. Each of them is able to raise their own power in different ways.

Claire activates Evanescent Apotheosis, a combat-class ultimate magic spell that multiplies the caster’s magic power, which is proportional to their max mana capacity, but it drastically increases the mana consumption of casting spells. The time limit depends on the multiplier.

On the other hand, the elder lich casts Ephemeral Exaltation upon himself. Ephemeral Exaltation is not a magic spell of either primeval or modern, but it is a technique, an entirely different power outside of magic and awakened abilities.

This technique increases the user’s maximum mana capacity by equally partitioning the mana into the amount of the multiplier and then stacks them all together. In exchange, the user’s mana continuously burns until the fixed time limit, which also depends on the multiplier.

After mutually giving one another time to power up, both are now prepared for the real battle. The undead mage flies higher before stopping a kilometer away from Claire at the same altitude. As the Great Sorceress thrusts her hands forward, the elder lich extends his right arm and points his wooden staff at her.

"Not that I have a clear look at it, your staff seems to have its own magical signature. It is a sentient article, I suppose?"

"It looks like you have some elite knowledge. You’re right, this is indeed a sentient weapon. Since I cannot waste that much time, let’s settle this duel with one final attack."

"You are quite reasonable for a monster. For that reason, I’ll comply with you."