Yuna had stealth aiding her. She was able to move through crowds of enemies unnoticed and pick them off one by one to give herself so leeway.
However, Juno and Valerie only had one thing to rely on. As soone who used fire, Juno's fight against the Liqua Clan geniuses was the sa as August's fight against Raphael. He could win against all of them as long as he could produce powerful laws.
On Valerie's side, water was naturally supportive of wood. Technically, they wouldn't be able to harm her as long as she used their laws to enhance her own. Of course, the Liqua Clan's water was acidic and incompatible with life, but Valerie could dissect the essence of the law and find the pure essence of water within, destabilizing their attacks and empowering her own.
Obviously, that was just as hard as it sounded. Valerie knew what she needed to do. It was easy to theorize about how to defeat these people.
Still, they had numbers. They had strength. They had the elent of surprise.
Valerie's abilities were known to the world after the heir wars. On the other hand, these geniuses, while using relatively similar techniques, had hidden skills that they could pull out to surprise the enemy.
Juno, Yuna, and Valerie were making progress at different rates, but regardless of how many geniuses they defeated, it always seed like there were more coming. And, at the end of the line, there was Wilhelm Liqua, a man that none of them could defeat individually.
Could they fight him if they worked together?
Absolutely.
Would they all be able to reach him before he decided to target them individually?
Probably not.
Valerie had to keep his presence in mind through everything she did, but for now, she had to focus on his henchn.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
She was in a battle with the third group she'd encountered.
The first only had two people, and the second had five. She was able to defeat them quickly because she caught them by surprise and took their lives, but if she had to actually fight them, it wouldn't have been so simple.
That was why when she t a group of ten of them, she was stuck fighting for a considerable amount of ti. The environnt inside the maze already resembled a forest. The entire corridor was enveloped in Valerie's domain. As she had focused on speed, she had yet to find a thod to counter the water mana of the Liqua Clan. So, she was currently fighting until she discovered it.
'There are more approaching.'
Mikaela didn't have the freedom to choose how the forces in her maze were distributed. She created a structure that would separate them as much as possible, but that didn't an they were actually separated.
There were over a hundred of them in such a small space. The groups that were separated from each other were able to find each other quickly. Especially when they weren't being hunted at a rapid pace.
Valerie could feel another group of six approaching. In the group she was fighting now, there were still seven left.
Her eyes narrowed.
'Fine.'
It wasn't yet ti for her to burn her blood, but she definitely had to start taking it more seriously.
In order to get through the situation, her long-term plans needed to be paused. Discovering how to counter the Liqua Clan's mana specifically could be done as she continued fighting group after group. It wasn't worth halting her progress in order to look for it.
Valerie's approach to the fight was more technical than it had ever been. Her thought process sowhat resembled August in these monts as she tried to imitate him in order to save the people she cared about.
Juno was a lot more gung-ho. He had a grin on his face the whole ti, uncaring of the life-or-death struggle that he was in.
Death ant sothing different to him.
He had experienced too much of it. His family had betrayed him and forced him to kill them. That experience changed him forever.
Juno had long been aware of the darkness in his heart. He was even worse than Valerie in that sense. Even in this mont, he wasn't thinking about saving anyone.
He knew that he was never going to be that person. He had accepted that fact back when he first decided to follow August.
Juno wanted to be his sword, the person willing to indulge in darkness so that August could stay away from it.
Right now, Valerie had taken August's role. She was the one thinking about saving everyone.
Juno was incredibly thankful to her. After all, if it wasn't for her being the central point that brought everyone together and provided hope for success…
'...then I wouldn't be able to act as freely.'
His eyes were cold.
Juno had a talent that others in the group didn't possess. Maybe only Yuna could sowhat hold a candle to him.
That talent…
…was his talent in killing. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
They were not explosions. The sound coming from this part of the maze was caused by the gargantuan waves of liquid flas that crashed into the walls as they flooded the corridors.
The specific nature of Juno's fire, the unavoidable waves that forced each and every person in his path to take a defensive position before he even found them benefitted him imnsely.
Juno could maneuver through the flas like they didn't exist, but to others, the pure weight they carried was already enough to be a threat.
This was Juno's speciality. A battle where he stood against an army with the only goal of killing as many as possible before he died himself.
'Dead.'
The enemy Juno t was already dead by the ti he arrived to fight.
'Dead. Dead. Dead.'
The following three were able to stand against the fla wave, but Juno's arrival was like the call of the reaper for them.
He maneuvered around them and used the techniques he learned from his master. His arms turned into blades of plasma, and as he dashed by the geniuses in question, he got around their defenses and slaughtered them before they could recognize his presence.
People didn't know how strong Juno was, but he was soone that even August, who grew at an unbelievable rate, had to view as competition.
Juno was stronger than Valerie, stronger than Iridia or Raphael, stronger than ninety percent of the people who competed thinking they had what it took to beco the dragon kingdom's Emperor.
He wasn't afraid of individual geniuses like Valerie.
But he also wasn't conserving mana at all.
Even for Juno, a person who was able to breeze through the enemies like they were nothing, this battle felt impossible.
Because, even though he was stronger…
…Juno knew that he would run out of steam before they ran out of forces.
In the end, he was only one person, wasn't he?
Infinite mana simply wasn't a possibility.
He, Valerie, and Yuna were all making different progress. Nonetheless, they were not yet losing.
As for how long that state would last, however…
In Juno's own estimates; twenty minutes at most.
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