Chapter 788 - 788: A fundamentally special kind of fight (part 10)

"Hsssss!", the violet energy armor covering Aisha's body resonated with the atmosphere as silver energy radiated from her body and then turned into a silver pillar that raised into the sky, reaching the demonite field before the dark red replica trident did it.

"Clang!", the trident replica which was thrown alongside a magic art reached it a second later though, and a result a deafening metallic sound echoed through the whole battlefield.

"Crack!", followed by a shattering sound, which Karla expected to hear, but unfortunately the origin wasn't from what she expected so her list of things needed for her to be happy didn't pass the second check.

"Cough!", the evil Karla couched blood as the prongs of the dark red trident replica crumbled apart after clashing with the demonite field, just in time for Aisha to say.

"Silver Empress Domain, Heavenly Silver Firmament".

"Booooom!", and with those words, the demonite field shone in a bright silver light as it had silver lightning arcs crackle all over its surface that then projected outwards, creating a second dome, this one was ethereal instead of solid, as it was made from lightning energy and also it covered three times the range of the demonite field, in other words, it was a lightning dome that covered a surface of ninety kilometers in total.

It would normally be a bit too "arrogant" to call that a "firmament" if… we weren't talking about domains, because you see the average conversion ratio between a knight's battle avatar and a mage's domain is of 1:10, meaning that an outstanding battle avatar which is normally around a kilometer large, equals the domain of an outstanding mage which is of ten kilometers at the peak of the Arch rank.

Of course, if a mage wants to, they can spread their domain to cover hundreds of kilometers but that would basically turn it useless, at that point their mana would be spread too thin to be used in battle, so a ten-kilometer area type domain is the mark of an outstanding peak Archmage, while a one-kilometer sized battle avatar is the mark of an outstanding Archknight, this is by the standards known at the four galaxies, which might make you think they are only "local" level, but nope.

Despite the "low" peak in terms of realm that the four galaxies had, its standards not only held up to stellar kingdom level but might even surpass them at least up to the "fake" Stellar realm, also known as the half emperor realm, as the surprise show by Ophelia when she learned that if the knowledge about dual path powerhouses was at hand, Aisha and the others could have trained to be either battle mages or magic knights from the very beginning.

In fact, they did, since they have grimoires, the difference is that they didn't jump straight into mixing their paths like it would have happened with normal people, why, because their grimoires were tailored especially for them and so, they were prepared in a way that they would only take that step when it was the best moment for it to happen neither before nor after it.

That's why Aura had already lit up her life spark but Aisha haven't, it's not that she lacked in comparison with the battle maniac werewolf matriarch, she had more initial development to accomplish before she could do the most of initially mixing both paths.

Anyway, the point is that the ten-kilometer domain and one kilometer battle avatar standard for outstanding remained true at higher leveled places, up to twice that you have those that are considered geniuses, more than that and we get into geniuses among geniuses and here is where Arlion was placed given that his avatar would have been a bit bigger than two kilometer sized without the restrictions of the blood prison realm.

The previous rule didn't apply to magic avatars and battle domains by the way, for that the requirements double since well, battle mages and magic knights are dual path powerhouses, so two kilometers of size for a magic knight per every twenty kilometers of size for a battle domain at the peak of the arch rank is the outstanding mark, up to twice that is genius and thrice that is genius among geniuses.

So, you understand that by such standards Arlion's magic avatar which was the shark was average as it should have been of only two kilometers of size if it wasn't for the curse imbued into it which added another kilometer to it, putting him in the middle of the talented category.

The evil Karla on the other hand was in that same part of the genius category for magic avatars since hers was three kilometers large, but that was its natural state, if boosted it could have totally grown another kilometer reaching the limit of the genius category, as to why she didn't do so, she was wary of Aisha stealing her energy and instead used said energy for the replica trident, that's why the thing was five kilometer sized.

You must have figured why Aisha could use the word "firmament" in the name of her domain by this point, because the thing is covering ninety kilometers which basically triples the genius among genius size for a normal domain and still is half times bigger than a genius among genius battle domain, so, for domains, hers is indeed worthy of calling itself a firmament.

