With the battle underway in earnest, a barrage of spells flew at Mii as she rocketed toward the castle.
“Already…?”
Not everyone could fly. There were guild members on the ground below, following her on this castle assault.
She could fly ahead alone, but that would hardly be enough. Mii had Ignis descend, landing on a volcano where she found herself surrounded by smoke and molten lava.
Waiting for her was a motley crew drawn from several guilds allied with the Order, designed to swiftly deal with any surprise attacks.
Once they’d been sure the main battle was going well, they’d split off to act as a safety measure, watching out for suspicious enemy movements.
“Our worst fears were right, huh? Would have loved to be overthinking things…”
“Buff us!”
“Start with Mii. Guard Frederica if it goes south.”
“Yup, yup!”
Frederica raised her wand. She was great at ranged attacks, buffs, debuffs, healing, and defense—in other words, she was the very heart of this formation.
She’d started with the main force, but after buffing everyone and casting Multi-Transfer, she had bailed and joined this defensive line. If they predicted a strategy, they could thwart it.
“Coming through.”
“My barriers can stop your flames!”
Frederica’s job was much like Lily’s—buying time. If Mii never made it to the castle, she had no shot at winning.
“We gotta look out for Velvet, too…”
Pain had sent a quick message, informing her of Velvet’s rapid movement.
“Sigh…let’s do this, boys!”
“““Rahhhhhhh!”””
At her cry, everyone started activating combat skills.
“Mana Ocean!”
“Pyre!”
Fearsome flames sprang to life before Mii. They’d all be incinerated with just one touch, but the tanks stepped aside to let Frederica through.
“Ultra Multi-Barrier! Notes, Amplify, Round!”
A ridiculous number of barriers appeared. Mii’s spells could break one, or even ten—but could they handle a hundred?
Sure enough, Frederica’s barrier barrage soaked Mii’s flames and lived to tell the tale.
“All right! See? See? I said it would work!”
“Superspeed!”
“War Howl!”
Certain Frederica had pulled it off, the others stepped forward.
Knowing they could leave all defense to her.
“Arrow Rain!”
“Ha-ha! Ultra Multi-Barrier! Ultra Multi-Firebolt!”
Her barriers blocked the arrows, and she deployed another array of magic circles behind those.
Notes’s support skills doubled the number of firebolts, and they shot toward the enemy, the total strength every bit as imposing as Mii’s own flames.
Frederica’s barriers interfered with close-quarters fighting, too. Mana Ocean’s benefits only lasted for so long, but it gave her infinite MP, negligible cooldowns on her barrier spells, and—most importantly—made the DPS comparison very one-sided.
“Mii!”
“We’re in trouble!”
“Our attacks can’t get through!”
Frederica’s magic took spells intended to have limited targets or effects and let her cast a huge number of them at the same time.
Just as Pain and Sally’s combo had let them slip damage past invulnerability skills, her magic was very hard to defend against.
“Scorcher! Hang in there, I’ll shift positions.”
“““Okay!”””
Mii’s flames pushed them back, and while Frederica healed, she wheeled around the formation.
But they’d known she would do that and had left no openings.
“Still worried about the Velvet factor…what do we think?”
“I think we’re in trouble either way.”
“That skill of yours has a hard time limit. When it’s out, Mii’s gonna hammer you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Right, then—Ultra Multi-Hasten!”
All on the same page, they focused on Mii. They could hear thunder in the distance but weren’t letting it unnerve them.
A wall of flames had created a gap, but Frederica’s buff let them close the distance fast.
“You’re not going anywhere!”
“I never planned to.”
“……?”
That wasn’t resignation. Frederica tightened her grip on her wand as a nasty feeling formed in her guts that she could not put into words.
“Marx, you were right. Nobody knows.”
With the volcano behind her, flames poured from Mii’s body. Even without any basis for it, alarm bells were ringing in Frederica’s mind.
“Raging Inferno!”
“Ultra Multi-Barrier!”
Frederica deployed another barrier barrage, desperately trying to stop Mii’s fire. But she’d misread the situation—Mii was aiming flames down.
