Chapter 40: Steel Shelled Turtle (2)
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'W-would that work?' The little kitten's eyes suddenly lit up with an excited gleam, though there was also an apparent apprehensive look to them as well. 'Could the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' pierce through this beast's shell?'

The 'Sky Piercing Bolt was the second spell of the 'Arrow Shattering Sky' Art's first stage, the Foundation Stage. As its name suggests, instead of crafting an arrow, the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' produces a bolt like one would find being used with crossbows.

While the 'Sky Piercing Arrow' relies on its swiftness and sharpness, the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' is known for its powerful strength and piercing ability. If any of her known attacks were going to get her through this conundrum, it would be this spell...

The only problem was that she had not yet gotten around to training in this spell yet. Her only solace is that the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' is akin to the 'Sky Piercing Arrow' spell in design and construct, and that it is also a Late Stage Minor Rank spell. Being a Metal Elemental spell, which is her most aligned element, the chances of her learning the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' spell in such a short amount of time wasn't too outrageous a task.

She could only try...

'Let me first search my memories and see what I can remember about what the 'Arrow Shattering Sky' Art's Echo Stone taught me about the 'Sky Piercing Bolt'.'

After spending several seconds reminiscing, the little kitten's closed eyes opened with a confident gleam. 'I can do this!'

The little kitten slowly exhaled before her eyes turned serious and her feline mouth opened to sing a new chant, similar to the 'Sky Piercing Arrow' spell, but also unique to itself as well.

Soon, across from the little kitten, a hovering glob of metal formed in the air. Quite quickly, that glob of metal elongated into a small pole, only around 20 inches in length. At its furthest point, the pole came to a sharp point and at the end closest to the kitten, delicate little metal wings formed on the bolts end. Compared to the wings on the 'Sky Piercing Arrow' which were like angel's wings, the wings for the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' were sharper and held a more menacing air.

'Nice, the construction is perfect!' The little kitten exclaimed in delight. 'Now then, let me see how powerful you are, 'Sky Piercing Bolt'!'

The 'Sky Piercing Bolt' curved upwards before shooting forward with tremendous velocity, heading straight in the direction of the still Steel Shelled Turtle. In seconds, the metallic bolt reached its target and a loud, cracking sound resounded throughout the small, white room.

The little kitten's greenish-red eyes lit up in excitement as the 'Sky Piercing Bolt pierced into the Steel Shelled Turtle's hard shell, digging straight through and disappearing in a spurt of crimson blood as the bolt proceeded to pierce into the turtle beast's body that laid inside.

'Haha, it worked! It worked!' The little kitten cheered with a few joyful hops. 'The 'Sky Piercing Bolt' is so powerful!!'

Meanwhile, the Steel Shelled Turtle was recoiling in pain as its mouth gaped open to let out a long drawn out shrill cry of pain. For the first time since the beast first retracted its body parts into its shell, the beast's long head shot out of the shell's front gap and twisted to face the offender of its pain.

The little kitten gritted her teeth as she glared back at the turtle who was currently throwing daggers her way through its glaring eyes as it shrieked at her.

Then, the turtle took time out of its shrieking cries to sing a chant. The little kitten noticed that this was a different chant from the spell it had cast before and became vigilant as she awaited for the Steel Shelled Turtle's upcoming action, ready to react in whatever way was needed.

When the Steel Shelled Turtle's chant came to an end, an azure glow began to brighten its eyes and its mouth began to bloat.

'Is it about to spit something out of its mouth?' The little kitten asked instinctively upon seeing this scene and she lent her small body low, ready to pounce away and dodge whatever this beast was about to throw her way.

"GRUAAAAAH!!!" The Steel Shelled Turtle's croaky voice bellowed outwards in an ear shattering growl as a deep azure glow converged around its gaping mouth. That azure glow suddenly took on a silver sheen before shooting out of the beast's mouth in a terrifying beam of azure-silver light.

That silver-azure beam shot straight at the little kitten who looked at the upcoming threat dumbly.

'A... Beam?!' The little kitten exclaimed in fright as her small legs got to work, cracks forming under them as she leapt out of the beam's trajectory in haste.

Yet, despite avoiding that beam of silver-azure light, she was unable to fully escape the after effects caused by this attack that descended upon the spot where she once stood. When that silver-azure beam of light struck the ground, the beam expanded in a spherical radius of around five meters, nearly enveloping the little kitten whole before she was propelled outwards from the blast wave caused by the explosion.

The 'Ravager Armour' cracked and shattered all over, barely sticking together while the little kitten's body was cut apart terribly due to the beam's blast, spurting blood in various places, that began to coat her silver armour and fur a crimson colour.

Her body tumbled through the air as she is pushed out of the spell's blast radius before she falls to the ground, tumbling until she bashes into a far wall, cracks forming in her wake.

The little kitten's eyes open warily as she slowly recovers from the great pain aching throughout her small body. She spits out a glob of crimson blood before attempting to stand up from her prone position. Her legs shake as she pulls herself up, but she is clearly worse for ware.

