A short while earlier, at the same time Pain and Sally were charging at Lily and Wilbert, the main thrust of the battle was a chaotic clash dotted with monsters.
“Scorcher!”
Mii was merciless. Swooping around on Ignis’s back, her flames incinerated anyone without the defense to soak them.
And keeping their attention on her made things easier for their ground troops.
“Commence Assault!”
“Calamity Cannon!”
“Ignis!”
Maple Tree wasn’t about to just let Mii cook. With Pain and Sally pinning down Rapid Fire, Maple was much safer, so she left the iron box and joined the fight.
To stop Mii’s onslaught, Maple unleashed a barrage from the back, and Kanade cast a powerful spell.
Since Maple was trying to limit Mii’s movements, she was shooting wildly, covering a broad range, and effectively preventing Mii from attacking from the air.
“Pyre!”
Mii was still dropping attacks whenever she could but doing much less damage.
She’d known this would happen, but actually experiencing it was still challenging.
“Message from Wilbert…ah.”
She read the note, then backed off, dodging Maple’s projectiles and other players with flying monsters as she sent word to her own guild.
“Polar Flash!”
Velvet’s lightning scorched all players it struck. Bolt after bolt rained down, with the sheer quantity making it even harder to defend against than Mii’s fire.
She’d have loved to dive deep into the enemy formation, but Hinata was no longer with her. Without Gravity Control, she might find herself surrounded by foes and with no way out.
Additionally, the opposition was being careful to stop her in her tracks. She had to keep one eye on the back lines, as well as the iron spheres rocketing from it.
“Parry! Look out over there! Yikes…”
She managed to knock a sphere aside, but a moment later, she was enveloped in explosive flames and had to back off to heal up.
“Damn, they’re tricky!”
They couldn’t hear her. Four figures were on that back line. Kanade was hopping around, slinging spells. Maple was standing on a hill, doing her stationary cannon thing. Yui was employing iron spheres to do the same. And, last but not least, Iz was adding to the barrage with cannons she’d crafted.
Stats and weapons varied wildly, but their ranged attacks were all very formidable.
That all four of them could attack from the back lines was already a powerful asset to their side. No matter how much the enemy wanted to take them down, players with short ranges would never be able to reach them.
“Maple, there’s a pack incoming.”
“I see ’em! Ancient Weapon! Syrup, Spirit Cannon!”
A number of players, convinced it was their job to stop Maple, were closing in on flying monsters.
But they were met not just with her Machine God barrage but with further interference from the ground. Maple had two cylinders spinning like a Gatling gun and firing blue sparks.
The doubled—or rather, tripled—cover fire proved impenetrable, blocking all approach.
“Here goes!”
Ther was a loud boom that no human should be capable of creating. Yui had batted a sphere, shooting it skyward where it exploded in the air and damaged everything in its vicinity.
The sphere didn’t land a direct hit, so most airborne players escaped instant death. But they were hardly in one piece.
“It worked, Iz! With this, I can reach them!”
“Lovely. I’ve got plenty of those, so keep going!”
It was hard for Yui to hit fast players who were midair.
In which case, it was best to make her projectiles explode. It meant dealing less damage but could hit a much bigger area.
It was a flawless anti-air plan. All the while, Iz kept her cannons firing ceaselessly.
“Heh-heh-heh… Talk about an improvement from when you had to throw them!” Iz said, smiling at the nigh-constant explosions rocking the enemy line.
✦ ✦ ✦
Making use of the numbers advantage, Maple’s camp was steadily pushing back their foes. Lily’s troops had bought the front lines time, but they were now in disarray; players poured into the gaps, further dividing the enemy.
This occurred even as Sally’s fight reached its conclusion.
“Mandate: Transcendence! Formation Change!”
Players were cut off—doomed to oblivion—and abruptly vanished.
This Mandate skill had greatly expanded the effective range and movement distance of Formation Change, causing the whole army to disappear.
But the advantage was still theirs. Everyone knew that much instinctively.
Follow them for as long as it took and pursue them to the castle—that had always been the victory requirement. There was no reason to hold back now.
Sally left Pain in command of the front lines, returning to Maple’s side.
“Maple! Still in one piece?”
“Yep, no issues here!”
“Pain and I got Wilbert. You should be much safer.”
“Really? Wow! You’re the best, Sally!”
“Most people haven’t figured me out yet. Kind of a cheap trick…but if it helps us win, who cares, right?”
Sally spun her matching daggers.
“Maple, climb aboard!”
“Okay!”
Like she’d done on the trip there, Maple clambered onto Yukimi’s back, riding the bear as the army surged forward.
“Mii and Velvet?”
“I’m pretty sure they’re still in it, but they didn’t come over this way.”
“Fine, fine. If one of them went down, we’d have to change our plans, so I was just checking. Lots of people are scouting, so let’s make sure we don’t get caught in the Daybreak and Thor’s Hammer combo.”
“Okay.”
“It’s a crucial responsibility!”
This was where Ark came into play—a low-cost skill that would get them away from those giant AOEs.
Sally had already used up Reality Twister, so Kanade and Sou would have to handle emergency escapes.
If he had Sou use Mimic on Maple, then they could use Ark in two locations at the same time via means Sally didn’t have access to.
As they marched onward, detect skill effects began to go off all around them.
Lots of players were on guard against the likely chance the opponent had feigned that retreat and were waiting in ambush. For better or worse, Maple Tree had very quirky builds and couldn’t really help with this—something they’d have to make up for once the fighting broke out.
In the distance, they could just make out the castle. It was the enemy’s role to defend that, and theirs to attack it. In other words, combat was unavoidable. Everyone present knew they’d be fighting again soon, so they stayed focused, slaying any monsters that blocked their progress as they maintained a brisk pace for the invasion.
✦ ✦ ✦
Formation Change had given them a solid lead, and they were headed back to the castle.
Velvet was keeping an eye on the enemy army, dropping lightning any time someone got close to their rearguard.
All the while, she was carrying Lily, who was little more than a ragdoll at the moment—and certainly in no shape to fight.
“Y-you sure about this? You’ll recover in time?”
“Yes…”
She’d cast off her limiters to use Mandate: Transcendence. It had only been for a split second, but the sheer volume of information that poured into her mind was way beyond what Lily could process.
“This skill really isn’t my cup of tea…”
She might have managed it somewhere less populated, but that wouldn’t be the case here anytime soon.
“You think they’re gonna chase us?”
“With Will gone, we’ve far less ways to keep them at bay. So yes. They’ll almost certainly be hot on our heels. Are you ready for that?”
“I was born ready!”
“That makes it sound like you never expected us to win here.”
“Th-that’s not true!”
“It’s all up to you, now. The most I can do is slow them down.”
As shown by Pain’s habit of blowing her summons away, Lily was a poor match against players over a certain power threshold.
But the fact remained that they still needed to deal with her, especially since she could maintain a line of soldiers all on her own.
This was why Wilbert had sacrificed himself. They were past the point where Wilbert shooting down one or two enemies would change the flow of war.
“Where’s Mii?”
“Getting’ ready!”
“Are you prepped, Velvet?”
“No problemo!”
“Okay. Then time for our last shot.”
Lily was finally starting to feel better. A rumble announced the formation of a large cloud of dust behind them, even as the white walls of the town before them seemed to stretch up to the sky.