Chapter 11: Honeymoon (8)

~11.8~

*****

A few minutes later, Kye, Alethea, and Hannah showed up where the two boys were competing with random strangers.

“Come one, come all!” said Johnathan.

“Test yourselves against a royal!” said Joseph.

“And win a prize!”

Kye and company were hidden in the crowd. As they approached, she smirked and said to Hannah, “I can beat them. Shall I embarrass them?”

“Oh, I like that. Give them a taste of their own medicine. Do it! I’ll just stay back here so they don’t scram right away.”

Kye nodded and jumped forward over the crowd, with Alethea right behind her. “Heya boys, you’re royals? Mind if I try? I’ve been practicing!”

“Hey there, pretty lady. Of course! Our challenge is open to everyone!” said Johnathan.

“Hey, don’t you come on to my girl!” Alethea shouted.

“Oh, the pretty blonde is taken? Too bad, Johnny,” said Joseph.

“Yeah, but what’s a guy to do? Guess I’ll just have to win the challenge and impress everyone else instead.”

“Hey, don’t count the lady out just yet, you never know!”

“Right you are, brother. Okay, miss, go right ahead. All you gotta do is shoot a blast of mana across the water and make a splash! The bigger the better! Do you have a manasteel weapon, or do you need to borrow a sword?”

Kye nodded and stepped up, transforming her aethersteel bracelet into a katana. “I’m good!”

“Going with a katana? Nice. We haven’t had a katana wielder join the challenge in a while. Let’s see what you’ve got! After you go, I’ll see if I can top it. If I can’t, you win a prize!”

“Oh, what’s the prize?”

He pointed at the resort branded beach shop. “All you can eat on us. But you gotta let us eat with ya.”

Kye smiled and asked Alethea, “What do you think, babe?”

“I don’t like sharing you, babe, but if it’s all you can eat on them, then okay.”

“Alright, here we go!” Joseph said. “How big will it be?”

Kye nodded and poured some mana into her blade before swinging it. She launched a small blast of mana across the surface. It threw up a splash about twenty feet high on either side.

“Alright, we’ve got our challenger’s entry. Now let’s see if she can beat a royal!”

Johnathan stepped up and launched a stronger blast of mana that generated a twenty-five-foot-tall splash.

“Oh, too bad, miss. But you’re welcome to try again if you think you can do better!”

Kye nodded. “Okay, let’s try again. But what do you say about making a bet out of it?”

“Oh, now we’re talking,” Johnathan said with a smirk. “What do you have in mind?”

“If I win, you’ll give us your regular prize… and you’ll arrange an audience with Lady Hannah!”

“And if you lose?”

“My partner and I here?”

“Uh, huh?”

“We’ll go on a double date with you boys.”

“What?!” Alethea added, putting on her best pouty face to add to the act.

“You got a deal, missy! Alright, go ahead! Let’s see what you’ve got!”

Kye nodded and stepped up.

Alright, let’s do a little mental math. They have about a decade on me. Their normal output is around five billion. My normal output is about ninety-five million, so that’s a bit short. But, if I use Mana Burst… Heh. A single one thousand-fold burst ought to embarrass them. I’ll build up to it, actually. I’ll do a simple 10x compression.

Kye swung her blade one more time, but with considerably more power behind it. A golden sword wave jetted across the water and created a much larger splash, over a hundred feet tall. There were invisible barriers in place to prevent the backlash from spreading out to the rest of the beach to keep people safe from the competition.

“Oh, that’s a nice one,” Joseph said.

“Yes, indeed, but I think I can do a little better!” Johnathan said.

“Sorry, one moment, boys. I was just warming up a bit.” Kye made a show of stretching, then gripped her blade once more. “Is there a time limit on charging up?”

“Ten seconds.”

“Alright. Want to see a neat trick?” Kye smirked. She held the blade above her head, but did nothing for ten seconds.

“Are you going to do anything?” “Last chance!”

Suddenly, she brought her sword down. She had spent those ten seconds carefully calculating for her Mana Burst, as well as checking the surrounding bay to see exactly where was safe for her display of power. Once she determined a safe path, she acted. In the single millisecond before she unleashed her attack, she executed the Mana Burst. “<<Seiken>>!”

She unleashed an enormous wave of light aether from her blade that bolted outward at an incredible speed and threw up water over a kilometer in the air. The force was so great that it shattered the barriers in place that were keeping everyone else safe. Alethea unleashed her white aether to quickly generate barriers on either side to prevent the sudden tsunami from reaching anyone. The path Kye’s attack took left the water parted for several miles out to sea, all the way to the sea floor. It continued on through the gap in the barrier mountains surrounding the bay and continued further into the open sea. A thin film of white aether could be seen across the sea floor, indicating that Alethea was protecting everything from Kye’s overwhelming attack.

In the far distance, the immense blast of mana detonated, sending up an equally impressive explosion of gold aether.

The crowd roared, having never seen anything like Kye’s performance before.

“Holy shit!” “What the hell?!” The brothers were wide-eyed and mouths open.

As the water splashed back down and began to settle, Kye spun around and flicked her sword to the side, before spinning it around a bit and sheathing it in a very boastful fashion. “Okay, boys, that’s my real entry!” She gave them a grin with her fingers held up in a ‘V’.

They slowly turned their heads and saw the grinning blonde. Joseph was the first to react. “How?”

“Who even are you?” Johnathan asked. “That was…”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I think you won,” Joseph said. “We can’t beat that. Where did you even learn that move? Seiken is an epic-tier skill! And you did it without any buildup!”

“I can do better,” Kye said as she transformed her weapon back into a bracelet, “but any more than that and we might start getting too dangerous for civilians to be present.” She glanced around. Eyes were on her as far as she could see. “As things stand, I’ve already gotten the attention of every person that could see that.”

“Yeah, I don’t think more is necessary. You broke our barriers, and your partner threw up such enormous barriers to block the water… hold up that was divine mana!” The brothers suddenly realized what had just happened.

“And those barriers! That was WHITE MANA! You’re-?!”

Alethea smirked. “Alethea Atlantis, at your service!” The crowd gasped at Alethea’s introduction.

“And you…” Johnathan looked back at Kye. “Of all people that could be hanging out with the legendary white mana user… someone that can instant cast an epic tier… a skill that was invented by-”

“Goddess of Light, Kye Akari, at your service!” May as well use my stupid title in my favor. This should really get them.

*****

Revision: 2024-2-7

A/N: Advanced Chapters are now available on Patreon! See profile for links!