Calamity Upon This World

Chapter 43: Ch-43 Clara VS Mela

"Now that's the spirit; make sure you make it entertaining for me." as an insane expression made its way onto her face as she dashed towards the little girl, surrounded by a bright golden barrier.

Before Clara could even react, the woman was in front of her, with only her barrier separating them.

As the woman used her dagger to pierce the barrier, it didn't budge before she could try to stab again. A sword made up of purely mana lunged at her, which she dodged by jumping back.

"Ooh, that was close," the woman said, her relaxed tone betraying her words.

Ignoring her words, a bunch of swords of mana lunged at her, which she easily dodged due to her superior speed.

The swords that she wasn't able to dodge were broken by her dagger, which, upon closer inspection, seemed to be laced with some sort of purple liquid, most likely lethal poison.

However, Ciara didn't care, as she was panicking, thinking about the ticking time of her barrier.

She knew that once the barrier dissipated, she would die. The women in front of her outclassed her far too much.

Right now, her lack of experience and the realisation of her impending doom are both contributing to her current state of panic.

She was just throwing spells at her adversary, hoping to hit her; thankfully, she was blessed with a relatively large mana pool, which allowed her to keep spamming her spells at least for a few minutes.

Her aspect being mana-related probably also helped.

Clara had awakened a tier IV called Loved by Mana, which at its first ascension allowed the user to create any and all non-living objects out of raw mana. She could also imbue elements into these items, but it took a bit of concentration to pull off.

In this world, mana was abundant in nature itself; however, humans, or all species for that matter, could wield pure mana, but they had to form a mana core or use some other mana cultivation method in order to first purify it before using it.

So Clara being able to use it to form any non-living object is definitely a very overpowering and versatile ability.

However, in her current state of panic, she wasn't utilising it to its full potential, instead just forming and throwing swords at her enemy, desperately hoping to kill her.

"Stop moving already and just die, please!!" Ciara shouted as she launched another sword towards her, hoping, against all odds, for her enemy to stop.

"Nah, it's too fun to see Daddy's little princess struggle so much." The assasin said as she ran around the area, which was mostly destroyed due to Clara's attacks.

"Btw, I feel you should at least know my name so you have someone to curse in the afterlife, so just call me Mela." The woman said this as she countered an incoming mana sword by throwing a dagger.

"Mela, huh? I'll be sure to get it written on your grave," Ciara said as she launched another five swords, which Mela easily dodged.

After dodging, Mela threw another dagger towards Ciara, which, just like all the previous ones, was blocked by her barrier.

A similar exchange continued for a few minutes before, at last, something changed.

Sring

The golden barrier around Clara disappeared just as quickly as it appeared.

Clara felt her heart drop, realising the implications of her being exposed. This was it; she was about to die.

And just like she expected,

BOOM!!

Clara felt a strong impact on her face as she was sent flying and hit a wall, breaking it in the process.

"Finally, you have no idea how long I waited for this." Mela laughed, her tone containing pure ecstasy, as she stood where Clara was previously, with blood dripping from her right hand.

"Ugh," Clara groaned as she opened her eyes again, only to see her vision dyed red; she was bleeding.

Her whole body hurt. Mela probably held back her punch, because otherwise it would've definitely blown her head off.

And the only reason she would hold back in an attack probably meant that she wasn't allowed to kill Clara.

However, this didn't make her feel relieved, as a group of lunatics like Laughing coffin definitely won't have a pleasant reason to keep her alive considering how they're known to usually kill talented children.

So why would they want her alive?

Well, she didn't have the chance to ponder about it as a dagger flew towards her, which she thankfully blocked by creating a barrier around her abdomen, almost on reflex.

"Hoh, you still have mana?" Mela exclaimed, her tone showing genuine praise for the girl.

"Well, since you blocked it, try blocking this too," Mela said as she disappeared from her spot.

BAAM!!

And before she knew it, Clara's face was on the ground. Mela had rushed over to her and slammed her face on the rock-solid floor.

Her whole head was bleeding right now. She had almost lost consciousness, but she bit her tongue to stay awake.

But even after that, if nothing was done soon, she was going to die, and she couldn't die just yet; after all, she still had one last trick up her sleeve.

"Haha," Ciara let out a soft chuckle just as Mela was about to slam her head down again to knock her out.

"The fuck? Did you lose your sanity on the verge of death?" Mela asked in genuine confusion as she brought the bloodied face of Ciara to eye level, and what she saw shook her.

The girl was smiling, and the smile downright scared her.

Ciara's previously cute face was gone, as it was now covered in her own blood and dirt. Her eyes barely looked open.

Her previously pearly white teeth were now covered in red, with two of them even being broken.

However, the most unsettling thing was the smile on her face, which looked even more insane than the one Mela had on her face previously.

And why wouldn't she smile? After all, her plan had worked.

There are two ways to break a subdimension.

The first one is to use superior spatial magic compared to the one that was used to create it to break it.

And the second method involved using a monstrous burst of mana to disturb the carefully arranged spatial particles to forcefully break a subdimension.

However, in her panic, Clara had almost forgotten about the second method.

Thankfully for her, she started counting the seconds inside her head the moment her barrier manifested.

And while she was panicking at first, around 1 minute and 12 seconds after the fight started, she slowly started regaining composure; however, on the outside, there wasn't any difference in her behaviour.

Once she regained her composure, slowly a plan started forming inside her head as she realised a way for her to break the subdimension.

She slowly, ever so slowly, started lowering the mana output in her attack, as she needed mana to execute this method.

Ciara's aspect has a second ability that only she and her parents knew about; it allowed her to use her own mana to ignite the surrounding raw mana particles to make them explode.

However, the only problem with this plan was that the explosion would need to be extremely concentrated in order to break the dimension, which would allow Mela to dodge the explosion.

And she couldn't bet on being rescued by someone before Mela could kill her.

So she needed to be in extreme close proximity in order for the plan to work.

This was obviously too risky, as nothing's stopping Mela from just killing her by throwing a dagger like she did at the start.

However, for some reason, she had a feeling that the woman in front of her was far too mentally deranged to give her such an easy and quick death.

And now it all worked out perfectly; she was in the perfect position to execute her plan, so with a smile, Clara muttered.

"(Mana Burst)"

And following her words, a blinding blue light enveloped everything before.

BOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!

An ear-shattering explosion took place as the whole sub-dimension and even the restroom exploded.

After that, Clara wasn't able to see anything else as she lost consciousness due to mana exhaustion. However, just before she lost her consciousness, she felt an awfully familiar crimson mana, and just before she gave in to darkness, she managed to mutter in an almost inaudible tone.

"Pretty"

***

Authors note:-

So I'm kind of curious: what are your guys thoughts about Clara? And also, if you guys think she would make a good ship with William?