Liberation of The Slaves

Chapter 142 – Celestial Spiral Arts

After the massive ironclad golem collapsed into a heap of useless scrap, Selena, whom I affectionately called Len, casually reached into the wreckage and stashed its glowing magic stone into her leather bag. Her silver hair and golden eyes shimmered faintly in the dusty air.

"I really thought you had completely destroyed its magic stone with that attack," I said, crossing my arms as I watched her scavenge.

"Magic stones are incredibly valuable for crafting and activating various magic tools," Len replied with a bright smile. She was always cheerful when she was alone with me. "I made sure not to destroy the magic stones of the rockbound or bronzeguard golems earlier either."

Her uncanny ability to safely retrieve the fragile magic stones while her bare fists violently tore through the solid bodies of the golems truly puzzled me. How on earth did she manage such a delicate task amidst such destruction? Since the entire process occurred deep within the mechanical bodies of the golems, I could not observe the exact mechanism from my vantage point high above.

"When exactly did you learn such advanced martial arts?" I asked, completely surprised by her sudden display of physical prowess.

I never knew she possessed the skill to fight in hand-to-hand combat with such devastating efficiency. Moreover, she seemed to deliberately adjust her physical strength to closely match my own limits, as if she was subtly implying that my current level of strength alone should be more than sufficient to defeat these hulking metal beasts.

"I read about this technique in a fantasy book during my past life, but I never actually tried to use it until right now," Len explained with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders.

Her utterly ridiculous response left me completely speechless for a moment. She gently tapped her delicate chin and continued thoughtfully.

"Since this is my very first time using it in this new world, it should definitely be treated as my own original martial art. Hmm…"

She gracefully placed a slender finger against her pale cheek while tilting her head to the side, pondering deeply for a brief moment before her golden eyes lit up.

"Ah! I will call it Celestial Spiral Arts, and that specific move I used just now will be known as the Celestial Cyclone Strike!"

What an incredibly grand and flashy name she decided to give to her newly discovered martial skill. Well, it was entirely her right to name it whatever she pleased, even if she technically stole the entire concept from a fictional story in her past life.

Len then cast a quick appraisal magic upon herself and murmured softly.

"Yup, it is officially registered in my skill list right now."

Could learning a new combat technique truly be that ridiculously simple? I quickly checked her status window using my own appraisal ability, confirming that a brand new martial arts skill had indeed been added to her list of skills.

Celestial Spiral Arts

Lv. 1

Description is unavailable.

Similar to the peculiar nature of her other original skills, the detailed description of her new martial art remained completely unavailable. Azadia had previously mentioned that there were specific hidden conditions required for a skill description to be fully unlocked and added to the status window.

"Hmm, I still have not managed to obtain the earth element yet," Len muttered with a hint of disappointment in her voice.

"I highly doubt that merely destroying pieces of refined metal would magically grant you an affinity for the earth element."

【No, it is actually possible, but for non-Elementalist users, it might require defeating an S-Rank golem, such as an Adamantite Golem.】

Aza chimed into our conversation via telepathy, providing some rather concerning new information.

"That’s an outrageous requirement," I exclaimed in disbelief.

In the countless fantasy novels I had read, Adamantite was universally known as the highest grade of metal in existence. Even if she was fighting in her prime, I doubted that Len could manage to destroy such a durable substance using nothing but her bare physical strength without relying on her immense aura or mana reserves.

"Well, I don’t particularly need the earth element for anything important, so it does not really concern me," Len said while shrugging her shoulders dismissively.

Suddenly, a deeply mischievous and wicked grin spread across her delicate features.

Ugh. I always get an incredibly bad feeling in the pit of my stomach every single time she grins at me like that.

"How about it? Now there are precisely fifty C-Rank golems and one single B-Rank golem left on the field, right?"

So she had deliberately given me that exact remaining count earlier, fully knowing that she secretly intended to use those first three golems merely as test subjects for her wild martial arts experiment.

