"Well then would you mind telling me how I ended up leading to your 'victory'?" Guran asked still in doubt
"Still doubting me eh? Don't worry young Guran I'll be telling you soon enough how your fight ended up helping me out in the long run" Chaos said
"Young Guran?" Lahar laughed
"What, technically he's still younger than me… I just kept my good looks while he aged worse than, god I know I had a line for this. Oh well on to the story" Chaos replied
Mavis had made up her mind about what to do when it came to stopping the ritual while dealing with Guran at the same time. She'd focus on destroying the ritual which was her main objective; defeating Guran really didn't matter if the ritual was already stopped. Chaos had warned her repeatedly that Guran would still try and kill her even if she managed to stop the ritual, yet she didn't believe that he would bother killing her or at least she didn't want to believe he would. The ritual site was getting closer and she felt a strange aura in the air that made her feel a little uncomfortable and caused her to go into a light jog to get to the site faster. Right as she was about to enter the site, a beam of magic flew by her, slammed into the wall destroying it on impact, and kept going on until it was out of sight.
"Who's there?" a voice called out
"Hey you bastard you're supposed to ask that first then fire the deadly beam of magic!" Mavis yelled back, putting on her light armor before storming into the room angrily to confront Guran
"Mavis?" Guran asked with surprise
"Well duh! It's not like we have a changeling in the squad, although that would be really awesome" Mavis said
"What are you doing here?"
"What's it look like? I'm about to destroy this ritual thingy or whatever you're trying to do, now if you wouldn't mind just sitting there while I blow that thing up…" Mavis replied while lining up her light beam
"I'm afraid I can't do that Mavis" Guran sighed before hitting the ground with the head of his staff
Mavis looked down to see a magic circle forming underneath her, she back flipped out of the circle just in time to avoid a large beam that rose up from the ground and shot through the ceiling. Guran tapped his staff against the ground and it turned into a dark red color, he pointed it at Mavis, and a magic circle appeared firing a large wave of fire at her. She formed a light shield in front of her that scattered the fire before it could get to her, the shield went away and she sent a beam of light high into the air. A magic circle formed above and sent a shower of smaller beams towards Guran; he tapped his staff against the ground turning it to a brown color and struck it against the floor forming a large wall of earth above him to halt the blows. Mavis quickly realized that his staff was converting his magic to different elements, which meant that the fight would be that much more difficult for her.
"Hmm if I could get the staff out of his hand things would be so much easier… then again if I could just fire a quick shot to get that ritual while he's busy changing elements that would do the job I guess" Mavis thought to herself
"I'm pretty sure she's going to be targeting the ritual first and foremost so I better be careful when it comes to changing elements." Guran thought
"Quick question Guran where the hell did you even get that staff?" she asked
"This? The Chairman found this over a year ago and then gave it to me after he revealed what we were going to do with this whole ritual thing, it's got a great name too: The Staff of Many Colors" Guran explained
"Right…" Mavis said dryly before firing off another light beam at Guran "What happened to any sense of decency you had in you?"
"What do you mean? I'm doing what's right for this world, if a little dictatorship is what it takes to instill order and peace in Earthland then so be it. You're the person who should be questioning their actions right now" Guran yelled back as he threw up another wall to block the beam, tapped his staff again turning it a blue color to fire off a path of ice spikes at Mavis
"Why should I be questioning what's going on, I mean it seems pretty clear cut to me! Kaizus becomes ruler of this planet using Ancient magic to become a god pretty much, you ever think of what would happen if he became just a little corrupt, who could stop him?" Mavis said dodging the spikes and used this chance to try to destroy the ritual, she quickly charged up her magic, a magic circle appeared underneath her where two dragons made of light came into being and charged towards the ritual site
"Oh no you don't!" Guran said while pointing his staff at the ritual site where the dragons were fast heading towards. Suddenly the serpent at the end of his staff opened its mouth and a dark cloud came out and caught the dragons before they could reach the site, the dragons hissed angrily before the cloud enveloped them and left leaving nothing behind.
"The fuck was that?" Mavis asked
"Just some dark cloud that loves feeding off the light" Guran answered now pointing his staff at Mavis and the snake let out another plume of the dark cloud that headed towards Mavis
"Oh crap" Mavis thought
She jumped away from the cloud but when she turned around it was still following her and rapidly closing the distance in between them. She noticed that while the cloud was chasing her Guran was simply watching rather than trying to finish her off which could have meant a variety of things. Either Guran was unwilling to finish her off and was only trying to keep the ritual safe which is what she was hoping for; another theory was that he couldn't use his staff while the cloud was still active, but that wouldn't have explained why he couldn't just use fire his normal magic using his hands or other bodily appendages. Her brother always told her to assume the worst and hope for the best in these situations, and she quickly fired a flurry of light blasts at the defenseless ritual sites while praying that Guran couldn't use magic. Her prayers were answered but not in the way she had hoped, Guran quickly tapped his staff multiple times to get the earth element back and summoned an earth wall just in time to protect the ritual which was now nearing its conclusion.
