Chapter 22: Well Now, You’ve Multiplied Quite a Bit, Haven’t You?

Sensing the enemy attack, Vice instantly recovered from her climax-dazed state and immediately pulled away from Kazui to prepare for combat. Turning to what was Kazui’s right side, she took a ready stance.

The enemy who had shattered even the reinforced defensive barrier in a single blow and, almost simultaneously, protected Kazui with holy magic was clearly a far stronger opponent than the red-haired woman. That was why Vice instantly judged that dealing with the threat while still straddling Kazui was impossible.

At some point, Vice’s body had become enveloped in pale-blue light. The moment her barrier was destroyed and she noticed the enemy attack, she immediately generated aura and solidified her full-body defense with a skill of the same type as Aura Mail.

The output of her aura was incomparably stronger than Kazui’s, and she was using a much higher-tier skill that far surpassed Aura Mail. That was why the aura light did not disappear and her body remained wrapped in pale-blue light.

Incidentally, when she had been shot down by Monty, Vice had been using ordinary Aura Mail. She had underestimated the attack power of Aquila’s adventurers, suppressed the output of her aura, and used basic Aura Mail, so her body had not been glowing at that time.

With her defense solidified by the powerful skill and her interception preparations complete, a black figure approached Vice. The black figure launched an ultra-high-speed attack so fast that not only Kazui but even Vice could not fully track it — truly a technique too quick for the eye to follow.

Most of the pale-blue light wrapping Vice scattered like sparks and was blown away. She had taken a solid hit from the black figure’s attack, and the majority of the aura protecting her was stripped away.

But Vice immediately made her entire body glow pale-blue again. This time the light was far stronger than before, showing that she had drastically raised the output of the aura allocated to defense.

Yet the black figure attacked her again and again at a speed too fast to properly see. The successive attacks landed on Vice one after another, scattering the pale-blue light like sparks and continuing to strip away her aura-based defense.

A high-pitched scream echoed through the forest. Something separated from Vice’s body, flew into the air, and fell to the ground.

What fell was the portion of her left arm from the forearm onward. The black figure’s attack had struck near the elbow of her left arm after the defense was stripped, and part of her left arm had been severed.

Although her face twisted in pain, Vice stretched her remaining right arm toward the black figure. Her right palm glowed pale-blue, and a howling pale-blue storm of light erupted from it.

It was the same type of attack she had previously used against the red-haired woman — an Aura Shot. Just as Kazui had guessed, Vice had been using Aura Shot earlier.

Because that earlier Aura Shot had reached quite far, Kazui had considered the possibility that it might not have been an aura attack. In reality, Vice’s aura output was simply orders of magnitude stronger, allowing the attack to reach a long distance.

The Aura Shot she launched this time differed in both range and power. Against the red-haired woman she had released a pale-blue glowing storm focused in a single narrow direction that traveled a long distance.

This time, however, she released a storm that spread over a wide area at once but only reached about a hundred meters at most. Against an enemy whose movements were far too fast, she prioritized the width of the attack range over maximum range and launched an Aura Shot — an aura storm attack.

Because it was spread over a wide area, not only was the effective range reduced to a fraction, but the power also dropped. An attack that deliberately did not narrow the aura storm and instead released it over a wide area was more precisely called Aura Wide Shot.

Even for a black figure whose movements were abnormally fast, a storm that spread over such a wide area could not be completely avoided. The pale-blue aura released all at once from Vice’s right palm swallowed the black figure.

Mixed with the roar of the erupting aura came a woman’s scream.

(A w-woman?)

Hearing a voice that was somewhat low for a woman, Kazui realized the black figure was female. Immediately after ejaculating, an enormous amount of Enevitè had been drained from him, making it difficult even to stay conscious, yet he was still desperately holding on to awareness.

After the pale-blue aura storm raged and then vanished, the distance between Vice and the black figure had opened to about fifty meters. The black figure had not taken significant damage from the Aura Wide Shot and immediately took a ready stance.

Right afterward, the black figure raised a voice of surprise.

"Well now, you’ve multiplied quite a bit, haven’t you?"

Just as the black figure said, Vice had... multiplied. More precisely, she had created ninety-nine clones of herself.

Immediately after launching the Aura Wide Shot, Vice had begun chanting a magic spell. She closed the chant by speaking the magic name "Avatar Kenturia."

Blue-glowing magic circles then appeared in large numbers around the area. The ground in every direction seemed to be covered by the circles, and from within them clones identical to Vice — still missing part of her left arm — emerged.

Once their purpose was fulfilled, the magic circles quickly vanished. It was only after that that the black figure recovered her stance and prepared herself.