Chapter 144 (2)
[Water Spell: Serpent's Coil]
A massive serpent formed from water erupted between them, its jaws opening around Kaya. She drove one kunai through its mouth and released lightning through the liquid body.
Electricity raced through the serpent from head to tail, destabilizing its shape. The creature collapsed into a violent shower of water.
The assassin had used the spell as a feint.
He was already behind her.
Both daggers swept toward her throat.
Kaya ducked beneath the blades and drove her knee into his abdomen. His breath exploded from his lungs, and his body folded forward. She immediately rotated and struck the back of his neck with her elbow.
The assassin crashed onto the stone, rolled with the impact, and regained his feet before she could finish him.
His left arm was already trembling.
Kaya noticed.
[Lightning Spell: Volt Needles]
Several thin bolts shot from her free hand, targeting his chest, throat, shoulder, and eyes. The assassin deflected the first two with his daggers and twisted away from another, but the fourth struck his shoulder.
His arm instantly went numb.
One dagger slipped from his fingers and clattered across the stone.
Before Kaya could exploit the opening, the fire user returned.
His longsword burned with concentrated flame as he charged through the smoke.
[Fire Spell: Scorching Arc]
He swung horizontally, releasing a five-meter-wide crescent of fire.
Kaya threw herself backward.
The attack passed close enough to sear the tips of her hair, and the heat struck her face even after the blade had passed.
She landed hard on one hand, pain shooting through her wrist, but she immediately converted the recovery into another attack.
[Lightning Spell: Spark Cascade]
A rapid sequence of lightning bolts erupted from her palm. They were individually too weak to kill a Seven Star elite, but their speed and changing angles made them difficult to defend against.
The first struck his shoulder.
The next hit his hip.
Another caught his knee.
His stance collapsed.
The following bolts struck his wrist, chest, and finally throat, forcing his head backward as electricity raced through his body. His fingers opened involuntarily, and the longsword fell from his grasp.
He dropped to one knee.
His fire mana guttered around him.
Kaya's lungs burned as she drew another breath, but she had no time to recover.
The water caster had completed another spell.
[Water Spell: Riptide Surge]
Water erupted beneath Kaya's feet and transformed the stone into a violent vortex. The current seized her legs and dragged her downward with enough force to threaten her balance and fracture bone.
She dropped to one knee.
The spear-wielder saw the opening.
[Earth Spell: Stone Spikes]
A line of jagged stone erupted from the ground and raced toward Kaya. The spikes rose one after another, each positioned to impale her while the Riptide Surge held her in place.
Kaya looked upward.
Then she raised one hand.
[Lightning Spell: Heaven's Fist]
Lightning descended from the clouds with a deafening crack.
The column struck directly in front of Kaya and obliterated the advancing stone spikes. The impact carved a crater several meters deep into the clifftop, shattered the surrounding rock, and sent a wave of force across the battlefield.
The water caster was thrown backward.
His concentration broke.
The Riptide Surge collapsed.
Kaya pulled herself from the remaining water and rose through the steam and dust, her lightning body burning brighter despite the exhaustion weighing on her limbs.
The water caster struggled to stand.
Kaya lifted one hand.
[Lightning Spell: Chain Reaction]
A single bolt struck him in the chest.
The current immediately jumped to the dagger-wielder, then leaped from him to the fire user. Blue-white electricity chained the three men together, their bodies convulsing as the current traveled through them.
When the spell ended, the water caster lay unconscious. The dagger-wielder had collapsed onto his back, his remaining dagger lying several meters away. The fire user remained conscious, but his body could barely move.
Only the spear-wielder remained standing.
She raised her weapon and formed one final defense.
[Earth Spell: Earth Wall]
A thick stone barrier erupted between them, rising four meters high and reinforced by the copper wire wrapped around her spear.
Kaya did not retreat.
She gathered lightning into her palm, compressing it until the energy formed a narrow spear of brilliant blue-white light.
[Lightning Spell: Fulgur Spear]
The spear launched.
It punched through the Earth Wall, shattered the reinforcement woven through the stone, and continued into the spear-wielder's chest. The woman staggered backward as her weapon slipped from her hands, then collapsed onto the fractured stone.
Kaya remained standing, but barely.
Her chest heaved as she struggled to draw enough air into her burning lungs. Lightning flickered unevenly across her body while her mana reserves approached their limit. A shallow wound marked her ribs where the spear had nearly pierced her, and her arms trembled from the sustained strain of the battle.
Four enemies had fallen.
Kaya was not finished.
She crossed the clifftop and approached the fire user, who remained conscious despite his injuries. Kneeling beside him, she placed her fingers against the first meridian point on his chest.
[Celestial Meridian: Sixty-Four Severance]
Lightning flowed from her fingertips into his body, no longer behaving like a destructive weapon. Instead, each current became precise enough to function like a surgeon's instrument.
The first eight strikes sealed the primary meridians in his chest and disrupted his mana circulation. The next eight traveled through his arms, severing the pathways connecting his core to his limbs. Another eight traced the channels through his torso, followed by the pathways through his legs, throat, head, and spine.
With every cycle, the seals multiplied.
His mana core became inaccessible.
His muscles stopped responding.
His ability to cast disappeared beneath layer after layer of precisely placed lightning imprints.
By the time Kaya reached the final eight strikes, the fire user's entire body had become a prison of sealed meridians and disabled nerves. He could still see her, and he could still understand exactly what she had done, but his body would no longer obey him.
The seals would hold for hours.
When Tisha eventually found him, she would understand that the technique had not been used merely to defeat one of her soldiers. The precision of the seals would tell her exactly who had been responsible.
Kaya withdrew her hands and stood.
She did not waste another moment examining the fallen elites or tending to the wound along her ribs. Turning east, she began running again as lightning slowly returned to her legs.
Twenty minutes later, she caught up with the three clones near the river valley.
Without breaking stride, Kaya resumed her position at the head of the formation.
"Keep moving," she said. "We are not done yet."