And of course, Aisha wasn't spreading her energy too thin to increase the area it covered in the slightest.

As a special mention, the advanced domain that the undead head maid first demonstrated to us, is not an area type application of a domain given its Daimon shape, so the standard is the same to that of a knight's battle avatar and yet, Rita made a one kilometer Daimon shaped shadow puppet at her first try and directly said to the ghoul king from back then, that such a thing was not close to the actual homage she had in mind for her young master, but we'll see how that goes at its right given time, for now enjoy the disbelief in the face of the evil Karla.

"What the hell is that, how can a peak Arch rank project a properly working domain in such a large area so easily, damn blood prison realm!!!", she shouted as she called the damaged dark red replica back to her.

"Hssssss!", only for Aisha to snap her fingers making a silver lightning to descend from the sky and hit the trident right where it was.

"Booooom!", the replica was blown into pieces on the spot as if it was smitten by the heavens themselves, well, that was basically the case considered that the sky area was now within Aisha's heavenly silver firmament's control.

Speaking of which, the good mermaid Karla who saw the lightning from before continue its way towards the evil Karla after destroying the replica, moved the hurricane part of her battle domain which only covered as much area as the demonite field by the way, because she was also at the middle part of the genius category like her other self, though could reach the peak, but didn't do so for the same reason as the evil one, to protect the latter.

"Crack!", of course the lightning blasted a part of the good Karla's battle domain which resulted in both suffering backslash.

"Agh!", the evil one had endured the destruction of the replica by using the survivability rule but a second impact now on her good self, forced a pained sound out of her, as for the good one even with the same rule applied to her, her body wasn't as tough as the evil one, so that was enough to make her scream too.

"Royal Black Hell Blood, Corrosive Charge!", the evil Karla who was the first to be back to her prime, flashed towards Aisha but with a single snap of the silver-haired vampire mother's fingers, lightning descended from the sky and would have blasted away an arm of her magic avatar if the trident replica didn't just reappear to help its owner block.

"Boooom!", that being said even when the evil Karla this time not only injected magic aura into the trident to empower the rules, but also applied it to the trident itself, one of the prongs, the one with the "survivability" symbol in it to be more accurate, was destroyed when the lightning exploded upon contact.

"Royal Black Fierce Hurricane, Torrential Step!", the good Karla used the movement battle spell she had used without casting earlier when she tried to take Freya by surprise, but she tried to ambush Aisha this time.

"Hssssss!", only for the atmosphere around the silver-haired vampire girl to have silver lightning appear on the spot.

"Ack!", which zapped the "pest" trying to reach her, on the spot, still both Karlas reunited and then were going to charge at Aisha until they heard her saying.

"Looks like you are forgetting someone", she said, which made their eyes contract like needles when a "familiar" sensation forced them to look at their right.

Now imagine their faces when Freya who had remained silent since Aisha's domain made its appearance, as she observed the sky with interest suddenly said.

"So that's how an Arch rank trait with these energies is manifested, let's give it a try".

"Booooom!", the valkyrie girl's body exploded in grey silver flames which then to the Karla's displease, expanded until a silver armored giant version made out of energy that looked pretty much like Freya, appeared in the battlefield, what's more, she dwarfed the evil Karla's giant replica by a whole kilometer of size.

And the bad things didn't end there.

"Conceptual Banner", because while amusingly enough Freya still only had one technique, she did have something new to show alongside her battle avatar, namely that she created two sets of banners with the words "mage" and "knight" in them, which then burned and turned into a sword and a spear the same size as the dark red trident replica.

'She split the whole upper part of my domain in half with a normal sized sword earlier and blasted a hole a tenth of its size with a normal sized spear…', thought the good Karla, who then saw the disdaining expression in both Aisha and Freya's pretty faces.

The two Karlas couldn't even get close to Aisha after she used her domain, so with Freya and her avatar into the mix, they knew they would die… if they remained like this.

