Transmigrated as a Ghost

‘If only I still had a proper weapon I could do more. Perhaps it was a mistake to sacrifice my scythe against Aziz.’

While Marcus was able to attack with the weapon he had created using the light and darkness surrounding his body thanks to Embodiment of Eclipse, he was unable to properly defend with it.

This left blocking any unavoidable blows that Ghazi sent their way to Mrazivý.

Currently they were forced onto the defensive as they came up with another plan to defeat their opponent, as it was clear that simply wearing him out was not going to work. Sooner or later, he was going to score a devastating attack against one of them and take them out of the fight.

‘Mraz, we are not going to win this by playing it safe. I have a plan, but it is pretty reckless.’ Marcus said communicating with Mrazivý via telepathy while they frantically defended against Ghazi’s furious assault.

Marcus quickly explained his strategy to Mrazivý, but she was quite opposed to it.

‘There is no way I am letting you take such a risk. And I have no idea if I can pull that move off here. I need a lot of time to focus, and this sword probably won’t be able to take it.’ Mrazivý responded.

Her top tier adamantine saber was far from in peak condition after exchanging so many blows with Ghazi’s Amethros ax. It had several deep nicks on its blade and even a few cracks had formed. Mrazivý was correct that her sword would not likely hold up to the attack Marcus wanted her to use.

‘If your sword breaks, I can always make you another one later. I can’t think of anything else that will let us win. Are you ready to give up after we already came this far?’ Marcus asked.

Mrazivý gritted her teeth and thought about what she really wanted to do while barely keeping Ghazi’s furious attacks from severely wounding her or Marcus.

Without much time to consider her options she soon agreed to Marcus’ proposal but urged him to push himself too far.

She then disengaged from Ghazi and jumped back to the far end of the stage. To pull off the attack Marcus wanted her to use, she would need at least two dozen seconds to focus. An incredibly long amount of time in a battle against someone so strong.

“As if I will let you get away while we are having such an enjoyable fight.” Ghazi said, barreling back towards Mrazivý and practically ignoring Marcus who was in his way.

During their battle he had been acting as mostly support for Mrazivý and had not truly engaged with Ghazi at all. Hence why the majority of his attention was on Mrazivý.

ƥαṇdα- ηθνε|·ƈθm

After making this declaration, the halo made of an iron chain above Marcus’ head spilt at every link.

The moment the chain had broken apart each one of the links began to grow more chains until the entire area in front of Marcus was filled with iron chains.

Swiftly more iron chains seemed to grow out of the already existing ones until the entire battlefield was completely covered by them. 

This was the power of the tier eight iron magic spell, proliferating iron chain. So long as this spell was supplied with mana from the caster it could grow endlessly.

“Flimsy chains like these cannot hold me back!” Ghazi shouted.

Being besieged from every direction by a limitless swarm of chains Ghazi held his ax above his head and spun it around his head.

The force he produced was akin to a hurricane and Marcus’ chains were slowly begin pushed back. He was producing them as quickly as he could, but Ghazi’s attack was destroying them even quicker.

“Take it all!”

Forcing out most of his mana Marcus created as many chains as he could until the barrier around the arena was close to bursting simply from the sheer mass. The only place that was not completely covered in iron chains was the area where Mrazivý was standing.

For several seconds Marcus held his ground by exerting the power of one of his strongest spells, but it was not long until Ghazi broke through.

‘Huh?!’

As Marcus was controlling the massive phenomenon he had created, he watched his outstretched arms suddenly go flying. 

In an instant he realized what had happened and narrowly controlled his body to the side as Ghazi’s ax made a follow up strike. Had he been a second later he would have lost his legs as well.

“That was more difficult to deal with than I thought it would be. But once I disregarded defense a bit, it was easy enough to push through.” Ghazi said, pushing himself out of the quickly fading chains that had been surrounding him now that Marcus had lost concentration on his spell. Only the original chain floating above Marcus’ head remained.

Ghazi was covered in wounds from where the sharp tips of iron chains had sliced into his flesh and bashed against his body, but none of his wounds were too severe. Barely enough to slow down such a high-level combatant.

Having used up nearly all of his mana, Marcus’ Embodiment of Eclipse began to fade, and he collapsed to his knees. He was currently running on fumes and had almost no strength left. Leaving him completely vulnerable.

“You think I am going to fall for the same trap my brother did. It is obvious that you can still use whatever power it is you have to recover your strength.” 

“Tch! So, you saw through me.” 

Activating his Ultimate Refresh for the fourth time during the battle, Marcus restored the damage to his body and completely replenished his mana. Within less than a second he was back up to full strength again.

“Your ability to bounce back is impressive, But I shall soon find out what your limit is.”

Pushing off the ground, Ghazi launched himself forward and brought down his ax with a mighty swing.

Normally this is where Marcus would use one of his movement unique skills to dodge, something Ghazi was looking out for, but this time he stood and took it.

Marcus created the strongest mana barrier that he could in front of the ax and did all he could to slow it down.

Naturally his mana barrier was unable to hold up against Ghazi’s attack and shattered, but Marcus had already known this was what would happen.

Before the ax reached him, he reactivated Embodiment of Eclipse, Dark Form and slammed his hands together with the ax blade in between him.

With all his might he pushed back against the incoming ax in an attempt to stop it. And he did eventually manage to succeed. Though, only after the ax was already buried from his right shoulder down to his waist.

A huge plume of gray mist began to shoot out of Marcus’ body as he took the grave wound.

“Caught you.” 

Wearing a massive grin despite the giant gash in his body, Marcus strengthened his grp around Ghazi’s ax and used his lingering tier eight iron magic spell to wrap them up in a cocoon of iron chains.

Naturally Ghazi did not just sit back and let Marcus do as he wished. At first, he tried to break Marcus’ hold on his ax, but he stayed firm. Unfortunately, this meant that Ghazi soon began swinging his ax around with Marcus still connected to it. 

This went on for a couple of seconds, before the next part of Marcus’ plan initiated. Four dark whips wrapped around each of Ghazi’s limbs and held him in place.

“You certainly did a number of my gloom titan. But you really should have made sure to finish it off. A tier eight spell is not so weak as to be stopped after only being half destroyed.” Marcus said.

Ghazi glanced behind him and saw that the monster of darkness created by Marcus that he had defeated at the beginning of the match had been fully restored. As an entity created by a high-level spell it obviously had the ability to regenerate itself so long as it still had enough of the mana its caster had given to it.

As strong as Ghazi was, he could not immediately break free from Marcus and his spells. Leaving him open long enough for Mrazivý to launch the attack she had been preparing.

The moment Ghazi was locked down, he felt an absurd aura explode from where Mrazivý was standing and went wide eyed by what he saw.

Surrounding her body was no longer the simple untamed blue energy that boosted all of her stats, but the visage of a dragon wrapped around her body.

Just as Marcus had developed finishing attacks utilizing his Embodiment of Eclipse, Mrazivý had done the same with her own Supreme Skill. 

She was still fairly sloop in her control over the greatest power she had, but given the time she needed to focus, Mrazivý could unleash an attack just as devastating if not even more so than Marcus’.

“Dragon Strike.”

With her sword held above her head, Mrazivý appeared in front of Ghazi in one bound and slashed down on him with her strongest attack.

However, Marcus was still holding Ghazi’s ax down and was in the way. If Mrazivý’s sword connected with him as well, he would certainly be destroyed by her tremendous power in his current state.