Overpowered Wizard-Chapter B4 Ch50: The MVP

Hannah blew up her own dungeon tower the instant Zarian said go. She hid the self-destruction sequence well, stripping the power sources of the wintery coolant she’d designed as part of her fail safes for manipulating space and time. It had taken ten seconds for her to hedge the odds, and she had done it without cheating.

Resourceful. Cunning. Zarian enjoyed seeing that as he used sorcery to part the explosion and its effects away from himself. The devastation was staggering for the super world. The eruption flattened the nearest hills, towers, and furthermore. The super world was large enough for it, but a Level 140 mythical dungeon set up as a bomb could be felt from quite a distance away.

A mushroom blanketed the area. Debris rained. Lingering spatial-temporal effects screeched across reality like rampaging banshees. Foodie endured it all with a contemptuous dark look on her face. She quickly healed the damages, her vitality too high for anything lasting.

She already had her Aura Core Wellspring Cleaver out, one of her many magical blades they’d forged together with her mother. Immediately, her weakness as a Strength-Wonder build became a nonissue.

She formed sorceries in the air, clearing smoke and debris with super hurricane winds while she flew through the air. Her eternal goth outfit remained pristine. The temporal enchantments lit up at a quarter power for now.

Cannon fire. A hundred batteries formed almost instantly by Hannah’s powers. They thundered from the bottom of the crater that had once sat as the foundations of the dungeon tower. The first salvo included various effects that Hannah held under her mastery: lightning, fire, sound, poison, and more.

Foodie could’ve tanked through the attacks, but now that she had a bead, she teleported instead. She used the well-known tactic of appearing in the enemy back lines – and she knew that would get noticed. Foodie was forcing the fight into her more familiar range of close quarters combat.

They would have to engage. Hannah was clever. But it was Naomi and Bianca who were the real heavy hitters. Zarian’s tail flicked with anticipation for the eventual hand-to-hand clash.

Hannah blew up the artillery battery the moment Foodie teleported in close, a more compact and local explosion, but surprisingly effective. The myriad magical effects each of her cannons could achieve were unleashed in one blow that pushed Foodie back a few steps, shaving away the world beneath her feet, making her use more abilities against a potent onslaught.

Zarian tracked how Foodie’s traits and skills activated, such as Pain Eater and Magic Eater. She grew stronger the more she absorbed physical and magical damages, although the general nature of that made them weaker than powers that were more specific. Didn’t matter. Anything that made Foodie stronger was a detriment to her enemies. The mortals were delaying the inevitable.

And they were running.

Seriously? Zarian raised an eyebrow as the mortals raced away from Foodie. Physically. They weren’t even teleporting or punching away with portal-forming fists.

Zarian held back the temptation to check their profiles directly. He could push past Bianca’s blinding effect if he wanted, but seeing how they adapted with their attempts to surprise Foodie, and more importantly, himself, was half of the test. He hadn’t given Foodie that restriction – their enemies would check in a serious fight – and Foodie was taking a quick second to scan for tricks before renewing the assault.

Zarian braced himself for more deception as Foodie caught up with them again. Nothing extraordinary appeared this time.

Bianca lit up like a solar flare shaped into a warrior angel. Naomi activated Half Ignition and became a blue conflagration of aura with purple psionic bolts shooting off her body. They turned, ran backwards, and covered their friends’ backsides while Gilbert and Hannah rode away on the sleipnir. Only then did Foodie’s dark expression lighten up as she engaged both Bianca and Naomi with one hand, forcing them backwards even harder.

The exchange of blows would’ve been too fast for Zarian to track years ago when he was a weaker Master Ranker. As he hovered above, he judged every exchange, and found Naomi and Bianca lacking against a more serious opponent.

Foodie desynced from time gradually and made herself faster while making easier predictions of her foes’ moves. She swerved from flank to flank, forcing Naomi and Bianca to adjust or they couldn’t effectively attack her at the same time.

It was then that Zarian recognized the Floridians were wearing form-fitting armor that hadn’t been there before. Celestial Quality. It was as Zarian had thought. Hannah could achieve beyond mythical even while at a lower power tier and level.

Not bad. But Foodie had Eternal Quality. The gulf in quality was vast.

Foodie hadn’t taken full advantage of that just yet, but that wasn’t purely out of arrogance. She was carefully ramping up and looking out for any other tricks. So far, everything had been more standard than the start of the test.