She grabbed a fistful of billowing fire and slammed it to the ground below. Where they should have spread out across the surface, they were instead swallowed up by the earth as glowing red cracks spread out in every direction.
Pillars of fire broke free from the earth, turning the sky red and mercilessly shattering Frederica’s barriers.
By the time the pillars died down, Mii had become a floating ball of fire burning as bright as the sun, surrounded by a plume of flame that roiled and coiled like a dragon.
“Took us long enough to get you here.”
“……Meaning?”
“Marx discovered this terrain effect. You never even noticed?”
Marx was better at setting and locating traps than anyone else in the game. That was why he alone had noticed the fires here.
The flames were applying a fire effect to the weapons of the players below. That it could be centered on Mii and still affect this many of them was truly a testament to the sheer range of the terrain effect.
“Ugh…this is so not fair! You’re all nuts!”
“Ha-ha, you’re one of us, Frederica.”
Time was limited. That was why Flame Empire had chosen the watery nature side—so they could take advantage of these flames while pressing the attack. They’d been on the ropes this whole time, and it had taken a while to actually get here, but if these flames helped them fell the castle, then no one could complain.
“Like I said. Coming through.”
“If this looks bad, go hit Velvet!”
“Got it!”
Letting everyone burn here would just be dumb. They had to take stock of this threat. Putting up barriers, Frederica watched Mii carefully.
“Flame Empress.”
Mii spread her arms out, a ball of fire on either palm.
These merged with the writhing flames, swelling to multiple times their original size—and then blotting out everything in sight.
“Ultra Multi-Barrier! Notes, Amplify, Round!”
It was Frederica’s job to stop Mii. The two giant spheres descended like meteors through her barrier barrage, shattering one after another.
“Blue Fire.”
Blue and red flames mingled together, chasing after the spheres.
“Uh, sorry, cover me!”
“Spirit Light! Cover!”
“Charge!”
It was too much for Frederica. The spheres blanketed the vicinity in fire.
And Flame Empire charged in after them, wielding flaming weapons that were all aiming for Frederica’s head.
“Cover!”
“Flash Spear!”
Protecting Frederica, the players around her fought back. But the fire enchantment overturned Frederica’s buffs, and their efforts quickly began to falter.
“Ultra Multi-Firebolt!”
“Scorcher.”
Not to be outdone, Frederica used fires of her own, but Mii’s inferno swallowed them up.
Flames billowed like the heart of the volcano itself, turning the battlefield into a disaster area.
“She is way too much!”
“Any ideas, Frederica?”
“Nope, none, no way. This is insane!”
Staying here and trying to pin them down would not buy nearly enough time to matter. A few more exchanges, and Flame Empire’s fire enchantments would consume Frederica’s forces.
Following Maple’s lead, the great shielders used Cover Move to speed themselves up. Those who could run to begin with used Superspeed or anything else they had up their sleeves, grabbing Frederica and hauling her out of harm’s way.
“Run! All the way back to town! Velvet’s gonna be a headache, too!”
“We know!”
The enemy attack was far more ferocious than anticipated. This was no long-shot gamble or a futile assault. They had to get back to town fast.
The final victor hung on the outcome of this fight.
By the time they reached town, Mana Ocean would be gone and their defenses would be worryingly thin. But there was no use crying about that.
“I’ll keep you buffed, so do what you can! That’s all we can do!”
“We’ve got loads more work ahead!”
“Keep covering until the last great shielder’s dead!”
Wreathed in fire and looking down upon them, Mii resembled the sun itself—and was just as impossible to defeat. Still, Frederica’s buffs were strong enough to handle the rest of Flame Empire, even with the enchantment.
“Ultra Multi-Firebolt! Ultra Multi-Wind Blade!”
As she was carried to safety, Frederica turned around, spraying as many spells as she could while Mana Ocean was still active.
The flames Mii had tamed were purely offensive and added nothing to their defenses. There was value in fending them off.
“Damn, this is a huge responsibility!”