Chapter 131 - Battle Royale ( Part 4 )
'Its not a Magic Jammer.'
Wallace said in his mind. His Divine Sense had been working non-stop since the start of the competition and only detected the Lamat Stone in three automatons and those were from the gorilla-like automatons.
Althoughh it hasn't been utilized yet, those three Helioses would surely use it when the time is ripe.
Wallace didn't explain it to his teammates because in a sense, the magic that the opponent used was also a spell that could disrupt a magic.
The Lamat Stone's uniqueness comes from it's natural elements that disturbs the compound formation of Mana.
Any form of Mana that was being controlled by a Mana Practitioner or Magician would have special characteristics that originates from the caster. This special characteristics was the one holding the compound Mana to form the Magic Spell and also the one being forcefully disturb by the Lamat Stone causing any Magic Spell to scatter and be a formless natural Mana that can be found in this world.
The first Magic Jammer was created by the Dasovich Royal Family from the Maja Country during a struggle of power against the Guwain Freedom Alliance. They used them as a trump card although it was imperfect.
Now, with the progress of Mana Study, improvement of Magic Jammer's Structure was being studied as well as creation of similar Magic Spells with the same effects were also being researched by the professionals. Of course, it would be weaker compared to those using a Lamat Stone as a base.
The magic spell that the Fabled Atom used was similar to Mana Burst that aims to disrupt the magician's concentration of mana. In this case, instead of targeting human physiology to interrupt magic casting and stop the mana flow, it targeted the automaton's power source, the Mana Stone.
Although it only stops the Mana Flow for a second, it was enough for the Fabled Atom to gain a relevant advantage over it's opponent. Looking at it, the Vital Thorn hurriedly distanced itself to it's opponents as first reaction when receiving significant damage. The Fabled Atom surprisingly stand down as well and it didn't follow the injured Vital Thorn until 5 seconds had passed.
"Delay? It seems that your opponent couldn't use that continuously... If it is, your Vital Thorn wouldn't last this long or actually, no one would be able to defeat it."
"That's right. Even though it will be tougher with a missing arm. My Vital Thorn haven't used it's killer move yet." Sheryl said not losing hope in her current predicament.
'Disrupting the power source. Thats a good method of fighting against another automaton. Luckily, I don't have to worry about it.'
In this case, only Wallace had a backup power source as he possess Compact Mananuclear Reactor.
Wallace then turned his sight at the five automatons battling within the boulders field.
The three automatons from Montego's team against Fabled Ambush and Winged Shadow Serpent.
'Wait... So they really planned this far?' Wallace was surprised about the capability of the three similar automatons.
After the third Hellos arrived at the field and fought a bit with the Fabled Ambush. They surprisingly retreated away and waited for the Winged Shadow Serpent.
Fabled Ambush decided to have a wait-and-see approach as it probably calculated that fighting those three head-on was just a suicide. It didn't rush forward and look for a fight. The same goes for the Winged Shadow Serpent that was probably calculating it's chances of winning. After all, it had been trying to communicate with it's other teammates but was unable to. With the wings on it's back, it could escape if necessary and probably decide to look for it's teammates.
As the three Helioses retreated, Wallace then saw that an amazing connection between the three has occurred.
They formed a triangular formation and moved to surround the Winged Shadow Serpent!
"This... Why did they choose to ignore the Fabled Ambush?" Nina muttered as she noticed the decision that the three automatons made.
"That's a good question. I wonder why... unless they detected that this flying serpent could escape through air and this Fabled Ambush can easily be dealt with on the ground later on?"
"Well, if you say it like that then it make sense. But if it tries flying now and escape the formation then nothing would change. Also, one possible reason they chose this serpent was because they detected that it was probably weaker." The two announcers could only guess.
Although it happened so fast, the automaton that was in the center of formation hadn't detected any danger from the three yet. This automaton was graded 7 and the Helios was only 5 so it surely has capability and wouldn't easily be defeated.
This time, the three automatons did something which made even Wallace surprised. A red light came from a single Helios, then it became like a thread that connected to the second Helios then connected to the third and from this third Helios, the red light then connected to the first Helios. It formed triangular red light having the Winged Shadow Serpent at its center.
It may have detected danger as the automaton tried to attack one of the Helios.
'Rush Destruction!'
It was an old Mana Spell that doesn't possess any elemental inclination. It was a pure Mana forming a sharp blade aiming to pierce any obstruction and the killer move of this automaton. It locks on the opponent and follows them until it successfully hit the target.
As soon as the spell was about to reach one of automation, the three Helioses burst with red light and moved in unprecedented speed to dodge the attack. Compared to their previous movements, the current Helios shows unusual mobility and flexibility.
They easily avoided the Rush Destruction and didn't have trouble moving around the boulders.
They used the cover of the boulder to dissipate the attack instead of taking it head-on. It shows that they may still be wary to this killer move.
After the Rush Destruction failed it's purpose, the three automatons sent multiple magic spells. The winged serpent tried to fly away but found it was unable to.
"Rush Destruction, that was a powerful one, too bad it didn't manage to touch even one of them." Schneizel recognizes the uniqueness of the spell.
"Mhm.. If it managed to hit at least one of them, it would deal a lot of damage and could even incapacitate one of the Helios but looking at it now.. Even escaping might be too late."
"What happened?"
"Something was stopping the winged serpent to fly." Nina said as someone who was always dealing with Mana Artifacts and Mana Spells, she noticed that the incapability of the Winged Shadow Serpent to fly was something unusual.
The two announcers observed the fight for a bit as the winged serpent struggled to flee from entrapment.
"That red light connecting the three... I have encountered them before and it should be the Mana Link Chain. As for the one stopping the serpent to fly, it should be Mana Suppression, an Arcane Spell and supposedly, only those with Arcane Link can manage to cast them." Schneizel finally said after getting all the clues.
"What? Only someone with a level of an Adept Mage or Arcane Artificer could use that?"
"That's right, that was why I'm surprised... That spell was difficult to cast and having the three connected may be the reason why they could do so."
This is what Wallace made even more surprised. It was the same feeling when he used his Divine Sense to observe Erza appraise his Laser Focus, the Magic Structure that he used to compete with Van. During that time, even Troy Webb had difficulty evaluating his Magic Structure and called for the young Erza.
Surprisingly, this young girl had also used something similar or something approaching the level of Arcane Link to appraise his Magic Structure.
Seeing it again here made Wallace surprise and got even more excited on his mission to learn the Arcane Link.
"It seems there's still tons of things I needed to learn." Wallace said softly as he waited for the next move of the three united automatons. He was curious whether this Winged Shadow Serpent can still escape as Wallace had detected using his Divine Sense that it was still full of power.
Unfortunately, Wallace felt vibration on his arm. It was a notification from Avalon that was on his arm guard.
[ Task to gather important information about space exploration. ]
[ Found traces of records that indicates the involvement of Skywalker Academy in project related to outer space. Distinguished individuals related to the project were Dr. White and Scott. ]
[ Would you like to see further details? ]
He had instructed the A.I. to gather information about this world and to take note of some important things. He even added to notify him quickly once those labeled as extremely important was found so this happened.
'Good news but not for now.' Wallace said in his mind. He could deal with it later as he wasn't rushing anyway. He quickly and sneakily dealt with the A.I. and watched the ongoing fight.
Wallace had a lot of things to do but he was happy to explore this Artifact Forging Event and learn many things that he might use in the future.
He then noticed the Sword Slave about to sneak attack on Olga's Ratman.