Black Clover: Nah I'd Lose

'If this is the amount of mana it takes low-ranking devils, then what about mid-ranking ones or higher?' Erza didn't dare to think further along that line of thinking.

'No wonder he said there are certain techniques to kill them. I guess that's the limit of quantity.'

In the next instant, the mana broke into separate branches and blitzed towards each devil.

The mana also changed in nature and could be seen phasing between red and green colours.

The devils, along with all their equipment, were blasted—or more like turned into oblivion—when they came in contact with it.

'Oof, now that took a lot of mana and focus to do. It would have been troublesome to deal with all of them if they weren't caged. Anyway, that's a miscalculation,' Akeru thought as a large explosion could be heard.

BOOOOOM.

The explosion started from one corner of the bunker and expanded, tearing through to engulf everyone.

Erza and Drake's faces grimaced as they noticed the intensity of the explosion.

If it were any normal explosion, even Erza would have had the confidence to withstand it with her mana skin. However, this explosion was deadly enough to put Drake in panic, as it seemingly was created due to some chain reaction caused by the previous mana attack.

'I guess there must be some kind of material present there to cause this reaction. Well, you can't really blame me for not knowing all the different kinds of materials, no?' Akeru wryly thought as he used '3D Witness' to notice any escape routes or anyone who was left alive.

'I won't be able to escape, huh,' Akeru concluded. At this moment, the explosion hadn't even exited the 5-meter radius of where it started, all thanks to Akeru's focus spell.

Suddenly, vapors around Akeru quickly got converted into water, which in turn created a water barrier.

Seraph's Shell.

A similar barrier appeared around Erza, who was in a completely different room than Akeru.

Drake covered himself fully with ice, its density drastically increasing.

However, even though his defence spell had been upgraded previously, it was clearly not enough to withstand this, as in a few seconds, he got vaporized.

Somehow, this explosion led to another chain reaction, and another big explosion was caused in the bunker.

Erza, who had just seen Drake getting vaporized, was nervous about whether she would meet the same fate.

"We are leaving," she heard from beside her before she got grabbed by a big water hand as Akeru moved.

The two shells had now merged into one, withstanding the increased explosions.

"I thought I was going to die."

"Well, the severity of this explosion did increase. It would be troublesome even for me to remain here if I stayed for more time," Akeru honestly said.

He was pretty sure that most grand magic-knight-level individuals would find it troublesome to defend themselves here.

They exited the bunker, and Akeru left an artifact that would try to keep the explosion contained and not let it spread towards the civilian area.

"Do you think it will be able to achieve that?" Erza asked as she saw Akeru setting up the artefact.

This artifact was given to Akeru by Ren, so she also had the details on it.

"Well, not really. That's why I am going to try to contain it. It should be able to contain the aftermath," Akeru said while focusing on his mana zone.

'Viscous Hush.' Akeru felt his focus increase by several folds as he concentrated on decreasing the speed of everything in his zone.

Everything in the bunker slowed down.

Akeru noticed the molecules in the areas that were colliding a lot, so he decided to separate them.

If one had some observation or perception-related spell, they would have noticed that multiple constructs of small water appeared near those areas and separated them.

Akeru did this for multiple areas until he was satisfied that the artifact would be able to contain it.

"I'm done, let's go," Akeru said with a tired expression.

He blitzed towards another direction, as he was pretty sure that a Shining General would be coming to this location soon.

"I don't know what exactly you did, but it seems cool," Erza said, not really understanding what happened.

"Thank you."

"So, is our mission done?"

"Yeah, I already told the other two to escape the city a few hours ago, so they should be fine."

After travelling for a few hours, Akeru let go of Erza as the water hand turned into vapours.

"We will travel for one more hour before making camp."

"Fine," Erza said while groaning.

"Anyway, you didn't even defeat your opponent I left for you," Akeru decided to tease her.

"Well, I wasn't really expecting him to have such a defence. He even withstood one of the deadliest shots I could create. I guess it would have taken a while to decide the victor if we had more time."

What Erza didn't know was that the guy's spell had upgraded. She hadn't observed his grimoire shining due to it being covered with ice, so the sign wasn't really obvious, especially when she was focused on the outcome of her best shot at that moment.

"I guess I have to up your training," Akeru said with glee.

"Nooooooooo!"

---

Time: A few hours later; Space: Onyxspire.

"Didn't we have a meeting recently? Was the Akeru guy finally caught?"

"No, however, we have received grim news," Yagos said with a frown.

"What is it?"

"Not all of you know about this, but we have a research facility in Abyss Grip that focuses on researching devils. That was destroyed," Aetheris said with his usual calm demeanor.

"So, you think that Akeru guy destroyed it?" Zyphoria said with a frown.

"Yes, somebody having the capability to obliterate a devil completely has to be in the grand-magic knight realm. We also found traces of lightning being used and an artifact which didn't belong to the kingdom, though before we could analyze the artifact, it exploded," Yagos decided to answer him.

"I see."

There was silence, as none of them knew what to say in the situation.

Apart from the few of them who knew about this facility's existence beforehand, along with how many resources they had invested in it, the rest were indifferent to it.

"Hehe, I'm really getting excited to fight that guy. I missed him by a few minutes last time," a violet-haired girl said with an excited expression.

---

"So, what is our next plan?" Erza asked as she yawned.

She had woken up a while ago and was now having breakfast with Akeru.

"We will be regrouping with others at Duneshade. Well, this is to make sure that they are not compromised. I haven't told them this, but they probably know, so this could be a trap."

Erza was taken aback, as she hadn't seen this coming.

"Woah, I don't really know what to say. I guess you're being too cautious."

"Hmm, I wonder, maybe," Akeru shrugged while he seemingly remembered something.

His hand went into his spatial bag.

After half a minute of his hand inside it, he took out a paper.

"Finally found it. Read this," Akeru passed the paper to Erza, who had a sweat-dropped expression.

'Just how many things are there in that bag?' she thought as she took the paper in her hand.

Her eyes widened as she read the content.

"For real?"

"Real."

"I see, so what now?" Erza instantly asked the next question.

"Well, we don't have the complete clarity of the situation, so we will observe for now, though expect the worst."

"Yes," Erza nodded.

"Though I wasn't really expecting one of my squadmates to be connected to this," Erza said.

"Yeah, though I wonder how it's all related. We can't contact her for now, as it could lead to more complications," Akeru shrugged.

They both completed their breakfast and moved towards Duneshade—the city in a desert that was relatively near them, compared to how far they had travelled before.

***

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