Chapter 179: Never-ending Illusions

Start of Sophia vs. Aerendil fight, this is 7 chapter long and is the longest fight I have ever written in my writing career.

I hope you will enjoy it like how I enjoyed writing it.

All of such occurrence happened in Pentateuch, all for the sake of Sophia's bizarre plan to destroy the time loop, something that she took upon herself, however, in the palace of the mother goddess of the universe, Paraluman, the gods present, Siginarugan, Sinag, the god of streams and Paraluman herself have fallen silent, long gone is their focus on any deviations on the general outline of the time loop they oh-so-desperately needs to break for Pentateuch and for the universe they wanted to protect, Siginarugan have his usual smile, seemingly even wondering why are his mother, sibling and subordinate is looking at him with weirded out and outright confused eyes, as if the god of undead just said the most ridiculous thing they have ever heard in their long lives.

And in fact, Siginarugan did say something that even the overseer of the universe questioned her ears.

"You want Sophia to wield the unique skill [Genius]?"

__________

Stardust, or at least, the ruins of the country once known as Stardust, buildings that once stood mightily are now nothing but a quadrilateral outline of the concretes that now turned into nothing but rubbles, the pointed shaped rocks randomly strewn over the whole area of the kingdom once made up cathedrals, department buildings, post offices and many more supposed to be high standard infrastructures, now nothing but an evidence of the destruction of an average fight between people who have earned the title of calamity.

Houses that once braved the toughest of storms and the most devastating of earthquakes caused by the numerous wars they, alongside the ones that are previously housing them have endured are now pulverized into sand dusts, part of the air, the only part of Stardust that is yet to be destroyed by the 4 day and ongoing fight of Sophia and Aerendil, walls, sentry points, roads, sea ports, land trade routes, all of it disappeared and became a runic mess, the ones that archeologists orgasms about once they were discovered.

They disintegrated one way or another, some collapsed due to a random wind blade or two that came from a volcano that also randomly sprouted, some became a landing point of a missed arrow of flames, water, air and other things that the two fighters decided to throw at each other, just so that they can kill the opposition faster, or at least that is what the king of elves wanted to do.

This desire caused everything to be destroyed, strangely though, except the palace of the King of elves.

Aerendil wanted to end the fight ever since it started to mitigate the destruction of his kingdom, so that he won't need another bout of war to invade Tydings, so that he won't be forced to create and stabilized hybrid of humans and elves to increase the growth rate of the elven population, because of this plan, he made a preemptive invasion order and made the remaining 5,000 or so elven population go alongside the invaders to directly migrate to East Gjallarhorn, he knew that Sophia will explode the battle away from her home, and he also knew that Sophia made preparations in an off chance that he delivered the first shot.

All of these preparations are due to the knowledge of Aerendil that the elves cannot win the elven undead war alone again, like Sophia, who has the second elven-undead war as an excuse to invade Indio, Aerendil also used the war to let Sophia's subordinates kill Tydings IV for him to invade Tydings.

And alas, all of this preparations have bore fruit because as he have expected, the alliance was pounded to dust, even though he is reluctant to dilute the white elves' bloodline, he doesn't have a choice, he have to push through total invasion, and the first step is to defeat the obstinate opponent in front of him, the queen of undeads, Sophia.

The two fighters have been in a huge tussle of random spells being hurled for almost three days, but at some point in time, right after Stardust is destroyed, Sophia changed tactics, making all of her attempts that of killing Aerendil through illusions like what she almost did against Hebi Tsukaiza, thus the two cataclysmic geniuses stopped destroying the already destroyed Stardust as they floated above it, facing each other, 10 or so meters apart in silence, not making a move, one has her eyes have 5 bean like things circulate around her pupils, one of them will expand and then turn Sophia's pupils black, making eye contact the medium for the casting of the illusion, and then going back to red again, Aerendil also have a great eye lighting show, it will turn into magic circle again and again to cancel out the illusion, an extremely boring fight for normal onlookers and only the two participants of the fight can realize how high level such an altercation is.

Not only are the illusions feel lucid and vivid, it was also cast for literal instant, making hundreds of different, never repeating illusions, meaning Aerendil also disrupt the illusions and uses his eyes to counter attacks by the hundred, not only that, because illusions from dark magic compels emotional responses, he also have to suppress his grievances, which added a very high level class to the fight of the geniuses of their respective generations, and again, it was nearing another full second, the 97th of a hundred illusions made of Sophia was now in the mind of Aerendil, because of how fast his mind processing is due to his natural elven privilege and due to him being the peak of all mortal elves, he can see all of the half of the illusions happening before breaking it into shards of illusory glasses.

In the 97th illusion, he was the only elf in a human infested orphanage, being an outcast due to his prideful attitude, in this world, he is powerless and only one person have his back, it was the caretaker, a woman, that is a hell lot like his goddess, his mother, she have a pair of eyes as pristine as a calm lake, have hair as golden as the creamiest of wheats, and a smile more radiant than the sun itself, yet Aerendil cannot help but wretch, for he have felt familiarity and tender care to a human, thus, with a snort, he broke the illusion, he have been trying to get his eyes away from Sophia's, but because she have the same amount of brain processing speed as him, the 98th illusion have came before he even can glance at a random rock.

In such an illusion, he was in a battlefield, lying down, his chest caved in and all of his limbs are cut away from his body, strange sounds from small explosions and something very aerodynamic pierced his air, not to mention, Aerendil saw himself in a cloth, not in a chainmail, yet he did not care about all this, for in his head is a soft sensation that makes him want to sink on it, and as he felt that a hand caressed his forehead, going straight to his eyes whilst whispering to his ears.