"Fucking damn it!!!", they shouted to the skies, as they radiated battle mana and magic aura in every direction, respectively.

"Mythical Sea and Sky Union!", they said in unison, earlier when the two good and two evil Karlas fused, one turned into an elemental form and then combined with the other, but this time both of them ditched their physical form as the silver lightning and the grey silver slashing light that were released by Aisha and Freya, which despite reaching their targets, only impacted wave of dark blue water with dark green currents, and cut the puddle of black-red blood-like substance with black-green currents in it, just for both to recover back in a fraction of a second, suggested.

"You were a second too late, in this state no matter how you attack me is useless, you can only wait for your death to come without being able to do anything…", the speech of the good Karla was interrupted by Aisha's voice saying.

"Well, at least you learned from your past mistakes, so I guess that makes you less stupid than what a thought you were".

"What the hell are you rambling about you silver-haired bitch!", exclaimed the black-red puddle of blood-like substance in which the evil Karla had turned to which Aisha added.

"Don't try to play dumb, at this point you should know that being "cunning" is not your thing", jokingly said Aisha which made Karla grit her teeth.

'This fucking bitch knows about that too!', she exclaimed to her insides.

What happened, is that thanks to the blood coughed by those two earlier, Aisha's investigation on the enemy's background through blood reading did quite the progress.

"So, what if you know it, the scale and the realm at which it is being executed may be infinitely lower than back then, but I have perfected the process so unless you two bitches suddenly reach the Star Princess realm, then you can't do a thing about it!", shouted the first Karla in other words the good one.

For the records, it's been mentioned before, that Agrak was at the Star King realm, though his battle prowess was trash and he had barely reached it, well the Star Prince/Princess realm is one step below that and one step above the Star Lord realm which comes after the Stellar realm, so yeah there is a big gap between Aisha and Freya's current realm and the one they would need to interrupt the process ongoing between those two.

Which is what Karla focused in for her fourth round, she perfectioned her mysterious related powers, why you wonder, well, because of the memories Aisha just got a glimpse at.

It has been mentioned by Aisha before that Karla was a little mermaid nobody that raised in power and rank at her native place which was called the "Black Reef Realm", and when you hear that name what comes to mind is a place where sea or water related races in general thrive right.

Well, you are right, that is actually the case, in fact, unlike in Neptune or even at the Northern Sea stellar kingdom, where sure a lot of water and sea related races exist and are at the upper part of the echelon, the black reef realm from which Karla originates, there were… exclusively has water and sea related races living.

Which then makes you wonder, what about her, as she was not only a mermaid but also a siren and that's a wind related race, and the answer is simple, it's not something she was born with.

The newest memories Aisha cracked down from the blood of the enemy, showed her how Karla after reaching the end of the rope in terms of what she could accomplish with her tricks and schemes, was angered over seeing "someone" else that unlike her ascended to the status of royalty from being a commoner, not the consort type, but actual royalty with right to inherit the throne, and to make matters worse… it was a girl, not only younger than Karla but also prettier.

And as much as jealousy consumed our "little mermaid", she had no way to deal with the object of her hatred, because first and formal Karla was weaker in terms of battle prowess, so a direct approach would just be asking to be killed, then that girl's popularity and support was on a completely different level than what she had even after getting a prince to fawn over her, if she were to try and pull something with her as the target, it would have been tracked down, investigated and when truth came out to light, she would have been executed no questions asked.

That was the difference in status between them and probably another of the reasons as to why Karla was so obsessed with said thing.

What's more she had hit a blockade in her mermaid lineage so she wasn't growing stronger in a short period of time anytime soon, and the gap would be way bigger than before by the time she did, so, she instead turned to look for other sources of power, yeah, you can pretty much see where this is going.

Karla took a little "vacation" out of the black reef realm and while looking for something that would allow her to break out of her stagnation in another realm, she found some records about the siren race and their relation to the mermaid one, the problem is that there was no actual member of said race alive in that realm, as it was ancient lineage that had been lost due to war some time ago, only distant descendants remained here and there.

