“What’s the point of splitting me in half again?”

  “Sssshhhhh!!”

  Mari shushes Lukia as she puts her index finger in front of her lips. Suddenly, the same burning giant skull appeared from under Lukia with its jaw wide open.

  “WHOOPSS!!”

  Lukia’s two split bodies immediately fly away high towards the sky. They joined together, and her body reconnected as if nothing had happened. The giant burning skull misses its target.

  “Hmm, I guess you won’t fall for the same attack twice, huh?”

  Mari suddenly jumps towards Lukia’s elevation in the sky. She lands in midair as if stepping on solid footing. She immediately runs towards Lukia in midair with her right hand burning in green flame, ready to slash her again. Lukia opens her left hand, and she creates the same exact giant sword of water. She pulls both of her swords backward to her right, ready to swing them.

  *SLASH*

  *FWOSH*

  Mari and Lukia swing their attack, and they clash, creating a giant shockwave that reverberates towards the entire stadium, yet again.

  *ZZZZZZZZRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH*

  After only a few seconds, Mari’s attack breaks Lukia’s two giant swords apart. She immediately burns her left hand and swings it at her.

  “SOUL EXTINCTION!”

  *FWOOOOOOMMM*

  Mari sends out a gigantic green fiery slash that is almost as wide as the entire field of the stadium, and each of its ends almost touches the waterwall on the audience’s seats. Lukia reacts quickly; she mimics the movement of the jaw of an animal with both of her hands, and a gigantic dragon head similar in size to Mari’s attack appears instantly, encompassing her.

  “AQUA DRACO CRUSHER!!”

  *BITES*

  *GRRAAAAHHHKKK*

  *BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM*

  Their attack clash and immediately cause a gigantic explosion whose smoke reaches the ceiling of the green fire smoke. The two users of each attack, however, don’t really care about the explosion. They were not sent flying away, and they continue to come after each other.

  Lukia creates two small dragon heads that engulf her entire palms. Each tooth of the two dragons was enveloped by a constant flow of water across its shape that moves at 50.000km/hour. Mari simply envelopes both of her hands in her green flame.

  Mari thrusts her right hand at Lukia’s head, but she dodges to the left. Lukia immediately follows up with an uppercut from below towards Mari’s chin with her left hand. Mari swings her right leg upwards and kicks Lukia’s left hand from below, deflecting it upwards. She swings her palm downwards at Lukia’s torso. Lukia flies to Mari’s right quickly and dodges it. She swings her right hand at Mari’s right side of her head. Mari cartwheels herself to the left and completely dodges the attack. She also kicks Lukia’s hand with her legs during the motion in one fell swoop. Mari recovers and immediately swings her left hand upwards from below at Lukia.

  “SOUL EXTINCTION!!!”

  “(THAT ATTACK AGAIN?)”

  “WHALE CRUSHER!!”

  Lukia quickly creates 15 giant whales of water all around her, and they all ram themselves towards Mari’s attack.

  *BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM*

  Their attacks immediately cause a gigantic explosion yet again. Mari swiftly moves through under the cover of all the smoke behind Lukia. She summons her giant burning skull again.

  *ZRRAAASSSHHH*

  Lukia’s legs below her ankles were bitten off and swallowed by the burning giant skull. But Lukia did not even flinch; she turned around to face Mari immediately and swung her left hand diagonally downwards across her torso.

  *ZRRRRAAAAAASSSSHHH*

  Mari steps back, and her wound is shallow as a result, though her wound closes immediately after.

  “Please give me back my leg?”

  “No!”

  “Aw! Alright then!”

  Lukia turns sideways, raises her right hand to the side, and opens her right palm.

  *!!!*

  Suddenly, the entire stadium was filled with aquatic animals, floating in the air, made of water of various kinds and various sizes, and there were so many of them that no normal person would try to count them. Mari discards her giant burning skull, sealing Lukia’s feet away.

  “What’s this? Making an aquarium is your special attack?”

  “How rude! Just wait and see what they’ll do to you!”

  Lukia points her index finger at Mari, and all of a sudden, a horde of swordfish flies in the air towards her.

  *GRAHK GRAHK GRAHK GRAHK GRAHK GRAHK*

  *ZZRRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH*

  Mari erected a wall of green flame and blocked all of the swordfish, and they all splattered on her wall on impact. Lukia moves her hand, and a horde of whales swarm towards Mari. Mari creates a ball of green fire sphere all around her, encompassing her entire body.

