Sure enough, Eve turned up the heat. Thanks to her new outfit, she was a lot more mobile, and she nimbly raised her leg to deliver a kick, although she appeared to move without putting in much thought, putting her full weight into her flaming kick straight into the target’s right femur.
She’d gotten a lot faster than before. By the time she finished slashing with her knife, she was already rotating her body to wind up a kick. Each hit seamlessly linked into the next, making consecutive crack-crack-crack sounds as they found their mark. I decided to support Eve by disorienting the enemy so she could keep doing her thing.
Whenever Eve caught her breath between attacks, I made the enemy back off with a heavy swing of my sword. I deflected any attacks she couldn’t dodge to let her focus solely on offense. My role here was to shut down the monster so Eve could keep having her fun.
Since I hid behind Eve, her opponents must have perceived my attacks as coming out of nowhere. This action seemed to stress the monster out, its movements becoming increasingly sloppy as its frustration grew. I heard those satisfying cracking sounds again, and Eve was getting into her groove more and more.
“Whoa, all of my attacks are critical hits!” Eve happily cried out.
She laughed as she destroyed the monster before her, making me wonder how she looked from their perspective. When the second monster arrived only to see its comrade disintegrate in front of its eyes, I wondered if it was thinking, “Is it my turn next?”
The newcomer swung its sword downward but was met with an upward blow on its chin, the impact causing it to become stunned and dazed.
I was glad I had teamed up with Eve in the past. Her movements were still saved in my Memory Slot, along with my movement patterns to pair with them. That was why I could support her automatically while looking for the optimal attack pattern.
Eve no longer used words to give out orders. She dodged a swing of the enemy’s saber by tilting her head, then delivered a perfect counterattack to shatter its skull, knowing I would protect her if needed. The bone puppets suffered a one-sided defeat as they were cut up and set on fire.
The spirit’s fire wasn’t enough to deter the monsters, contributing to their downfall. They weren’t smart enough to put out the fire burning them, so they continued to take consistent damage over time.
One difference from the last time we were here was that the rest of our squad had also been leveling up. Shield-wielding fighters stepped forward with heavy footsteps, accompanied by Doula’s valiant voice.
“Left-hand monster! Aim! Double shot... Fire!”
The shields opened vertically, clustered like stone blocks in a masonry wall. Cross-shaped crossbows lined up through the openings in the shields and fired all at once.
A rain of crossbow bolts pinned the monsters trying to attack from the flank of the wall, the holy enchantment tearing through the puppets and sending bone fragments flying in the air.
“Now! Crush them!”
The wall of shields surged forth on the order, closing in on the giant monster. The well-coordinated soldiers moved in unison like the scales on a dragon, smashing their target with a deafening crash. However, the impact wasn’t enough to break through its bony exterior. The monsters had an estimated level of 82 and had equipped magical armor, making them highly resilient to physical damage.
But the monster began squirming in pain. Zera stood with his sword embedded deep in the creature’s abdomen as the mass of black shields backed away.
“Raaah! Get ’em, boys!” yelled Zera, quickly following up with a vertical and horizontal slash. Then, the monster had spears thrust into its wound one after another, looking as if tentacles had extended from the black dragon scales to impale it.
The relentless spear attacks reduced the monster’s HP to zero, and the iron herd withdrew, leaving the fallen monster on the ground.
All these soldiers were strong. The quick-thinking Doula and ferocious Zera combined intellect and instinct to create a complementary pair.
This trap corridor was also known as Machlus’s Marionette; needless to say, it was perilous. Monsters continuously spawned from the walls on either side, and the moving floor forced us to keep moving forward. We walked backward continuously to slow down our pace, but the darkness would quickly swallow anyone who got injured and fell to their knees.
However, the soldiers held their line, and we made steady progress as Eve and I tore through the front line.
I noticed a Fire Lizard on the conveyor belt, staring me in the eye as it moved past us. Shortly after it disappeared into the darkness ahead, the spirit exploded. Marie’s idea was ingeniously efficient, and the aim seemed to be to destroy the wall where the monsters were coming from by blowing up the rotating gimmick.
“They made this easy by moving the Fire Lizards for us,” Marie said. “I can see exactly where to target thanks to Prison Keeper, and I don’t even need to aim because the path is so narrow. Now, explode!”
