Ais swung her enlarged Draconic arms that have long and sharp claws toward everyone, causing them to jump back and dodge. However, one person still couldn't believe what she was seeing and could only stare blankly as the monstrous claws approached her.
"Lefiya!!!" Filvis, after getting out of the way, jumped back in to grab the frozen Lefiya. The sound of a palm hitting a face soon rang after.
Filvis managed to save the girl and immediately gave her a big slap across the face, "What are you doing!? Are you trying to get killed!?"
Lefiya touched her stinging red cheek and realized what just happened, "I-I'm sorry! I-I didn't mean it!"
The furious Filvis relaxed her face, "Just be careful. The situation is dire but we can't give up." All of a sudden, her face contorted once again but this time, with pain. She looked down to her left arm which was grazed by Ais' claw and saw that the small wound began to fester with black steam rising from it and the black pigment spreading out, turning both her flesh and blood black.
Lefiya also saw this and hurriedly pulled out both of her Elixir and Anti-Curse Potion and poured them on the wound simultaneously. But to their shock, it only slowed down the spread and slowly lost its effects soon after, "What!?"
Lefiya pulled out another set of restoratives while Filvis blocked the circulation of her blood using Magic Power and Ki before calling out to someone, "Gareth-san!"
Gareth is busy holding off the rampaging Ais but still looked in their direction and instantly understood their situation.
"Please do it!" Filvis added.
While Lefiya is confused about what she meant, Gareth only nodded solemnly after hesitating for a split second. The old Dwarf left his position after giving a signal to Finn and swung his axe towards Filvis, aiming precisely for her upper left arm. Lefiya couldn't react when the arm she was treating suddenly disappeared with a splash of blood smearing her face, "H-huh?"
"Arghhhh!!!" Filvis grimaced in pain but that didn't stop her from controlling her Ki to stop the blood flow.
Lefiya shouted in panic again and helped Filvis pressure her arm to further stop the blood.
Gareth's attention, meanwhile, was on the severed arm that completely turned black and melted into a black goo, "Finn! Be careful of any wound! The poison is way worse than before! Don't trust your own defenses to mitigate it!"
The others also looked at Filvis and at the black puddle beside her and shuddered.
"That poison is too dangerous! Keep your distance!" Finn relayed the information again while dodging the claws. Thankfully, there was no semblance of fighting style or skill in the current Ais and she was just wildly swinging her arms so it made it very easy for everyone to dodge.
Bell, while carrying Haruhime, raised his voice in question, "What should we do!? We can't keep this up and we can't exactly leave her here! What's worse, we don't know when the corrupted Spirit is going to come up!"
Finn and the rest of the Loki Familia were also internally debating on what they could even do in this situation as they knew that if they used the wrong words, the members of the Freya Familia would mercilessly attack Ais and the other members of the elite team would certainly not do anything about it because they would want to stay neutral. Finn also knew that Bell would take their side knowing his personality, but they couldn't just depend on that when they didn't even have any concrete solutions, 'Is the only thing we can do is buy time in the hope something else will happen? But what if this becomes even more irreversible the more we wait? Tsk... What should we do?'
In their distressed situation, someone finally offered them a path, "Someone has to enter the Black Dragon's stomach and pull out Ais Wallenstein from it." Hermes uttered while walking forward. He took a quick peek at Serafall and saw that she was not doing anything and concluded that she wouldn't be getting involved in this, 'Just watching the show, is it? How arrogant.'
Ever since Serafall threatened Hermes to send him to the other side of the world, he didn't like her and created a bias against her inside his mind. And his dislike of her only worsened when it became clear that they could easily resolve the situation before it ever came to this, 'They have the power to oppose the Gods, yet they're not doing anything substantial... What do they even want?'
Tenestra was finally able to lock Ais in place by constantly burying her under the spikes of rocks, "Please make it clear! We don't have much stamina left either!"
"Currently, Ais and the Black Dragon are fighting over the dominance of Ais' body. Aria couldn't survive the Black Dragon's takeover and it's much worse in Ais' case because it already imprinted her long ago in the form of 'Avenger'."
'That's why I'm asking what we should do!' Tenestra internally screamed while continuously pouring in her Magic Power to keep Ais at bay, 'That's why I hate these Gods who like to talk in circles!'
While Hermes didn't catch the expression on Tenestra's face because he was looking towards Bell, Zeus did and sighed, "On the initial stage of the takeover, the Black Dragon will be very 'hungry' and will devour anyone who it deems harmless. Although you were fighting it earlier, its mind also wasn't very clear at this stage so as long as you stand still in front of it without emitting any intent of harm, it'll quietly shallow you up."
Finn frowned at his words, "Are you suggesting that someone has to take Ais' place?"
Zeus shook his head, "Albert was able to pull out Ais by letting himself be devoured by it. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to live for more than a few minutes after leaving the Black Dragon because when inside, it directly attacks the mind and soul. We had to kill him before his soul changed into something unrecognizable."
There were a lot of missing details but it was detailed enough that everyone understood what they had to do.