Chapter 180: I am Superior

The web-like crack, as well as the sound it makes is like a muffled snicker from Aerendil's opponent, he was truly shocked, in all his life, this is the first time he have been wrong in his judgement, specially about his brain, but of course, the intellectual that he is, Aerendil tried to make sense of the occurrence.

_A more potent illusion? But how can a potent illusion, coming from dark magic that is one of the main targets of the [Unholy Rejection], get undetected?_

Aerendil immediately thought of this as ridiculous, after all, not only is his [Unholy Rejection] one of the most potent and complicated spells in his repertoire, at its base, it also acts as a passive immune system for influences for anything that contradicts its holy nature, such is the main reason that he can quickly identify the illusions of Sophia and break it with ease, causing for his, as much as he hate to admit, overconfidence.

_No, it must be more subtle, maybe she have slowly but surely made dark magic seep into the ground, using my footwear as the catalyst while controlling me through those multitudes of illusions and hope that I will be badly damaged after the illusions in my footwear have exploded into my brain, after all, the auto homing of my [Unholy rejection] will normally doesn't work in my shoes._

Aerendil processed all of such information in lightning speed, so fast the processing was that the king of elves even have the time to confirm the status of his brown leather shoes, it has turned black, confirming his guess, not even questioning why is it that the "dark magic" did not get extinguished when he let a flash bang of [Unholy Rejection] radiate from his body when he saw the illusory mirrors crack, he calmly looked up, watching the whole world shatter in ethereal shards of glass, nowhere is the shock from before, instead, he regained his calm and confident demeanor, using unconventional things as a medium for dark magic is cleaver, but it is not so tactically transcendent that only a genius unsurpassable in heaven and earth can pull off, anyone who knows how to use mana can make mana flow from the body to other objects, a little bit of training is just required.

_Sigh... she's natural in illusions and she thinks she can match me... kids these days... hm?_

In his disdainful contemplation, Aerendil, now at the ground, his position when he is trying to aura farm squinted his eyes, at the sky he saw Sophia, her hair fluttering to the left, her dress and heart, supposed to be pierced by numerous pikes doesn't even have a single hole, only the depression made by the slit formed by her ample mounds can be seen, her eyes radiated confidence despite facing the (seemingly) bane of her illusions, her hands are raced, pointing upwards, she looks like Urduja when conjuring suns for her nuclear massacres, except that the object overhead Sophia is not a sun, but a meteor, it gushes out large tongues of black colored flames, but unusually have radiant white glow at its surface.

"Delivery."

Sophia grinned, and like Aerendil in her illusory world, calmly swung down her hand that is raised upwards and is if in cue, the meteor as big as the capital city of Aerendil descended the land, Aerendil, like Sophia looked on calmly, with eye contact with his opponent that decided to smugly don't use illusions against him this time, his eyes glowed, creating a magic circle that then created a shield for him, this shield is used to absorb hits from Loki and Urduja's apocalyptic attacks, thus even though he was directly at the event horizon of the soon to happen impact, he did not flinch so that he can make a point.

The meteor collided with the ground, and anyone who saw how Sophia wiped out half a forest by casually dropping a dark magic imbued flaming blade can only imagine the impact of a meteor imbued by such a potent buffing magic.

The meteor exploded upon impact, causing light to engulf all of Stardust and even spill out to other continents, the spies watching the devastating fight was blinded permanently, before being deafened by the soundwave that coursed through whole of Genesis, the ones in close proximity got their eyes turn into glasses before their ears exploded because of the residual light and sound bangs, a mushroom cloud emerged in the sigh of the impact whilst the debris of the ground and meteor shrapnels was flung hundreds of kilometers in the air, they are dyed in black as if a whiteboard marker was used to vandalize them, an evidence of the devastation caused by the second nuclear strike in the string of wars in Genesis.

All of these did not take account the retreating of the coasts of multiple shores, earthquakes that ravaged all nations that are not advanced enough to fortify the land their cities are under, because surely, there is no way in hell that in a monopolistic world such as Pentateuch that the magic methods of Genesis will pass in other continents, thus Genesis is mostly fine while other continents suffered. All of this transpired as if a repeat of the casual flex of Sophia against Hebi, the only difference is that the receiver of the attack still stood calmly at the point of impact, his shield held only a single crack at the top that was being slowly mitigated.

Aerendil looked at the debris in the sky, not even finding Sophia, smiling, he saw as the dark magic-infested rocks, boulders, and dirt were engulfed in white light, disintegrated out of existence.

_She copied [Unholy Rejection] and immediately used it in front of me, not even using it as a surprise attack... well, I shouldn't really expect much from the current generation._

Aerendil sighed, waiting for the agitated dust to be engulfed in darkness and light in quick succession. Soon, he saw Sophia looking at him from high above, he could not help but snicker.

"Really? You're announcing that you can copy spells with such a grandiose? Has no one ever thought you of the element of surprise? Do you think I'm surprised because you can create a mushroom cloud? That you can make a hundred-meter deep crater out of my Kingdom? Let me tell you, no matter how many spells you "comprehended" and copied from me, I am still the one who used it first and between the two of us, I am still its better user..."

Aerendil slowly ascended, slowly making his barrier disintegrate, as if not afraid that Sophia might sneak attack him, the kid can try, but succeeding is another thing.

"Not to mention, I now have a good grasp of your main strategy."

Aerendil doesn't intend to add anymore even though his sentence sounds and is incomplete, for he knew his opponent is intelligent enough to comprehend what is trying to convey, but as if to show her ignorance, or perhaps, contempt to the idea of being casually countered by Aerendil, he heard the young queen of the Undeads snicker, this snicker grew louder and louder until it become a full blown laughter that lasted for 5 seconds straight before Sophia shook her head.

