Twisted around by the spike piercing his body, Asta helplessly endured as he was swung like a mace, right into the ceiling once more.
"Ku-ek!"
It took a few seconds for him to recover after the impact, giving him barely enough time to cut away the spike with his sword before jumping away from it reach.
However those few seconds were also enough for the real Osersia to appear before him with light magic.
His reflexes and instincts peaked at that moment, but forgot reacting, Asta wasn't even able to catch sight of her true body and ended up attacking a afterimage instead.
Then a voice came from behind, "Impressive reflexes... For a Vermin."
The voice was followed by a crushing hand chop to Asta's shoulder, yet Osersia didn't stop. "Don't go dreaming out of your reach, trash. Everything existing here is all thanks to my pity–"
Dozens of light swords accompanied the chop, piercing and passing through Asta's body before Anti-magic could even latch on and stop them.
"-My mercy."
The hole ridden Asta didn't even had the moment to reconsider his options as blood gushed out of him like a fountain. He could only see the real appearance of Osersia in that flickering moment, and he engraved it into his mind.
A sharp curved V shaped face with a pair of narrow and cold golden teal eyes. The angel's appearance matches her white statues in the churches– a fair skinned women surrounded by a cloak of golden light on all sides.
Asta then crash landed the next second, bouncing along the floor before crashing right into a giant pillar.
"The heck is with that speed!? " He thought, trying to figure out the reason and a method of fighting back, " That wasn't teleportation. It was like a light flashed across my vision and—"
"Light magic: instant departure. "
Using Light magic, Angel conjured a flood of brightness that engulfed the entire Hall within a split-second.
The light burned everything it touched. It's speed was faster than Anti-magic's, the density so strong it felt like it watching the sun from up close.
The light sizzled it's way into Asta's skin, burning his frontal skin before it was devoured by his Anti-magic.
The regeneration was still kicking in but the burns slowed it down greatly. The pain Asta felt at that point was akin to being burned alive and his eyes had already rolled back into blankness from the pain.
However as Angel expected the fight to end—
Twitch...
The charred Asta leaped at her, forcing her to retreat out of his reach before Light magic once more formed in her hand.
"Just die already! " She said annoyingly. Her hands weaved a spell right into Asta's face, ready to destroy him out of existence when a sudden prickling sensation rose in her back.
"Gate open."
The mighty angel was electrocuted from within. Her body violently shook under the electricity dancing in her nerves before she Turned back in anger.
In her eyes she saw Conrad, his narrow gaze looking back at her as a pair of four coloured raven like wings protruded out of his back. His hand was holding onto Elsedocia which he had stabbed into her, the crystal blade was replaced by much thinner metal edge but it was good enough to work.
"Someone like you, doesn't deserve to rule people." Conrad sneered. Then, He plunged the metal edge deeper into Osersia's skin, extracting over 5 decades worth of his own mana was in a instant.
The Angel was enraged by Conrad's actions, even going as far to cancel her already cast spell as she swung her fist at him instead of magic.
However it was big mistake as the distraction give Asta just enough time to appear beside her with a speed much greater than before.
"Keuk! " A low yelp left the Angel's mouth as the weight of a accelerated Demon Slayer smacked against her neck.
The sharpened dark blade left a cut across her skin, but the wound was barely a scratch compared to the strike in Asta's strike.
There was no decapitation, no blood splatter, the blade just got stuck after barely digging half an inch in her flesh.
The duo of Asta and Conrad watched in horror as the pulsing Mana overwhelmed Anti-magic with sheer quantity and control. The edge of Demon slayer almost turned white in a instant but Asta barely matched to retreat back while Conrad followed along.
"I thought you couldn't move. " Asta looks at Conrad, "How are you—"
Conrad points at Elsdocia, "the Engine doesn't recognize it's wielder as a threat. It's just because you had this, so I didn't knew it was how it worked. Also the arrogant miss there,* points thumb at angel* threw it right onto my foot."
The two just stare at each other in silent before sighing together. They turn towards Angel who was casting a sort of spell on her wound, taking slow steps forward.
"Let's do this, brat. We still have Lucius to deal with as well."
"Not arguing with that. Let's kick her ass!"
A two of them do a small high five before dashing straight ahead into a unrelenting assault.
The Angel watched two stripes of colour heading her way– a rising black meteor with crimson edge and the other a bolt of four basic elemental colours accompanied by her own golden light.
Unable to take it easy anymore, The Angel slams her fists into the floor. The ground crumbles beneath her, Turning into soldified rapiers of light with a dust cover denser than metal former around. Meanwhile Asta also finally regained the one thing he had missed all this while, the familiar single black wing slowly forming up his shoulder.
