Endless Path : Infinite Cosmos
chapter-792

Within a heavy and oppressive space, surrounded by devastated land that had clear signs of hard-fought battles, several figures were darting around at high speeds. They would periodically clash together, sending powerful shockwaves that would erupt from the point of contact between their blows and disperse a part of the dust cloud that had shrouded the area. Each figure, other than when they had come to blows, moved faster than the eye could follow, making it almost impossible for inexperienced warriors to even react to their movements. Vahn, however, standing at the side with the gratified smile of a teacher watching his prized pupils, was easily able to see 'most' of their clashes.

Currently, he was conducting a private training session with all of his 'official' disciples, including Lili, Haruhime, Mikoto, Emiru, Maemi, Shizune, and Tina. Lefiya was also present but, as a pure Mage, she was standing at his side and simply observing the training while trying to increase her focus and perception. Unlike the other girls, who trended towards being Knights and Magic Knights, Lefiya was the odd one out and, as was even the case in Eva's world, it was exceedingly difficult for a Mage to outright spar against a Knight. Of course, this didn't mean Lefiya was weak, as her full powered attacks could seriously injure or kill in a single blow, but she couldn't quite keep up with the high-speed movements of the other girls.

Though Vahn helped everyone with their training, it was only the disciples who truly treated him as their 'Master' that he guided personally. Eva had allowed him to teach general magic theory to everyone but, unless he was willing to personally shape the lives of specific individuals, she told him to only teach the more advanced techniques to his disciples and apprentices. Since many of the girls already had their own styles, which had been honed over years of experience, the majority of Vahn's disciples were in the group of younger women and those he had previously saved. In fact, other than Mikoto and Lefiya, all of the other girls happened to be people he had either saved the life of, or liberated from their tragic fates...

Suddenly, a loud cracking shockwave resounded through the area as a lithe figure was sent hurtling towards the ground with fierce momentum. Vahn winced, resisting the urge to move over and interfere as Maemi smashed into the reinforced earthen structure of the orb's interior. Even so, she made a crater that webbed out for nearly 8m and was unable to rise to her feet as the attacker, Lili, dropped down next to her. She had a concerned expression on her face but, as they were told to fight seriously, Lili didn't want to disrespect Maemi by going easy on her.

Emiru, who had been fighting against Tina, also fell to her knees, using her halberd as support while a large volume of blood was coughed up from her mouth. Still, though she had to be in a great deal of pain, Emiru's gaze remained resolute as she looked over towards the battlefield between her sister and Lili before activating the ability of Maemi's halberd, appearing and the latter's side and swinging her own weapon towards Lili. By activating their Innate, [Gemini], Maemi and Emiru had long discovered that they could use each other's soulbound equipment so they were very difficult to fight against under normal circumstances.

Lili, however, being a Level higher than the two girls, twisted her body while kicking off the ground with her right foot. Her body agilely twisted around Emiru's halberd at a near-zero distance before the curled up her body like a spring and kicked against the air itself. Though she wasn't that proficient at its use, Lili was capable of using [Koku Shundo] to create footholds in the air. Her means of using it, however, were vastly different than almost anyone else as she was actually able to make use of her own Innate, [Atlas], to trigger its effects against her own foothold. As a result, the energy from her attack shattered the foothold, causing a veritable pillar of formless energy to barrel towards Emiru's body, sending her careening over the landscape like a stone skipping across water.

This display had brought the spar between Mikoto and Haruhime to a temporary halt as they looked towards Lili with mildly shocked expressions. As for Tina and Shizune, who had been teaming up to fight against Emiru previously, they just looked at each other and gulped, both coming to an unspoken agreement not to antagonize Lili too much in the future. Still, though Emiru had been knocked away at a high speed, the actual damage the took hadn't been that great, significantly less than what she had suffered from the link she shared with Maemi.

