“Well, Meilin looks as if she’s having the time of her life. She’s always liked using hand-to-hand combat against enemies that are tricky to fight at close range. I really feel like she’s improved a lot. And as for Mira…she seems to be completely in combat-testing mode. Since way back in the day, she always comes up with all sorts of things that she likes to test later in battle. I can still remember the screams of the original One-Man Army’s victims,” Wallenstein answered.
Standing well behind Mira and Meilin, who were fighting wholeheartedly on the front line, Barbatos and Wallenstein watched the pair battle while analyzing their foe.
Perhaps because Meilin and Mira were master and pupil when it came to martial arts, it looked as if they were really enjoying themselves and in perfect sync, and so it didn’t seem right to intervene.
“Come to think of it, I remember Mira being a summoner… Is that how summoners usually do battle?” Barbatos asked.
“Well, I can really only say one thing about that: she’s the exception, not the rule. While she may be the preeminent summoner, she’s also completely different from normal ones,” Wallenstein answered.
Taking a break from analyzing the enemy, the two took a moment to get an idea of their allies’ fighting power and, while discussing Mira and Meilin’s fighting styles, began to chitchat.
Though their foe was quite formidable, with Mira and Meilin fighting together, it was only a matter of time until it fell. And so, Wallenstein and Barbatos had already assumed the role of spectators.
And so, the battle went on smoothly.
“…Whoa, we should probably go deal with what’s over there. Those two can handle things over here,” Wallenstein said, starting to head toward where part of the mass of flesh was beginning to swell. Looking closer, he saw another lump of flesh beginning to fall away from the mass.
“Good point. We’ve watched it long enough to see how it functions, so we should probably try to finish it off before it starts attacking,” Barbatos added, following after Wallenstein.
Behind the spot where Mira and Meilin were busy duking it out, the two jumped into action, and yet they did so silently. They planned on nipping it in the bud before the battle could even begin. This was the way Barbatos and Wallenstein chose to fight in this particular situation.
“But jeez, this thing’s pretty tough, huh?” Mira said.
Mira and Meilin’s battle had continued for quite some time. Meilin had blasted the pseudo-demon with no shortage of strikes, and Mira had inflicted all kinds of wounds upon it while battle-testing her new techniques.
They’d already inflicted enough damage to it that it would’ve been dead two or three times over if it were a raid boss. And yet, the pseudo-demon didn’t seem like it’d be falling anytime soon. Far from being defeated, they noticed that the wounds they’d inflicted upon it had actually begun to heal.
“In that case… How about this?!” Meilin cried.
That said, they weren’t just fighting it on and on needlessly.
First of all, Meilin could already see through the pseudo-demon’s unorthodox attacks. Furthermore, she’d figured out a way of matching her foe’s counterattack with one of her own.
And so, though she started at a disadvantage when fighting in close combat, she’d turned the tables.
“This is really great training, huh?!” Meilin shouted.
Delighted that she’d made the fascinating discovery of matching counterattacks, Meilin unleashed a powerful attack that slammed the pseudo-demon into the floor.
“Hrmm, then if you’ll allow me to finish it off…!” Mira said, figuring that since Meilin seemed quite satisfied, the time was right.
Were they to put an end to the battle prematurely, it would put Meilin in a bad mood, but that was no longer likely to be an issue.
Having figured as much, Mira burst forward as if to finish off their foe.
However, the pseudo-demon was exceedingly tough and had powerful regenerative capabilities, such that it could immediately mitigate whatever damage it took. That said, there were several wounds left over which hadn’t healed.
So, why exactly was this? After testing this a few times, Mira realized that the wounds in question had all been inflicted in some way by the sacred sword Sanctia.
In other words, though it had a resistance to banishing magic, holy magic was effective against it because it contrasted demonic magic.
Therefore, with this in mind, Mira went about conducting her final test.
For this test, she would imbue two of the light swords into her arm.
Positioning her right arm in front of her waist, Mira kicked off the ground. Meanwhile, the pseudo-demon slid itself off the ground and got back to its feet. Within the blink of an eye, it then healed its injury-covered body.
And after healing itself, it extended its arms once more.
“You’re getting a bit slower!” Mira said, standing directly before the pseudo-demon.
Boldy facing the creature down, Mira pulled her arm back while imbuing it with two of the light swords at the very same time.
At that very moment, a ferocious current of light raged forth with such force that it threatened to tear her arm off.
Mira still couldn’t properly control the power of the dual light swords, and so the incredible power that billowed forth began to surge out of control.
“Time to finish this!” Mira cried.
And yet, she only needed to hold out for two or three seconds. The purpose of all of this was to see if she could demolish her foe within those few seconds.
Feeling as if her entire body was being dragged by her right arm, Mira steadied herself before powerfully launching her first forward.
“WH-WHOOOOOOOAAA!”
In a single moment, she unleashed the sacred sword’s power while plunging it into her foe with a blinding flash of light. Then, having been hit with the recoil of such a powerful blast, Mira was launched in the opposite direction.
“…Did it work?!”
Though she’d been sent spinning across the floor, Mira’s sacred frame absorbed all of the impact. She popped right back to her feet to see how her test had gone—which was to say, how the pseudo-demon had fared.
“Incredible! That was an eye-opener,” Meilin said, looking in its direction.
There was nothing there. It wasn’t just that the pseudo-demon was no longer standing, but that nothing remained of it at all, not even a single chunk of meat. According to Meilin, after the pseudo-demon became completely wrapped in light, it had been unable to regenerate and had simply disintegrated.
“That’s more or less what I thought would happen. But, well, mission accomplished!”
The pseudo-demon was vulnerable to the power of the sacred sword. Having correctly guessed that this was the case, Mira had also managed to confirm just how powerful the dual light swords were. She was quite pleased with the impressive results of her test. Meanwhile, Meilin pressed her hands together in a kung-fu salute at having fought a worthy opponent.
✦ ✦ ✦
