With his inferno fist spell having been deflected back at him and blowing off his left-hand, Marcus was currently in a bit of a precarious situation being down an arm.
Luckily his high-speed regeneration was already going to work and pumping in a persistent healing spell Marcus sped up the recovery process.
'Why is she just waiting there?'
However, while he was waiting for the next attack to come his way since he was injured, nothing happened, and the rebel captain just stood there watching with her guard up.
She had no intention of making the first move right now and was perfectly fine waiting for Marcus for now.
Her subordinates were currently clearing out from the area, since after seeing Marcus' last attack, she knew that this was going to be a dangerous fight where any bystanders that were around would get caught up in it.
'Well, if she is just going to sit there, then I will take my time to prepare.'
Seeing as his opponent was not making a move Marcus began casting buff spells on himself, starting with the new spell he learned called lightning warrior.
It was tier five spell and while it was similar to the lower tier spell lightning strider it was far stronger and increased strength a bit along with a massive boost in agility.
After that Marcus cast heart of the forge, followed by arms of darkness and legs of light, before reaching the point of mana consumption that was just a bit more than he restored with his regeneration skill.
Unfortunately, he was not the only one that had been casting buff spells in preparation, and the rebel captain had been doing the same.
'Captain we have cleared the area. Feel free to go wild.' One of her subordinates said using telepathy.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt'Fox Fang Strike.'
Keeping an eye on his enemy Marcus was a bit surprised to see her jump at him widely raising both of her weapons above her head in a posture that left her wide open.
Yet, he immediately felt that something was wrong, and soon he understood what it was.
Ignoring the form that was coming at him from the front, Marcus abruptly turned around and swung forward with his scythe towards what appeared to be nothing but the air.
CLANG!
The resounding sound of metal clashing against metal could be heard as Marcus' scythe met the invisible blades of the golden fox beastgirl he was fighting.
An instant after that the illusory replacement the girl had conjured passed harmlessly through Marcus, as he fought the real one that had gone invisible.
"Oh, I am surprised that you not only noticed that the me in front of you was an illusion, but also that you were able to locate me."
Marcus then felt the force that was being pushed against his scythe back off, and quickly the fox beastgirl left the range of the skill he was using to find her.
'Damn this is annoying. Her illusions look incredibly real, and even danger sense did not detect her. If I did not have life sense active right now, I would have been completely blindsided.' Marcus thought while trying to figure how to counter these illusions.
He tired using the chain that connected them, but it had seemingly disappeared, and he could no longer see or feel it.
'Heat Vision.'
Casting the heat vision spell Marcus looked around for the inviable rebel captain, but unfortunately, she had some type of heat shielding ability that prevented that from working.
Sighing since nothing else was working Marcus opened up his status and was about to spend some skill points to increase the range of his life sense skill, when he felt her enter into his range again.
Bringing his scythe around Marcus did his best to fight her off, but even thought he could feel her life force, she was still invisible, and he could not see exactly where her arms and swords were.
After taking a few blows Marcus knew he was not going to be getting anywhere this way, and using the tier four spell darkness pulse, sent out a wave of darkness energy in every direction.
Still his opponent was very fast and had zipped away once again escaping the range of Marcus' life sense.
At the very least this did give Marcus a chance to spend some points into life sense dropping thirty-six points to bring it up to level five.
And as the skill's range doubled for each level Marcus could now sense out to one hundred sixty feet and found the fox beastgirl currently perched up in a branch around a hundred feet away.
The reason for this was due to it being the maximum distance she could get from Marcus, or he could get from her so long as her unique skill fight to the finish was active.
'Fire storm.'
Now that he was able to locate her Marcus had no problems with barraging her with powerful spells.
With the fire storm spell engulfing everything around her, the rebel captain had realized evasion was impossible and leapt straight through the raging flames.
Feeling this Marcus was surprised but he got ready as his target came blasting out of the flames and right towards him.
'Iron Ramparts.'
Using the only tier five iron magic spell he had gotten from the kingdom, Marcus conjured an incredibly thick fortified wall that expanded out for two hundred feet and stood fifty feet tall.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmThis forced the rebel captain to halt her advance and changing her posture used her feet to brace against the wall, before channeling mana into her two blades and cutting through it.
But Marcus had not stood idle while she had done this and was now floating in the air above as he cast his next spell.
'Luminous Prison.'
Casting a tier five light magic spell, Marcus sent dozens of beams of light down which quickly shaped themselves into a cell around the golden fox beastgirl.
Normally this spell would be absurdly difficult to escape from, but the rebel captain suddenly erupted with the same bluish silver flames that covered her kukris and began burning through the luminous prison.
'To late. Cataclysmic Iron Sword.'
Nevertheless, Marcus' light magic spell had restrained her long enough, and using his most powerful spell, sent down a titanic sword of iron with the same amount of force as a freight train.
'Reflector Shield.'
Having no other way out, the fox beastgirl once again used the same move she had to block Marcus' inferno fist spell.
And as if breaking the law of physics, very similarly to when Quillon first blocked Marcus' cataclysmic iron sword, the hundreds of tons of iron bounced back receiving all of the force behind it back onto itself.
Except this time, Marcus was in its return path and had to quickly go ethereal to avoid being hit by his own spell once again.
However, as soon as his cataclysmic iron sword had passed through him the fox girl was right there covered in her bluish silver flames that had formed around her body in the shape of a fox.
'Fox Fire Twin Slash.'
Being blindside, Marcus was hit by the rebel captain's attack that was infused with spiritual energy and went rocketing towards the ground with deeps cuts in his body while enveloped by fire.