NOVPUBMaxim was running around, bobbing, weaving and doing a staggering amount of unnecessary backflips and summersaults.
"You better make this worth my while, Agnees!" she cried, grinning like an idiot. Her pink hair washed the air, and she dodged the fist of a Cavern that had turned its entire arm into a hunk of hard rock to crush her.
"I will. Just keep at it," Agnees said.
She was a distance away, surrounded by the fifty experts she had brought with her from her territory. They made a perfect oval around, hanging their hands and burying themselves in intense focus. For what they needed to do, they couldn't be bothered with doing anything other than connecting to Agnees.
The task of defending them all until they were done was left to Maxim. She took up the task with fiendish enthusiasm. Planate High's new, heightened prowess was thrilling to exercise.
A Cavern that spontaneously combusted, becoming wreathed in blue flames charged towards her like a bull. It was stronger than most, likely a Third Circle by the minimalistic power system of the Under. (The limit was the Sixth Circle.)
Its movement speed was comparable to that of a Peak Master Stage expert. Maxim rushed to meet it, chuckling. She ducked from its first punch, and its second. Both seemed to scour the air, but Maxim's Perfect Aura was frothing around her, shielding her from the intense heat.
She enjoyed weaving behind the creature when it grew frustrated by how she kept dodging. It roared and a fierce ring of flames exploded out of it. It meant to catch Maxim no matter which direction she tried to escape to, but the woman flashed in front of the creature and remained there even when a blue flash barrelled towards her position. She wanted to spite the monster.
Her Perfect Aura shone bright and then brighter before swiftly forming a figure around Maxim. It was a Genuine Incarnation with a watery look to it. It was a large centipede, flat and roughly forty meters long.
But Maxim didn't rely on the extraordinary boost to her overall strength by the Incarnation. Instead, she activated Planate High… and then suddenly....she trapped in a paper thin glass-like plate!
The throng of heat slammed into her, but she was safe. The plates produced by Planate High now could withstand the full might of a Peak Incandescent Stager and perhaps even stronger. Maxim could use them for defense!
She released herself from the plate and dashed towards the flame Cavern. Its teeth were gnashed in frustration and confusion. But as it happened, that would be the look of its face for eternity. Maxim snapped her fingers and its head was encased in a paper-thin glass plate. Its body remained free - bloated.
It looked odd. The Cavern's brain functions stalled. It fell to the ground as though dead.
But Maxim had already moved on. She leaped on her centipede as it circled above Agness and her experts.
To activate Planate High, Maxim didn't need to touch her target, but she couldn't use it over an impossibly large range either. Of course, that was only when she was using it herself. Her Genuine Incarnation helped her remedy this, making long-range casting a possibility.
Worse yet, with the effects of the [Soul Talisman], she could perform crazier feats.
Blocks of dirt rose from the ground and flew in her direction. One of the Cavern below manipulated the hard crust of the Under to try and bring her down. Maxim's Incarnation simply trapped all the chunks of crust in plates. They fell to the ground at once. The Cavern that had sent them was also encased in stasis right after.
The same happened to all the Cavern that attempted to attack Agnees and her group. The weaker ones were instantly trapped in Planate High's traps. The stronger ones – Fourth Circle Cavern – which were equal to Peak Incandescent Stagers or stronger in physical attributes were harder to toy with.
"I've got just the tricks for you," she said, and she raced along her Incarnation to meet them. One of them, with feathered wings and blackish-yellow skin extended its neck and opened its maw to bite her head off while it was still a distance away. It was quick, but Maxim wasn't outdone.
Great plates with Cavern trapped inside warped from the ground and appeared in front her. The powerful Cavern's head smashed into the plate and bounced back. Maxim grinned. She could now summon any of the used plates she had made through Planate High anywhere she desired and manipulate them as she pleased.
After blocking the enemy's attack, she summoned more the plates and had them whip towards the creature and others that had begun a campaign to assault her. They all got smacked back, stalled. Maxim used the chance to attack them.
She turned daring.
She couldn't freeze some of these stronger Cavern whole, but…
The twenty and some Cavern that had been buzzing around suddenly stopped, staggering. One jerked in the air and clutched its chest.
Its heart was caught in a glass-like plate.
Another simply crashed to the ground, grunting and shrieking. The blood running through its veins was caught in small plates, and these plates ruptured its blood vessels.
Another Cavern had its wings detached from its body, each caught in a separate plate. Right as it fell, Maxim jumped off her Incarnation and gave it a devastating kick in the head that knocked it unconscious.
'Oh, I'm getting better at this! I can't wait to test everything else I can do!' she thought, exhilarated.
She turned to Agnees right then.
"Well?" she cried.
"Almost done," replied the Kudobtu House Head.
And indeed, she was almost done.
The shadows of the experts she had brought to the Under were all stretching towards her like dark serpents, absurd measures of mana brewing within each and every one of them.
Agnees' muscles turned glossy, expanding unrealistically. Monstrous strength was mounting within her body and her figure bulged by a measure. But it wasn't only her physical power that was bubbling.
The Kudobtu House technique was called Thriving Aggregate. Originally, it allowed Agnees to absorb willing experts – body and all – into her, converting their physical attributes into her own. Before, her body could absorb a maximum of 50 individuals, and they couldn't be above the Master Stage, as the technique would reject them.
Things were different now.
Thriving Aggregate, which Agnees had renamed Thriving Shadow, absorbed the mana from willing targets through their shadows. This mana was converted into cumulative mana experience (exp) by the technique and applied to Agnees, allowing her to transcend the boundary between Stages temporarily. (Indeed, she even skipped over the Trials.)
She could absorb the mana from 400 individuals now, and they could be of the Incandescent Stage or higher, which would allow her to improve herself even more on a qualitative scale.
Currently, Agnees, whose body had doubled in size, was brimming with truly ridiculous volumes of Nitros.
She cracked her neck and walked forth. The experts around her made way while weathering her frightening pressure. It was no different to that of a genuine Transcender! 𝘯𝘰𝑣𝘱𝑢𝘣.𝑐𝑜𝑚
Maxim grinned at Agnees, but then she turned sharply above.
A Cavern around them made way for a powerful expert of their own. It was quite different from the others, falling from the sky with sublime grace. It was exceeding thin, with bird-like feet, and claws instead of fingers on its hands.
Maxim narrowed her eyes. This was ominous.
She had her Genuine Incarnation glide to the ground and she stood beside Agnees. Braxten appeared next to her.
"I was waiting for a real challenge and look, here it is!" he cried jubilantly.
"Be careful what you wish for," Maxim said to him, scoffing, but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't excited too. "Agnees."
The Kudobtu House Head nodded.
"Here's to not dying," she said and as her Nitros continued to bubble forth in torrents, an Imaginary GeoScape was printed over her body. She was using a Passive Territory - a sign of Transcendence!
Her Nitros continued to overflow still, causing the ground to melt.
...And then it was split into thirds, shared between her, Maxim and Braxten.
The latter two beamed. Even against a Divine, they were thrilled. As long as they didn't die, (and of course they wouldn't) they would come out the end of this as true monsters!
