Frontline tanks: Dohga and Zanoba. Frontline attackers: Eris and Ruijerd. Middle supports: Elinalise and the Superd warriors. Backline attacker: me. Backline healer: Cliff. Standard party formation and standard tactics.
The basic plan was that Dohga and Zanoba would take attacks while Eris and Ruijerd doled them out. Elinalise and the Superd warriors, who were outclassed in fighting power, would go around behind Badigadi from time to time to throw him off. For everyone except Zanoba and Dohga, a single hit was potentially fatal. Honestly, a direct hit would be potentially fatal even for those two, but they’d cover each other to avoid taking any. They might still break some bones or something along those lines, but Cliff and I would heal all of that. Cliff was our dedicated healer. I did some healing while firing off Stone Cannons here and there to deal damage to the Fighting God and divert his attacks. I couldn’t see Badigadi with the Eye of Foresight, but by cutting off mana to the Eye of Distant Sight, I could use the Eye of Foresight to watch my allies and predict their movements that way. I’d never done anything like this before. I’d never practiced it or drilled it.
Yet for some reason, it worked. I felt like I was fighting with one eye closed, but I could still read Badigadi and my allies’ movements. If anything, it seemed like my movements were smoother than usual. Maybe that was because my primary role here was providing support, or maybe it was because Badigadi’s movements were so straightforward. He certainly didn’t have Alexander’s technique; Alexander had fought Eris, Ruijerd, and Sandor three-on-one and barely taken a hit. Not Badigadi, though—beyond just being outnumbered, he was also taking practically every hit. This was good. My opponent’s movements were clearly telegraphed and I caught every last one.
Only, I couldn’t see how to end it.
Badigadi was taking all our attacks, so at a glance, it might have looked like we were winning. It might have looked like we were dealing decent damage. But it only looked that way. Every time Eris cut him apart or Ruijerd stabbed him through, the wounds repaired right away. The gold armor writhed like a living thing to cover the holes as soon as they appeared. He was probably recovering inside the armor too. In other words, he’d taken no damage, and he wasn’t tired. We wouldn’t have a situation like with Alexander where he looked like he was winning easily while, in reality, he was getting more and more tired. The battle was only going to turn further against us as it went on. There was no hope of winning, but we could hang on. So long as our formation held and no one went down suddenly, we could hang on. Who knew where that would get us? But it was all we could do.
And that meager amount proved too much. The first to go down were, of course, the Superd warriors. They weren’t weak by any means, but they were a few levels below Ruijerd, and they hadn’t fought in a real battle for the past few hundred years. Some of them might not even have been born at the time of the Laplace War. The warriors who’d only ever hunted Invisible Wolves couldn’t keep up in a battle with the Fighting God. One after another, they dropped out of the battle in rapid succession. Some had clearly died instantly, others were badly wounded but would still fight if healed. Others, I couldn’t tell. There had been ten of them when the fight began, but now they were down to three.
We lost Elinalise next. She certainly wasn’t weak either. As far as technique went, she was in the top ranks of adventurers. She was good enough to frontline in an S-Rank labyrinth, and her defensive skill with a shield was unmatched. That ranking was against other adventurers, though. Her specialty was aggro-control, skillfully deflecting attacks with her shield, then piling on low-damage attacks. But she had lost her trusty shield. I’d made her a backup with earth magic, but Fighting God Badigadi’s attack easily broke through her deflection technique, throwing her through the air so she went crashing into a large tree. She blacked out. After that, it all fell apart. Cliff was thrown when Elinalise went down, and in that moment of distraction, he was caught by the Fighting God’s charge. He went flying like he’d been hit by a truck and disappeared into the bushes. Whether he was dead or just critically injured I couldn’t tell, but he didn’t come back. At minimum, he’d been knocked out.
With Cliff unconscious, Zanoba and Dohga, who he’d been healing, were unable to hold on any longer. Between my support with Stone Cannon and Elinalise’s cover, we’d made sure they were only taking one of every few attacks. Now, they were taking almost every single one. With my healing magic, they were enduring it, but no more than that. Running over to them every time the Fighting God sent them flying, healing them, and sending them back into the fray was impossible for me on my own. If I’d even had the Magic Armor Version Two, maybe I could have done it, but in my own body? Unable to don a battle aura? No matter how much I sped myself along with wind magic I was still too slow. Always one step behind. Our timing got more and more out of sync until both Zanoba and Dohga were sent flying as a pair. At the same moment, the Fighting God targeted Eris. Ruijerd covered her, but that put him out of the battle. I rushed to heal Dohga, then ran to Zanoba’s side, but I was too slow. Our line was in shambles. Dohga was sent flying, then, as I was healing Zanoba, I saw the fighting God hit Eris straight on with his fist. She collapsed, coughing up blood. She’s fatally wounded! screamed a voice in my head. You have to heal her right now or it’ll be too late! But I was too slow. The Fighting God was closing in on me and Zanoba.
“Rroooaaaah!” Zanoba howled.
He blocked the Fighting God’s right upper punch, then his left. He took a punch from one of the lower arms in the gut, doubling over. Next, a punch from the middle arms got him in the temple, and he was thrown off to one side. Next, the Fighting God rounded on me. By the time I’d thought Oh, shit! it was too late. The punch caught me as I was trying to cast Shock Wave to push myself back. It was one of the middle arms. I immediately tried to block it with my arm, but it was a pointless gesture. The impact was so intense I thought my upper body would be torn apart—and I sailed into the air myself. I’m not sure if it was good luck or bad that I didn’t lose consciousness. I could feel that all my bones from my shoulder down to my ribs were broken, and maybe my spine, too, because I couldn’t feel my legs. I couldn’t move. Possibly the shock had been so great that my brain had cut out all pain signals. I’d simply lost all sensation.
Gasping, I immediately cast healing magic on myself, then stood up. The sight that greeted me was like a scene out of hell. Not a single person was left standing. After I’d gone down, the Fighting God had done away with the remaining Superd warriors. It was sheer carnage. I’d made the wrong call on when to pull out, and now, we couldn’t even retreat. Thinking back, we should have fallen back the moment Elinalise went down. I should have seen that we couldn’t hold out any longer and gone back to the Superd village. Then, I should have left the rest to Orsted. But it was too late for regrets.