The Guardian gods
Chapter 585

Chapter 585: 585

Vorenza flared her mana, and with a ripple of conceptual weaving, five web-construct circular shields materialized, shimmering with arcane energy, and hovered around her. These weren’t mere physical barriers; each was imbued with a subtle conceptual ’deflection’, designed to turn aside not just physical force but also the intent of an attack.

She wasted no time. With one of her powerful legs stabbing out, Vorenza rushed towards Kaelen. Kaelen, reading her immediate trajectory, dodged the direct thrust, aiming to counter-attack with a swift energy punch. But as his fist shot out, one of Vorenza’s shimmering shields instinctively moved, intercepting his strike. It didn’t just block; it seemed to absorb the kinetic force, dampening it with its conceptual ’deflection’ before harmlessly dissipating it.

Vorenza didn’t pause. She pointed a finger at Kaelen, and a single, thin web shot from her digit. Kaelen’s retreating figure brought his energy shield up in front of him, expecting a simple physical projectile. But as the web got close, it didn’t impact the shield. Instead, it splintered and expanded quickly, gaining alarming speed, its tendrils seeming to ripple with unseen purpose. Kaelen had no time to react. The web exploded outwards, entrapping him in a complex, constricting net that pulsed with a disorienting conceptual ’binding’. He hadn’t expected such an insidious attack, and now he was caught.

Kaelen’s figure, now ensnared by the expanding web, shot towards Vorenza, who now held a spear crafted from pure abyssal chitin in her hand. She stabbed out with terrifying precision at his quickly approaching, entrapped form.

Kaelen, held by the constricting web, found it incredibly hard to move. The sticky, conceptually ’binding’ tendrils held him with immense strength. His form, however, began to shimmer, and with a rapid surge of mana, he initiated a desperate maneuver of his Law of Recursive Self-Replication. His primary body rapidly reduced its size and density, allowing a perfect, full-sized replica of himself to form outside the web, shedding the entrapped, smaller portion.

The entrapped portion, now a mere decoy, was quickly stabbed through by Vorenza’s spear. The weapon seemed to hold a concept of ’annihilation’, as upon contact, the replica exploded and turned to dust, a burst of inert black iron particles.

Kaelen, now free and whole, having anticipated merging with what was left of his replica, instead sighed with a mix of relief and grim determination. He rushed towards Vorenza, his eyes narrowing as he noticed her figure suddenly frozen and stuck, caught by the lingering, insidious grip of Lyra’s curse.

Exercising caution, Kaelen’s massive energy sword in his hand shimmered and reformed, changing into a long, piercing energy spear. He hurled it with all his might. Vorenza, unable to move, was stabbed through with the spear, which embedded itself deep within her chitinous form. Kaelen closed in, his energy shield simultaneously changing shape, forming into a massive, glowing axe as he attempted to cleave Vorenza in half.

Kaelen halted halfway, attempting to retreat, but it was too late. The five web-construct shields that hovered around Vorenza, with a ripple of her Law of Concept Weaving, shimmered and merged, forming into a single, colossal scissors crafted from concentrated conceptual ’severance’. They snapped shut, slicing through Kaelen’s rapidly receding figure, cleaving him in half.

His upper torso, severed from his lower, revealed where his manifold core was for a horrifying, brief moment, exposed and vulnerable. In a flash of desperate panic, the energy shield he had prepared for an axe immediately merged into his upper form, transforming into a powerful booster that propelled his bisected figure away from Vorenza.

His lower half was about to follow suit and transform into boosters. But Vorenza was now able to move, her eyes burning with fierce satisfaction. With brutal precision, she thrust her spear into the lower half. The weapon, still imbued with its concept of ’annihilation’, caused an even bigger explosion as Kaelen’s lower body turned to dust.

Kaelen gritted his teeth, a raw sound of pain and frustration. He expended a colossal amount of mana, flooding his core to compensate for his missing mass. His body pulsed, the recursive replication working furiously, as his form knitted back together, becoming whole again in a painful, mana-draining surge.

Vorenza had sustained a spear wound, a tactical sacrifice, but it had worked. She had trapped him, lowered his guard, dealt a devastating blow that exposed his vulnerable core, and forced him to expend far more mana than he could afford, pushing him closer to his limit.

