New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 1065: Magic's Bane

 n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Kujaku knew many people had developed the ability to fly within New Eden, but she would have never imagined some of them had already copied this ability on Earth. From what she kept reading in her reports, it required an enormous amount of mana and wasn't something to be looked at with a discarding gaze.

And then, seeing Kary light up in flames, seemingly without an ounce of pain, made her eyes widen.

Looking past her, she saw Alex grow wings from his back, blood spurting as they did, and she gasped.

"Nantekotta?!" she exclaimed.

Jin-Sil looked at her wide-eyed gaze and laughed to herself.

"Would you mind sliding the roof further back so I can get out, too?" she asked, tapping the Japanese woman's shoulder.

Kujaku looked at her, snapping herself out of her stupor, and nodded. She hurriedly pushed the button again, getting the sunroof to part an extra foot back.

This gave Jin-Sil enough room to climb onto the roof, but with the rapid pace of the car, and the swerving Sakura was performing in the growing morning traffic, it was impossible for her to stand.

"Let me help!" Rì-Chū shouted from inside, slamming his hands on the vehicle's roof.

Roots grew out of his hands, reaching for the railing on both sides of the roof, before forming a harness around Jin-Sil's hips and getting her upright.

Shaking herself a little, to see how stable it was, she smiled and winked at Ri-Chū.

"Thanks, nae sarang," she lovingly called to him.

Ri-Chū immediately turned beet red. He had been studying Korean in his off time, so he could communicate better with Jin-Sil, but also to understand all the little nicknames she gave him.

He pulled back into the vehicle, too shy to respond to her endearing term, but Jin-Sil didn't fault him. She knew he was a shy guy and loved that part of him.

But she couldn't focus on him for the moment. She had more pressing issues.

In the distance, Alex had already reached a point where he could feel the mana blotch in the sky, and his grin grew.

"Got you, you sneaky little bastard," he chuckled.

Alex didn't have a weapon to strike at the flying object, whatever it was, but he knew where to hit. So, he went for the most direct approach.

Accelerating blazingly fast, Alex slammed into the object, punching it with all his might, as a resounding 'Dong!' sound echoed around him.

Instantly, two things happened.

The first one was for the illusion cast on the flying craft to dispel from the sheer shock he had given it, slamming into it like this.

The second was for Alex to suddenly be rocketed backward, as a shock traversed his body that would have knocked anyone out cold.

Had Alex not already augmented himself with mana before the impact, to negate the shock in his arm, he would have lost consciousness instantly, and he knew it.

His hand was badly burned, and his arm felt numb all the way up to his shoulder, where the pain started for the rest of his body.

"An electric barrier?" he mumbled, looking at his fuming hand.

He had developed a high resistance to pain, ever since he started being able to transform into this winged form, since it kept ripping his back open, and barely felt the burn. Alex also knew that his inhuman regenerative abilities would kick in soon enough, and the wound would heal before long.

But for anything to be able to hurt him at all, it had to either pack an ungodly wallop or be loaded with mana. And Alex could guess it wasn't the former.

An illusion wouldn't have been enough to hide the massive electromagnetic signal that a current that strong would have generated.

It had to be magical.

With the illusion gone, though, he could finally see the flying craft, and he frowned.

"What the fuck is that?" he mumbled, confused.

It looked almost like a minivan, but instead of wheels under it, it had four small reactors holding it afloat with pulses of blue energy.

He had never seen something like this before and was stunned for a second before a shout brought him back to reality.

"Alex! Watch out!" Kary's voice woke him from his stupor.

On the front of the minivan-looking vehicle, a single ball of blue light launched at him, giving him barely a second to dodge.

Alex instantly conjured a barrier to deflect it and closed his wings to dip under the attack, just in case.

And it was a smart call.

The moment the ball of light crashed into his hastily conjured barrier, the latter collapsed on the ball of light like a cloth over a baseball before shattering.

Alex's eyes widened at the sight.

"That energy cancels out mana!" he shouted.

He had seen it clear as day with his perfect mana vision. The moment the two energies interacted, the mana was dispersed like dust in the wind.

"Don't let that shit hit you!" he shouted to Kary, opening his wings again.

Kary saw the barrier break and came to the same conclusion as Alex, although not for the same

reasons.

She knew Alex could conjure sturdy barriers, even if they were thrown hastily like that one. There shouldn't be anything magically powerful enough on Earth to shatter them, at least not

yet.

To see it fold like wet paper at that single ball of energy, she surmised whatever energy that was; it was magic's bane, and she knew better than to let it hit her.

Since she was coming in the same direction as Alex, she swerved to the left, avoiding the ball of light, and relayed the message behind her, boosting her voice with magic.

"Avoid the blast!"

Sakura was too focused on driving away from the threat behind her to hear the shout, but Kujaku reacted for her.

Yanking on the steering wheel, she forced the car into the highway's shoulder as the ball of blue light crashed into an unexpecting car.

The back part of the car suddenly vanished, the seams of the minor explosion shining bright red from the heat, as it lost control and crashed into the middle embankment.

"What the fuck?! That is lethal force! Are they trying to kill us?!"