"Oh? What do we have here?" The person leading the practitioners of the Church of Slaughter said with a smile.
He was a young man with black hair, black eyes, and a sword on his right hand. He looked towards Bloed and the others as though seeing something interesting.
When Bloed saw him, he narrowed his eyes.
Because he was one of the members of the Sun Kingdom's team.
In fact, he was also the young man Liu Ying fought in Apso's arena.
Elwha also seemed to notice that. When she saw the young man, her eyes narrowed.
"The Sun Kingdom?"
"About that, I betrayed them." The young man smiled and said. He then looked at the purple crystal the worm was trying to get and his eyes brightened. "So that is what our God wants, huh. It looks impressive."
"… You are dreaming if you think I'm going to give you it." Elwha growled.
The young man chuckled. "Don't worry. I prefer to take it for myself. Men, kill everybody! Get it done before Atai's men arrive!"
"""Understood!"""
The people of the Church of Slaughter moved without hesitation. The twenty practitioners behind the young man rushed towards Bloed's group and the elves.
Seeing that, Princess Elwha's expression turned grave.
"Mr. Bloed! We need to cooperate if we want to survive! Attack when you heard my signal!"
Bloed could only nod in the current situation. However, his expression was not good.
The strength of these practitioners was much greater than them.
"Liu Ying, Aya! Stay close to me!"
Liu Ying and Aya followed his instructions. They formed a triangle formation with Liu Ying as the vanguard and Bloed and Aya behind her, ready to face the enemies coming towards them.
Fortunately, most of the practitioners went to attack the elves, however, five of them went after the Bloed group.
Moreover, two of them were A-Ranks!
As for the elves, five A-Ranks and ten B-Ranks were attacking them!
The situation could only be described as hopeless.
At the very least, Bloed could not think of any way to survive unless he used [Overdrive]!
At that moment, though, Princess Elwha snorted and took a step forward.
"[Stop]!" She spoke.
And the enemies froze.
It was just one second, just one second. But during that second, the twenty enemies stopped simultaneously with dazed expressions.
"This is…!" Bloed was surprised. Was it the signal she meant?
But this… This was a kind of mental attack!
Moreover, Princess Elwha's psychic energy was at the peak of A-Rank! That was the reason her attack was useful in so many targets at the same time!
The elves were ready for this. Taking advantage of the enemies' daze the five elves behind Elwha moved, unleashing their most powerful ranged attacks against the Church of Slaughter's practitioners, killing five enemies instantly.
They were not the only ones. Bloed also realized this was a good opportunity and used his blaster guns to shoot two B-Ranks enemies to death.
Unfortunately, Aya and Liu Ying specialized in close combat, so they failed to capitalize on this opportunity properly and only killed one enemy with the two of them combined.
Even so, when the enemy's practitioners got out of their daze, eight of them had died!
The Church of Slaughter's practitioners were stunned. When they realized what just happened, their expressions turned pale.
Even Ulises, the young man that betrayed the Sun Kingdom, stared at Elwha in fear.
However, he recovered quickly.
"A soul attack! Protect your souls!"
The church of slaughter's practitioners reacted quickly and used mana to protect their souls. Then, they resumed their attack.
Seeing that, Elwha clicked her tongue in displeasure.
Now that the enemy knew about her abilities, it was impossible for her to stun the rest of the enemies at the same time again.
It did not matter, though. Now that they managed to kill eight enemies, the rest of the battle was going to be much easier.
Plus, she could still one of two enemies simultaneously.
"Mr. Bloed. You and your group take care of four of them!"
"Alright." Bloed nodded. Fighting four enemies was going to be hard, but it was possible.
The next second, the enemies reached them.
The battle intensified quickly. Turning very intense.
Bloed used Leto skillfully, creating barriers of metallic sand that stopped the enemy's attacks while at the same time counterattacking.
And taking advantage that the enemy did not know about his disintegration saber, Bloed managed to kill a B-Rank practitioner.
However, the situation was not good.
Just one minute after the battle started, two elves died!
Fortunately, the elves managed to kill two enemies as well, more or less balancing the situation.
Even so, the situation was discouraging. After all, their numbers were less than the enemy, and a battle of attrition was not going to do them any good.
A grave expression appeared on Bloed's face. He was fighting two A-Rank enemies and a B-Rank enemy with the help of Liu Ying and Aya.
Thanks to his teamwork with the girls, they were not disadvantaged, however, after the three enemies saw him kill a B-Rank practitioner with his saber, they became warier. So Bloed and the girls could not gain any advantage either.
Thus, the battle entered a stalemate with both parties waiting for one of them to make a mistake.
But at that moment, a commotion came from the center of the dome.
*Rumble!!!*
With a thunderous sound, the mana ore protecting the purple crystal was finally broken through by the half-step demigod monster.
*Screeech!!!* The worm screeched happily and weakly, having finally arrived at the core.
Looking at the crystal with eyes full of greed, the worm tried to approach to it.
But when it was about to touch it, its eyes dimmed and it collapsed on the ground, dead.
The seal the elves had put in the worm, that forced it to work for them, activated when it showed greed for the heart, killing the worm immediately.
After all, that heart was too valuable. Just touching it without the due care could bring unimaginable consequences.
"Princess, the heart!" One of the elves, the one called Ethan, cried out.
"Get lost!" Elwha's bellowed, using a wave of mana and psychic energy to blast away the enemies surrounding her. Then, she charged towards the purple crystal.
But someone else arrived first.
Ulises, who had been observing the battle from behind, grabbed towards the stone.
"It's mine!"
Elwha's expression changed.
"Stop it! You can't grab it!"
However, it was too late.
Because Ulises's hand had already touched the stone.
Then, under Elwha's frightened look, a powerful wave of psychic energy and mana surged out of the stone.
In the next second, the world turned white.