Séraphine had to resist the urge to use her special vision. She knew that if she did, she could discover many things about the enemy in front of her. However, she could also suffer terrible reprisals, as the boy's words confirmed.
"Your eyes bother me. You want to look at me with them again, don't you? With that green glow... I want to take them out." The entity waved its fingers, showing the witch how and with what it would rip out her eyes without needing to speak.
"There are answers within you that I cannot obtain. You confuse me too much." Rubin reached his small hand toward Séraphine, trying to touch her, but the witch took another step back. The boy's face wrinkled in obvious annoyance.
"You have a lot of strange smells on you. But there's a scent on your body that I've smelled before. It's very similar to those confusing guys," the creature said in a darker tone. Then, he stood on tiptoe and sniffed the air, making the brunette feel uncomfortable.
"I don't like you at all. It seems you don't like me either, which makes me hate you even more," Rubin continued. His voice was filled with obvious anger as he punched Séraphine in the abdomen, sending her flying several meters into the air.
Her body fell heavily to the ground and rolled a few meters before coming to a stop. The blow knocked the wind out of her, making it difficult to breathe. The searing pain that spread throughout her entire being made it worse.
"You don't want to be around me, but what you keep ignoring is that this is... Hmm?" Rubin looked back, trying to find something in particular, but he didn't have much success.
He did notice, however, that Madeleine had regained consciousness but decided to stay on the ground. She couldn't get up after the beating Rubin had given her.
Then there was Élodie, kneeling and trying to stand while leaning on her warhammer. The blonde's blue eyes were fixed on the red-skinned child. However, both her exhaustion and the blow that had put her in this state were not things she could overcome so easily.
"What was that? I've been feeling some strange things for a while now..." the boy murmured, distracting himself enough for someone to act in his presence.
Sasha took advantage of Rubin's inattention and floated over Séraphine. Her hands emitted aether, and small sparks of energy fell on the witch. This alleviated her pain and numbness slightly.
The fairy's action allowed the brunette to move more fluidly. She tried to sit up, but saw a pair of red feet appear in front of her.
"Who said you could get up? Did I?" Rubin asked, speaking in the third person. Not finding what had attracted her attention, she refocused on Séraphine.
Seeing the witch try to stand up, the spiritual creature felt satisfied. His great power allowed him to do whatever he wanted! He smiled and then kicked Séraphine hard in the face.
Two sounds followed: the crack of Séraphine's nose and the sonic boom caused by Rubin's movement. However, Rubin didn't want to destroy the witch's head yet, so he controlled the force of his kick.
The blow was powerful enough to lift Séraphine's body into the air and spin her around, causing her to fall on her back. Blood from her face splattered her blouse and the floor.
Rubin reappeared next to the witch with something new in his hand. Sasha's body. Although he wasn't squeezing her, the expression on the fairy's face made it obvious that she wasn't comfortable with the spiritual creature's touch.
Séraphine struggled to open her green eyes and watch the scene unfold. A strong feeling of helplessness rose in the witch's heart, which the crimson child noticed. He laughed as he waved the fragile fairy body in front of the brunette as if it were a doll.
"Hehehe! This little thing participated, too, didn't it? I'm going to turn it into paste..." Rubin's voice stopped abruptly when an explosion shattered his head.
Perhaps it was because of the unusual nature of the attack, or because he had found a way to hurt the child, but this time, Rubin did not react as he usually did to injuries.
His body staggered erratically as he moved away from the witch he had struck. His hands shook wildly. Although his head was splitting and he couldn't speak, a mental scream spread through him. They had finally caused him pain.
His hand opened, releasing Sasha. She took this opportunity to approach Séraphine, whose nose and lips were covered in blood. Yet, her gaze was fixed elsewhere, observing a small dot in the distance.
It had been a long time since the witch had suffered damage. When she faced Mirian yesterday or dealt with Howard Stone in the previous fight, she hadn't been hurt. Now, however, her face was stained with her own blood.
Her head ached from the blow, her nose stung from the blood, and she could barely breathe due to congestion. She had to open her mouth to get air, which allowed her to taste her blood.
But her spirits, previously low, seemed revitalized. Her eyes, dazzled by the previous kick, tried to focus on the red-haired woman kneeling on the ground with a long gun emitting a trickle of smoke.
Reinforcements had arrived.
𑄝𑄝𑄝𑄝𑄝𑄝𑄝
Francisca had arrived to see what was happening, but she decided not to attack first. She was glad she had been paranoid and had brought many enchanted objects with her, which helped her get there with relative ease.
Without mentioning her red contact lenses again, the redhead wore a bracelet with stealth enchantments on her hand, which was perfect for an alchemist like her who used a sniper rifle as her main weapon.
