The Exalt [Cultivation Fantasy]

Garantulem's Kraken Mode was the second form of Gol-4's prized creation. The airships would detach from several others while keeping the link to one other, forming a line. The airships acted as joints and gained the capability of moving and extending outward like tentacles. The purpose was to lure in the approaching enemies when they came too close and surround them with the arches of ships. In no time, a hellfire of attacks would come in all directions, reducing the hapless enemy inside the prison of ships.

Just like a Kraken opening its maw to feed on whatever its tentacles had caught, Garatulem fed on the burning shreds of the lured enemy. Before setting out, Oscar activated the Kraken mode on all four sides to entrap the enemy's fleets. Blasts of flames and steel thundered on all corners as Garantulem let loose all its firepower on the enemy's rears, flanks, and fronts. Keeping himself calm, Oscar flew out of the open hatch into the clear sky and observed the enemy, the Vorpalares still speeding, gunning straight for the flagship with the sharpest Ein, ever-flowing blades like a churning saw, coursing through their heads.

The battle wasn't over yet. Oscar patted his chest on the strand of Ein, which connected him to Garantulem's core. He needed to cut off this connection to go out and fight against the enemy. He gave it two final commands, and Garatulem pulsed and hummed in a low metallic groan, firing out four great drills. Oscar laughed, recalling the ridiculous name Gol-4 had for these weapons. A name that certainly never made it into the history books, the Swampy Zapper.

"Divide the healers to go the four groups and go out to meet the enemy. Protect the zappers until our cannons finish off the rest of their fleet." Oscar ordered. His second command to Garantulem was to continue firing without pause. He cut off his connection to Garantulem and turned toward a particular direction, a bead of sweat dripping down his brow. His warrior instincts, mixed with his beastly ones, regarded that fleet as the most dangerous. Then, a rush of Ein rippling from that place cemented his suspicions to be true.

'Grade Eight….' The presence of that Ein was staggering. Oscar cracked his fists and turned back to the soldiers behind him. Their armor clattered around like a baby's rattle, and even the sounds of their teeth clinking against each joined in the chaos. Were they afraid? Oscar didn't blame them for being so. He remembered something Adam had told him a few months ago while training together after the end of the war for the Burning Valley.

'Oscar, you said you fought with several Grade Eights before, but most were in spars and one-off tournament matches. The only real battle against a Grade Eight you mentioned was against the flame girl, but a younger and inexperienced brat isn't much to speak of.'

'Still, drawing against her is an impressive feat. I'll give you that. But be wary. A higher grade isn't only about the speed of progress. It's their anima. Their true potential begins to show at the Meld stage. The Reis will help against the other differences, but the Meld will be the most difficult.'

Oscar lifted his hand to his face and clenched it hard. How far was he now from when he lost to Charles and barely scrapped against Maia? He released a small Ripple Shroud and forced everyone else quiet, their attention focusing on his back. He said in a deep voice, "Follow me. I'll show you how a Grade Eight will fall."

Releasing a stream of Reis from his feet, Oscar bolted through the air and zipped above, staring down at the location of the enemy's Vorpalare. The long pyramid, spear-like airship appeared more like a handheld weapon rather than a ship. At the very tip, his Swampy Zapper already released its dense, viscous Ein into a sphere, an ever-swirling entrapment meant to stall, but only for a short time against these Vorpalares.

"Let's go, Erden." Oscar bumped his fist against Erden's stretched-out hoof, the metal gloves ringing clearly against the crystal hoof. The next moment, he unleashed his Ein and saw a figure respond with incredibly hot and powerful meteors of fire aimed straight at him. Past the flames, he couldn't believe his eyes and strained harder to see. The strange person with a familiar bed of white hair and ruby eyes wasn't Maia Claude, but the flames Oscar held back with his shield felt similar.

Oscar withstood the harsh explosion, protecting his body with Edureisclad and Ripple Shroud. Behind the veil of smoke, he said, "Fire, white hair, and red eyes….Are you related to the Claude Family?" Oscar knew it was far too much of a coincidence to have a similar flame and the same distinct features.

"A Grade Six? You must be an interesting person to get out of that unscathed. Is that also a Prielapos? Our intel never showed anyone like you ever in the empire. Who are you?" The stranger didn't answer and posed his own questions.

"What does that matter to a dead man?" Oscar glanced at the battle below between his men and the enemy forces. He checked the status of the Swampy Zapper and noted the time he had to defeat the enemy, ten minutes.

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"Talking is useless now. You can die first." The stranger burst into flames, the fires coiling around him along his arms and legs like steel bands of a fighter. His malice and intent to kill burst from the cold, red eyes, landing directly on Oscar. He said in a chilling voice, opposite the hot flames emanating from his body, "I am Willet Claude. Now, who are you?"

Oscar scanned Willet from top to bottom. The flames were particularly eye-catching. The visage of Maia Claude overlapped with Willet's at this moment, and he smiled under his helmet. It wasn't her, but the opportunity for a different form of revenge had shown itself, or rather, himself, to him. "How is that girl, Maia, doing?"