The moment she managed to regain her footing, Emiru wiped the blood from her mouth and brought her hands together, forming a triangular shape with the empty space between her thumbs and fingers. A small blue sphere appeared between her hands, surrounded by a peculiar muted black aura that stranged emitted white light on the edges. Emiru took a deep breath and began to chant, "I beseech thee, Queen of the Frozen Tundra, Herald of Endless Winter! Come, Glacial Spear, Biting Cold! Imprison my Enemies in a Timeless Ice, Eternal Imprisonment! Framea Inanis Glacies~!"

With the completion of Emiru's chant, the relatively small sphere in her hands turned into a blue laser that was still shrouded in the same strange black and white glow, cutting through space in the blink of an eye. Lili, however, didn't make any attempt to dodge the attack and, before Emiru had even finished chanting, already struck forward with her fist. Her [Atlas' Grips] shone with a vibrant golden light as, instead of formless energy, a pillar of resplendent golden energy shot forth from Lili's hand and impacted the powerful magic spell.

Before the collision even happened, Emiru knew her attack wouldn't be able to overcome Lili's punches, which seemed to be able to tear through magic. This was well within her expectations and, using the moment when Lili had fully committed to her strike, Emiru blinked back to her halberd that had been left behind when she was first sent flying. Upon arrival, she placed her palm against Maemi's chest and sent a pulse of magic power into the latter's body, forcing her awake with the sudden stimulus. In an instant, their eyes met and, unlike in the past, where Emiru would always be absorbed by Maemi, the latter's eyes turned pale blue before she vanished into her younger sister's body.

Lili was already aware of the fact that Maemi had slipped in behind her but, instead of trying to move and attack immediately, she shouted out, "Haruhime! Mikoto! Truce! If we don't take down Maemiru together, we'll all lose!" Almost at the very instant her words had finished, Lili's eyes widened and she had to bring her arms together in a cross guard as two separate halberds smashed into her gauntlets. Then, even though she had blocked the strike with her indestructible gauntlets, Lili felt a sharp pain in both arms as a sticky and wet liquid began to fill up the small gaps in her [Atlas' Grips], an indicator that both of her arms had been 'cut' by Maemiru's attack.

Before Lili could react further, the heel of Maemiru's metal greaves struck Lili's exposed abdomen and, in a similar fashion as Emiru, Lili was sent flying across the ground. Unlike Emiru, however, she had managed to recover very quickly, not that it was much help to her since Maemi had already appeared behind her, striking her back with the flat of her halberd's heavy blade. Lili clenched her teeth, resisting the intense pain and, before she was sent flying again, created a foothold on the air and kicked against it. This caused her body to completely absorb the shockwave of Maemiru's attack, making her bones cry out in protest, but Lili was able to bear it and divert the former's attack and create an opening.

Maemiru's heterochromatic eyes flashed with surprise for a brief moment, but she was still much faster than Lili and managed to [Shunpo] away while tossing her second halberd to the side. Lili's punch cut through where Maemiru's head had been, sending a wave of pressure that tore through the dense space and caused it to 'break' in a few areas. Her eyes then followed where Maemiru had jumped to before turning her head in slow motion to see the second halberd still trailing through the air. Lili knew that, even if she tried to close the distance with Maemiru, the latter could simply blink to the second halberd and it would become increasingly more difficult to keep fighting as her body accumulated damage...

Fortunately for both of them, Lili had underestimated the damage both Maemi and Emiru had suffered before fusing together, something which had actually compounded when they became one. When she landed nearly 300m away, Maemiru was desperately trying to control her breathing while resisting the pain of six broken ribs and a punctured lung. She used the opportunity when Lili had hesitated to bring her free hand to her ribs and chant, "Let the grace of Jupiter be the cure for your sake. Cure~!" Having an affinity for water, light, and space magic, one of the first time the twins had ever learned was how to use basic recovery magic.

