Abyssal Awakening

Giving her body a stretch, Ria pulled her hair back and tied it into a pony tail.

In order to reach the maelstrom, she had to first traverse this lightning field that can kill her with a single strike. Not only that, but in order to fight the beast, she needed Luke with her.

His buffs were indispensable if she wanted a chance at success.

"Give me a speed buff, I'm going to see what requirements there are for this lightning to strike." Ria asked as Luke summoned Rook and King piece.

Feeling the power flow through her body, Ria narrowed her gaze as electricity crackled across her body and she dashed forward!

The instant she stepped onto the field, her eyes widened as she felt the coils of lightning forming above her, creating a marker of sorts.

It was similar to how she activates one of her own abilities.

Gritting her teeth, she summoned her blade.

Raikiri!

Twisting her body, she slashed up, unleashing an arc of lightning.

*RUMBLE!!!

From above, lightning crashed down, colliding into Ria's attack.

But to her horror, her arc was shattered in an instant with no resistance!

'I need to dodge!'

"Ria!" Luke shouted, applying the Knight and Bishop piece from afar.

Increase attack and spell buff!

Clenching her fist, she punched the ground next to her, creating an explosion that sent her body rolling away, narrowly avoiding the lightning.

However, it wasn't done.

The charges were still being stacked above her.

Since this was the case, she'll figure out how to counter this attack. If she didn't, Luke will never be able to follow her into the maelstrom.

Especially when she's this far away from the centre of the storm.

As the charges reach the threshold once more, a second strike crashed down towards Ria who condensed several motes of lightning into a singular orb.

Directly clashing with the attack is off the table.

The fact that her Raikiri, buffed with Luke's pieces, shattered apart like nothing was a clear testament of the power different.

But there is still a way for the weaker force to direct the flow of the stronger force!

Since they were both lightning, she simply had to take advantage of that fact!

Tossing the orb of power into the sky, Ria summoned her blade once more and cut it in half!

Two spikes of lightning shot around her, generating a charge far bigger than the one above her head!

*BANG!!!

The lightning above immediately split into three, targeting all the charges present as a smile appeared on Ria's face.

This defensive boundary was automatic. Applying a charge to anything that breathes. But if she can make a false charge at the last moment, she'll split up the lightning enough so that she could deal with it!

With her initial spikes robbing most of the power away, Ria slashed up, dispelling the final lightning strike.

Her hands were still trembling a little which caused sweat to form on her head but it was manageable!

As the next strike of lightning crashed down from above, Ria repeated the same process but this time, she tried to make three spikes of equal strength.

*BANG!!!

Gritting her teeth, she took a deep breath.

'Two is the limit. Three doesn't give me enough time to charge them up properly.'

Jumping back to Luke to avoid the lightning strikes, they began to plan.

"Right now, if I were to make orbs on the fly, two is the limit and that only works for one person.

"If we both go at the same time, this wouldn't work. I won't be able to fend off the lightning coming at us since it'll still hold the power of one full strike. And as you saw earlier, my Raikiri was destroyed without a chance to even move it." Ria frowned as Luke folded his arms.

"What if you make these orbs ahead of time?"

"Maybe. But this is a lot of distance to cover. You also got to remember that if I was to carry super charged orbs while running through this field, lightning might come down faster and stronger." Ria created an orb and tossed it towards the field.

Since it was already 'charged', lightning crashed down twice as fast.

"I could try turning myself to lightning in order to teleport but since it's foreign energy, I'm not sure if I'll take damage from it or not. And I'm not keen to find out either." Ria sighed.

Her fourth Sigil is strong. Very strong in fact since it allows her to travel through lightning itself.

Whether that be her own or natural lightning.

But this? This was far from natural. As the attacks belonging to the sky sovereign, there was no guarantee of her safety if she was to try and travel through it.

Hell, there was even a chance that she'll be immediately vapourised the moment she stepped in.

Thinking about this point, both of them groaned.

Tapping his fingers against the ground, Luke glanced over at the field and had an idea.

"What if I used Castling? The King piece is a piece that I can designate on a lot of different things." He suggested.

"Depends, can you use it in quick succession?"

"Fair point." Luke sighed.

In the end, Ria decided to experiment a little.

If they wanted to traverse this field, she needed to probe and figure out the rules. Patience was key and trying to brute force it would welcome her death.

There were three key points she needed to figure out.

One: How fast this charge builds up and how the different items affect this charge.

The fastest accumulation of charge is through her using a decoy that she creates herself. This causes a near instantaneous strike. Humans take a bit longer while objects seemed to be untouched to a certain extent.

Two: How they can use Luke's swaps to have the two of them reach the centre of this field.

With her speed, if it wasn't for the worry of lightning striking them down, it'll take less than a minute for her to reach the centre of this storm from the outside.

But because this lightning was a permanent lingering threat, she couldn't put all of her focus into speed.

Three: Frequency of strikes and whether or not the Sovereign could consciously control it once they get close to the centre.

Right now, they were working on the assumption that the lightning was fully automatic with the Sovereign being unaware of what they were going to do.

But if it was to take over at the last moment, their gimmicks and tricks will be destroyed in an instant. With that kind of risk, Ria needed to make sure they have a backup plan.

Then there was also the case of Luke's castling having a small range limit along with the fact that he needs to establish a board.

Facing the storm, Luke was silent.

He was recording the different methods they had available to them, the possible uses and what he could do to allow them to traverse this field.

'If Ria uses her lightning swap, charge is built up faster.

'She could send out decoys but there's only two maximum at any given moment. Anymore and she won't have enough time to create more. If I can delay the strike, she'll be able to possibly create four decoys, giving us enough leeway for her to deflect the strikes.' Luke thought to himself.

However. . .

"Ria, you know how if you make three decoys, you can't fend off the main one?" Luke asked as Ria nodded her head.

"What if you don't have to fend off the main one? There's a. . . Potential gamble we can do. Create three decoys, split the lightning.

"At the last possible moment, I'll swap your location with your decoy and have you face the weaker strike while the decoy takes the strongest strike in the middle. It doesn't matter if the smaller decoys can't divert all the power since I'll focus on castling at the right moment." Luke suggested.

Thinking about it for a moment, Ria agreed with his plan.

They began to test the base threshold that the decoys needed to hit in order to divert a small section of the lightning.

One large charge to simulate Ria, one small charge to simulate the decoy.

Throwing both into the field, Luke took a deep breath and deployed his board before designating the pieces.

'Hold. . .' He focused on the charge being built.

Already, he could see the lightning crashing down at alarming speeds.

But he couldn't do it just yet.

'Hold. . .'

The timing had to be precise. Too early and the lightning will change its course. Too slow and they get hit regardless.

Right as the lightning was about to hit the orb, Luke clenched his fist.

Castling!

The two charges swapped positions as the main source of lightning showed signs of trying to arc to the side but it was too late. It struck the weaker charge, destroying it and dispersing while the stronger charge took on the weaker lightning strike, absorbing it!

Seeing that it worked, Ria gave Luke a high five as they continued to experiment.

They had two methods of swapping.

Ria's lightning and his Castling.

If they space out their swaps, traversing this field was possible!

Watching everything with a relaxed posture, Rosalyn smiled seeing Luke figure out a loophole of sorts. A method where they can avoid the most dangerous strike.

"Atta boy." She chuckled.

They had to be capable of at least this much if they wanted to defeat a Sovereign titled beast.