Solid Spark!
Jario found himself face to face with an exceptionally threatening spell approaching him at breakneck speeds. In response to his provocative words, his Tachi-wielding enemy responded non-verbally.
"Ugggh!"
Jario was pushed back when the Solid Spark managed to hit him right over his left shoulder and pierce it. It lodged itself into his shoulder while diffusing foreign mana of the lightning element into his system.
'This bastard!'
Jario had managed to hold back his pain-induced shrill in response to the severe injury he had sustained. But that in turn made him angrier towards Eren who was coming at him without any fear in the world.
"Attack!"
Jario yelled before running ahead in front of him to meet with Eren's charge. He gripped his axes harder and set them ablaze. He also coated his entire body with his fire element mana and set his mana circuits into overdrive to expel the foreign mana invasion. As a result, Eren's Solid Spark stopped affecting the demonic ranker before disappearing just as he clashed with Eren.
Clang! Swing!
Jario used his left hand and the ax he was holding with it to clash with Eren's Tachi. He then used his right hand's ax to launch another lateral attack on him.
Eren stepped forward and used his Tachi to deflect Jario's left ax. He ducked under his left arm, missing the attack the demonic ranker had launched on him by a hair's breadth. He then cast another of his spells now that he was near his opponent.
Blitz Shard!
A series of tiny lightning-element shards were conjured in front of Eren's free hand before they were hurled toward Jario. The latter cast his defensive spell to counter Eren's attack while adjusting his posture to attack him with his ax. He did it by spinning on his right toe while raising the ax and using it as a lateral chop.
Eren felt a threatening sensation coming toward him. He knew he wouldn't be able to dodge or deflect the attack in time due to the speed at which it was launched.
So he used his defensive spell Lightning Sheild to coat his body in a lightning-element cloak. He didn't stop there. He also used some of the Blitz Shards to coat the region that was about to receive the impact of Jario's ax.
Eren's vision changed as he was knocked from his position by Jario's heavy-handed attack. The guy had charged the ax with his spinning momentum for it to act so prominently on Eren's body. As a result, Eren's body was dragged along the ground until he was about 20 meters away from where he previously stood.
Eren grunted in pain before quickly getting up. He could feel that there was now a bloody wound on his body. But it was shallow and non-threatening, thanks to the effective use of his defensive spell along with Blitz Shard.
Eren realized that Jario's axes were special. They allowed him to increase the speed of his attack by self-propelling themselves using the fire-element mana. A vector force would be generated for every prominent attack using the holder's mana, giving the weapons exceptional penetrating power.
The two axes suited Jario's wild and reckless style perfectly. They gave him the powers to overwhelm any of his opponents of the same rank. He just needed to choose wisely which of his moves needed extra force. Otherwise, he'd waste the weapons' potential.
After using such weapons, Jario would show a weakness in his defensive stance. His weapons would sometimes generate excessive force, making them harder to control. That's why the guy would spin in his position to kill the additional momentum generated by the weapons after each of the weapon spells was used.
One couldn't call it a flaw. As Jario would only use the weapon spell when he was certain his attacks wouldn't miss. Even a speed-focused ranker like Eren had to face the weapons' sudden acceleration and bear their attacks even when he was very agile and highly responsive to his opponent's incoming spells.
Even Jario was surprised that Eren could stand up after taking the full brunt of one of his weapons right over his back. And it looked like Eren was heavily injured from their recent exchange.
Dario smiled wickedly when he saw Eren getting up and raising his Tachi in front of him in a defensive formation. In the next moment, Jarios' legs were set ablaze and he vanished from his position.
Clang!
"Hahahaha! You… you are lively. My Lord would benefit from you. You should surrender yourself and accept your fate."
Right after Eren got up, he clashed with Jario. The latter tried to intimidate him some more with his words. However, Eren preferred to keep his cool and just focus on the battle at hand.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Eren and Jario kept on exchanging moves while keeping track of their surroundings. Eren was careful not to approach the demonic ranker too close. He maintained a safe distance from him while using his weapon's flying slashes to counter the enemy's.
Both sides had turned the city hall into a battlefield. Eren's team members were busy fighting their own battles. But someone else was busy doing something entirely different.
"Hm?"
Jario finally realized what Reece had been doing all this time using the remnant of the miasma as a cover. She had been waking up those rankers who had been put under the forced slumber by the miasma.
"You!"
Jario tried to charge at Reece who by this point had woken up right rankers from their forced slumber. The latter chuckled before coating her limbs in green flames. However, it looked like she didn't have to do anything. Eren was fixated on taking down Jario.
Eren cast a dense cloud of Blitz Shards at this point. He sent it towards the space that was in the middle of Jario and Reece to intercept his attack while he was still maintaining his distance from him.
Meanwhile, he sent his mana circuits to hyperdrive to cast another spell on him. A healing spell to heal his injury: Blitz Heal.
Contact. Spark. Boom.
Jario suddenly found that he was charging at Eren's attack in the form of a tiny lightning shard that looked like the scales of some reptilian creature. At this point, the clash was inevitable, so he charged his weapons and braced himself.