The natural energy gushed out of the golden bracers and enveloped her, healing her injuries within a couple of seconds.
She slowly rose to her feet and raised her hand. The Excalibur, which had fallen on the floor earlier, rushed toward her. She caught it and took a serious look at the winged skeleton. "The speed of this skeleton is comparable to that of a Supreme realm expert but the power behind that fist is in 8-star realm. Either that thing is controlling its strength or Azrael has killed a legendary realm expert. Judging by the wings, the descendant of an angel or fallen angel perhaps?"
As analyzing from one bout is useless, Leah went on ahead to battle against the winged skeleton while conjuring an oval-shaped translucent barrier around her for defense.
Meanwhile, Azzy was mildly surprised by the scene. He thought she would be knocked by one punch but it looks like she wasn't going down without a tough fight.
However, he was also aware that the skeleton of the cardinal is a perfect thing to test her strength.
Hence, he didn't join the battle and went into spectator mode, watching the battle between the winged skeleton and the princess of Camelot.
Five minutes have passed and the winged skeleton was almost as mighty as its original body. No damages inflicted on it so far.
On the other hand, Leah kept on getting crashed onto the walls or the floor over and over again but she would readily get back into the fight as if she was feeling no pain.
Looking at her state, Azzy couldn't help but think of Claire. With her extraordinary recovery ability, she would fight quite recklessly like how Leah was doing now. However, there's a difference.
While Claire rarely learns her lessons in the middle of battle, Leah was constantly improving and never made the same mistake twice. Not to mention, her applications of natural energy were entirely on another level. She effectively proved that not only the natural energy can be used in combat but it can also be used as a substitute for soul energy.
Azzy couldn't say it out loud but he was actually amazed by her Sage arts, which were probably developed by her own, unlike his Buddhism techniques that were acquired with the assistance of the Reaper.
But then again, he never lost against his peers and he planned to stay that way.
Hence, in a desperate move to win, Azzy decided to join the battle by reducing his size to that of an ant while absorbing the natural energy from the surroundings at a rapid pace.
Leah realized it but she was currently in a bind with not being able to afford to lose her focus from the winged skeleton that only tries to beat her up without caring about its defense.
As a result, she did the only thing she could do in this situation.
Before Azzy completely filled his body with the required natural energy, he saw Leah's clones made of water make their appearance one after another. By the time he was ready to attack, there were sixteen of them.
None of those clones tried to help Leah and just stood in a line as if they built a human wall to block Azzy until the original wins her battle against the undead skeleton.
In response, Azzy grabbed one of the Protos spears floating behind him with his left hand and motioned his other arm backward, pointing the palm forward.
"Sage Arts of Buddhism: Divine Palm"
A giant palm made of translucent natural energy was conjured before him and he motioned his arm forward, pushing toward the enemy. As soon as he launched it, Azzy then summoned the storage card to take out a 7-star skill card from it.
He dismissed the storage card and stared at the scene unfolding before his eyes, waiting for the perfect moment.
The sixteen clones immediately turned into volumes of water and merged together before transforming into a giant shield. The divine palm struck the water shield and pushed through it and went toward the princess.
At that moment, the winged skeleton was at the end of receiving a flame attack from Leah. Upon receiving the order through telepathy, the undead creature caught Leah's arms while purposely getting hit by the attack.
Leah saw the divine palm and was alerted by the failure of her clones. She struggled to move but her arms were tightly locked by the skeleton.
At the same time, she still needed to wait for a while to conjure the barrier and the time is also running out for her to maintain the merged transformation.
So, she did the most obvious thing that she could. Leah turned into water and collapsed on the floor to free herself from the skeleton.
And just when that happened, Azzy dashed forward at his maximum speed and threw the skill card onto the floor, and continued to run.
Before Leah was able to transform back into her human form, an enormous gravitational force pushed her down, giving her enough time for Azzy to cover the distance and reach her.
By the time she transformed back into herself, Azzy was already there and struck her with the Protos Spear, reaching out for the second one.
The eyes of the princess widened in shock as the Protos energy invaded her body while she was on her knees.
Placing a Protos Spear at one of her bracers, Azzy then said, "I know that Excalibur can negate the corruptive energy invaded your body and you probably might have a solution to negate the 100g force around, but before that happened, I will destroy your arm guards and make them useless. They look precious to you."
Leah stared at him for a few seconds and let out a sigh, "alright, I lost, you blackmailer."
"You forced me," replied Azzy as he rose to his feet and gave her his hand. She grabbed them and stood on her feet with great difficulty because of the gravitational dome.
As Azzy cannot dismiss the gravitational force effect, he continued to hold her arms for the next hundred seconds as they chatted about the battle.
Leah made a depressed face as she was saying that even 27 years of training wasn't enough for her to catch up to him for he didn't even use fifty percent of his strength.
In response, Azzy shook his head, "It is not that I didn't choose to go with full strength. It is just that I cannot. Ruby has evolved during my breakthrough to the 7-star realm. I didn't have time to train with her. As for the hourglass, I don't even know how to use it properly. Hence, I refrained from bringing it out.
And as you can see, to pin you down, I have also consumed all of my soul power in the process. But, I should say, whether it is the application of natural energy or the hidden soul skill, you exceeded my expectations. I'll give you that. By the way, what metal is this made of?" After praising her, he asked about the golden bracers.
Leah answered as she looked at the golden bracers on her arms, "They are primarily made of Orichalcum, the blood, and bones of a 9-star realm dragon."
"Orichalcum?" Azzy never heard of it before.
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