Dance with the Nightingale-Chapter 101 - 96: Nadol v/s Claire

A/N: Sorry for delay! I had exams last week so I didn’t get time to finish this. I am pursuing an engineering degree with two minor degrees so I do have a lot of exams. Sorry, for that. I will release another one this week. Hope you will enjoy reading it!

***

[The Underground Complex]

[Rayne’s POV]

Unlike him, his party members quickly picked up his call as if they were waiting for it. (They actually were.)

And just as he expected, they were dissatisfied.

He had, in fact, called Syrus instead of Cana cause she wouldn’t let him hear the end of it, but Cana took over the call nonetheless.

-You...! Do you know how hard it was managing everything! I thought you were captured by enemy too!

-Just how irresponsible you can be!

Cana complained and scolded. I would have indulged her cause the mistake was mine, if I didn’t sense that huge spiking of mana behind me, that is.

So…

"Cana", I said in authoritative voice that didn’t leave any room to refute, "Hand the call back to Syrus."

It must have shocked her… cause the usually grumpy Cana replied like this-

-…um, okay. Sorry.

’No, I’m sorry. I’ll make up to you later.’, I apologized in my mind as I waited for Syrus to speak.

-Yes, leader?

"Did something serious happen in the last half an hour?", I asked directly without dillydallying. "And keep it short.", I added.

-Yes.

And Syrus responded positively.

-The Demon Cultists kidnapped Mark’s lover and were trying to use her as a hostage to force him to capture us.

’So, it happened.’, I took a deep breath as I heard that.

’Since both Syrus and Cana sound fine it, maybe Mark didn’t comply. Then…Elista must be dead now.’

I drew my own conclusions; cause I knew how Demon Cultists were. They wouldn’t keep a useless hostage alive.

My thoughts were taking a grim turn when I heard a familiar voice from the background.

-We aren’t lovers…

Though the voice sounded so tired and dead inside, without any of her usual enthusiasm, but I was sure of it. It was Elista’s voice!

Shocked and more than a little elated, I asked quickly, "Is Elista with you now? Is she safe? How about you guys?"

-Yes, leader. She is with us and we are all safe. Mark and Jack are fighting the kidnapper now and we are escorting her away from the fight.

"That’s good."

I praised succinctly despite my happiness, before giving a rough outlook of my situation along with their new orders.

"I am fighting another demon cultist now, and Claire is helping me.", I revealed. "So, both of you get back to the inn and huddle up there with Allen and Elista."

-Okay, anything else.

"No. Rayne, out."

’I tried compressing the conversation as much as possible but it still took some time.’

’Or not.’, my thoughts changed as no more than two minutes had passed.

With a mind much lighter mind than before, a useless thoughts passed through my head, as I rushed back into the passage.

’Time usually passes super-fast when talking in other novels, doesn’t it? Wait! Doesn’t it prove that this world is real?’

’Umm… doesn’t matter now.’

Then, using [Peekaboo] I killed my presence and went back to Claire.

No more delaying, I have to finish this fast.

**

Claire and the Demon cultist were fighting quite intensely. With whips of water lashing out with strategic precision, along with the traps that Claire forced the Demon cultist to trigger, she wasn’t an easy opponent.

But the same could be said for Nadol.

Now, that Nadol knew Claire’s race, he just had to get closer to her and land a devastating blow. For everyone knew that the fairy race was a paper tank, with high magical affinity but a weak body.

And the petite demon cultist was trying his damn hardest to do so. Pulling out all stops, he cut through every trap he triggered while fending off most of Claire cunning attacks.

And he had the upper hand.

Unlike before, when he charged mindlessly like a bull, he was finally using his attribute cleverly.

Instead of trying only a long, straight-forward charge, he was mixing up short bursts of an intense black aura in between that caused his mana to spike ever so often.

He used the momentary bursts of power to cut off the most annoying traps before quickly switching back to using his usual blue aura.

From what I could see though, his stamina and endurance were taking a hit using this method, with the veins in his eyes bulging and muscles spasming.