Another Fire Lizard exploded, destroying a monster before it even started moving. Poor thing must have been waiting centuries for its chance to shine. No one expected Marie to be the greatest contributor to this battle by simply tossing down Fire Lizards from where she sat on Roon. She was even yawning as she did so.
Could we have cleared this area by having her throw Fire Lizards into the corridor in the first place? No, that couldn’t be right. The belt conveyor trap was extremely beneficial for Marie. I had to believe we just got lucky, or the monsters would have been too pitiful.
The trap floor stopped with a heavy thud, and only piles of bones and debris remained on the two-hundred-meter corridor. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was supposed to be a high-difficulty area. The others must have thought the same because there wasn’t a single cheer of triumph from the group.
Anyway, I was glad we had cleared this place practically unscathed. As for Eve, she acted satisfied from the adequate thrill and exercise as she joyously raised both hands high.
“Ahh, that felt awesome! I’ve never been able to pop off in a raid like this before. Man, that got my blood pumping!” she said, sweat dripping down her arm as she pumped her fist.
Her attitude made me glad since she seemed to have had a blast. I had a feeling that if I invited her to go on a labyrinth run, she would accept with a huge smile.
“Look, I leveled up! I’m 62 now!” she said.
“Whoa, your level is that high already? No way!” I exclaimed, my eyes wide with surprise, as I had assumed her level to be in the mid-50s. Thinking back, the elf and dark elf had dominated most of the battle while I acted in a support role. I nodded, understanding how she had leveled up so quickly.
“Congratulations, Eve. You were definitely the MVP today,” I said.
“Yay!”
We high-fived each other, then she smiled and said, “Thanks!” She was practically glowing as sweat glistened off of her face and body. Her revealing outfit was troublesome, but it didn’t seem to bother her, so I guess it was all good.
Our group continued forward, finding a hallway ahead, when Doula called out for us to take a break.
§
Under the blazing sun, smoke rose from the tunnels overlooking the dunes. The general of the Gedovar forces, Hyzoska, didn’t even need to hear the reports to know the endless smoke was coming from his army’s burning corpses. He rubbed his face, quietly observing the battlefield.
He noted that the enemy had bolstered their defenses as he’d expected, figuring they had likely holed up in a narrow tunnel to fend off the invaders with fewer numbers. It was clear how they had lured the invaders deeper into their territory before attacking. That he still hadn’t seen the enemy soldiers told him they had very few defenders.
His color-faded hair, which had once been red like fire, danced in the wind. Under the black leather that partially hid his face, his lips curled into a twisted smile. He was rather fond of their aggressive defense. The enemy wasn’t defending to prolong their inevitable death. Still, they had set the Gedovar forces ablaze with efficiency as an intimidation tactic. Their unspoken threat claimed, “Back off, or the casualties will be even greater.” They must have had quite the renowned general to pull off such a skilled operation.
Hyzoska turned his back to the ruins. Despite the invitation to play, he unfortunately had other matters to attend to. He was to take the Gedovar forces blessed by the Prominence Dragon southward to settle the war with Arilai and its allied countries.
His men vastly outnumbered the enemy. Now that they had surrounded the ruins, it was only a matter of time before they would crumble. All that was left was for them to win the battle of attrition.
Thunder roared from the dark clouds in the distance. Hyzoska glanced sidelong in the direction of the sound and gave out his order.
“Send Butcher with fifty other soldiers. Don’t let up on the attack for at least three days. Assess the situation and slaughter them if their movements have slowed. The main forces will move southward as initially planned.”
His intelligent underlings rushed off to relay his orders. He watched them go as he mounted his black horse, then redirected his thoughts from the ancient ruins to the battle awaiting him to the south.
The ancient towers would stand in the way of the Gedovar army’s invasion. Each boasted firepower akin to the sun and could incinerate everything in a wide area. They had supposedly been around since the ancient days, but the ancient dragon would remove those nuisances. That miser had promised to destroy the tower in exchange for an exuberant number of gold coins.
There was another roar from the eastern skies. Hyzoska’s horse shuddered and let out a frightened whinny.
“That’s odd... I heard the thunder, but why was there no lightning?” he wondered as he looked to the eastern horizon.