TBATE: Born as a god (BEING REWRITTEN, CLICK PROFILE FOR NEW VERSION)

A close battle

"Kath, get away! Sylv, stay back and look for openings!" I yelled

Kath did as instructed, going to a farther away island.

[Godspeed Impulse] [Unleashed Realmheart] [Blade Augmentation]

The legless bird suddenly flapped its wings, covering almost the entire distance between us in a second, preparing to swipe its claws at me.

I shot off into the path of the strike, preparing to counter it with a slash of my own. Aether coursed through my sword as I prepared to cut the bird's wing into pieces. The bird, however, created an anchor point in the air using a large structure of mana, which it caught onto and swerved out of the way before my slash could connect.

Not deterred by the speed and precision at which the bird controlled mana, I followed behind, my aether infused sword sending ripples through space.

A barrier enveloped the bird, getting swiftly cut into pieces, and my sword cut into the bird's flesh.

It let out a horrifying scream, as it shook hard enough to launch me head first into the closest island.

The wound was small in comparison to the size of the bird, but it was a start.

It launched at me again, this time accommodated by four tentacles of pure mana sticking out of its back, each moving independently from each other.

I gripped at dawn's ballad stuck in the rock beside me, but I couldn't do it fast enough.

The bird's hook claws impacted with my body with little resistance, my barrier and body augmentation merely slowing them, the mana tentacles grabbed my body and flung it over to a different island.

I saw Sylvie rushing to me, aether around her paws. I tried to sit up, but found myself unable to do so due to the three large claw marks running through my abdomen.

The bird attacked Sylvie, who barely defended herself with a well-timed claw swipe, doing little damage to the bird.

I let out a small laugh, telling Sylvie to run.

Suddenly, the aether inside my runes began hurriedly depleting, as my abdomen slowly regenerated, looking as if no wound ever existed.

Wasting no time on being surprised, I shot off towards the bird yet again, barely arriving soon enough to cut its tentacles, stopping them from gripping Sylvie.

My brain was working overtime, thinking about how to defeat this monstrosity. A heavily experimental technique based on Varay's ice armor came to mind, and in any other circumstances I'd consider it too risky, but there was no other way.

[Tombstone of Ice]

Feeling over half of my mana draining, my body was enveloped in a full armor of ice, freezing everything including the atoms themselves to extremely close to true absolute zero, as well as heavily increasing my speed.

While this meant I couldn't use Dawn's ballad, I could conjure a sword from ice with the exact properties of Dawn's ballad.

It was for merely a moment, but it seemed like the bird looked intimidated. 

'I hope this works' I thought to myself

I took one last large breath, before shooting towards the bird with previously unseen speeds. The claw swipe I expected came, but before it could reach me it froze completely, harmlessly shattering upon hitting my armor. 

The bird seemingly understood what happened, letting out a cry and flying away from me, using its conjured tentacles instead of its body. I ignored them, watching as they froze, and subsequently shattered, not even getting the opportunity to come close to my armor.