In conclusion, their fight had just skipped the probing stage as both of them fought tooth and nail while giving their all.

Granted, they couldn’t use their really powerful AOE spells as the passage would cave in if they did.

’I can’t have that, Scheleth is still working in there.’, I thought as I observed the fight and looked for an opportunity to join in but…

’Hm, let’s reinforce the passage first.’

Under Peekaboo’s effect, I moved beneath both of their noses and used my intermediate affinity with earth magic to strengthen the cave’s structure.

Then using a mind link, I informed Claire of my presence and simply told her to damage him as much as possible.

Yes, I planned to ambush him after he got spent fighting Claire. Either that or when he showed an opening. That would be much faster than properly facing him.

**

It all began with Nadol’s charge, as he ran towards Claire in a zig-zag pattern.

Facing him were four, foot thick tentacles of water, that turned blue due to the high compression.

Nadol dodged one, parried another while using its force to change direction, jumped over the next one while ducking down the final one while slashing at the tentacle’s underside.

With around 12-13 meters between then Nadol thought it was his win, but before he could stabilize his posture and charge again, a transparent water tentacle rammed him in full, sending him flying.

-Urgh!

More frustrated than hurt, he plunged his sword in the passage’s ceiling to slow down before being pushed back too far.

Then using the handle of the embedded sword, he swung his body forward and dodged a sharp water spear launched by Claire.

Just like all her projectiles, the spear dispersed before hitting the ceiling behind Nadol, forming smaller water constructs to pierce his back.

Though, the demon cultist already had a solution for this.

From the fight till now, Nadol had learned that the reformed constructs weren’t as fast as the original ones, and there was little delay before they were launched. Using that fact and the backward momentum of his earlier swing, he placed his feet on the ceiling and kicked it heavily.

Launching himself like a rocket, leaving Claire’s constructs behind.

Now on the ground, he used the spots that he remembered as safe to close the distance again.

But Claire seemed to have noticed that.

A magical trap triggered on the spot he deemed ’safe’, creating a pit of water ahead which changed into thorns and stabbed at him.

Nadol changed his direction at the last moment, but still suffered from a few cuts. Even so, he just gritted his teeth and charged on nonetheless.

"Persistent Bastard!"

Claire cursed as she tapped on the air six times in a hexagon.

And following her move, suddenly, the moisture in the air seemed to be sucked in, as six walnut sized droplets of water churned in the air beside the fairy.

They churned and churned, collapsing on themselves as they made a grinding noise that water shouldn’t make.

’I’ll be damned.’, Nadol screamed in his mind, feeling the danger as he accelerated in a sudden burst of speed, maybe his final burst.

But that didn’t matter as fairy in front of him had glowing wings, as ’fairy dust’ which was nothing but crystallized dust of mana flowed into the six drops.

This only meant one thing, the next move is going to be lethal.

Though, danger equaled to opportunity.

Only, he had to stay alive to seize it.

The ground in front of Nadol glowed blue, as all the traps in his way were triggered on their own.

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Since, conditional magic was triggered without fulfilling conditions, it lost half of its power but the fairy seemed keen to compensate quality with quantity, cause there were just too damn many of them.

To Nadol though, it looked like fairy’s desperacy as he dodged and twirled his way out of the traps. And only when the traps stopped, did he take in a deep breath.

Nadol stood still for the second time today as he evened his breathing and concentrated on his senses.

He didn’t bother to try and interrupt Claire’s casting, thinking she already would have it covered. Not to mention, being caught off guard while trying to do so would make things much harder.

So, when the fairy serenely chortled, [Neriad’s Tears of Oblivion], he was ready with his all.

-BOOOOMMMMM!!!!

-BOOOMM!!!

-BOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!

Six sonic booms went off in the cave, as drops of water which had turned black launched themselves at Nadol.

In response a jet black aura, taller than the petite speedster covered his sword as he faced the black beads of water.

-Schwing…!

With the first swing of his sword, he split a bead in half.

’Something like this, then I handle it!!’