Bianca slashed, twirled, and manipulated light while serving as a quick and wondrous swordswoman and short-burst powerhouse. Naomi fought with a harder and more upfront approach while manipulating her body and unleashing mental attacks. She still had her transformation power, but it differed from before. She didn’t grow beyond a few feet, her body becoming denser instead of outrageously bigger. She acted as the shield and endured more hits to give Bianca a chance to retaliate.

Smart. They made a magnificent sword and shield pair, even if it was lacking.

Behind them, as they kept the fighting retreat going, Hannah supported the fighters by generating and distributing aura into Bianca and Gilbert. The healer applied buffs to his party with supportive skills while trying to debuff Foodie heavily. They kept riding hard on Slip to stay away from the hounding Ultra Goddess.

If this was all they had left, they were going to fail.

Disappointment grew heavily in Zarian’s chest as Foodie became more confident about seizing an early win. She unleashed herself further with a quick use of her Bibliotheca of the Errant Aberration Chef. Sorceries flashed fully formed in the air, Foodie using time magic to cast them near instantly, then she brought down all hell on the Floridians.

“Chopping Board.”

Gilbert roared and activated a new skill. Zarian caught a glimpse, Sacrificer’s Domain, and understood what it would do to the man. No wonder Gilbert had taken to drinking hard again.

Miles and miles of land became diced up chunks with the Floridians at the center of the destruction. The Rescue Ranger took every damage for the party. Blade magic that could’ve diced Hannah, Bianca, Naomi, and Slip to pieces had Gilbert gushing geysers of blood and flesh while repairing himself at the same time.

Foodie didn’t care. She pushed harder and faster, seeing an opening while Gilbert was distracted. Chopping Board hadn’t even ended as she summoned her larger cleaver and used a martial technique to slice through Bianca and Naomi.

Gilbert still took the damage, but both mortals had an undeniable instinct for survival. They hesitated for a microsecond. That was more than enough time for Foodie. Her eternal clothing flared with temporal magic and gave her an even greater edge than she needed.

She bypassed Naomi and Bianca. She ignored Gilbert as he took in everyone’s wounds. She stepped up to Slip and swung for a killing stroke to end the summon and hit Hannah right after. It was a merciless move that wouldn’t stick because of Gilbert.

That was no problem, because Foodie was going to follow up with faster strikes and deadlier techniques she’d honed the past thirty years. She was giving Zarian a chance to stop the test before she ended up killing his friends, though there was no need for that. He had godly ways to fix what should be permanent as long as they had a healer like Gilbert.

And he figured letting the mortals suffer would help them understand their place after failing.

Hannah’s body split at the waist the moment Foodie’s blade passed through her the first time. Instead of blood and viscera, she revealed her mechanical internals, her crystal power sources, her complex web of runic instructions, and something more.

System magic.

Both Zarian and Foodie’s eyes flew wide open before sweeping their godly perceptions around. The real Hannah wasn’t on the surface. She wasn’t nearby. She wasn’t on the same continent.

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Zarian dug deeper, faster, searching the entire Super World. He found Hannah after piercing through a web of celestial obscurements, brute-forcing it a little on purpose. He granted Hannah a heads-up that he’d found her, but it didn’t look like Hannah needed it.

The woman smiled from her throne at the center of the world. With a twist of her runic might, the Super World became her super dungeon. Zarian had learned a little about this from Ruvaria, about how Hannah had conquered the Forgotten Kingdom Dungeon and learned its greatest secrets.

Ruvaria couldn’t say much more than that because she’d purposefully forgotten about the bigger and smaller details. All she could say was that the knowledge from the Forgotten Kingdom was too much power for her to have. She’d passed up on it.

Leaving it to Hannah.

Oh, we’re actually blind in that area, Zarian realized, the flow of causality weighing down on him with massive amounts of irony. How could it not? He’d supported Hannah from the beginning when she started her personal quest to find the Forgotten Kingdom.

The metaphorical irony wouldn’t weigh on Foodie much – she didn’t have any bloodline skills yet, but that wasn’t the main issue. Foodie wouldn’t know what’s appropriate here. I wouldn’t know either. Hannah’s the sole proprietor of that side of magic.

Attacking Gilbert, Naomi, and Bianca was a waste of time. Foodie needed to go after Hannah. And the Floridians knew that. They’d set up the situation before the test by making everyone else seem more important. All through egotistical posturing. Something Zarian had done plenty of times.

They’d played on the Darkruns’ egos.

