CHAPTER 33: DESPICABLE BRATS

(A/N Big thanks to everyone for the power stones and Golden tickets, they mean a lot. As usual, please don’t hesitate to comment or drop a review. ENJOY)

---------------------------------

"CONCEPT AWAKENING !!" (*3)

"Ymir’s Titan"

"Sheer Cold"

"Omnipresence"

Three of them whispered at once. Randy didn’t hesitate; he shot straight to the sky, avoiding whatever was going to happen.

The air stilled, mana overflowing and saturating the atmosphere, tremors filled the earth in reaction to their overwhelming presence as though the world knew what was about to go down.

Magnitudes ran free on the ground, and colossal bones surged out of the ground, from the skull to the feet, forming all under a second, a towering and giant skeleton over 100 feet tall loomed over the battlefield.

Hair grew from the top of the skull, falling on its sides like waterfalls, and two eerie-looking eyeballs formed in the skull, its pupils glowing green and looking down like a god descended to bestow judgment.

The marquis stood in the ribcage, arms crossed and eyes down, radiating pure dominance. A single flex of his finger caused the jaws of the skull to open, releasing a shuddering breath in the form of thick mist. He had literally brought a child’s nightmare to life.

On the other end of the field, ice crept on the floor of the battlefield like a plague spreading on its host, snowflakes dropped gradually as the size increased from 2mm to that of large stones falling from the sky.

Cold air surged, dropping the temperature to unbearable levels. Aria had created her domain of absolute cold, and in the middle of it all she stood, her eyes Icy as she stared the marquis down. Someone was going down today, and it wouldn’t be her.

On the other end, Mark simply stood still, his mana surged, his aura intensified, but apart from that, there was no flashy transformation, no epic domain, nothing produced; he simply kept his hands in his pocket and stared down the duke, his eyes daring him to come.

"That gaze, your eyes. I abhor them," The marquis said in a condescending tone.

Instantly, over a hundred bones appeared in Mark’s body, skewering him on the spot.

"Hmm, intriguing, " The marquis said, looking up.

There he saw, Mark, high up in the sky, same posture, same defiant gaze.

A scowl formed on his face, his irritation flaring.

"Tricks," He said.

The hairs on the skull of the titan hardened, its eyes turning towards Mark, one gaze, and he was riddled with holes, yet he could feel Mark’s irritating presence behind.

’An illusion?’ He thought, a frown still on his face.

He could swear he saw Mark riddled with holes, not just once, twice.

’No matter,’ He thought.

Mana flowed; he struck again with uncanny precision, the movements of the bones impossible to follow with the naked eye. It happened again, yet he didn’t wait this time; he struck again, over and over.

Mark simply appeared.

"How irritating," The marquis muttered under his breath.

He suddenly felt his control weakening below; he looked down and saw the titan’s feet completely frozen with the ice trailing upwards.

"Pests that refuse to know their places, Rumble!" He shouted.

The giant moved, no, it flowed, its speed unbelievable for something so large, one second it was tracking Mark, the next its bony fist was connected to the ground.

Aged bones surged out of the ground like mountain peaks, threatening to overwhelm the land; they shot out like missiles towards Aria.

She simply stared at them, opening her mouth and releasing a puff of cold breath, "Sub zero," She muttered.

The surging bones simply turned to mist, too cold and brittle to survive the normal atmospheric pressure.

Erevan, from high up in the sky, watched this and chuckled. He wasn’t new to concepts; the high attained from awakening one’s concept was simply inexplicable.

He could understand how they felt. Mark and Aria, who had been struggling not too long ago, were now suddenly aura farming. That overwhelming feeling of being on top of the world, rushing through them like an adrenaline boost.

Yet he knew, a confidence boost was nothing in the face of true power, but it was their moment.

Aria raised one hand up, clenching it into a fist, and muttered a different word, "Bloom".

The towering ice rose behind her opened its bud, forming a beautiful crystal blue mosaic of petals. Ice roots burst out from beneath the ground, transform into drakes with shuddering icy mana in them.

Yet Aria wasn’t done. "Splinter," She clenched harder.

One Icicle shot out of the flower, then two, then four, in seconds, thousands of icicles poured out of the bud of the flower into the sky, blotting out the already dimmed sun, yet it didn’t stop.

