The World's most Overpowered Side-Character

"Cross Impact!"

Ikaris unleashed her attack with a roar and disappeared as soon as she did, returning behind him and releasing another [Cross Impact] against his back and then cancelling the summon of the twin swords with a wave of her hands.

Usually, her attack would travel at relative and easily avoidable speeds, which is why she had made a task of utilising it in a scenario where her opponent was distracted or unable to avoid it from either injury or were unaware of its approach; but not this time, [Cross Impact] moved faster than Nine could react, and all four of the arcs of mana tore into him simultaneously, the first two collided in his raised arms rendering them unusable as they pushed him into the other two behind him that had somehow grown even larger.

After failing to anticipate the weight of the two crossed arcs behind himself Nine was too shocked to even yelp or make a sound when all four attacks enveloped him within a prism of pain and then exploded with the force of a sun but the heat of several, recreating a miniature of her previous [Extermination] cast.

"And yet, he lives," Ikaris stared at her dissipating mana and at Nine who was at the epicentre with his arms folded before his face and his eyes wide in horror at what he had just endured, that shock though, was short-lived as the man tipped forward and slowly shook his head. "Not a matter, I will continue until you break-"

"-me...?"

She heard the last word of his mumbling and looked at him with a foreign and estranged expression.

"You have the power to end the fight, so why bother attacking me with the sole intention of harming me?"

"...Are you fucking serious?" Ikaris leaned her head to the other side and released a long sigh of irritation, her crimson eyes glared daggers through him and her white hair started waving violently around her while he found the will and courage to support his balance once more. "Are you trying to encourage me to drag this fight on even more?

Do you think that if you withstand enough; that if you endure enough, then you'll live when your allies arrive because of your lockdown? Are you even aware of where you are?" She asked, prompting the General to raise his eyes and stare at her.

Indeed that was his goal; he was sure that someone was on their way, specifically someone else from the top nine Generals of the Emporium, but hearing her words and seeing the cold expression on her face gave the man chills across his back and neck, and then his entire body broke into shivers, what was going on, anyways?"

"In case you missed it," Ikaris added as she began walking across the void towards him and her mana began burning gold around her.

"In case you've been too blindsided by the pain you're experiencing to understand what's happening; Nine, you're no longer inside of the Khalla-Nova Collective, I sent you flying through the walls half an hour ago and we're on the opposite side of where we were before, sure, someone's coming, but it'll take them upwards of a entire month to get here, they first need to cross the Khalla-Nova and then they need to cross the passage between, she looked at him with a deadpan when his eyes started widening and then summoned her swords a third time, casually tossing one of them at him.

"Let me say it once more, Nine; fight and die like a man and stop this insistent worm-like behaviour, you're starting to irritate me even more than I already am," She stated with a huff of mana through her nostrils.

"What the hell are you doing giving me a weapon?" He stared at the sword confused as his hand grasped the handle tightly and while his eyes followed the subtle gestures of her fingers on her own.

"Giving prey claws doesn't deter an apex from killing them, it just makes the hunt more interesting," Ikaris answered rolling her shoulders several times and popping her joints as she did so.

"I want to enjoy what comes next but it's clear you're too overwhelmed, I; at the very least want to take your head in a way which stings the most, and I don't mean decapitation," She chuckled and held her face mimicking something Sol always did when he had the upper hand against an enemy as she stared through her fingers and grinned wickedly.

"I'm saying I want to chop your head off without you thinking it's unfair, I want to see the defeat in your eyes, I want to see your will to fight crushed along with your will to live like the insect you are-"

"That will never happen!" Nine exclaimed accepting her challenge as he made a direct dash towards her having regained his confidence when he was handed a weapon after Sol had stolen his by merely speaking to it.

The General blitzed like a bolt of lightning leaving a visible trail in the void behind himself as he seemed to move in slow motion while the stars before and behind him in the two respective collectives seemed to race and mix into one while he drew the sword and swung it.

This was more than Ikaris had expected, she knew he was leagues more lethal with a weapon, but she hadn't expected that it also increased his strength directly.

When she blocked the attack, she experienced something similar to what Alpha had done to Sol when he was escaping Flint's pursuit as she was flung across the passage faster and harder than she could stop herself and as a result she received a second shock when her back slammed into the barrier of the Khalla-Nova Collective again.