"You dare speak her name?!" Willet's response came instantly in a storm of fire. Embers cascaded into flames into infernos that swirled and rushed out like the mouths of a hydra.

Oscar remained unfazed and drove his power to mix and spread over his body. The Guise expanded outwardly from his body, enveloping him in the freeing power of Eirin. His blue Eirin antlers extended from his helmet. Oscar raised his shield and swiped it across, right to left. His golden maw spell bit down on four of the flaming heads, melting slightly but holding firmly onto them until they all fell apart into a mess of molten metal and embers.

Erden rushed out ahead, flapping his antler wings repeatedly. Fire streamed from the tips of the antlers forming the wings and gathered into waves of pure flame, exploding on the surfaces of the enemy's spells. His Eirin and Erden's flames were on par with the Grade Eight Willet, the enemy's spells failing to burn even the tips of his robes.

"My plans for you have changed, stranger," Willet said, pointing a finger at him. "Your fate is to be my prisoner. Why do you speak her name as if you know her personally? I'll dig it out of you!" His Ein spiked to tremendous levels, distorting the air around him. It coalesced and began to take form. The creature that came from this had six thin legs, long and bent at the joints, large oval wings without feathers, closer to thin slivers of glass with veins wriggling inside, a pair of large, bulging eyes, gleaming like thousands of diamonds clumped together.

A fly? Oscar was flabbergasted for the first time in a while. He had never seen a fly anima before. Most Grade Eights had more practical weapons or awe-inspiring beasts as their anima. He found it baffling that Willet possessed this strange anima. Oscar regained his senses and summoned his own deer anima, knowing now was no time to be distracted. He and Willet both melded their animas.

Oscar melded his anima into Erden, and Erden transformed into his sapphire-armored form from hoof to antler, not a single spot exposed. Flames sprouted on the legs, wings, and antlers, surging and appearing like divine flames on the mythical Prielapos.

Willet melded his anima into a spiked flail, a stretch of long chains wrapped around his right arm with a large spiky metal ball, the size of a boulder, at the end. The weapon became dark red, small fly wings beating along every link along the chain and the spikes on the ball, filling the air with the sounds of their buzzing. But the most grotesque was the countless eyes, a fly's compound eyes, blinking on the surface of the flail, from the spiked ball to the tip of the chain.

It looked made entirely of a fly's eyes and wings, no longer shining from its lost metallic sheen but burning with flames along its blinking eyes and beating wings.

Oscar acted first. He threw out a rain of golden rods, all converging on Willet's location. Willet smirked and turned his hip, swinging the spiked flail. The countless beating wings sprouted flames, turning the flail into a fiery blur. Only a blazing storm remained as a reminder of the path it had taken. The golden rods shot through the firestorms and melted before reaching Willet.

"Just like your family to have incredible control of flames. It reminds me of Maia's powerful flames from long ago." Oscar talked again. Willet appeared to have a strange reaction to Maia's name, and any reaction in a battle could be something to exploit. He rushed in with Erden and split off. However, he suddenly found the spiked flail heading toward him as if it knew where he was going, even though he used the invisible Reis movements and constantly switched with Demon.

He formed a golden drill and thrust ahead with Shattering Wave. The flames on the flail failed to reach him, but the countless sharp sounds of the buzzing wings squirmed into his ears. He noticed the rebounded flail changed course at an impossible right angle and bashed into Erden's antlers. Their flames mingled and writhed until they all merged into a vast explosion, and Erden leaped away from the epicenter.

'Fast.' Oscar relayed this to Erden.

'Not just fast, powerful too. The wings are giving it a burst of speed and power that drives it into the enemy.' Demon said.

'His gaze and Prinstyct were entirely on you, so how did it so accurately head for me?' Erden spat out some embers.

'The eyes!' They all said in unison. Oscar watched the eyes constantly blinking and shuffling around, staring in all directions. As Adam mentioned before, a Grade Eight Meld was tricker and more powerful than he had ever faced. Oscar eyed Willet warily. A tinge of excitement shivered up his spine to his brain, and he smiled under his helmet. A true battle against a trained and mature Grade Eight Exalt awaited him, and he couldn't wait to test out the extent of his power.

"You speak as if you know her so well." Willet's voice continued to drop to a lower degree, laced with an icy chill.

"Let's say I know her well in a way." Oscar bumped his fist over his right cheek. "Has she recovered from that hit I gave her a while ago?"

"Who are you?!" Willet shouted. The spiked flail zipped around like a fly, fast to a blur and shifting in direction. Oscar tightened his guard and stood close to Erden, surrounded by patterns of red, unable to catch sight of the flail.

Oscar waited and was beset on all sides. Flames reached out with fiery fingers, a searing wave wrapping around him with all the intent to turn him into ash. From above, the spiked flail dropped, an ocean of fire coming down along with it, not a blue blemish of the sky to be seen past it.

He mounted Erden and gripped his shield as the flames collapsed on him.

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