  *BAAM BAAM BAAM BAAM*

  All the whales rammed themselves into her sphere, and they all splattered into her sphere on impact.

  “Trapping yourself like that doesn’t look like a very smart choice!”

  Lukia immediately signalled every single water creature of hers to bombard themselves at Mari’s spheres. First are all the smaller ones. They rammed themselves continuously, but they all splattered back into water on impact. Next are the medium-sized ones; they all ram themselves as well against her sphere, and lastly, the large ones. Lukia made all the large ones to swallow Mari’s sphere in full. After each large water creature swallowed Mari’s sphere, they all turned into a giant ball of water, and after all the large creatures' numbers were exhausted, Mari’s sphere was now trapped inside a gigantic ball of water, almost as big as the stadium itself.

  Lukia points her open palm towards the gigantic ball of water, and then the entirety of the water suddenly turns black, and the sunlight cannot pierce through its surface. Mari’s sphere inside the water can no longer be seen from anywhere outside, no matter the angle.

  “HADAL ZONE!!”

  Lukia shouts her attack with a terrifyingly confident smile.

  *GGRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHKKKK*

  A crushing sound suddenly comes from the inside of the gigantic pitch-black ball of water. Lukia increases the water pressure of this gigantic ball of water to the hadal zone, a classification of the depth of the ocean, where the depth reaches from 6000m to 11.000m deep under the surface, with water pressure reaching from 60 to 100 megapascals. Lukia goes for the maximum depth, and the gigantic pitch-black ball of water has a water pressure of 111 megapascals. Under these circumstances, no human being would stand a chance of surviving. Moreover, Lukia also concentrates all of the water pressure at the center of the gigantic water ball, pushing its pressure even further up to 250 megapascals.

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  Although nobody can see inside, Lukia is the only one who can, and she sees that Mari’s sphere was crushed to bits, unable to withstand the extreme pressure. But she was confused as she clearly saw that Mari was completely fine despite being located at the center.

  “Soul Damnation!”

  *!!!*

  From inside the gigantic ball of water, Lukia can hear a muffled voice of Mari shouting. Mari’s body suddenly glows brightly green, and it turns the gigantic pitch-black water green.

  *BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

  *FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM*

  *FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH*

  Mari sends out a gigantic explosion of green fire from her entire body. The gigantic green flame explosion was almost as big as the roof opening of the stadium; it also barely touched the water wall all around the audience’s seats. The explosion breaks apart and splatters the gigantic ball of water. The sheer volume of water created heavy rain for a few minutes across the entire stadium when it exploded.

  *pant pant pant*

  Lukia is floating in the sky after being caught directly in that gigantic explosion. She is missing her entire left hand and left leg, her right leg is gone past her knees, her torso has a giant hole on the left, and her right waist also has a small hole on it.

  “I can’t believe not even the Hadal zone can break you.”

  “I am not done, though!” said Mari as she showed Lukia the back of her palm like she was trying to grip something.

  *!!!*

  “SOUL RUPTURE!!”

  Mari raises her right arm higher, and then gigantic pillars of green fire erupt everywhere in the stadium, each with a diameter of five meters, exactly 1 pillar of fire every 0,3 seconds, randomly, with each pillar lasting for one second at minimum.

  *FWWWOOOOOMMMM*

  *FWOSH FWOM FWOSH FWOOOMMM*

  Lukia dodged a few times by paying attention to the ground where the pillar of fire would erupt. She dodges left and right, flying and dodging through each pillar of fire as many as possible.

  *FWWWOOOOMM*

  After two entire minutes of continuously dodging, Lukia finally got caught by one of the smaller pillars of fire that form a lot faster than the larger ones, messing up her judgment, and it burned her entire left face.

  *FWWWOOOOOMMM FWWOOOOSSSHHHH*

  And then, soon after, her entire body was caught by multiple pillars of fire, and it burned away until nothing was left. Mari stops her attack, and the formation of gigantic green pillars of fire stops. Even under all of that fire, the grass on the ground was completely unburnt.

  . . . . .

  Another deafening silence quickly befalls the entire stadium. Mari descends to the ground near where Eissen is. He is obviously fine and completely unharmed through all of those attacks as per Mari’s will.

  “Is it finally over?”

