725. The Red Barron and The Moon

725. The Red Barron and The Moon

The waiting room quickly burned hotter than a furnace. Bullets struck the windows, allowing the Tear Retrievers to retreat. As Anpu stood before the Red Barron with an expressionless face, he motioned for Lucy to immediately vacate the perimeter.

“Get as far away from here as you can! I cannot guarantee your life!” Anpu warned. He was normally a nonchalant person with a stern, near tired demeanor.

When one such person displayed abnormal emotions, it greatly emphasized the severity of their words. A blue slash of energy whizzed silently through the air again, striking the Red Barron’s chest to surprisingly little effect.

It pushed the Red Barron back as he held his heavy arms in a cross before his body, blocking the bullets that seemingly phased through him. The walls behind crumbled as it travelled for another fifty meters.

“Isn’t it formidable? Adamantium could never dream of defending an attack from a Moon!” The Red Barron heaved, smashing his fists together to create a shockwave that sent every instrument, furnishing, and ornaments flying like shrapnel. “Hand me what is mine, and we can skip the formalities!”

“Are all Colors just like this bastard!?” Lucy exclaimed, covering for Gerina as she threw herself out of the window.

“You’d be surprised with what Colors can get away with.” Anpu commented as he stroked the air.

Glyphs of an unknown language and symbols of esoteric origin glowed and began to orbit him like rings as he pressed forward, bringing the fight straight to the Red Barron.

This Skill was called [The Protector’s Aegis], which was a powerful defensive Skill that defended the user from physical, magical and conditional effects. Few of the words began to burn under the presence of the Red Barron’s unthinkable heat. This was because this Skill took the Burn Stacks for Anpu, allowing him to close the distance in the blink of an eye.

“I’ve never seen a Moon try to protect someone! Are they your client!? Or did you pity this Empire’s useless princess in the hopes of gaining its Gift!?” The Red Barron scathingly accused, his expression making it clear that he was trying to psychologically attack Anpu.

But this Moon has seen a lifetime’s worth of mental tricks, which was why his face remained unbothered as his fists collided with the Red Barron’s chest.

Unbelievable… It didn’t go through. Just what is that armor he’s wearing?

Anpu fully expected his fist to cut through his armor. His hand was enveloped in dark light this time, and he had aimed for the Red Barron’s heart. [Guide of the Dead – Verdict] was an Active Skill that allowed him to grab the essence of his target’s heart. Afterwards, it would be put on a scale using his Passive Skill [Scale of Judgement] which would further bolster his powers against a certain target.

What he gathered in this split second were two things:

His RESIST is either too high, or there is another force that is stopping me from reaching into his heart. Could it be the Corrupted’s doing? No, it could very well be that armor. It’s resonating loudly, like a bell… I see, it must be amplifying his defensive stats.

“That is the product of this Kingdom’s Gift, no?”

“Amplification at it’s finest. More than what the Kingdom could thirty years ago! Aren’t you curious how that is possible?” The Red Barron smashed his fist into where Anpu was.

The Moon clicked on his pocket watch, sending him seconds back in time to avoid the attack.

* * *

It was an experimental ability of the Traumatic Clock which was assigned to the Lunar Haruspex. It was commonly used to turn back time on projectiles, but it had a very limited use for entities.

This was the result of the combination of Justica Arm’s teleportation tech (location), and Time Reverberation’s temporal tech (time); an effort achieved while Frost was still in Paradise.

When combined, one could teleport within a two-meter radius capped at 5 seconds into the past. However, this came at the cost of being physically unable to move for 5 seconds; meaning that they were open for an uncontested Critical Attack.

* * *

The speed of the punch put gales to shame, and instantly caused the walls and ceiling to fly off like oversized bullets.

A tranquil garden of trees and fountains surrounded them. They soon caught alight.

Anpu should have been able to see the Red Barron’s stats, but even he could not. Colors of the past could have their stats read, but some time after the Blue Dahlia’s existence Colors became increasingly immune to inspection.

It was not like the Blue Dahlia had erased the concept of allowing Colors to be interrogated by the Blessed, because it would return in one form or another, much like how some small pieces of the world still remembered the Colorless Incandescent.

Anpu’s pointy, jackal-like ears turned to the Red Barron. He feigned his interest to buy some time for his 5-seconds of vulnerability. The red man of boundless pride placed his hands on his hips, then, he flexed his arms upwards to assume a herculean pose.

“I was surprised too, that a Gift could be improved. No. Improvement can happen by the most mundane reasons. You can throw a hundred logs into a firepit, and watch it become a bonfire. Or burn the house down. A fire is still a fire. But what of the walls of the fireplace? The grates? Its materials?”

