When morning came, Icarus, Lucyna, and Meryl were already outside the city and ready to act. While their actions would be pretty obvious that they were trying to lure Zenis, they didn't have much of a choice. Besides, Zenis wouldn't care about that. He had absolute confidence in his skills, after all. Perhaps not so much after being forced to put his fight against Billy aside for a few days.
"I guess this will do…" Meryl said while looking at the giant arrow made of the scales of the Tyrants.
The plan was quite insane, but with their skills and the dungeon cores, they could pull that off. Last night, they talked about how they could attract the attention of Zenis and lure him in. Without risking themselves, they will have to attack from a distance… a very large distance. With Acceleration Manipulation, and by using the mana of the cores on a single arrow, they could make an arrow pretty much fly across the whole world. The only problem was aiming…
They solved that problem by making Meryl learn Limited Foresight. They had saved some skill points during the time they hunted in the fire dragon's dungeon in order to use to learn a skill to counter Zenis'... they never had the chance to try that since he was just too powerful, to begin with.
After running many simulations with Limited Foresight, Meryl finally found a path that her arrow could follow and that would end up landing on the empty hole that was now the former fire dragon's dungeon. The area around was completely empty, and there were no signs of Zenis, so he was probably inside it.
After taking a deep breath, Meryl infused her mana on the arrow, and then Icarus added his power, followed by Lucyna's. It would be a pretty powerful combination, and it was something new that they came up with… they wondered why they didn't think of that before… it was probably because they didn't have enough mana. Still, now they could make the arrow reach the utmost limits of their abilities.
When Meryl fired her arrow, a powerful shockwave almost made them fly in the opposite direction. Although they were two kilometers away from the nearest house, the shockwave still made some houses crack… things would have been a lot worse if that hadn't been a powerful concentrated attack. Nevertheless, Lily frowned when she saw the power of that arrow… she never seen someone firing arrows more powerful than hers, after all.
"These people are normal… that amount of mana that they can pour in an arrow is beyond humanly possible," Lily said.
"They have a lot of secrets… no wonder Billy doesn't trust them," Alexander said. "They didn't seem like bad people, though. Besides, from what they said, Billy protected them many times, and he wouldn't protect someone who he thinks it is dangerous."
While they were talking, Meryl confirmed that the impact happened after just two seconds… Once the arrow was destroyed, she could no longer see the base of the enemy, but she couldn't imagine that much had endured that crazy attack.
Hopefully, Zenis suffered some damage from that since they combined their innate skills to the maximum with a lot of mana. Unfortunately, they suddenly began to feel shivers and confirmed that they probably failed at that… they got the enemy's attention, though, and after ten seconds, Zenis showed up while flying in the sky.
"He seems different…" Icarus said.
Not only Zenis' aura but even his expression looked more severe, even though his body didn't have a single recent wound. Despite that, the right part of his torso seemed a bit weird. Previously, his armor wasn't hiding his shoulders, probably not to hinder the movements of his arms, but now only that one was being hidden by the armor…
"Well… it seems that the coward rats are finally showing their small fangs," Zenis said.
"Zenis… you are changing, and you barely are noticing that," Meryl said.
"Is there any point in us talking with him?" Icarus asked.
"Maybe I am… but I only feel clarity in my head," Zenis said. "Not moving for a year clouded my mind for many things, but fighting that guy sure made me realize many others. There is no more fear in my heart… that guy also said that something might be taking over my mind, but now I feel like I am being my real self."
Meryl knew that she had to stall for as long as possible, but it was hard to keep her coal and say what it was necessary under those conditions. Moreover, Zenis' killing intent was to make her feel like hundreds of needles were piercing her body.
"If that is true, then why are you ignoring the same things you stood for before?" Meryl asked. "You cloned your people and made them kill each other for years in order to make them stronger. That isn't something the old you would do… even if you were fighting others like us, you had decency and standards. Now you act and talk like you are above everyone else…"
"What kind of nonsense are you talking about?" Zenis asked. "In this world where we fought each other fiercely, in this world where all species and inhabitants fight each other just because of their small differences, shouldn't it be obvious that someone that can defeat everyone speaks and act since he stands above everyone else?"
"He is long gone, Meryl…" Lucyna said. "That or he lost his mind."
As soon as he heard that, Zenis fired a massive mercury spear toward Icarus, but he dodged the attack and moved Meryl and Lucyna with him and with ease… Attacks that rely on speed won't work on him anymore, as long as he has mana.
"I see… You guys decided to copy me as well," Zenis said. "This will make things more interesting. Defeating you guys will put me closer to my goal, so I should flavor this properly."