"D-Do I really have to handle all of this completely alone?" I asked her, my voice trembling nervously.

How in the world could I possibly replicate her newly invented martial arts technique when I did not even comprehend her basic explanation? What exactly did she mean when she talked about rotating the muscles?

"Of course you do. I will count to three, and then you jump," Len urged with a sadistic glint in her golden eyes.

"W-Wait, I am not ready—!"

Before I could even finish my desperate plea, she mercilessly began her countdown.

"One."

"Damn it all!"

I cursed loudly under my breath, frantically scanning the ground below to assess the positions of the remaining metallic golems. But before I could mentally brace my body for the incoming drop, she continued her merciless countdown.

"Three!"

"Huh?!"

She completely skipped the number two and forcefully pushed my back, throwing me completely off balance and sending my body hurtling downwards towards the waiting army of metal golems. She simply stood there on the edge of our wind platform, casually waving her slender hand at me as she gleefully watched me plummet towards the unforgiving earth.

"YOU CRAZY BITCH PRINCESS!"

{""Kyaaaa!""}

As I plummeted through the open air, the terrified voices of Alfia and Nyxia suddenly screamed loudly inside my mind. They could physically feel the harsh wind rushing past my face, intimately sharing my sense of mortal terror as the ground rapidly approached.

("Your punishment increases to four straight days if you fail this task. Each subsequent insult you throw at me will simply add another full day to your sentence.")

She was an insane princess!

I was rapidly falling towards a massive, angry horde of mechanical golems. Even if there were no dangerous metal constructs waiting for me at the bottom, I might very well die instantly just from hitting the solid ground from such an extreme height. I needed to figure out a plan and do something to save myself immediately.

Just as I desperately gathered my magic and prepared to conjure another solid platform made of wind magic to break my fall, the cold voice of my so-called wife quickly cut through my panicked thoughts.

("For every single time you decide to use your aura or your mana reserves, you will skip one entire meal, regardless of whether you actually succeed in defeating the golems or not.")

<"Are you really trying to kill me right now, you bitch?!">

I angrily retorted through our telepathic link, but she merely responded with a deeply casual and unbothered tone.

("Your punishment has now officially increased to five full days. Do not worry so much, dear. This is a magical fantasy world. You won’t die from a simple little fall like this one. I can easily heal your body with my magic if you just happen to break a few of your fragile bones.")

Damn her crazy logic! I refused to be easily controlled and manipulated by her sadistic whims!

Suddenly, a brilliant and slightly vindictive idea flashed across my mind. She was currently standing completely confident on the floating wind platform that I had conjured earlier. Since it was entirely my own magic sustaining it, I simply severed the magical connection and instantly deactivated the platform.

"Huh? Kyaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Len suddenly screamed in pure shock, perfectly echoing the terrified cries of Alfia and Nyxia from just moments before, as she unexpectedly plummeted through the sky directly above me.

Ha! That definitely served her right for pushing me off in the first place!

("You ungrateful student! You should be focusing on solving your own immediate problems down there, not creating new problems for your teacher!")

She angrily scolded me using our Unified Voices telepathic link, her mental voice projecting clearly even amidst her own continuous physical screams of terror.

<"Nonsense. I’m simply following my dear teacher's strict instructions to refrain from using any of my precious mana.">

I replied as coolly and calmly as I possibly could while we both continued to free-fall rapidly towards our potential doom.

【Haaa. You both act exactly like petty children. Perhaps you two really are the craziest couple that I have ever had knowing in my entire existence.】

Aza suddenly interjected into our chaotic mental link with a heavy, exhausted sigh, accurately labeling us as the craziest married couple alive. Perhaps the exasperated angel was actually right about that observation. Who else in their right mind played dangerous, life-threatening pranks on each other by intentionally free-falling from such dizzying heights without any safety measures? Even a holy and pure angel like her, who served the Goddess of Freedom, could clearly recognize the sheer depths of our mutual insanity.