"Heh, bastard, that's not funny..." She took a quick gander behind herself and then looked ahead once more.

"Don't get cocky just because I gave you a stick!" Ikaris raised her hand, and just like Nine's earlier feat, the stars before and behind her blurred out of existence as she elapsed the space between the two of them in a fraction of a second and swung her sword, unlike his attack which she had been able to block though, when Ikaris's attack collided with his blade the weapon rebound on him and tore into his chest, sending him back where he was coming from resulting in him hitting the walls of another collective again.

"Your goal here is to be defeated, that's the only thing you're going to accomplish today!" Ikaris closed the distance once more before Nine had managed to heal, driving her blade through his arm when he raised his guard and grabbed his head with both of her arms, slamming her forehead into his and then spinning with him and doing it again, sending him downwards with black blood escaping his mouth, eyes and nose.

"Fight me with everything you've got and make it interesting!" Ikaris flashed her head and descended with her heel in his damaged forehead, her eyes widening and her mouth slowly forming another grin when she heard and felt his skull crack beneath the weight of her kick only to raise and drop her other heel in his face and then spin and kick him a third time so hard the bindings of her shoes became undone.

"Whoops," Ikaris watched the General flung across the passage as she stopped and raised her heel to her torso with a frown. "No good, I should employ the same footwear as dear does, his seem to be able to withstand much more pressure than these," She slowly waved her hand around her foot, repairing her shoe and then looking at the man again as she witnessed his approach.

"I've never seen a fight more one-sided than this," Dina peeked at Sol in her peripheral after he had taken them all out of The Grey and created a small space for them inside of the passage where they could relax, considering that moments ago they were fighting powerful foes it was a bit surreal, others like Dr'ul and S'mael had yet to get into the meatiest parts of their fights but Ikaris's attack had killed every living soul who wasn't an ally and destroyed The Plane down to the last square foot of soil that Sol and Alpha had created.

"Indeed, master had struggled more when he fought Orion," Alpha responded.

"That's before awakening, so it doesn't really count, does it?" Sol huffed from his seat watching the fight with his hands folded beneath his chin as he saw them trading attacks rapidly through the passage.

"Ikaris is amazing though, she always beats the brakes off her enemies; I can't recall any of her fights ever bringing her close to death's door; that said..." He trailed off thinking about what Alpha and Arla had been saying about the Unknown Tier Casts he and Ikaris usually achieved without noticing how much it amped up their power.

"Assuming she's this powerful with a three hundred and seventy-five percent boost in power, Nine is still pretty strong to be going toe to toe with her, and also..."

"The Eighth General," Cecelia answered when he stopped speaking, accepting a beverage as well as a piece of cake from Alpha and thanking her with a nod, accepting that these people took very few things seriously as she watched Dina and Arla eating casually while Sara had been summoned and was playing with Talia.

"That's right," If I'm going to leave the Emporium to Ikaris then she needs to gain more strength," Sol stared intently at the fight seeing his wife smile as she summoned her second sword from Nine's hand and proceeded to leave hundreds of shallow wounds across his chest with a barrage of cuts so fast they seemed like a single swing and then ended the combo by chopping his left hand off and delivering a deafening kick in his right ear.

"Exponentially more powerful than the previous General," Sol mused.

"If we're working under the assumption that Ikaris at her base was already stronger than Nine, then she'd struggle against Eight unless she managed several perfect casts, that said, the implications of exponential power might suggest that she doesn't yet have the strength to face the Eighth General even if she has this much power again."

"What will you do?" Dina looked at him.

"Ikaris has a collective's worth of power within her available for use, the problem is that her output is still closed to her initial output when she was whole as a Goddess before darkness and Void attacked them; that simply means she hasn't really grown all that more powerful in actuality."

"I'm going to break the limiters holding her power down and help her achieve the next stage of her evolution, I was initially right when I got chills thinking about the Emporium's power; thinking of what the First General may be capable of is pretty terrifying and also exciting, it gives me the same feeling I got when I wanted to fight Sorath; goddess of the sun, but I won't have the luxury of fighting him.

"I need to keep growing stronger in preparation for Umbra's inevitable attack.

"The Emporium is Ikaris's jurisdiction, mine is the Grand Collective; it's my responsibility to protect them from the monster I created."

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