Well, that’s going to piss her off.

Foodie growled at the audacity. She empowered her eternal clothing and raised her temporal speed above everyone else except Zarian. That would’ve led to her victory if Hannah hadn’t already set her response ahead of time.

The entire world thrummed. The world’s sun flashed brightly before dimming, its power flowing fast for a worldwide effect concentrated on the four.

Hannah gave her party a temporal boost with a wintery side-effect that slowed their opponent. It still wouldn’t be enough in the end. But it kept the challenge engaging as Naomi sacrificed her profile in a temporary bonfire for power and went up the stages of Aura Ignition. She stopped at Second Ignition, becoming a miniature green-yellow sun. Bianca’s power tier grew suddenly, revealing she had far more to dish out. Then the two synced up with an aura link and went at Foodie with renewed vigor. Naomi even used an aura sword while flowing with Bianca’s moves.

Together, they had a better chance of not getting splattered instantly against angry Foodie.

The surrounding lands were already obliterated by Foodie’s first Chopping Board. They crushed the remains even more with growing impacts that sent quakes to every corner of the world.

Slushy ice tsunamis rolled across the oceans. Storms formed in the sky from the heat and magic. Towers, mountains, and abandoned kingdoms ended up obliterated. Nothing could survive on the surface except for Gilbert who kneeled on one leg and prayed. He didn’t need to be near to help his friends. He had a prayer based power that covered the gap now.

That was all he could do. He wasn’t fast enough to keep up with Naomi, Bianca, and Foodie. The former two were barely fast enough for Foodie as the Ultra Goddess focused on them more and mixed physical attacks with sorcery.

Then she cast a few spells from her bibliotheca, each one so deadly that Zarian had to pay extreme attention to ensure nobody died permanently before he and Gilbert could save them. Yellow-gold grease fire burned across the ozone and flash fried a corner of the world. Ghoulish cooks crawled out of the abyss, roaring wrathfully, their misaligned limbs fused with deadly kitchen utensils that they chopped, skewered, and slashed at Naomi and Bianca. The two could barely handle them as Foodie carved a warpath through each of their tactics and pushed them further and further to the brink.

Finally, Naomi used Third Ignition. Bianca pushed her free good to its peak. And above, the world’s sun dimmed further as Hannah pumped power into the Floridians, drawing the world closer to being a dying world. They entered an uneasy stalemate, but Foodie remained calm and collected as the Floridians kept pushing as hard as they could go.

Maybe this was all they could achieve. Yet, Zarian felt there was something wrong. There was too much darkness.

Wait. Zarian looked up. There should be three suns. Two for the super world. And one Star Core for the universe.

They were missing a sun. Foodie hadn’t noticed. Or she didn’t care to notice. She’d never been off a world that had more than the usual amount of suns. Zarian was certain he’d told her about the increasing number of suns. And she should have enough Wonder to notice the discrepancy.

She’s tunnel visioned. It doesn’t matter to her. But she wasn’t exactly in danger.

The Floridians were. They were pushing too far beyond their mortal limits. They were maxing the limits of their stats and hard buffs. Beyond that, only soft buffs could raise their profiles further, and soft buffs were like a dangerous deal. If hard buffs made sure you’d rise to your upper limit easily once triggered, soft buffs could get you further beyond hard limits as long as you were okay with the heavier backlash.

Ultra Gods could inherently handle soft buffs far easier and wield stronger powers from the start. Foodie was a definite Ultra Goddess even without the bloodline skills. They’d tested this. She was destined to handle greater power. The Outsiders were talented and given better starts. Each of them was gifted. But they weren’t gods.

Zarian could feel the strain and tiny hairline cracks on the edges of his friends’ souls. All of that could be healed. Their life energy would suffice. Gilbert could do it himself with his rarer healer abilities. But Zarian might end the test if they take it too far.

They would still fail. This isn’t enough.

Foodie kept ignoring or failing to pay attention to the missing sun. She didn’t let the pressure from third-ignition Noami and rising Bianca get to her. The ultra goblin waited until she found an opening during the onslaught.

She triggered Half Ignition and started the inevitable end sequence. With the broadside of her larger cleaver, she smacked Bianca halfway across the world like batting away a fly. She kicked Naomi into space. She appeared next to Gilbert, touched him with a finger, and unleashed a horrid fungal spell from her bibliotheca.

Torturous pain, far more than anything Gilbert had ever felt before, ravaged his body and stopped him from praying. He also had to deal with not being turned into a big edible mushroom.

