Knowing what I’ll have to do next, I’ll need about 40 seconds, Marie thought. Marie reconfirmed and recalculated the actions she’d take next, then gathered the resolve to go through with them.
“Anyway, please do as I said. Spew lightning at him for 40 seconds,” she said.
“That is quite a lot you are asking of me.” Though he ranked high among Pure-Dragons, Arcal was no longer a UBM. Breathing lightning for such a long time and from such a distance was a taxing act that would surely drain him.
But...
“If it is to avenge my friend...consider it done.”
Following those words, Arcal opened his jaw and released lightning onto King of Plagues below. The bolt struck true, but was once again negated by his lightning resistance raincoat.
In that moment, Marie grasped a different blade in each hand...and jumped off Arcal’s back.
This was the only way to reach him—a fall from directly above.
During her investigations, Marie had reached the conclusion that the bacteria’s effective range in the air wasn’t nearly as great as it was on land.
Mahr said that when To’ori helped him escape, the cattle left on the ground were dying—that alone made it clear that the altitude slowed the disease down.
Additionally, some of the people who’d used skydragons and avians while setting out to kill King of Plagues were able to get deep into his deadly range without any issue.
Thinking about it, this was to be expected.
There was absolutely nothing in the air. No soil to cling to and no nutrients the bacteria could use to proliferate. Even if they could linger in the air, they certainly couldn’t spread easily.
Marie had guessed that even at its highest—right above King of Plagues—the effective height of the bacteria was only about 5000 metels. This estimation was confirmed when Arcal told her that he’d been able to attack King of Plagues from above. With this approach, though, they’d given themselves more room to work with, coming from a height of over seven thousand metels. While this altitude was a bit much for the avians of the DIN branch, it wasn’t a problem for a powerful dragon like Arcal.
However, even all these preparations and an approach from a less defended angle wouldn’t be enough to win against King of Plagues. While the sky might not have been dense in bacteria, they still reached as high as 5000 metels. Even with supersonic speed, delivering an attack would take over 10 seconds. That was more than enough time for Candy to switch to appropriate resistance gear, counter it with other bacteria, or run away and make more distance between them. And now that he had the Star Helmet, ranged attacks weren’t enough to take him out—but his disease miasma meant attacking him from up close was impossible too.
Falling toward him from above didn’t change much of this scenario. Marie would be consumed before she even touched the ground.
Except she had something that let her break—or more accurately, pass through.
“Art of Vanishing.”
The moment she spoke the name of her skill, her body stopped existing in this world. The light that allowed her to be seen, the air touching her skin, the lightning that could burn her, and the bacteria that destroyed everything it came into contact with now passed straight through her as though she wasn’t even there.
This was Art of Vanishing—the ult of the onmitsu grouping Superior Job, Death Shadow.
Leaving everything behind as though she had never even existed, Marie plummeted to the surface far below.
And since she didn’t exist, the Star Helmet couldn’t possibly see her coming.
Thirty-six, thirty-five, thirty-four... she counted down in her head. Normally, forty seconds wasn’t enough for a person to fall even two thousand metels, because air resistance slowed them down.
However, that didn’t affect Marie as she was now. Art of Vanishing negated all physical influence on her, and even the dense air wasn’t doing anything to her speed. But even though there was no friction, she was still affected by gravitational acceleration, as evidenced by the fact that her feet stayed in contact with the ground when she used the skill on the surface.
Thus, during these forty seconds, she closed the distance between her and King of Plagues at the highest possible speed.
Twenty, nineteen, eighteen...
King of Plagues only moved by foot and wasn’t exactly swift, but forty seconds were more than enough time for him to move dozens of metels.
Another reason Marie had asked Arcal to shower King of Plagues in lightning was to minimize this possibility. Her calculations told her that without the effects of wind upon her, she could reach him by simply falling.
“Tch!” However, despite it all, there was now a discrepancy between the point she was falling toward and Candy’s current location.
Had Candy himself moved? Or was this an effect of Arcal’s lightning?
I’ll do this, then! Thinking fast, accelerated by her AGI, Marie quickly made a decision.
A moment later, her forty seconds expired. Arcal’s lightning had ceased, and Marie removed her Art of Vanishing.
But as she did that, she immediately used her Art of Shadow Clones.
She then kicked the clones to readjust the trajectory of her fall.
“Huh?” Candy said, finally picking up on Marie’s presence. The moment Art of Vanishing was undone, both the Star Helmet and the swarm of bacteria focused entirely on her.
However, before King of Plagues could react in any way, Marie shoved both her blades into the neck of her target.
Thanks to her accelerated thoughts, she was able to perfectly coordinate her fall with her attack. Her left blade drew an arc from below, while the right was swung down.
The attack with the left blade was restrained. Candy’s level was immense, but his HP wasn’t impressive, and this attack was meant to do damage while keeping him alive.
The attack with the right blade, however, was fatal. It carried the kinetic energy of Marie’s free fall straight into a critical area.
Pulverizing Marie’s own right arm as it sank in, the right blade delivered damage that surpassed Candy’s HP many times over, triggering his Brooch several times and shattering it.
A moment later, Marie herself crashed into the ground, activating and breaking her own Brooch too.
Marie’s ambush left them both without a lifeline.