He drummed on his chest before smashing his fists together.

Those caught within the shockwave immediately began to have trouble breathing. Their lungs had collapsed, and their eyes bled. Lucy unloaded round after round of healing bullets, fixing their elements much to the Red Barron’s pleasure.

“A Healer? Now I have seen everything! It must be fate that you and I have met here, black-haired healer! That weapon seems to be a valuable artefact… Moon! I can offer you armor like mine in exchange for that weapon! Throw in that woman for goodwill. I’d like to be on the good side of the Nexus!”

“Despite being on the side of the Impuritas?” Anpu leaped forward, precisely as the Red Barron threw his shoulder into his direction.

“Am I on their side or am I a man with ambitions!?” He smashed his helmet into the terrain as Anpu sidestepped him.

“You’re a fool who lacks discipline.”

With a hand now encased in blue and black light, he struck the Red Barron on the side, leaving a visible dent as he was sent flying into the pillars of a stone bridge. Anpu gave immediate chase, bursting through the collapsing rubble like a whizzing arrow as he held out his hand.

A dark magical circle extended 5 meters from his palms as one formed behind the still flying Red Barron. Suddenly, a black orb engulfed in dark flames emerged from both sides. The Skill Anpu used was called [Sacred Tether], which allowed him to spatially link himself with a target.

It became an extension of his hand, and he used it to drag the Red Barron through the air in a spectacular arc before pummeling him into the earth. And yet, despite the immense crater left behind, the Red Barron stood uninjured, his gauntlets still grinding against one another.

The mere one minute of conflict saw nearly a hundred meters worth of land reduced to rubble. He could feel the gaze of the princess lingering on them; a look of awe, terror and reverence simultaneously glistening in her yellow eyes.

Normal people, in the face of absolute power, tended to simply shut their minds and watch the spectacle, for there was nothing they could do otherwise. Gerina was much the same, and even the onlooking Librarians were not immune to this.

This is why we tend to avoid fighting… A clear-cut victory is not guaranteed for either of us. Battles tend to be dragged out. But it is the perfect circumstance for us. Regrettable, that even my Skills cannot injure this Color. A Gift giving one enough power to reliably defend against a Moon shouldn’t belong to a Kingdom. His armor is closer to what an Atelier may possess, but its defensive capabilities are what you can find on an Eternal Night-levelled Corrupted or higher…

Anpu came to the conclusion that his armor was a bluff. He became certain now that the Corrupted he adorned – the flaming mantle – was responsible for the abnormality. This was finally confirmed by an Aspiring Moon.

“There is no Risk Classification associated with it, but we believe it’s an Eternal Night at the minimum. The mantle on his back is a Corrupted. The Conditions explicitly amplify his stats, but it comes at the cost of…?”

A cost. How unsurprising given it is a Corrupted.

“… It comes at the cost of being subservient to the mantle. He is what he wears. We’re not sure what the meaning of it is.”

We have 60 seconds till the Amalgam arrives. I can already feel her presence in the change of the winds. Leave the interpretations to her. This may be one of the Main Sequence Corrupted. If that is the case, then this is all the more reason for us not to interfere.

It was difficult for the Aspiring Moons and the Tear Retrievers to remain calm. The Red Barron’s mere presence caused their bodies to lock into place against their will, as though their limbs were chained by heavy weights.

“You’ll wait there for me, dear Healer.” With just these words alone, Lucy was nearly thrown to her knees. “I’ve always wondered why Moons didn’t indulge in the gravity of their… powers, so to speak.”

“We have no interest.”

“A shame. All that power wasted on people who don’t even worship you like they do with Colors. It’s the responsibility of a sovereign to make them remember where people stand.”

“But aren’t you a baron, rather than a sovereign?”

“A baron in title and name. Where my orders come from is exclusively from being different from you and I! I’m a king of man; a sovereign in all my right and glory. ‘Prostrate’.”

His words were an authority, and the mantle glowed in response. Anpu could feel it affecting him minimally. He could not imagine how difficult it would be for regular people to resist such an order.

“They rise and fall to my word, because I am the decider of their place. Everything we know and love is governed by the strong.”

“Commandments. That is your power as a Color.” Anpu continued to stall for time.

“The Seal of Commands.” The Red Barron proudly announced the full name of his ability. “Those beneath me in this hierarchy of power are my subjects. My words, like my strength – absolute. The masses to a king!”

He laughed, speaking as though Anpu would understand him. A look of displeasure formed on the Color’s face when Anpu expression remained unchanged. Instead, the Red Barron approached from a different avenue as he hurled himself at Anpu.