"So close" Mavis sighed partially relieved that the dark cloud chasing her was gone but those feelings turned to dread when she could feel a shift in the environment around them "Damn it I'm getting nowhere right now, I have to stop this now otherwise we're all fucked and then Chaos will just yell at me"
"Again with the fear of being yelled at? What did your 'yellings' entail?" Lahar asked
"A lot of stuff that didn't involve yelling" Chaos answered and continued on before Lahar or Guran could ask what he meant
"Just a few more minutes and this ritual will be done with!" Guran thought to himself as he ducked under a light dragon sent at him while destroying the other dragon headed towards the ritual with an accurate fire blast
Suddenly they could feel a sharp increase in the magical power, but curiously it came from above them rather than the ritual site. Another sharp increase brought both of them to their knees as they struggled to keep themselves from getting crushed by the sheer force of whatever was happening. Then a massive beam of light flew down ripping through the ceiling and through the floor between them before it disappeared as quickly as it had come leaving them in utter shock and awe.
"I still have no idea what that was or who did it" Guran said
"That? Yeah that was me and Kaizus having fun on the top floor" Chaos said with a bright smile
"Fun?" Lahar asked with a feeling of fear
"Easy Lahar this cage keeps me from showing you guys the fun we were having at the time, but rest assured you'll both find out soon enough" Chaos said with a soothing voice
Guran was the first one to get up and he tried moving on from what he had just saw and felt, the power was far greater than anything he had felt in his life and his hands were still shaking. He tried to calm himself down as he saw Mavis also getting up; it was clear she was also feeling fear as her face had gone pale in terror when the massive beam of light had shot between them. Her life was still flashing before her eyes when she got up and it took some effort to get over what had just happened. She focused her mind on the battle at hand which was able to relax her body enough to continue the fight, she waved her hand in front of her and ten magic circles appeared in front of her. The magic circles started revolving faster and faster and then fired off a salvo of magical bullets at Guran who showed off his superior agility dodging the bullets with little effort. He fired his normal beam of magic at Mavis, the circles stopped firing and formed a protective shield to protect her from the blast which destroyed all of them and hit her armor which was able to prevent Mavis from getting killed but it was destroyed in the process sending Mavis a few steps back.
"Damn, it's piercing magic isn't it?" Mavis cursed before charging up her last reserves of magic and began an all out offensive to try stopping the ritual and distracting Guran
However splitting her power ended up costing her dearly in that regard as Guran calmly dealt with the threat to the ritual first forming up a series of elemental walls layered to stop the light blasts from Mavis. He dodged the first wave of light magic headed his way, took the brunt of the second wave which was weaker than the other ones to conserve his magic, and right as the third wave approached his serpent opened its mouth and let out another dark cloud. The cloud enveloped the beams of light before it disappeared once again leaving nothing where it was. The area around them was hit by a surge of magic power, but this time it could be traced back to the ritual site; the gathering point for the magic was filling up with the power of the Ancients which had been called forth by the mages conducting the ritual successfully. The magical pipes hooked to the basin filled with the colorless magic began filling up and sent the magic to the gathering point where the Chairman was.
"I've still got some time" Mavis said firing off a flurry of light blasts aimed at the pipes
"You really think that'll work now huh?" Guran thought as he switched his staff to a yellow color and fired off a series of lightning bolts that destroyed the light blasts and flew through the ceiling.
Mavis dropped to her knees as she had used nearly all her magic and was exhausted at this point, all the training with her brother couldn't compare to this at all. Guran seemed unsure of what to do at this point, he didn't want to kill Mavis but he was worried that she could still do something if she was left alive or at least conscious. The serpent on his staff opened its mouth again and another dark cloud made its way towards Mavis, she looked up and made no move to get out of the way as she wasn't so sure she could dodge it. Things looked bleak and she knew it, the cloud would come and eat whatever light magic she had left in her which would most likely kill her; it would eat any defense she put in front of her and there really wasn't anything she could think of.
"I guess it was a nice life while it lasted, I'm sorry big brother I failed you" she thought as she stared down the dark cloud "Wait, wait… there's one last thing I can try although I'm sure Chaos would kill me if he ever found out I tried this" she thought
Guran watched as the dark cloud went enveloped Mavis and began eating at the little magic she had left, he figured it would kill her which did make him feel sad but sacrifices were necessary for a better world. He was a bit surprised when the dark cloud left that Mavis was left there and he felt some magic that was similar to his cloud's but none that was like Mavis' so he dismissed his concerns. He watched the Ancient's magic being pumped into the gathering point and his mind wondered to what the light beam was in the first place, had Kaizus done it or had whoever gone to meet Kaizus done that? Either way he prayed that the Chairman was alright, if he ended up dead then what was the point of all of this, who could take the Chairman's place as ruler? Suddenly he felt the dark magic increasing by the second and soon the power was far beyond than what he had remembered it being like.