Just as she was about to re-engage Lili, Emiru's ears twitched and she immediately dropped low to the ground as a black blur, the result of a spatial tear, appeared where her neck had been. Mikoto, having closed the distance between them in an instant, was now standing behind Maemiru, sword already resheathed as her body lowered slightly. Maemiru, unable to resist, shouted out, "This is blatant bullying~!" before jumping to her spare halberd. As she anticipated, Haruhime was already there waiting for her, an illusory aura spreading out nearly ninety meters as she chuckled lightly and said, "It's because Maemiru is so powerful...I promise to make it up to you later~."

Maemiru grit her teeth and twisted her body in an acrobatic maneuver, swinging forward with her halberds far faster than Haruhime should have been able to respond to. Unfortunately, though her weapons seemed to strike true, they simply passed through Haruhime's smiling face as hundreds of sakura petals had, without her notice, already surrounded her body. Seeing this, Maemiru furrowed her brows deeply and brandished her halberds as an intense blue-black aura began radiating from her body, a sign she had activated her [Melodia Bellax] to increase her agility.

As futile as it might have been, Maemiru did her best to try and sweep away all of the sakura petals, even cutting apart nearly half of them before a few managed to slip through her guard and pass directly through her body, almost as if there was no resistance at all. Eventually, a light burst out of Maemiru's body and a small figure appeared on the ground, burning from head to toe as her strength more than doubled for a brief moment. The moment this happened, the petals immediately disappeared and Maemiru, even though she could use the opportunity to get her revenge, plopped down to the ground in defeat. This battle was over the moment an [Effigy of the Hero] had been triggered, making Maemiru the loser in their bi-weekly brawl...

Now that the battle was over, Vahn had moved next to the destitute Maemiru and reached out his hand to rub her fluffy rounded cat ears as he said, "Don't worry, Maemiru, while your body is in an inactive state, I will take care of you personally..." Upon hearing this, Maemiru's previously limp tail shot up like a metal rod and she turned her lilac-blue eyes up at him and mewled, "Master~." while rubbing her head against his palm. As for Haruhime, Lili, Mikoto, and, after they had walked over, Tina, and Shizune, it was now their turn to have expressions of defeat. Seeing this, Vahn laughed uninhibitedly and said, "I'll be done with Nanu's guidance pretty soon. If you girls want to make your way over to the central bath, I'll come to join you after I'm finished."

Seizing the opportunity, Haruhime let her four tails flicker in a rather enticing manner as she said, "Since I managed to win this time around, please help me wash my tails and ears, Master~." Since the 'victor' was commonly rewarded in some manner by Vahn, Haruhime wanted to make her intentions clear from the start so as to avoid other people seizing the initiative. Though she would certainly prefer a 'different' reward, she, like all of the other girls, was being considerate of Tina, at least for the time being.

With Haruhime's words as a catalyst, Lili immediately jumped forward, arm raised as she said, "Ah, I want you to show my body with your bare hands~!", followed by Shizune saying, "I'll be happy if you brush my tail after the bath..." This left Mikoto, Lefiya, and Tina as the only ones who hadn't made any demands, though the mild blush on Mikoto's face showed that she would likely keep her request secret until later, even though she could have simply sent it to him telepathically. As for Lefiya, she hadn't really participated in the battle royale and was fully confident that she would be able to get benefits of her own when Vahn trained with Ais, Tiona, or Tione later...

Being the last one to have a 'claim' to make, Tina had stepped forward, similar to Lili, but ended up catching her foot on the edge of a rock. The ground had been completely destroyed as a result of the previous fight though, even if it had been perfectly flat, Tina's A-Rank [Luck] would have found a way to trip her. This was an event that everyone had become used to but, even though it was futile to try and stop her, Lili and Mikoto tried to reach out to Tina as Vahn prepared to blink away with [Shundo].

While trying to move away, though the odds were impossibly small, Vahn found that his anchor point was interfered with by the instability of the space at the very instant he tried to move away. At the same time, Lili felt the pain in her body act up, causing her to divert her hand slightly, a part of her gauntlet catching the strap of Tina's breastplate and severing it. Mikoto, distracted by Lili's actions, hesitated in her own and managed to somehow trip herself, pushing her palm against Tina's back and speeding up her momentum instead of stopping her.