"Now it begins," Mark finally spoke.

The icicles arrived, each landing on the colossal titan like heavy rain falling on glass. The hardness of the titan’s bones was uncontested; the icicles could never break through them, at least not directly.

But the marquis knew better; he and the titan were connected, he could feel whatever was occurring in it, those seemingly harmless icicles were carrying pure icy mana, they didn’t just reduce the temperature of the bone, they were practically sucking the heat out of the bone.

His earlier attack had been terminated due to brittleness, so he knew better than to take it. Still, he was impressed. The amount of mana it would take to form such an attack was extraordinary. She formed the plant and then empowered it with her concept.

’Still, too green,’ He thought, a smirk forming on his face.

The titan moved, no, it blurred, it was in front of Aria before she could blink, massive fists swinging down with the force of two mountains, it landed, forming pure destruction in its wake, the land cracked and shattered, tremors running in all directions.

Yet, he could still feel her presence, her grating ice mana, the usual cold of an icicle left in its place.

"Don’t tell me," The marquis muttered, his eyes widening in realization.

He’d known the boy could teleport people around, but even such an overwhelming and annoying ability had its limits; if his reaction time couldn’t keep up, it was over.

But since he awakened his concept, it had directly bypassed the need for reaction; it was like, after the action, he was simply no longer there. What a pestering ability, but it was still manageable; the boy had no means of attacking himself, and so far, he didn’t think the boy could affect him or bring him out of Ymir.

But if his broken ability to avoid death could be applied to his teammate.

"How bothersome," The marquis muttered, his frustration rising.

The icicle kept on dropping, reducing the temperature of his titan, but he could outlast it. If it broke down, he simply had to create more. The girl couldn’t possibly have more mana than he did, and when she ran out, he would end them.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when the Ice drakes clamped down on Ymir’s feet and arms. Bones surged out from everywhere on the titan, destroying the drakes.

Ymir raised its legs up and stamped down, creating serpentine bones to ward off the drakes, focusing its eyes on the duo above, who were floating.

’Floating? The green one,’ He remembered. Turning his gaze towards Randy.

Ymir shot out like an oversized bullet toward Randy, yet as he suspected, the boy was gone.

’Deviants were always annoying, but he has to have a weakness apart from his actual lack of offense,’ The marquis thought, his brain working in overdrive. The icicles were still falling without end.

"I actually thought this fight would be entertaining. Is this your idea of entertaining, or is your generation just this boring?" The marquis taunted.

Yet all three of them simply stared at him.

"I thought your goal was to kill me, or are you chickening out? Don’t tell me you believe this petty ice trick is going to be enough to end me," The marquis sneered.

BOOM!!

A large bone had just struck the ice rose, yet the icicles kept coming.

"Nice try, old man," Mark smirked.

’Non-living things too, it probably works for anything that has mana and offers no resistance,’ The marquis analyzed.

The marquis sighed, "Very well, we’ll do it the old-fashioned way, may the one with the most mana win," he said, while smiling.

His mana surged, and Ymir responded like a well-oiled machine, stamping its feet on the ground, and bone appendages surged out of the ground towards all three. He stayed put, watching and waiting for any slip, mana practically pouring into Ymir’s feet.

Every once in a while, he would attack any of the three, or even the rose, but the boy kept up he knew Mark’s technique could be easily taken down by someone stronger or someone far faster, but as fast as he was, he wasn’t a speed type.

This continued for almost an hour and as much as he hated to admit, his mana was falling and fast, Ymir consumed a lot of mana to maintain but the icicles didn’t make matters much better as he had to produce more bones costing more mana but that wasn’t the issue, the major problem was the brats had still not run out of mana.

The marquis stopped his attacks, panting in Ymir, from exertion. Mark didn’t look any better, but he still hadn’t run out of mana.

’What is going on?’ The marquis thought while panting.

"You brats wh-" He was about to scold them when he felt it, the girl was transferring mana to the green-haired boy, and he to the black. His rush to attack hadn’t allowed him to notice, but he could feel it clearly now.

’How? The girl should also be out of mana, the icicle is still com-’ He thought, exasperated, turning to the rose when it hit him.

"You despicable brats!!"