  “No, but I only immobilized her. Kinda. Normally, any of those two attacks would have eradicated someone until there’s nothing left, but seeing her immortal state, I kinda don’t care what happens next.”

  “EH? Mari-chan, do you think that was wise? What if you’re wrong, though? Your Faith power primarily attacks the soul, so what if her soul was completely eradicated? Wouldn’t that count as murder?”

  Mari summons back her giant, burning skull behind.

  “It’s alright, I still have her feet here. Not to mention—"

  Mari raises her left hand to the side, and Eissen notices something that is almost entirely invisible on her hand.

  “EH? THAT’S HER? WHEN DID YOU--?”

  “During that whole Soul Rupture attack, I pulled her soul towards my hand as soon as her body was eradicated.”

  “She seems much more see-through than usual. Is she gonna be okay?”

  “No, actually, she is going to die in the next few seconds, if I don’t hurry to reconnect her soul with her feet.”

  “EEEHHHHH?? THEN DO IT FAST!!”

  The giant burning skull suddenly spits out Lukia’s ankles, and Mari quickly slams her soul into Lukia’s detached feet.

  “The average person would’ve probably been foaming at the mouth seeing this ‘mutilatic’ view. I am used to it, though.”

  “Ahahahahaha!! I remember the first time you puked when you saw me extracting someone’s soul with my scythe!!”

  “I think that was a pretty normal reaction seeing someone die for the first time in my life. . .”

  “Eeeh? Don’t use the word ‘die’, she immediately came back alive afterwards.”

  “Mari-chan, we’ve been together for quite some time, and I’ve gotten used to it, but looking in from an outside perspective, your Faith power is pretty gruesome. . .”

  “EEEHH? Please, don’t say that about my Faith power. . . I think it’s pretty cool.”

  *dahk*

  “AW!”

  Eissen gently chops Mari’s head.

  “I said from an outside perspective, not mine.”

  “Alright, alright. . .”

  *!!!!*

  *SPLASH*

  All of a sudden, Mari was sent flying by a powerful water stream, shot from behind her.

  “MARI-CHAN!!! WHY DIDN’T YOU DODGE?!”

  Mari stops herself in mid-air when she almost hits the water wall on the audience’s seats.

  “Hmmm, that honestly took way longer than I thought.” said Mari.

  “I just wanna hear you two talking so maybe one of you would slip up and tell me more about your Faith power. . .”

  Lukia’s entire body has regenerated, and she stands next to Eissen. He immediately gets alerted, activates his Vein Armor, and enters his battle stance. Lukia raises her right arm above, and a small water tornado whirls around her forearm and extends past her hand up to 3 meters in length. The small water tornado spins at 10.000km/h.

  “Die, Terrorist helper!”

  Lukia swings her hand down, and Eissen summons his pistol and quickly aims it to the left to be ready to swap places with the bullet.

  “(I WON’T MAKE IT!! I WAS TOO LATE AND HER HAND CAME DOWN A LOT FASTER THAN I THOUGHT!!)”

  *GRABS*

  *BWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*

  Mari suddenly appears in front of Eissen, and she catches Lukia’s attack on her wrist. Her grip was destroyed, and made Lukia’s deadly whirlpool go awry and dissipate.

  “Hooo? That was so fast! How did you appear here so fast?”

  “Secret!”

  “Aw, c’mon! Don’t be stingy! We’ve fought for a while now! Shouldn’t we be Opponent-Buddies?”

  “I have no idea what you’re trying to say, but I guess I’ll give you an example.”

  “OH! How generous, now sho---!!”

  When Mari is still holding Lukia’s arm, Lukia feels Mari’s presence coming from behind at the same time. She quickly turns around and sees that there is another Mari, already thrusting her straightened palm, engulfed in her green flame at her belly.

  *ZRRRRAAAAAAASSSSSHHHHH*

  Mari’s hand pierces through Lukia’s belly.

  “H-How?”

  Lukia looks behind her, and Mari is still behind, holding her right arm, and she never lets her go.

  “W-What is going on here? Clones? You made clones? But that doesn’t make sense!! Because I genuinely felt your presence both in front and behind me. Clones don’t give the same presence as the real deal; this is different.”

  Mari smirks.

  “Because we’re both real!”

  *!!*

  “What?”

  The Mari that pierces her belly throws Lukia behind, and she lands 30 meters away from her. The Mari who held Lukia’s arm walks next to the Mari who threw Lukia away.

