At this rate, they’d inflict catastrophic damage to the area around them.
Realizing this, Mira used her holy knights to catch the fiends’ attention while she chanted an incantation.
Sweeping through the dark demon’s village, which had suddenly been transformed into a warzone, came the resplendent seven Valkyrie sisters, as well as the awe-inspiring Imperial Dragon Eizenfald, to take on the fiends rampaging there.
Each of them took one fiend, thereby succeeding in putting a stop to their destruction of the surrounding areas. What’s more, their brilliant coordination and tactics allowed them to pick off the fiends one by one.
And yet, that was when another problem sprang up. This had to do with the aftereffects of the fiends’ multiple reckless and indiscriminate attacks.
The worst of these were the ones that used fire, as the flames flew every which way and were now beginning to engulf the forest.
“Undine team, take care of that spot. Lady Anrutine, would you and Hippogriff mind helping out over there?”
“Yes, sure thing. Leave it to us!”
When they both agreed, Undine leaped atop Pegasus, while Anrutine went in the opposite direction atop Hippogriff.
They’d left to extinguish the fire that was sweeping through the forest from the air. And yet, even though the fiends were running amok, they seemed to still have some wits left about them. They began changing their attacks so that they were now targeting even more of the surrounding area.
What’s more, needless to say, their transformation had now made them far more powerful than lesser demons. Therefore, they could easily break right through the barrier that Wallenstein had put up.
Now that they’d caused significantly more damage, Alfina and her sisters were forced to maneuver carefully so as to avoid any errant flames. This meant they were now taking down the fiends at a much slower rate.
I need more fighting power, but there aren’t many more I can summon. Should I try partial summoning, or maybe an arms evocation? Or maybe…
With the additional evocations she’d summoned, along with the remaining dark and holy knights that were still battling it out, Mira could only summon one more evocation.
Figuring that she might as well finish things, she thought to herself that she might very well be able to defeat the remaining fiends if she summoned Fenrir.
And yet, this would only work if there weren’t a time restriction.
Currently, she could summon Fenrir for only about ten minutes. In addition to this, Fenrir was in a weakened state at the moment, so they could most likely take down only about half of the fiends in that time.
Should she do this first, or perhaps save Fenrir for dealing with the reichengiebel?
Trying to figure out what to do, Mira worried for a few more moments before making up her mind and beginning an incantation.
A few moments earlier…
“What was that? What in the world is going on over there?!” Wallenstein said, turning his head away from the dark demon right in front of him and toward the village in the distance, from which he’d detected a sudden surge of demonic energy.
And at the very next moment, from there on the hill slightly above the village, he saw the moment the fiends turned into even more unsettling monsters.
“It isn’t just happening here. Things are going south over there as well.”
Having managed to withstand the rampaging dark demon’s vicious attacks, Barbatos had somehow managed to put some space between them, and he was now squinting slightly as he looked toward the village.
Barbatos could see the wave of demonic power engulfing the area, and he observed that the dark demon going berserk had affected things on Mira and Meilin’s end as well.
“This sensation… I sense an aura on the same level as a raid-level boss… But since they’re both there, they should be fine. At any rate, let’s deal with him first.”
No doubt Mira and Meilin were also in a fairly fierce battle. Or so Wallenstein predicted, and yet he knew quite well that they wouldn’t lose that easily.
And for that reason, knowing that their first priority was apprehending the dark demon so they might restore it to being a light one, Wallenstein turned his head back around.
The now-berserk dark demon was an extremely tricky foe. What’s more, having grown larger, it now had about the same strength as a Marquis-rank demon. That meant it was now a match, or even more than a match, for even a top-ranking player, such as one of the Nine Wise Men.
The foe they were facing was so powerful that they could no longer pull their punches. And yet, Wallenstein hadn’t yet given up on restoring the dark demon to a light one. He tried every means available to him to apprehend it.
“Wow, I might’ve expected as much of Mira and Meilin. I’ll have to step up my game as well!” Wallenstein said, a joyful grin spreading across his face.
While going about the battle, he’d looked to see how Mira and Meilin were faring, and he saw that things were starting to move in their favor.
With the addition of Eizenfald, the seven Valkyrie sisters, and a wolf cub that seemed to have majestic power dwelling within it, the fiends were beginning to find themselves on the back foot.
Now that the divine beast Fenrir had entered the battlefield, Mira and her companions began pushing the fiends back. One after another, they slew the now extraordinarily powerful creatures.
It was only a matter of time until they were finished.
Or so Wallenstein had been thinking when something happened.
“Wally, I think there might be a bit of a problem.”
Having been rebuffed in his attempt to hold the dark demon in place, Barbatos swatted down a black mass that’d been launched at him and moved in to fight at close range while warning Wallenstein about the situation.
Mira’s team had gained a definite advantage. Especially with the divine beast now on their side, they were incredibly powerful at this point.
But one could say that this was precisely what caused the next incident.
The fiends may have been rampaging about, but their instincts still seemed to be working just fine, and so they had begun to plan how they might escape.
“Yeah, it definitely might be… No, it really would be a problem…!”
Were the now even more dreadful fiends to escape every which way, there was no telling how much havoc they’d wreak. Eizenfald and the others were struggling desperately to contain them, but there were still too many left, and so some were likely to slip through and escape.
“Wally, go back them up. With your barrier, I’m sure you can even seal in fiends as powerful as them. I don’t think I could protect you by myself while you put it up, but I’m sure Mira and her companions would be able to!” Barbatos proposed. He took a blow from the dark demon while just barely evading a demonic blast that followed immediately thereafter, then jumped back.
Indeed, he was correct in suggesting that Wallenstein could use his banishing magic to put up a barrier powerful enough to keep even fiends from escaping. But doing so would take a fair amount of time, and the magic power he’d need to set up such a thing would be so conspicuous that it would likely make him a very easy target.
And because he knew this, Barbatos had suggested that he go to join Mira and her team. Realistically, the only option they had was to put up a barrier.
“But…!”
Wallenstein hesitated. The now-berserk dark demon was incredibly powerful. Even with the two of them fighting together, it’d been a very close contest.
And while Barbatos had formerly been a Duke-rank demon, he was very much weakened now thanks to the seal that’d been placed on him. Therefore, Wallenstein worried that the battle might slide in the dark demon’s favor if Barbatos were left to fight alone.
“Don’t worry. He might be a fair bit more powerful, but he seems to have completely lost control of himself, and so I’ve got the edge in terms of wits,” Barbatos said, before using a magic spell, as if to emphasize what he’d said.
Sure enough, dozens of Barbatoses then appeared.
Indeed, they were all phantoms that looked exactly like him. Then, rushing to attack these phantoms, the dark demon crashed headfirst into a wall.
“Okay, now’s your chance!” Barbatos said. His gaze was very much self-assured, and in it, one could perceive a deep sense of trust.
“…All right. I’ll leave him to you!” Wallenstein answered with a ready nod.
He then dashed off to the spot where Mira and her companions were.
Turning back around as Wallenstein left, Barbatos heaved a sigh and said, “All right, I suppose I should say that now the fight really begins…” while fixing his gaze on the dark demon.