"Rest, you have done enough, let me do the remaining work..."

The sentence is finished, and his eyes are completely blanketed by the fingers, causing Aerendil to see nothing but darkness, not until Aerendil broke the illusions into shards of illusory mirrors.

"Sigh..."

Aerendil once again tried to look away as he just exhaled a sigh as if to convey his boredom, but again, he failed, in the 99th illusion of Sophia, Aerendil did not even get transported to a location, it was just a place of pure darkness, he is bound by numerous chains whilst hundreds, or maybe thousands of chains with daggers attached on them are eyeing him with serpent like presence, normally, anyone who saw this will panic, but Aerendil, someone who is definitely not normal cannot help but shake his head.

_I knew it, she would eventually run out of ideas._

Aerendil thought, disappointed, he easily broke through the illusions, this time, making his whole body radiate a blinding white light, causing all of the "dark beans" in Sophia's eyes to evaporate, not only that, the undead queen was flung away for 5 or so meters, her skin, due to the [Unholy Rejection] radiated by her opponent, her skin started to scorch, making sizzling sound as if she was being seared.

"Urgh..."

Sophia grunted, yet Aerendil, who have a look of utter disappointment just raised his hand to flick it, and as he did, hundred of spikes, golden in color suddenly appeared in the back of Sophia, imbedding all of themselves without a miss on her heart, a look of shock appeared on Sophia's eyes, she looked at Aerendil again with a pained expression, trying to regenerate the black beans in her eyes, yet Aerendil already have the counter ready, expecting such futile retaliation, while still hovering in the air, he calmly pointed his middle and index finger abound together to Sophia, who is still struggling to get the spears that imbedded half of themselves to her heart, blood was seeping out of her heart and mouth, yet Aerendil ignored it, the moment he pointed his fingers to the spears, all of them glowed, Aerendil then swung his hand down unceremoniously, causing the glowing spears with Sophia in it to make a nose dive, punching themselves to the ground with great momentum, and due to the natural laws of physics, the momentum was transferred to Sophia, making her flail up and down violently, one time each as if a rag doll.

"ARRRGH!"

Such an extreme movement when she is already wounded made Sophia scream loudly as if she was just whipped in the ass, alongside such a shout, she coughed copious amount of blood, staining the floor as if to represent her hopelessness of her situation, yet she still glared at her opponents with her unyielding eyes.

"You are so disappointing."

Of course, such a defiant nature was something that Aerendil detests the most, after all, such defiance caused him the loyalty of the dark elves, yet he ignored it, he basically won the fight and doesn't need to vent out any frustrations, still, calmly, he conjured a spear as tall as his palace and as thick as 10 fat people combined, it slowly descended towards Sophia who remained indignant of her fate, as if to let Aerendil deliver a compelling speech.

"I know where your confidence came from, after all, you successfully sneaked in a wide ranged illusion and caught me off guard, everyone who has successfully made such a feat will feel good about themselves. But, look at Mizukuni, he thought he can match Urduja just because Urduja spared his life once, yet got demolished like a bunch of paper scraps on the road, you should have considered this before challenging me... though I guess it's my fault as I wanted my whims to get the better of me for once, I mean, after fighting against just a single person all my life, I wanted to have fun, so I entertained you, but alas, only the prophet of the undead can give my body the excitement I truly craves."

Aerendil glanced at the spear, gauging how many more words he could say, though he could make his creation stop, so he didn't mind.

For now, as an old person, he wanted to teach the young one one final lesson.

"This is where you have given away your fight... Not only did you used the same strategy you used against Hebi, spamming illusions, you were even so confident that it will work, hurling random elemental attacks on me while making the core of your attacks illusions, I wanted to see more variations, more excitement, but no, you are just someone who is very good at illusions and happen to know all the elements, you didn't even used space magic, which is your greatest bet in defeating me, that will of course, I can also copy on the spot and counter in an instant, oh, also you are confident because you have the same brain processing speed as me, unfortunately, you doesn't have the same amount of knowledge and experience as I am... but still, when I was your age, I was cautious, kids these days have become too spontaneous, but well, I can't blame you, after all, you lived in a world with systems."

Aerendil glanced at his giant spear and then to Sophia, who had never ceased to glare at him. he sneered, his calm demeanor vanishing; after all, he was already about to win, what need was there is to be calm and collected, right? He made the spear hasten its pace whilst still, continuing his speech.

"Where did this confidence come from? I know, that's because Urduja encouraged you, maybe the prophet too, those two people only have their overwhelming powers backing them, they are not that good in discerning tactics, for them, your strategy against Hebi is so ingenious that they probably never thought of it, but for you, for us, it's just a simple matter of wasting time and boggling the mind of your enemy, that's where you messed up, am I right?"

In a half taunting, half grandfatherly voice, Aerendil educated Sophia, who is still glaring at him, waiting for a satisfactory response like spitting blood at his direction or something, yet what he got made his eyes froze, yes, there is a response, however, the response did not came from the mouth of Sophia, the Sophia in front of him did not even opened her mouth, the response resounded in the mind of Aerendil as if a mockery of all his ramblings a little while ago.

"No, no, you're wrong."

Alongside such a jeering response, the whole surroundings of Aerendil cracked, as if a web made by a caffeinated spider.