Alas, it wasn’t just something like that.

Like a C4 that was finally triggered, the perfectly sliced bead of water, exploded – in a series of hundreds deadly water blades, that sliced everything within their range into oblivion.

"ARRRGGHHHH!!!"

Pain overwhelmed Nadol as the disgustingly sharp blades bit into his skin, cutting off his flesh as if a sculptor was carving out a wooden doll. And just like the doll, he couldn’t do anything.

The blades, were too fast. Instantaneous even, to counter them.

Blood clouded his vision as chunks of flesh were cut of from his body. And the only thing he could do was buckle up behind his sword to protect his guts.

"ARRRGHHHHHH!!!"

His fingers, his arms, legs, and even the sides. Nadol was assaulted from all directions as his blood splattered on the floor.

At this rate, Nadol was going to die.

And to make the matters worse, the other beads that took a curved path were upon him.

’Damn! It! All!!’, he screamed in his mind, as he pushed more mana in his sword and swung.

Destroying four of the incoming beads, with the cost of his back. And the last bead that he failed to destroy joined the onslaught.

-ARRRGHHHHHH!!!!!

-ARRRGHHHHHH!!!!!

-ARRRGHHHHHH!!!!!

His screams doubled, along with his desperation, as he activated all the barriers he had, only for them to shatter the next moment. He even tried to swing his sword, which did destroy a few water blades, but at the cost of an arm that was now hanging off a few strands of his flesh.

In the end his screams died down, along with the spell and when they did, what was left half-kneeling looked more like a corpse than a living breathing man.

Huge chunks of flesh missing from all limbs that had been reduced to three, making bones visible for all to see. White bones, painted red all thanks to the blood covering them.

’Okay, maybe I didn’t need to intervene.’, those were my thoughts as I watched from the side.

’Just to make sure.’, I thought, as I channeled mana to activate my skills and was ready to go for the kill.

Yes, Nadol was still alive, albeit barely. The tenacity of a magic user is beyond that of a human and I didn’t want to leave any untied string behind.

But to my and Claire’s surprise, the barely alive corpse coughed up blood, but still stood up.

With unsteady hands he took out a potion to drink.

Normally, Claire would have stopped him, but right now she was so exhausted that she couldn’t even fly much less attack and he knew it.

The only thing she could do was in resentment as placed the bottle near his mouth.

’And that’s enough. You would have won if it was duel.’, I sighed.

’But life isn’t fair.’

[Acceleration] x5

-Crack…!

With a burst of speed, I stabbed into Nadol’s heart, slamming his back into the reinforced passage.

-Cough…!

-Cough…!

Coughing out more blood, the speedster looked at me and my sword stabbing in his heart with his blood stained eyes. His eyes begging me to stop, to let him live, but I didn’t.

Quite indifferently instead, I unleashed a tri-element spell inside his body through my sword, that ravaged his body from inside.

Then, with a twist, I crushed his heart and pulled out my sword, as my spell burned his now lifeless body to ashes on which my gaze lingered.

-Huu

With another deep breath, I stopped and turned around. Picking up and placing the tiny Claire in my pocket, as I gave her complaining self a potion.

Then, I quickly gathered the remaining corpses, double checked if they were dead and burnt them, before leaving.

’It is 2 v/s 1 above too. Maybe they would be done by the time I arrive.’, those were my naïve thoughts as I left the underground complex.

***

A/N: Hm, if you didn’t understand why Nadol would have won if Claire was alone then here is the explanation.

First, Nadol was physically wounded, and Claire had her mana exhausted. Now, Nadol could drink a healing potion but Claire couldn’t because, if you remember, mana potions can’t be taken when your mana has reached the rock bottom. Which had happened with Claire. You have to rest till your mana regenerates to 10% before drinking one. So, in the end Nadol would have recovered and stabbed Claire to dead, if Rayne wasn’t there.

As for Rayne giving Claire a potion... Rayne has the highest ranked potions which further decrease the required mana from 10% to 5%, so it was okay for Claire to drink those.