"You old people amuse me, always gaslighting yourself that just because you're older, just because you have more experience than me, you are already better, how can you say that if in my illusion, you forgot that you are not using leather shoes, but white boots as footwear, huh? Knowing about my strategy, having more experience, only knowing about illusion and all that, stupid."

Sophia raised her hand, the right one pointing at Aerendil that is calm despite her taunts that sounds like stating facts whilst the other is slowly drawing backwards and as she did an arrow made of fire, black in color materialized, raging as if wanting for the world to burn... as if wanting to create a third nuclear explosion just to prove its conjurer's point.

"Do you, someone 'experienced', really think that I only know illusions? No, I also know that you are an isekai Dumbledore that cums when you're being praised by your mom... that is actually not your mom."

Sophia's red eyes squinted, showing her contempt.

"But enough with that, since you seem not to believe me, then sure, I will force you to believe, I will not use illusions in the remainder of the fight for you to be able to realize..."

That I am Superior.

Aerendil instinctively completed Sophia's also incomplete sentence, a complete mockery of his unbridled confidence, however, this, he did not dare dally, for Sophia immediately let go of her flaming arrow, Aerendil doesn't have any time to be angry or be amused, his barrier might me almost immune to nuclear strikes, but his body sure is not, even though he can regenerate quite fast, he still knew that an agitated Sophia will not let up and make him regenerate a rag dolled body of his if ever, thus his eyes glowed, causing two identical magic circle to emerge from his pupils, conjuring a barrier that immediately collided with the dark flame arrow, upon impact however, the intended explosion did not happen, instead, due to the imbued [Unholy rejection] in the shield as well as one of Aerendil's secret spell that is not visible to the naked eye, thus cannot be copied by Sophia even though she is certainly capable of doing so like how Aerendil is capable of copying her perfected space magic in its perfect form, it was called [Selective Absolute Protection].

It is a spell that lets a person block with no damage received a single object or element, making the wielder unharmed, in the nuclear explosion, he used [Unholy Rejection] as well as 4 layers of [Selective Absolute Protection] to not get any damage from the blast, now he is using it to make the arrow shrink, though of course, the foresightful man that he is, he started to fall back, knowing what will happen next, and indeed, what he thought will transpire did happened, the shrinking arrow, seemingly wanting to fulfill something so that its existence wont be for naught, exploded, and even though it was weakened significantly, it still caused a fireball in the front side of Aerendil, making the elven king to be flung hundreds of meters across the battlefield.

_Sophia has finally decided to go all out._

Such were Aerendil's thoughts, thus, he also wished to stop playing around with the kid and give it his all, he turned off his barrier and stopped his momentum with a heavy blast of air backwards, he then created large storm like winds in his feet to go after Sophia in the fastest speed possible, however, before he can do anything, his arms were suddenly caught with numerous tentacles like viscous fluid, it is white, contrasting the black environment he was in wherein the pulsing of also black colored lava are present, Aerendil with unwavering calmness casually stared at the burning magma under him, what really made him frown is that the tentacles that are bounding him that is imbued with [Unholy rejection] was utilized correctly by Sophia in her second try, the spell were modified so that anyone with white skin will be singed from inside out.

_So that's how Hebi got defeated, this is truly remarkably ridiculous for someone who just learned a concept less than a second ago to use it to its full potential._

Even Aerendil needs longer observation time to learn how does a concept works and integrate it into his prowess.

Aerendil's thoughts trailed off, but the whole volcano suddenly pulsated, he activated his potent barriers and then flew away from the volcano, however, in an unexpected move, Sophia changed the unholy requirement for the [Unholy Rejection] into that of any barriers surrounding an elf, one strong whip from the tentacles caused the barriers of Aerendil to burn like a demon bathing in holy water.

_Fuck!_

Aerendil's eyes widened, and he did not dare to conjure any shields; he had to escape, quick and fast, but alas, how could he do that when his momentum and rhythm were interrupted? He was barely in the mouth of the 50 meter high volcano when the whole thing exploded and another mushroom cloud emerged, making the other continents sway like a bitch once more, though unfortunately for them this will certainly not the end.

Aerendil, being unshielded and the main target of the explosion, found his whole body vaporized, vaporized except his eyes, they were shielded, like the nucleus and protons in the middle of an electron cloud, it shifted violently, creating a very complicated magic circle, and like magic, small, almost microscopic dust gathered around the eyes, the next moment, those dust became a regenerated Aerendil, Sophia marveled at this and tried to copy it, but because she is yet to understand how did that work, she failed, a frown creeping on her face as she prepared her next spell.

_Darn, now I have to see it again... what could that be?_

As she pondered, she also did not dally, she targeted Aerendil who is gasping for breath and is quite shocked about the near death experience of his, because of his panic, Aerendil also started to use [Unholy Rejection] to shatter any illusion caste on him, he never believed his opponent will not use her priced specialty, but as if he was being played, nothing of the shattering spectacle happened.

_What the heck? She really won't use illusions? Where is her brain?_

Aerendil did not criticize out of mockery but apprehension, after all, anyone who can fight him going all out is inherently troublesome, and as he did, his breathing grew increasingly labored as white, cold mist started to engulf the battlefield.

The eyes of Aerendil was then attacked by the microscopic waters as his lungs was filled with icy, frosting sensations that prompted him to descend to the ground, laboriously, he collapsed to the ground, not even his healing magic was able to extinguish the ever consuming ice creeping in his lungs that is copied by Sophia from Bakunawa. The chest of Aerendil began to glow like the auroras, while Aerendil realized something.

He was too preoccupied by the illusions of her opponent.