BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM

1130 The battle for Maynard Island (7)

Erik was surprised by how they made that attack work. However, it also worked only because of Vex's weapon. That must have been a brain crystal sword, and Erik was pretty sure it had a power that allowed the sword to turn insanely sharp, to the point it could bypass his Force Bastion's armor.

At the same time, Vex thought they could really kill this monster. What he didn't know, though, was that Erik had a power no one knew about, simply because a lot of time passed since he was last injured, and even if he was, it wasn't usually easy to see its effects.

Since he was invisible, the three didn't notice that Erik's wound immediately closed itself. Though the younger man lost concentration for a second and his invisibility turned off.

Yet in his mind only retaliation thoughts swirled, and since he had the chance now, he would not let that slide. Erik supercharged his Lightning Lord brain crystal power. As soon as Vex saw a small spark of electricity coalesce around his fingertips, he slowed time down.

<Shit…>

He leaped backward, but the lightning had already formed and was racing towards him. Electricity was fast, and even with his slowed down time, he was having trouble avoiding it.

The problem was that there wasn't much space between him and Erik, so Vex didn't have much space to move.

Though Terra and Restro must have anticipated that, and while everything happened really fast, they still had enough reaction time, or simply foresight, to do something. A barrage of projectiles were hurtled towards Erik, and a wall sprouted between their leader and the arc of electricity the younger man released. His Force Bastion deflected most of the rocks, but he was forced to avoid the most dangerous ones and had to stop targeting Vex.

<These motherfuckers are smart!>

Erik was using his Hydra's head to keep up with the three, but it wasn't easy. The power didn't make him see at 360 degrees, so what he didn't see, he could at best predict. But with fighters of that caliber and battle awareness, even that wasn't easy. Vex got out of harm's way, but his mana was already spent. He almost had half his reserves completely consumed.

12:44

He didn't know how well his comrades were faring, but they must have been in a pretty similar situation. Vex consumed mana to slow time enough for him to at least see Erik and to react to his attacks. Terra and Restro had to use a lot of it just to make the attacks fast and powerful enough to bypass the young man's armor, and even that wasn't enough. The most puzzling question was: how much mana did Erik have?

The young man still had wings on and was currently hovering above ground, yet not anymore invisible. He used different elemental powers, and on top of that, his armor never left him. That must have meant he used a great deal of mana, especially considering how powerful his attacks had to be just to injure them, and that required mana.

Then he observed him thoroughly. There was no wound on his body.

<What? But I'm sure I hit him!>

Then a terrifying thought crossed Vex's mind.

<No way, the fucker can heal himself!>

Vex then teleported to both Restro and Terra. Before Erik could even start chasing them, he teleported himself and the other two away from him.

"What's the matter?"

"He can heal himself," Vex said.

At that, the other two remained silent.

"Even if he can, he must not have a lot of mana. Using all those powers with the same intensity as us must have consumed a huge chunk of it."

While Restro's words held some truth, the boy didn't look affected by the battle at all; it was like he had an infinite reserve of mana on his side.

"I have little left. We either close this quickly, or we are dead meat."

"What do you propose?" Terra asked.

Vex remained silent for a couple of seconds, in which he kept his eyes darting around to see if the monster found them.

"Terra, I need you to focus on defending. You must stay as far away as possible from Erik, manipulate the terrain, and try to block and slow him down. Restro, you will act as the tank and main decoy; I will use my powers to deal damage to him, but if he can heal himself, the only thing I can do is just to find a moment to kill him with one blow."

"Are you sure you can do this?" Restro asked. "After all, it will be my ass on the line."

"Don't worry," Vex said. "If you are in a situation you can't come out of, I will teleport you away."

"You better keep your promise, dude. I don't want to die."

"Neither I want you to."

Then Erik found them. He wasn't keeping his invisibility up but was still hovering around, unable to deal with them from a distance because of Terra and his brain crystal powers.

"Let's go."

The three turned to face Erik. Vex teleported Terra on top of the blackguards' main building. If he kept himself well hidden, he would be able to affect the battle without Erik understanding where he was. Besides, the two didn't have any intention of letting him do that.

From there, the blackguard started reshaping the battleground. Vast walls and terrains of different heights sprouted like mushrooms. Terra changed the battlefield so much that even the rest of the blackguards were being affected, and with them the Chimaeric Demons.

They tried to get as far away as possible from the four titans' clash, but the battle was so big they weren't really able to.

Turrets got cut off from their allies and destroyed by the Chimaeric Demons. Some of the clones themselves ended up isolated and killed by groups of blackguards. The result was a battlefield no longer the same as before. It was like the sandy beach turned into a rocky mountain. Only that things were strangely too geometric to have been natural.

<Now what?> Erik thought. It was clear this was something they did to prevent him from using his monstrous speed on the ground. Creating these many obstacles was clearly a way to weaken him.

<Should I just fly into the sky and attack from there?>

There were clear advantages to that. For starters, the three wouldn't be able to attack him as easily anymore, at least in Vex and Restro's case. The two were mainly melee fighters. The problem was that Vex would simply focus on teleporting the two away, Restro would turn Terra's attacks deadlier, and Terra himself would act as a ranged fighter and defender.

<Nothing would really change. Until now, I kept up with the three well by fighting on the ground.>

But the terrain was an obvious problem now.

<I need to find and kill Terra first…>

However, Erik had to make it look like he wasn't really trying to do that.