Chapter 48: The Price

I mentally laughed, Hahahhahahhahahhahaaha.

Oh boy beneath my helmet did I have the biggest smile on my face.

It happened quickly. Without seemingly any warning the moon cracked.

Then…

BOOM!

A wave of heat permeated the moon and the rocks and rubble went flying.

The moon split into numerous pieces of various sizes.

Mountains of rumble slammed into and ricocheted off each other.

Everyone else was in a panic, why wouldn’t they be, the land beneath their feet just flew outwards.

The remaining goons didn’t fare well, especially the ones who couldn’t fly. They didn’t all die, but most of them did. Many were squashed between the large chunks of rock and while the rest were disoriented, I quickly tracked their positions with [Star Mapping] and shot them with multiple [Star Arrows].

Understandably, blowing up anything this big would be a massive undertaking, but there were multiple factors in my favour.

First, the moon itself was very small–it wouldn’t even be hard to run around the whole thing. The extra important fact was that the moon had no mana. Mana in anything made it significantly harder to break, of course, this was relative to how much mana.

Now saying the moon had no mana would be inaccurate, after the event two thousand years ago everything had mana, but it still didn’t have much. To have a lot of mana in it naturally the object would need to come from a planet/moon that had a dungeon, and the same logic applied to the planet itself, if the moon didn’t have a dungeon at some point it wouldn’t have much mana, the only exception was when a moon orbited a planet that at least once had a dungeon.

Then there was the attack itself, a fun concoction of [Scorched Extinction], [Solar Force] and Starlight coating. The key ingredient was [Solar Force], a magic skill that created a small barrier that greatly amplified whatever was inside. It basically transformed any skill used in tangent with it into an instant uncontrollable explosion. The common issue with it and many of my more powerful skills, was that it was expensive. It also had some other issues but they were mostly due to its usability.

Smaller than I thought.

I saw the internal Dominous Hood metal base that was now floating in space, it was severely damaged on one side and some parts had fallen off but it was mostly intact. It looked like it originally was several grey metal cubes and rectangles attached to each other.

I do say, I did a fantastic job.

(“ Well be proud, but don’t lose focus on your job ”)

I won’t. 

With my main plan succeeding, it was time to take advantage of this perfectly timed distraction. After all, It only takes one moment for the tides of combat to be overturned.

I flew around the forming asteroid belt and locked my eyes on Rhino and the gunner boy. Dealing with both now would make dealing with the commander significantly easier.

I fried an arrow of starlight which curved around a large chunk of rock.

My second target was Rhino, who was also going to be my bait.

Everyone was having trouble keeping track of everyone else. With their communications down, rocks flying and ricocheting, and not having a skill like my own [Star Mapping] the process of knowing where their allies were, let alone me–their enemy–was incredibly hard.

Rhino who was frantically looking around was unprepared as I launched a surprised spear that embedded itself into Rhino’s shoulder, which I followed up less than a moment later.

I focused the mana that was flowing in my mana body into my left arm and created a claw of starlight around it.

Screech! 

My glowing red and purple arm smashed through his armour plating and dug into his chest.

“Damn you!” Rhino was angry, but I didn’t care I was going to end this in a moment.

I dug into Rhino’s chest, dropping two bombs from my glove into his bloody flesh. I could feel the two bombs expanding and I noticed not far behind the shooter had noticed me.

He aimed his gun, not worried for his friend and fired.

Gunner boy’s bullets shot towards me, but as he was distracted by me, my attack from earlier activated. The arrow of starlight broke apart as it flew towards him from behind and formed into many lines of light.

Then hundreds of needles of Starlight rain down into the shooter's chest. They easily pierced through the armour which wasn’t enhanced by the shooter's mana as he foolishly wasn’t prepared for the sneak attack. 

I watched his body fall, but then the armour and the body simply turned to dust and burned away.

Weird, but not that surprising. I thought as I watched the body dissipate. It was something I planned to think about later, but now I had other issues to deal with.

“[Flash Fire]” I cast, and a forceful beam of fire launched from my hand and pushed Rhino back into the breaking moon.

“ARghhhh!!!!” He screamed.

Seconds later.

BOOM

I saw a massive explosion a distance away.

Powerfully bombs, I see why there were only five.

With those two dealt with, I was ready to face the command but Espoiramissa decided to speak up.

(“ My Cel, looks like you are about to face some trouble ”)

Ah, I thought I finally got a break from ‘My Cel’. 

(“ Nope ”)

Anyway, what is the trouble?

(“ The commander… has brought out a couple of dangerous toys  ”)

I tracked the commander's figure with [Star Mapping]. He was flying higher in the void of space with a pair of giant golden mechanic wings with blue veins layering them. Two black sphere drones floated around him and four spears of silver each turned to face me. Then there was the red sword, which was glowing an ominous red even stronger than before.

(“ I would deal with that before it becomes a problem ” )

I didn’t reply, my soul pressure sense was already screaming danger from whatever energy was coming from that sword.

I flew fast with [Burst] and the spheres and spears intercepted me. 

Why didn’t he use these damn toys earlier!

(“ Price, even if it is just mana or something more, a price always has to be paid, you should know that ” )

I didn’t reply and continued the assault.

He looked shocked as I gripped one of the orbs with my starlight claw and crushed it and continued flying, but as I did I felt a strong pain engulfing that arm but I just had to ignore it. I got a good burst of speed and got past his other weapons.

Moments before I reached him, the commander was panicking, as he seemingly was unable to move. 

A scream was heard, “RAHHHHH!” A flame figure shot up from the ground and charged into my side.

The dying Rhino came back, his body half melted into his armour and black flame spewed out from his body.

Bloody hell damn last ditch-like and moments before death skills!

A type of skill I despised and thankfully had none of, but was a damn pain whenever I dealt with a bastard that had one.

This normally wouldn’t be that big of a problem but I was on time limit.

The black flames ate away at his body but the flames were also damaging my armour and I could feel them melt my skin through the armour.

Fuck sake.

I decided to use my other skill, [Unleashed Awakening].

Power filled me, the three pairs of horns pale of a mix of white bone and birch-coloured wood emerged from my head again.

The helmet being a good piece of equipment, adapted, stretching over them creating a black coating over them.

Best case, I could deactivate this skill quickly once I dealt with the commander, otherwise, I thought I would need to use it to deal with whatever was about to happen.

With my increased strength I knocked him off me and threw him into a nearby flying boulder and then the two of them went flying off in a far-off direction. He should be dead by his own skill soon.

I turned back and tried attacking the commander once again, I broke two of the spears in the process that had gotten too close.

I got close again but a wave of crimson energy knocked me.

I was too late. 

The bastard commander had stabbed himself in the centre of his chest. Then within a quick five seconds, everything had changed.

First, boiling blood poured out of the command’s chest into the cool depths of space where it floated and continued to sizzle.

Out of the new crack, a large glowing red figure emerged and a golden slit eye stared at Ceella.

They really do love their bloody monsters. 

(“ I share the sentiment, now deal with this quickly ”)

“Don’t order me,” I snarked back as layers of starlight began to cover me.

(“ It was merely a suggestion ”)

Seeing a small opportunity I ask, “Speaking of prices earlier, do you want to lower the [Unleashed Awakening] ones for this fight?”

(“ I’ve been kind lately, but no. I will have you belong to me after all ”)

I shrugged, Well, it was worth a shot.