  “One is my soul! And the other is my body! Unlike normal people, my Faith power on Second State allows me to operate separately as body and soul, independently of each other. Hmm, I guess that also means my output gets doubled! Wow, I never realized that!”

  “Are you kidding me? YOUR FAITH POWER IS ALREADY OP ON IN ITS NORMAL STATE!! YOU DON’T NEED ANYTHING PAST THAT!!”

  “This, coming from someone who could end human civilization by herself without even needing Second State, is very arrogant.”

  “SILENCE!!”

  Lukia’s belly has already regenerated. She raises her open palm forward.

  “MEGALODON SWARM!!”

  Lukia sends out water that forms into a swarm of giant megalodons, each 17 meters in length, and the diameter of their front body is 5 meters.

  “HM!” The two Mari smirk confidently.

  *DESH DESH DESH DESH DESH DESH*

  *SPLATS SPLATS SPLATS SPLATS SPLATS *

  Each Mari destroys one incoming Megalodon by herself with one strike, and with both of them together, not a single Megalodon ever lands any attacks of any kind towards them. After a few seconds, Lukia stops her swarm, seeing how Mari handles all of them.

  *pant pant pant*

  Lukia is suddenly breathing heavily, but Mari is also starting to sweat.

  “Looks like our time limit is almost up!”

  “Yeah. . . Seems like it. I’m gonna be honest, I’ve never gone into Second State and fully stayed in this form until the timer runs out. This is going to be the first time.”

  “*pant pant* Yeah, same here! I know you’re a Terrorist, but I gotta say, it’s really nice to fight someone on my level.”

  “Shall we end this then?”

  “Hit me with all you got!!”

  Mari merges with herself, and she summons a giant black skull burning in green flame that is slightly larger than her size.

  “SOUL FEAR!!”

  The giant black burning skull oozes black mist that quickly fills the entire stadium, but it doesn’t go past the water wall on the audience’s seats.

  *!!!!*

  All of a sudden, Lukia felt a chilling fear in her bones.

  “(What is this? What is this coldness? What is this dread feeling? What is this that I am sensing? What’s going on all of a sudden?)”

  Lukia takes a glance at the giant black skull that Mari summoned.

  *!!!*

  Instantly, she felt as afraid as humanly possible.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!”

  She suddenly screeched so loudly that everyone in the audience was startled.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!”

  Lukia continues to scream for a few seconds, but then she suddenly stops, and her head hangs down from her neck.

  “MARI-CHAN? WHAT IS GOING ON WITH HER? IS SHE DEAD?”

  “I don’t know! This technique isn’t supposed to cause any real damage to my opponents, let alone killing them!”

  “RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

  Suddenly, Lukia screams frantically and surprises everyone yet again. This time, her scream is filled with rage.

  “RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

  She suddenly flies high above the sky and stops herself near the ceiling of the green fire dome. She raises her right open palm towards the sky.

  “Mari-chan? What is she doing?”

  “I-I don’t know!”

  “Please go check! I have a really bad feeling about this!”

  “Right!”

  Mari crouches and jumps high above really fast and reaches the ceiling of her green fire dome in no time.

  “7th Strongest-san! What are you doing?”

  Lukia turns towards Mari.

  “FACING MY FEARS!!”

  “WHAT?”

  Mari was confused, as after answering, Lukia didn’t seem to be doing anything particular, nor was she creating water anywhere near her.

  “W-What are you doing right now?”

  “OVERCOMING MY FEAR WITH BRUTE STRENGTH!!”

  “Huh?”

  That answer still confuses Mari, but then she suddenly realizes that even though it is daytime, it gets a lot darker very quickly. Mari looks upwards and sees past her green fire dome.

  *!!!!*

  “Are you serious?”

  High above the sky at the heights of the clouds, there is a gigantic ball of water floating in the sky with a staggering diameter of 5 kilometers. Its sheer size and volume block the sun completely. The gigantic ball of water quickly changes shape into a gigantic serpentine creature that Mari herself had never seen before.

  “W-What is that?”

  “THE GREAT SEA DEVIL!!”

  *!!!*

  Lukia swings her hand down.

  “LEVIATHAN!!”

  And then the gigantic Leviathan in the sky lunges downwards towards the stadium, moving at a really high speed with its jaw wide open.