In her current environment, she wore a necklace with a medallion bearing characters from her homeland. The medallion provided her with protection from the free spiritual energy in this space, preventing it from accumulating in her body and corrupting her.
She didn't understand why this spiritual fragment was there, except that the energy within it had increased sharply at one point. This made her more cautious and urgent.
To improve her situational awareness, she wore earrings that enhanced her hearing, which was ideal for an environment as dangerous as the one she was in.
These four simple pieces of equipment helped her navigate the spiritual fragment and avoid enemies that would consume her time. She could feel herself lacking time, so this help was invaluable.
She arrived at this place having taken a different path from Séraphine and her group so that she wouldn't have to climb those stairs. She was hundreds of meters away from the large platform that had housed a temple in the past.
With her contact lenses, she observed the strange child who seemed to be in a spiritual field. This phenomenon had been seen in other beings of the Spiritual World, but this being's use of it was particularly special.
'If they act in his field, he can sense it. His body prepares itself so as not to suffer harm, and he can teleport himself into the aura covered by his power. Turn all this spiritual space into your domain?
What a joke! You just radiated your power; nothing more. Not only does he look like a child, but he also acts and thinks like one.' Having heard those words, Francisca scoffed, knowing it was pure bravado.
However, she recognized the immense power possessed by the being who called himself Rubin. She loaded one of her most powerful enchanted bullets into her sniper rifle, ready to blow his head off with one shot.
Since he was outside her range, her attack could not hurt him. The alchemist activated her stealth device to its maximum to prevent the energy signature of her weapon from being detected.
This way, the redhead wouldn't waste her first shot, the most important and valuable. She put her eye to the scope, aimed at the creature's head, took a breath, and stood still like a statue.
Then, she pulled the trigger. Her weapon made no noise when it fired; only streaks of red light emerged from the pale wood of her rifle, propelling the bullet to levels beyond those of a standard weapon.
A beam of light shot through the air at supersonic speeds, striking Rubin's skull directly and exploding instantly. Nothing remained but the neck that had previously housed a head.
Before anything else could happen, Francisca noticed Séraphine's gaze. Although there was a considerable distance between them, the redhead moved her lips before shaking the bolt of her sniper rifle. Its magazine could hold five bullets.
She had four left. Seeing the spiritual being try to recover with part of its head reassembled, she aimed for a different area: its chest. After pulling the trigger again, the left side of the entity's torso exploded.
There were three bullets left. Rubin fell to the ground from the impact of the previous shot, which made it much easier for Francisca to aim. She fired again a few seconds later.
One of the creature's legs exploded. This time, the head, which was now lying on the neck, let out a loud cry of pain that shook the fragment of the spiritual world. This was all because of the energy Rubin had previously dispersed.
Two bullets remained. Her red eye made direct eye contact with the child's pink eyes. However, his ability to become indifferent to pain and injury was useless if Francisca's actions were outside his field of vision.
From the first shot, pink blood splattered all over the floor, staining the entire place the same way Séraphine's and Madeleine's red blood had. This made it seem not as special as he had believed, which made him very angry.
"Damn it! Come here!" In a show of desperation, Rubin pointed his hand at Francisca's position. A large amount of energy accumulated in his palm and was fired in the form of a beam.
As a sniper, how could she not know that, after a couple of shots, she had to move? She was already prepared to change positions, and the crimson-haired boy's actions only sped up the process.
The beam of spiritual energy, as thick as a jet of water, passed by the redhead. She clicked her tongue at this blatant waste of energy and lack of control.
'A competent spiritual creature would have controlled that attack better. This child is only powerful, nothing more,' the alchemist concluded. However, she did not relax, especially after seeing her previous position.
The place where Francisca had arrived seemed to have been an altar, with broken stone idols. Now, all of that had been blown up, leaving a two-meter-deep crater.
Although she was running, the redhead was able to shoot while moving. She fired again, this time at the arm Rubin had previously used to attack her, causing the child to scream in pain.
There was one bullet left, one more special than the previous ones, which she wanted to use, so she knelt on the ground, held her breath, and aimed at the entity's head again. In just a few seconds, she had the target secured, so she fired.
This time, she not only blew Rubin's skull apart, but also unleashed thick arcs of electricity along with the fire from the explosion. The arcs spread across the young spirit creature's remaining body, burning and destroying it.
Knowing this wouldn't kill the being, Francisca stowed the magazine of her sniper rifle in her space ring. Then she took out another magazine, inserted it, and cocked the weapon, ready for action.
There were five bullets left, which gave the girls time to recover. If Howard Stone was the first round and Rubin's show of power and Francisca's shots were the second, then the third was yet to come.
The women should be prepared for it.