Tina barreled towards the wryly smiling Vahn as Maemiru tried to move to block the seemingly unstoppable young Cat Person. This coincided with her own body going into an inactive state, causing Maemiru to fall forward with her outstretched hand, grasping the belt attached to Tina's shorts and pulling them down with her fall while Tina tumbled over Maemiru's body, flipping over completely as her butt managed to plant itself firmly against Vahn's face.

Though Tina's momentum would have been enough to knock him back, Vahn had anchored himself while trying to use his telekinesis in a final effort to stop her tumble. His efforts were for naught as, though he managed to stop her momentum, she had already done a full 360-degree rotation and was squeezing his head with her thighs while his nose and mouth were buried into her panties, his own cartoonish face smiling back at him.

Tina, feeling the sudden stimulus, tightly closed her thighs together and hugged his head, seemingly forgetting about the situation. Vahn couldn't even pull her away easily as, her shorts that had been lowered around her knees had actually managed to get behind his head, making any attempt to move her away just pull her shorts further down. It was fortunate that he was able to avoid breathing, or moving his mouth, or the situation might have gotten even more out of hand...

After more time than it should have taken, Tina finally recovered her senses and, with the help of the other girls, managed to pry herself away from Vahn with a beet red face. Even so, her tail was twitching excitedly, at least until Haruhime lightly patted her head and, with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, said, "I believe that qualifies as your reward..." Tina's expression immediately turned into one of shock but, after looking around and seeing the other girls in agreement with Haruhime, lowered her head embarrassedly and said, "Okay...nyaa..."

Over at Nanu's workshop, Vahn was somewhat dazed, unable to believe what had just occurred with his main body. That was the most extreme way he had ever seen Tina's [Luck] activate and he felt she must be pretty close to reaching S-Rank, unlocking an even higher form of [Luck] in the near future. There weren't even any records of the higher form of the skill, as it had never once appeared since the founding of the Guild, so Vahn was both interested and terrified to see what it would become. If its influence was already this extreme, it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that Tina would somehow manage to 'slip' through space itself and end up in bed with him as he was having sex with another girl...

Just imagining the 'impossibilities' that Tina might make a reality one day, Vahn withheld a sigh and instead produced a wry expression as he continued his happy times with Nanu. She had already finished working on the task he had assigned her, creating a hybrid composite of Mithril, Green Dragon Scales, and Dragon's Bone Meal. This resulted in a workable piece of metal that had moderate conductivity with mana that was also much lighter than the base materials. Though it had a somewhat 'porous' quality, this actually made it even more suitable for absorbing shockwaves. Later, Nanu would forge it into a shield to be used by Milan or Tina, though not before engraving a formation into it under his guidance.

Nanu, having enjoyed the personal guidance of her Master over the last four hours, was showing an extremely contented expression on her face as laid across his lap with her belly up. Though he wasn't pushing his [Grooming] to any extremes, Vahn's touch was still very pleasant and she kept twitching her arms and legs happily whenever his fingers caress the tender and soft skin below her belly button.

Vahn's fondness for Chienthropes always reached an extreme level whenever he was with any of them alone like this, as both Anubis and Naaza also behaved in a similar manner. Though he had a great appreciation for all Beast Humans, the 'honest' reaction of Chienthropes made his heart melt in a way only the three adorable girls could manage. It wasn't quite at the level of when he was watching over his daughters, nor during the intimate an intense moments he would sometimes share with every girl, but it was still a very refreshing experience. He even humored the thought that, if everyone in the world could just have an adorable Chienthrope to pet, all of the world's problems could be solved...

(A/N: Alternate Titles: 'Lili's space-breaking punches (O_O)','Don't bulli Meido-chans~!','The key to world peace?')