The little kitten turns her attention to the Steel Shelled Turtle to find that, to her surprise, that the beast was also looking pretty beat up. Its mouth was gaping open as it breathed heavily, visibly steaming. Its eyes also looked dim.

'It must have took a lot of aura to produce such a killer attack... Looks like this is not over yet!' The little kitten's eyes lit up in confidence once more before she sang out in a chant, summoning the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' once more.

'I can't hold on much longer with all the damage I've taken... I need to end this quickly!' The little kitten gritted her teeth. 'While the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' dealt quite a good amount of damage back then, it would still take several more hits to finish this beast off... I need to up the ante... And I know exactly what to try!'

The little kitten's eyes took on a peculiar gleam and she let a long breath. Meanwhile, the Steel Shelled Beast had also begun to recover as its breathing evened out to some level of normalcy once more. The beast's head retreated into its shell once again, leaving only its gleaming eyes visible as it continues to glare at the little kitten.

A few seconds, later, the Steel Shelled Beast was singing in a chant, summoning those metallic spears from before. This time however, they spent no time hiding and seemed to swim openly in the air and ground as they crisscrossed and charged forth in a waving snake-like motion towards the little kitten.

As the little kitten watched this, she suddenly began to sing another chant and soon a familiar, orange flame ignited into life and took on the form of a slithering snake. It was the 'Wandering Glow' spell.

'Lets hope this works.' The little kitten let out a nervous exhale as her eyes narrowed in concentration. But before she could act, she found that the Steel Shelled Turtle's spell was fast incoming. Those metallic spikes were just seconds from piercing through her already wounded body. She could not afford to go lax.

The little kitten jumped to safety, just as those spikes crashed into the wall where she once stood, piercing deeply into the walls foundation. Meanwhile, the little kitten's eyes instantly changed target, from those spikes to the floating 'Wandering Glow' spell and the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' spell which had followed her during her escape.

'Now!' The little kitten gritted her teeth while those two spells suddenly shot into action, blasting forward in conjunction with each other towards the Steel Shelled Turtle.

Within seconds, the 'Sky Piercing Bolt' and the 'Wandering Glow' spell's trajectory grew steadily closer until eventually, the two began to overlap, the flaming snake of the 'Wandering Glow' spell overlapping with the metallic bolt that was the 'Sky Piercing Bolt'!

'I'll call the combination of these two spells, the 'Bolt of the Blazing Snake'!' The little kitten declared as her narrowed eyes watched on nervously.

Meanwhile, those steel spikes were still in action after missing its target the first time. However, the little kitten couldn't spare the time to split her attention when she was performing a new spell that was so crucial to her victory to dodge this upcoming attack.

In this desperate moment where she felt she might just have to suffer this deadly attack head on, sacrificing her body to deal a possibly finishing blow, it was at this time she suddenly remembered another option.

The bracelet!

Back in Evergale City, when the little kitten and Jonathan visited the 'Howling Paragon' and bought all those spells for her, Jonathan had also bought her a collar that allowed for emergency communication between the two of them, and he also bought her a protective collar as well. But it was the bracelet that brought hope in this crucial situation.

This bracelet, when activated, would seek out a target and explode in a blast of aura, like a smaller and more crude version of the Steel Shelled Turtle's attack from earlier.

The little kitten wasted no time after thinking of this method and directed a strand of her aura towards her right paw and activated the bracelet from where it lay.

Once activated, a white blast suddenly shot out and, directed by the kitten, shot towards the incoming metallic spikes, blasting directly on them. A large boom resounded the room as a blast several meters wide shook the whole room, succeeding in actually breaking those metallic spikes into several pieces and redirecting the rest of the metallic spike's careening off course to scrape against the floor, becoming lifeless for the moment. The Steel Shelled Turtle's connection to the spell had been disconnected in this blast.

While the little kitten had safely protected herself from that imminent threat, the 'Bolt of the Blazing Snake' blazed through the small room, the flaming bolt reaching its destination in less than a few seconds, striking the Steel Shelled Turtle before it even had the time to react.

The Steel Shelled Turtle instantly let out a loud, guttural scream of pure pain as the flaming bolt brutally pierced through its steel shell and penetrated its body, the flaming snake boiling its innards in a matter of seconds.

As the little kitten watched on, she found herself a little horrified as the beast slowly succumbed to the pain and thrashed about aimlessly inside its massive shell, as if trying to ward off the pain desperately. Soon, that loud, ear piercing cry slowly grew hoarse and quietened down until it became but a whisper, and then eventually, the Steel Shelled Turtle emitted sound no more.

Watching this, the little kitten's only reaction was to hug the floor in her exhaustion. She had finally beat the third test, and without losing consciousness this time... Though she could feel that she was cutting it close, her aura and body completely exhausted...

'Hehe... I knew I was awesome. Now there is only one test left... Just one more.' The little kitten purred. Her eyes were hazy in here exhaustion, yet they also held a bright gleam as she thought on with excitement at how close she was now that she had passed another test

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