"What the hell is that fucking cloud doing?" Guran said turning around "M-Mavis?" he asked with a mixture of fear and concern. Mavis was standing up with a cheerful smile on her face, but her skin had turned a grayish color and even her blonde hair had turned into the same color as her skin
"Turns out you can absorb magic that's the opposite of your element as long as you clean out every bit of magic that you have inside of you!" Mavis called out happily
"I thought that's how dragon slayers could absorb a god slayer's magic of the same element" Guran said
"Is that so? Well then that really was a shot in the dark then! Mavis laughed "But this isn't a shot in the dark, think of it like a dark ball of doom" she said with an evil smile
She put her right hand over her left with both hands open and facing each other; her magical power suddenly increased and a small sized dark ball formed in between her hands. Guran was blinded by the increase in the dark energy and blindly fired a few magical energy shots from his staff vainly to try and stop Mavis.
"Law of Tartaros, Activate" Mavis said quietly as she released the power of the ball
A large explosion of darkness filled the room and sent shockwaves throughout the area destroying the ritual site entirely and the surrounding area. When all was clear Guran was heavily injured and struggling to stay standing, he uttered a pained groan before falling to the ground. Mavis herself was trying to stay standing as she had gotten rid of all dark energy she had absorbed in the attack which also killed the mages who had been conducting the ritual, but she was relieved that the site had been destroyed and that only a little bit of the magic had been gathered. She sat down in exhaustion before lying down to take a few deep breaths and relax, however her break was soon cut to an end as she could feel another tremor that rumbled throughout the Council Building. She felt an oppressive feeling again but this one wasn't crushing her this time, but her mind felt scattered and thinking became difficult for her, and she swore she saw some of the blocks randomly changing shapes.
"What the hell is going on?" Mavis asked as she began crawling away weakly from the area to safety
The elevator finally reached the top floor where Kaizus was waiting along with the gathering site and Chaos calmly made his way to the room. He was in no hurry at the moment and was humming the same smooth jazz tune in his head that he always played when he was going to kill a target. The song reached an end as he got to the entrance of the room, he noticed four dark figures that he had never seen before or had been warned of. He cursed out Shiori again before taking out a needle and with a detonation of his magic sent it flying towards one of the figures, it went right into the figure's chest but the figure wasn't fazed at all. It looked down gave an eerie laugh before taking a dark sword out of its chest and advancing towards Chaos.
"Ooh a spectral guardian aren't we?" Chaos said taking out his own dark sword "Well looks we've got some old friends for you to absorb now don't we?"
The figure swung its sword which Chaos easily parried and stabbed it through its face… or what looked like the face to Chaos. His sword began absorbing the figure which was struggling as it began disappearing and soon its entire body was absorbed by the blade leaving nothing behind. Chaos smirked and pointed the sword at the other three figures who all backed down at the sight of the blade.
"Take me to your Master!" he yelled out
The figures immediately bowed their heads and opened the doors for Chaos to the gathering site. He walked through and they bowed their heads once more before closing the doors. The gathering site was surprisingly simple in appearance: all the pipes led to a small pool that led to an interesting gate that Chaos had never seen in his life. Sitting next to the gate was Kaizus who was looking at Chaos right in his eyes, next to Kaizus was a silver handle with no blade attached to it which interested Chaos to an extent; Chaos smiled before taking a few steps towards Kaizus.
"Chaos"
"Kaizus"
"So how long were you planning this?"
"Ever since I first found out that you were planning to do this"
"So I guess I should have taken Daichi's advice and just killed you"
"That probably would have been the smarter idea"
"You manipulated Shiori to your cause and all the other elite members of your squad didn't you?"
"I didn't manipulate anyone; I presented them the facts and the copy of the plans and let them make their own interpretations of the matter. Except Shiori, but everyone knew he would snap and try to kill Chelsea one day and I just gave him a chance to do it."
"Hmph, well our followers are fighting it out as we speak honestly our fight will be affected more by their successes or failures."
"Oh?"
"Think about it, if one of the rituals ends up working do you really think you could stop me when I would become a god? But if none of the rituals work then honestly my plans have failed and there would be no point in trying to kill you"
"It's admirable how far you're willing to go to not try and kill me Kaizus it truly is. However since all you need is one ritual to work while I need all of yours to fail it would be better if I just killed you now and taken my fate out of other's hands."
"So you distrust your squad that much?"
"I distrust everyone"
"So you do"
"No more words Kaizus, shall we begin?" Chaos asked assuming his fighting stance with his dark blade out