With those three out the way, Foodie focused upon the super world itself like a real Darkrun.

Myriad sorceries flashed in the air. More and more and more and more. Foodie pushed to her upper limit. Then she went beyond that, surprising Zarian a little. She stacked sorceries to empower her next move physically and magically, making herself the ultimate creature on this side of the lesser realm.

Zarian’s pride in her grew astronomically. She really wanted to win this.

“Rotisserie Apocalypse,” Foodie intoned, thrusting her big cleaver in Hannah’s direction.

A planet-busting blade appeared and sunk point first into the world. Beyond that, smoke and fire covered the sky, wrapping around the entire world quickly. This was it. There was no surviving a move like that, a super world killer.

Zarian reached out to save the mortals. He only stopped when he noticed Hannah beaming a savage grin as the tip of Foodie’s attack drew closer.

And slower. Much slower. Not bad. Hannah made the world serve as a slowing shield for a second, but that was still not enough. Why was she so confident?

Zarian pushed himself to the peak of time manipulation and awareness. He scanned the situation with greater depth than what Foodie could achieve. He needed to see deeper, and he needed to be quick, because he didn’t quite understand what Hannah had done to grant her such confidence.

Runic engineering was outside of his wheelhouse, and while some languages of magic were similar, their foundations and functions were different between branches. Holy magic was another example that Zarian couldn’t quite grasp even with Ruvaria’s help. That was how it was.

Still, it wasn’t hard to figure out Hannah’s angle with his identifying power once he set his mind to it. He’d held back because he wanted to be surprised and–

Oh, so that’s why Ruvaria forgot about this, Zarian realized before switching his focus back to saving everyone.

Especially Foodie.

Hannah hadn’t hidden the sun. She hadn’t consumed the sun. She hadn’t moved it, pocketed it, or weaponized it directly. She had sacrificed the world’s second sun during the early moments of the test, after she’d replaced herself with a system-enhanced replica.

The world would die from this, and that was par for the course. She’d confirmed that this test was world-ending earlier, and that Foodie had pushed for it to prove her point. So, Hannah had set up the solar sacrifice, calling upon an even bigger apocalyptic power that could easily match Foodie’s.

She sacrificed the sun and took a tiny fraction of power from the Infinita Star Core at the center of the universe. And she shot it back at Foodie like a round out of a cannon, guaranteeing mutual destruction while Foodie had made the mistake of overcommitting.

There were many things an Ultra God could survive. That was one thing Foodie couldn’t survive naturally, and Zarian wasn’t sure what would happen to her if she’d died so prematurely.

Of course, Hannah would die with her. Gilbert might die as well. Bianca and Naomi might survive it, with Bianca coming out all the stronger.

Zarian could already feel Bianca getting juiced up by the energy of the Star Core, and that would serve as the second-prong on securing a win against Foodie. In fact, Bianca was already swinging a killing stroke by the time Zarian plucked them all out of there and dunked them into the abyss. He cast a spell to make it safe and quiet.

They would need some time to cool their heads.

“Hm,” Zarian hummed as he watched the super world erupt in a brilliant flash – from far away. Very far away. “That would’ve hurt me. By a lot.”

They would’ve killed Foodie instantly while she was optimizing herself as a half-caster. If she had pushed to First Ignition, her chances of survival would be fifty/fifty, which was scary as hell for Foodie’s sake. Even if she survived, Bianca would’ve had an enormous power spike from syphoning off the universal core. She would’ve finished first-ignition Foodie.

It wouldn’t have been a contest if Zarian had allowed Foodie access to Second, Third, or her peak, Fourth Ignition. Most creatures across the universe wouldn’t be able to fight that, not even godlings of the next rank above, so it was too far above the requirements of the test.

Zarian nor Foodie had thought the mortals would go further beyond and transcend the limits. They hadn’t predicted Hannah would take it this far to win.

She didn’t hesitate to kill herself and half the party.

Because she had full faith in Zarian to save them. And that was a fair factor to add to the assessment because Zarian couldn’t let Foodie die. He just couldn’t. That was his daughter. And, yeah, the mortals were his best friends. In the end, he had to save everyone, and that placed him as another measure of Hannah’s genius strategy.

“Ruvaria was right,” Zarian said, chuckling. “They’re the real deal.”

The test was over. Bianca was four-out-of-five against Darkruns. And Hannah came out as the MVP.