And so, the little mermaid hunted them down in secret and refined their blood to get what she wanted, but karma got back to her, because just when she had succeeded preparing the material needed and started the process to integrate the siren lineage into herself, that girl whose brilliance had pushed her out of the stage, had been sent to the realm where she was.

That other realm was a neighbor to the black reef one and "mysterious" disappearances had caught the attention of the royal family of that other realm, the most ironic part is that Karla's fiancée in other words that prince, proposed the idea of giving the task to lead a squad to help their allies look into the trouble that was pestering them, without knowing that said trouble originated in his beloved little mermaid.

That other girl was sent as reinforcements alongside her direct subordinates and call it fate, randomness or simple damn bad luck, but she ran into the place where Karla was doing her ritual on her way to the royal capital where she was supposed to meet with Karla a few days later.

The little mermaid was in the middle of her ritual so by the time she received a call from her prince, she was already busted by that other girl who directly destroyed her ritual and then killed Karla on the spot.

Or well, that's what the secret records of the black reef realm probably say, but the truth is that the half-siren little mermaid was taken in by the system, as an administrator, and that was the disgraceful tale of the jealous little mermaid.

As you can see, Karla didn't accomplish her ritual properly, and her hatred over dying at the hands of the girl she hated and envied is what drew the system's attention towards her, so she accepted with the condition that the one with whom she was paired could help her achieve her goal and that's how she ended with Ereth.

For a different reason than in Freya's case, but Ereth was also Karla's first host, though she didn't have to wait nowhere near as close time as Freya had to, her situation was much more recent after all.

And now after three rounds, Karla was attempting to complete her ritual once again, at a much lower scale and realm, but it was half on purpose, since this way she would not only outright increase her power but also her potential, and like Aisha said, she learned from her mistakes and focused in reinforcing the ritual so that it would take strength far surpassing what is the current highest realm in the context of the place where they are, to get in the way of it.

That's where the memories ended and also the process was about to end so let's get back to the fight.

"Crack!", the two different "liquids" in which the two Karla's had turned mixed and then solidified forming four colored cocoon, which then started cracking before it turned into dark blue, dark green, black-red and black-green powder, which was taken away by the wind, revealing a single Karla.

Appearance wise, the base was the good mermaid one, since that was the original Karla, she had wavy dark blue hair with some dark green locks here and there, the biggest difference is that not only did she look way more beautiful than before, but she also had a pair of black-red and black-green feathered wings sprouting out of her back.

"Mmm, they do say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but I feel disgusted rather than honored if you ask me", said Aisha, referring to the fact that Karla looked all proud as she looked down on her silver wings by spreading hers, which made the mythical mermaid-siren snort.

"I'm actually in such a good mood right now, that I'm not going to say anything to that, instead let me give you two a taste of my new power", she said as she snapped her fingers.

"Battle Domain", as if she just didn't completely imitate the way Aisha called out her heavenly silver firmament, Karla proudly called out her battle domain, ah right she couldn't fight as both a battle mage and a magic knight anymore, but that was fine she was the equivalent of a battle mage before becoming an administrator and amusingly enough, the girl that killed her, just like Freya, was the equivalent of a magic knight, there might be some kind of pattern, perhaps the system arranged for Freya to be the administrator of the user that was supposed to be a sacrifice for Ereth's rise, as motivation for Karla, needless to say but things didn't go as they should have.

"Booooom", giant dark blue and black-red water waves expanded with Karla as the center, drowning everything in the vicinity, while dark green and black green wind currents started appearing all over the sky, in a matter of seconds, her battle domain had reached sixty kilometers in total both in terms of the water and the wind.

"Mythical Black Storm Sea", slowly said Karla whose grandeur was ruined by Aisha casually saying.

"So, after all that, you went back to the non "royal" version again?", which this time did produce a reaction from Karla.

"You know what, screw you, rip them to shreds, the subjects of my "realm", Mythical Black Storm Sea Army!", shouted the mermaid-siren as she had an ethereal version of her appear behind her back to then release hundreds of spirits that gained physical form by integrating with the battle mana in Karla's domain.