BXBX NOVEL Chapter 349 The Price For Strength
For Ray and the rest of them, it were blueish shockwaves that had pulsed out from Emma but for her, it was all blue. Her vision, her power, her body, her essence; it was all blue. Anywhere and anything she looked at was blue and not just that but the senses she was sharing right now. They were something a normal person wouldn\'t have been able to.
Even Emma would have died of sensory overload if not for her recent upgrade and the fact that she was in Advanced Tier of the Magical Realm. Rank wise, one could say that Emma was the strongest in the group and her experience was even more than that.
She hadn\'t fought much but she used all that time to polish her powers and right now, it was her time to shine.
In her preview was the whole forest in all its glory. From every rock and pebble to every beast in the forest, she saw it all. Her mind processed the information like a super computer as she searched for what she needed.
The shockwaves spreading out from her were subtle and didn\'t contain any energy signature but her body shone like a beacon. A beacon that called or rather urged all the beasts in the forest to go for it and that included their target; the Tree.
From start, Ray had thought about a lot of things and one thing he knew that he needed for his plan to work and that was a distraction. Ray didn\'t overestimate and he knew that the opponent this time was someone way above his league. He even feared getting out alive given a confrontation against the tree but he was sure of one thing and that was the fact that if someone was distracted enough, they would mess up enough for their enemy to take benefit of the situation and play it to their liking.
It was exactly this on which Ray\'s whole plan relied upon. From the start to end, he would do nothing but distract the damned tree and not just on one front but on all fronts he could find. From the tree\'s army to battles against the head nurse to different strong targets he would paint for the tree to pursue, only for it to find out later that they were nothing but decoys and Emma was one such decoy.
The energy she gave off was strong enough to do a lot of things and catching the tree\'s attention was piece of cake and as the tree focused it\'s perception on Emma; it let the shockwaves pass by it unimpeded and it was the first of many mistakes it would make.
"hehe…" Ray giggled, an ominous expression around him as Emma raised her finger and gave him the signal.
The shockwave that the tree had let pass through itself was more than a shockwave. It was imbued with something far more important. Something that was hidden by Emma\'s aura but belonged to Ray.
It was Ray\'s mana that had a bit of his willpower imbued. Though, the will power he had imbued was weak and didn\'t do much but it was enough for Ray wanted.
Within the tree\'s trunk, amongst many human bodies that were suspended over there. One body shuddered as the shockwave passed through. The body belonged to Aella and her body instinctively recognized Ray\'s presence.
Back with Ray,
He had moved onto the next stage of his plan. Hoping that his plan would work and it would be enough to get to Aella; he walked towards Kashish.
Putting his hand over her shoulder, he looked right into her eyes as he spoke,
"I trust you and I\'m sure you will ace it," his words were calming and irrelevant. Kashish had nothing to ace but a lot to lose and she knew that she had Ray\'s trust but it wasn\'t the purpose of his words.
Ray knew that Kashish was aware what his words meant already but it was the gesture that counted. It was Ray\'s presence and his actions that counted and right now, this was needed dearly because what Kashish was aiming to do was nothing short of a miracle; given she came up of it alive. Not to mention that Kashish agreed to Ray\'s request in a second when he had asked her about it.
"Don\'t worry, I wont let you down," Smiling, she turned around and walked to the center of the magic circle she had drawn earlier.
"Ready when you are," Ray crouched as he pulled out seven crystals from his dimensional storage. Looking at the crystals, Sirius raised an eyebrow as he asked,
"Don\'t tell me. Are those crystals from Magical Realm and Calamity Realm monsters?"
"Yeah, obviously. Or else why would I suggest such a plan," Ray scoffed lightly. Finding Sirius\'s question nothing but senseless.
"Well, I do trust you but when did you get crystals from a Calamity?" Sirius asked, intrigued about the fact that Ray had taken down a Calamity alone.
"Well, I didn\'t. My mom did. Remember the time when we fled the academy and she fought against two monsters? One being a celestial and another a calamity? Well, the celestial was just a calamity who had used some potion to get to the strength of a celestial. So my mom had killed them both with the help of the head nurse and one crystal was given to me," Ray answered, his expression uncaring as if nothing mattered to him.
Listening to his explanation, Sirius shut himself up while Aliya on the other hand looked at Ray with curiosity. She had never seen Ray lose control over his emotions so fast and in such a manner.
From the brief exchange she had just observed, she noticed him change his expressions four times while his emotions a mess.
"He really loves her," she thought to herself and decided to talk Ray out of his emotional overload at a later time. She knew the importance of emotions and if Ray\'s emotions were unstable, she knew the effect and she didn\'t like the issues that would cause.
"I\'m ready," Kashish nodded with wry smile. She was nervous and scared at the same time but she had long resolved herself to go on with it and now wasn\'t the time for her back down.
Ray nodded solemnly as he put the last crystal in place and took a couple of steps back. His eyes peered at the array he and Noah had put up in the past hour and then turning to Noah, he nodded as Noah took the cue and raised both of his hands.
[Spirit Injection:- Array Activation],
As deep tendrils of spirit magic extended out of his fingers, they interacted with the formation. Passing from one spirit crystal to the other as an energy rose from within the crystals. The crystals lit up with mana and with them the runes and the whole formation also lit up. The energy started to seep out from the crystal and into the runes and from the runes it made its way towards the person standing in the center of the formation-Kashish.
The mana reached her body as her eyes suddenly lit up with mana while the runic circle she stood in vibrated with the energy that kept filling into it and started light up as well.
For Kashish, the feeling was exhilarating. The mana was filling every cell of her body and energizing her like never before. However, soon the experience was turning unpleasant.
She could already feel some parts of her body getting overloaded by the excess mana and with it came unbearable pain that she knew if she let pile up would end up being her end.
Therefore, she did what she was supposed to do. She started casting and not just small spells to lose the mana gathering inside her.
She started casting her strongest spell. A spell she knew of but hadn\'t casted ever in her life. It was a spell she had inherited from the queen-her mother- herself and could only cast in when her life was in danger as a last resort.
It was a spell that used all her mana, strength and even her life force and instead generated enough strength to launch an all out attack that could even damage a celestial if used at the right time.
However, it was a forbidden spell and the cost it had was the amount of life force it used and the amount didn\'t depend on Kashish but her opponent against whom she cast it. If the opponent was too strong, the spell may even drain all her life force and still wont be enough.
Therefore, Ray had devised a plan and drew the runic formation to channel the spell. Knowing prerequisites of casting the spell, he had compensated for mana and life force while using Kashish as only the caster and as a conduit for the spell to keep running.
The spirit crystals were the source of mana and even life force to an extent but Ray knew one thing about forbidden spells that Mag\'ladroth had so generously told him of. They always required a living source for life force even if a source was given but there had to be a living person there too.
He hadn\'t told this to anyone and instead had taken it upon himself to fulfill the condition. Seeing Kashish start casting the spell, he brought out a dagger and slashed his palm and with it, he drove his hand right into the formation.