Then, A game of swordplay begans, leaving the chamber riddled with slash marks as the trio barged out of the chamber mid-combat.
Left, right, down, the Angel was being bombarded with dozens of heavy diagonal slashes as Asta infused Acceleration attribute throughout his body to speed himself up.
The second benefit of the new trait was finally showing, allowing Asta to use a secondary mana attribute alongside his Anti-magic's nullification.
However the main pillar was neither him and nor his new trait, but instead it was Conrad who covered each gap in his defense while providing support with magic.
The mana enhanced body of Conrad was pushed to it's physical limits, his five senses becoming able to match the speed of light without having the ki sense like Asta did.
The three beams flew through the city, crushing hundreds of pillars and giant buildings in their path as the structures were all sent crumbling to the ground after being either chopped or crushed from the attacks.
However amidst the attacks,
"Zettan."
Angel was sudden struck from front with condensed Anti-magic, throwing her off balance as she was sent crashing into the main pillar holding the city.
Baam! THUMP!
The unrelenting assault stopped for a moment as Asta took a second to recover his Anti-magic reserves. Conrad saw him gasping and also went into defense, even going as far as to erect a mana barrier around the two of them.
"cough cough... How amusing!" Osersia grinned while coughing golden blood out of her mouth. " Is this what they call the thrill of battle? The pleasure of fighting? "
Conrad felt a little awkward hearing Angel speak, but he felt neither a surge in mana and was cautious so he didn't barge in for a finishing blow as well.
However the Angel didn't care and kept speaking to herself, "All my life I have never been surprised. Each battle I participated in, ended with a quick victory without any struggle... But yet, now that i dont have my foresight and can't fight like I used to... I feel... Better than ever!"
Screeeck... Klenk...
The metal around Angel begins bending outwards, her body healing from the earlier hit as if she had gained regeneration.
Both Conrad and Asta watched in fear as the dignified Angel sprouted a golden light wings similar to Asta's. Her cold face replaced with motivated madness as her mana output began to skyrocket.
The split second he sensed the output rising, Conrad immediately launched himself forward with Elsdocia pointed right towards Angel.
" I have to stop her! If she grows any stronger, we will lose! "
But despite his immediate reaction, Conrad was still a step behind.
Bzbzbzbz... Blink.
The entire body of Angel vanished, not a single flash signifying her movements like before. It was like she had simply vanished out of existence and the next moment Conrad felt a note of a Shamisen play in his head.
"Hu-------h? "
Teng!
For a second the world flashed before Asta and Conrad's eyes, their vision just a blurry mess as they felt their bodies ragdolling upwards right through the ceiling until they were between the clouds.
The note of Shamisen wasn't played by an instrument, it was the delayed noise of their impact with the metal ceiling finally registering into their head alongside their other senses's recovery.
The two of them Confusingly began looking around, trying to figure out what has happened before a two hands grabbed one shoulder of each of them.
A eerie voice feel upon them, "Keep up."
Then the landscape changed below, replaced with speed as blood flowed out of both of their mouths. There was a single impact near their stomachs, a single strike that sent them so far away to the sea from the edge of the central mountains.
It was at this moment they finally noticed it– the winged Angel Osersia down looking upon them from the sides with a sadistic and creepy smirk on her face.
"Is this what you were using against me, brat? A acceleration type magic?" Angel leans forward before grabbing Asta's collar, "Too bad...every Grimoire in the four kingdoms are connected to me. The dormant ones in the towers included."
The prideful Angel has become a sadistic killer, her earlier reliance on her own magic now gone as she used everything in her arsenal.
Behind her hundreds of seperate magic circles were present, hovering behind as they turned in slow motion compared to her speed.
"Don't die too quickly... Okay?"
Having spoken her words, Angel vanished with a combination of Acceleration and Light magic as the hundreds of magic circles she planted activated at once.
A typhoon of Ash, dust and grains of sand and dirt were showered forward alongside a shower of flame and heat.
A dust explosion happened in the next instance, showering thousands of miniscule glass shards alongside extreme heat atop the stunned Asta and Conrad.
Instinctively Asta raised his blade to block, knowing damn well the hit was gonna be nasty as heck to endure. However the heat and shards never reached him as a single voice echoed.
"Mana zone."
The explosion was devoured by a giant keylock, leaving behind only a wave of wine that flutterer Conrad's cloak and hair intensively.
...
Finding himself at a lack of words, Asta just gave Conrad a thumbs up.
But they had no time to spare as They both then sensed the presence of their enemy looking towards them from the side.
The sea winds grow still, the waves die down as tension towered above the clouds.
Fight or die– only two options were left. The battle had just gotten way tougher than anybody anticipated and it was gonna be hellish to say the least.