Kaelen wanted to get angry, Roar at Vorenza for playing him but he stayed calm.

His calculation shows that he was going to lose to her. His survival so far has been because of Lyra’s lingering curse that limited Vorenza movement.

He should be taking advantage of that instead rushing head on into her and to deal a decisive and winning blow, he has to put himself in danger.

Vorenza stepped forward, unfazed by the gaping wound in her abdomen. Threads of silver filament began sewing her flesh back together Concept Weaving in action. Each step she took echoed with authority, her spear crackling with annihilative force, humming in resonance with the ambient Laws that bent subtly around her will.

"You’re fraying," she said calmly, her voice like a blade wrapped in silk. "Your core is overclocking its recovery schema. You’ll come apart before you reach me again."

To her subtle annoyance, Kaelen didn’t take the bait. He remained composed, his calculated silence a stark contrast to her intended provocation.

Vorenza felt the invisible tick of a timer. That accursed bitch had inflicted more damage than initially perceived. This "bomb" within her, Lyra’s lingering curse, was a growing threat. She could feel the time she remained "stuck" increasing with each passing moment. While her Concept Weaving should have been sufficient to unravel the curse, its insidious nature lay in its imprint on her soul. It demanded time, a closer, deeper look to dismantle, time she simply didn’t have while locked in combat.

Vorenza needed to end this quickly. Kaelen was no mage, not even a true knight—just a stubborn machine in her eyes. His limited thought and imagination were precisely why she held such an advantage over him. Yet, she couldn’t deny his inquisitiveness, which was why she maintained her facade. She had no doubt that once the machine knew she was on a timer, he would prolong the fight unnecessarily.

Kaelen became a blur, a silver streak against the scorched earth, his retreat not a flight, but a calculated maneuver. He constantly scanned Vorenza, his enhanced optical sensors picking up what a lesser combatant would miss: the subtle stutters in her otherwise flawless movements, the fractional hesitations in her stride, the almost imperceptible wavers in the silver threads of her Concept Weaving. These weren’t mistakes; they were ripples in the fabric of her control, direct symptoms of the unseen pressure within her—Lyra’s insidious curse.

It was in these fleeting windows—when the curse momentarily seized her, a phantom hand twisting her very soul—that Kaelen would strike. He wasn’t relying on brute force. Instead, energy spears shimmered into existence around him, not held, but rather orbiting his retreating figure, each one charged to detonate upon contact. With every stutter in Vorenza’s movements, a spear would launch, not for a killing blow, but to pepper her, to force her to expend energy. Each detonation, a brilliant flash and concussive shockwave, was a drain on Kaelen’s own mana pool, a calculated expenditure for a greater strategic gain.

The relentless dance of Kaelen’s new strategy, a frustrating hit-and-run, combined with the escalating internal pressure of Lyra’s curse, began to gnaw at Vorenza. Her calm, almost serene facade, usually unyielding, started to crack. A flicker of raw frustration, then outright desperation, bled into her eyes. She surged forward, a whirlwind of furious intent, faster than Kaelen, her spear blurring through the air.

She was always just an arm’s reach away, her fingers brushing the edge of his personal space, only for Lyra’s curse to seize her, freezing her mid-stride. And in response, like a coiled viper, one of Kaelen’s orbiting energy spears would invariably dart out, precisely aimed, forcing her to react, to shield, to expend. The cycle was maddening, each near miss amplifying the internal timer ticking relentlessly within her.

The five circular shield constructs around Vorenza, summoned with a fraction of her remaining focus, did their best to absorb the kinetic energy from Kaelen’s detonating spears. They shuddered, light fracturing across their surfaces, but without her focused Concept Weaving to guide and exploit the Laws of force and absorption, they couldn’t hold. With a final crack, they shattered, dissolving into shimmering motes of light and leaving her exposed to the relentless barrage.

Vorenza’s body, once pristine, was now riddled with holes from the concentrated explosions. To any observer, the battle looked less like a clash of titans and more like a macabre game of tag, Kaelen darting in and out, Vorenza desperately trying to close the distance.