89. Six-Colored Terminators

Six-Colored Terminators

When six humanoids stepped out of the darkness, we actually felt a little relieved.

At least now we could finally have a proper fight.

Because this was definitely going to be a fight.

By “humanoids,” I mean they had bodies and outfits like Terminators.

Only their hair and eyes were different. Both glowed, each marked by a different color: blood red, neon green, lightning blue, snow white, dark gray, and pure black.

In one hand, each wielded a huge serrated sword like the ones used by blade demons. On the other arm, each carried a round metal shield strapped from shoulder to knee.

If they were what they looked like, and if the bad guys had the ability to do it, then these things were probably fused versions of their demons and mages, combined into something worse.

Which meant this fight would not be easy.

They said nothing. But their movements were smoother than any monster we had encountered before. They split apart and came at us from both sides.

Red, white, and gray circled toward Chi Li. Green, blue, and black came for me.

If they had not been color-coded, it would have been harder to notice that they had come prepared with countermeasures.

Maybe the bad guys could not hide that part any more than we could hide the type of magic we used when actively casting.

That made things a little easier.

I suspected it was a trap.

In a world full of magic, always distrust anything that looks like a free advantage. It might be a vampire horse waiting for nightfall so it can murder you horribly. Magic, apparently, is where common sense goes to be eaten.

Chi Li and I did not wait for them to get close. We attacked first.

She fired a violet beam of destruction at the red one, while I charged the one using black magic.

The world slowed.

Everything moved more than an order of magnitude slower than normal, but still fast enough that an ordinary person would only see blurs.

Chi Li’s beam struck first, burning into the red warrior’s chest as his shield shifted over to block.

As red runes lit up, impossible heat splashed from the metal, actually melting the floor where the shield deflected the attack.

The warrior’s chest was left with a third-degree burn the size of my fist, so we came out ahead in that exchange.

Then a shield that had not been in my path an instant before suddenly appeared.

The blue warrior teleported in front of me in a burst of lightning, and I crashed into him.

I hit his shield with the force of a heavy artillery shell, knocking the Conan-looking bastard fifty meters backward. At the same time, electricity ran along my arms and left a mild tingling sensation behind.

Then the green one appeared in a flash to my left, already swinging his sword.

My left arm rose to block. The metal bracer I had added to my Super Suit met the glowing green blade.

The blade passed through it as if the bracer did not exist.

Then it passed through my suit and my arm as well, continuing toward my side without resistance.

My Super Suit was ignored again.

What waited beneath it was not so lucky.

I cried out as the intangible strike sliced into my side with almost no physical resistance. It stung like a swarm of bees, but left no actual wound.

I turned to face him and kicked, only for him to block with his shield.

Like the blue warrior before him, the green one was blasted backward. I was fairly sure his shield was at least dented.

My heel, however, felt like I had stepped on a nail.

Then the one using black magic fired a death beam into my back, stealing some of my momentum and a little of my stamina.

On the other side of the room, Chi Li was facing a similar problem.

The white warrior was surrounded by a whirlwind that seemed able to weaken and disperse her fire beams, stopping her from focusing enough power to pierce them in a single second.

The big red one seemed able to endure her attacks better than the others through sheer physical strength, and he moved quickly enough to be a threat up close. The gray one conjured all kinds of chains.

Fortunately for Chi Li, the moment the red one’s fist or the gray one’s chains struck their target, the force rebounded several times stronger.

The red warrior was actually knocked down by the backlash, and because he had charged ahead of his companions into melee range, he had also left their mutual support.

A violet beam struck his throat. By the time the wind-controller teleported over to block, his throat had become a smoking ruin.

Meanwhile, the chain user was reevaluating his entire strategy, since roughly half the rings I had given the red-haired witch were meant to prevent grabs and punish melee attacks.

Chi Li still disliked being hit.

Melee enemies would dislike it more.

As for me, the green and blue warriors teleported in to flank me while the black one stayed back and attacked from range.

But two could play that game.

Time Leap carried me to where I had been one second earlier, or where I would be after the same amount of future time.

But by using Forced Acceleration and Force Adjustment at the same time, I could take what felt like thirteen subjective seconds of action during that actual interval.

I could not cut enemies apart, move objects, or alter the environment during the jump, because Time Leap only considered my movement and only affected me.

But planning a loop around the huge room, accelerating, and arranging for the jump to end with me appearing one centimeter behind an enemy while moving at Mach seven?

The warrior using black magic was not merely knocked away.

I carried him with me until he ended up pinned between me and the tower wall with enough force that his lower body crushed like an overripe tomato.

Unfortunately, green and blue made me pay for that move.

Before I could regain my footing after behaving like a cruise missile, they teleported in front of me and slammed their shields into me from both sides, trapping me between an electrified shield in front and an ominously glowing green shield behind.

My back stung as if someone had whipped me, while the current passing through my chest kept shocking me like a weak taser.

I pushed against the shield in front of me with muscle and power, but both warriors braced with both arms. They had enormous leverage, and even relatively weak shocks were somewhat debilitating.

Time Leap first required me to be able to move. Spatial Leap had a weight limit, and the many objects touching me easily pushed past that limit, with no way to selectively exclude them.

My regeneration was already working to keep me healthy, even if it could not spare me the pain. More strength and power were slowly flowing in too.

But I was not about to let these bastards keep the upper hand.

With a light touch of Nearby Object Manipulation, I triggered the magic on the necklace at my throat.

An invisible force field weakened every force within several yards that was not created by me.

It did nothing to the pressure pinning me in place. Like other attacks striking me directly, that force was already being weakened by my stronger personal Force Adjustment, and stacking the same effect twice was useless.

What it did affect was every other force that was not directly affecting me and was not inside a living body.

Unfortunately, the warriors seemed to count as living bodies, so they were not about to die because their bodies could no longer sustain blood pressure.

But the air pressure outside their bodies?

That suddenly became negligible.

A massive amount of air rushed into every space around me.

At the same time, the unaffected air inside the warriors’ bodies explosively decompressed out through their mouths.