However, crazy as she was, my wife was still fundamentally right. The hard, rocky ground was approaching at a truly terrifying speed, and I desperately needed a solid plan to avoid shattering every single bone in my fragile body upon impact. Falling gracefully from the sky only to instantly die a pathetic death to a waiting horde of metal golems was definitely not on my agenda for today. Furthermore, the silver-haired elf who was still loudly screaming as she plummeted right above me would obviously not be in any stable condition to heal my broken body if we both hit the ground at terminal velocity. And to make matters even worse, the heavy winds had slightly shifted my trajectory, meaning I was now headed straight down towards the largest and strongest golem of the entire metallic bunch, a massive ironclad monstrosity.

I quickly recalled the brief explanation of her newly invented martial art. The core of her ridiculous technique essentially involved forcefully rotating the flexible joints and dense muscles of the ankle, and then seamlessly connecting that powerful rotation surging upwards from the solid ground directly into the larger leg muscles to generate explosive kinetic force.

But currently, suspended in mid-air, I possessed no solid stepping stone to generate that initial ground-up rotational force. Furthermore, I had an incredibly limited amount of physical movement available to me while falling backwards through the thick, rushing air like this. My current bodily posture was completely flipped upside down, with my kicking legs flailing helplessly above me and my vulnerable head pointing straight towards the earth below. I highly doubted whether I could even survive the initial impact if my skull reached the rocky ground first before the rest of my body.

Pure desperation quickly fueled a spark of mad innovation within my racing mind. I forcefully initiated a rapid horizontal axis rotation with my upper body, immediately feeling the violent wind rush heavily around my spinning form. Without a firm stepping stone to anchor my power, I desperately resorted to violently rotating my entire physical body in mid-air like a human drill, tightly focusing all of my concentration on perfectly aligning my tense muscles along the invisible center axis of my rapid rotation.

Suddenly, as if nature itself was reacting to my sheer physical will, the dense air immediately surrounding me miraculously responded to my movements. It began swirling rapidly like a massive celestial spiral, perfectly mirroring my intense physical motion even though I was certain that I was not consciously controlling the atmospheric winds with either my magical aura or my internal mana reserves.

As the terrifying vertical gap rapidly closed between my descending body and the waiting army of golems, I forcefully directed the core focus of the natural whirlwind down towards my right wrist, physically priming my tense muscles for a devastating downward attack. Astonishingly, the ambient wind eagerly complied with my physical movements, sharply concentrating its massive kinetic pressure tightly around my clenched fist with razor-sharp precision.

As the howling winds fully converged and pressurized around my glowing fist, I slowly began extending my right arm outwards, aiming my impending strike directly for the thick skull of the giant ironclad golem waiting below. With my tightly clenched fist just a few mere inches away from physically connecting with the golem's metallic head, the violently compressed wind barrier surrounding my hand collided with the metal surface first.

BAAAAMMM!

The intensely concentrated wind violently tore straight through the thick armor of the ironclad golem from its bulky head down to its metallic toes, effortlessly carving out a massive, deep half-sphere pit into the rocky earth upon the catastrophic impact. The surrounding C-Rank golems helplessly tumbled down into the newly formed abyss, immediately meeting the exact same destructive fate as they were crushed by the immense invisible pressure. Razor-sharp shrapnel forged from the utterly destroyed bodies of the metal golems scattered explosively in all possible directions, wreaking havoc and widespread destruction upon the remaining ranks of their metallic allies.

As for myself, the massive, concentrated force of the rebounding wind violently propelled my body back upward into the air the very moment the invisible strike obliterated the target golem. It was almost as if I had successfully managed to massively amplify the destructive impact of my physical strike upon the enemy while simultaneously mitigating all of the harmful recoil damage that would have otherwise shattered my own fragile body. The residual upward momentum gracefully rotated my spinning body back into a proper vertical alignment, and I smoothly descended through the dusty air with unexpected poise. I finally landed safely in a firm, kneeling position directly at the very center of the smoking crater, my open palm pressed firmly against the broken ground as the thick dust slowly began to settle around me.