Part 1
"Lilith...? How- How did you get here??"
"I used my future sight..."
"Eh...?"
"I started to imagine myself running on all possible directions until I found a future where I found out where you were located."
"You... You can do that?? ... How many futures did it take for you to find me...?"
"I... Don't want to think about it..."
Lilith started to rub her head as if trying to remove some kind of painful memory. What exactly did she saw on those alternate futures...? Is what Evlin was thinking.
Right now the two girls were standing alone against the group of self-proclaimed demon-slayers inside a warehouse. Evlin was still stuck on her body that was rebuild to merge with Sphinx but she couldn't use magic since all of her wood had been condensed into one gauntlet that was now in possession of the six men in front of her.
Lilith was carrying her silver armor and sword made from the knives Evlin obtained after being transformed with modeling magic. However, this was still the same Lilith who lost focus in the middle of a fight and got herself knocked out.
On top of that, each of the demon-slayers was carrying a weapon made of the same blessed metal as Lilith's armor, so they all were as fast as her right now and could inflict about as much damage.
"Hey Lilith... Can we win this fight...?"
Lilith used her ability to look into the future trying to see what their options were.
"No... But... There are a few futures were we manage to escape with either your wooden gauntlet or your metal gauntlet... But not both... You will need to choose one to leave behind."
"Ugh...!!"
Evlin wasn't excited about that. She was really enjoying the idea of gaining access to more silver metal, and she was definitely not a fan of leaving such a powerful tool in the hands of these guys. But without her magic, she was about as useful as Daren during the daytime. The answer was obvious.
"You know what I will choose right?"
"Yes... I feel it's the right choice as well."
The slayers were standing in front of the two girls, weapons in hand, simply waiting for one of them to make a move to engage in battle.
"So how do we proceed?"
"... Just walk towards your gauntlet... I'll protect you!"
"Eh... ?? You? By yourself?? Against all of them?"
"... Right now all seven of us have the same power and speed... But when it comes to skill..."
Lilith changed her pose and started to hold her sword very close to her head while expanding the distance between her legs, assuming some kind of samurai stance.
"None of them can match me..."
Lilith had a scary look on her eyes. Evlin was not happy with letting her take care of the entire group alone but is not like there was much she herself could do right now. In her golden form, she was nothing but a bit target just waiting to get stabbed. It would probably just be easier to make herself the focus of the enemy and let it be easier for Lilith to know where to defend. She started to think about the fight with Xadi.
"Oh... So that's how Ashley felt..."
"What...?"
"Nothing... Let's do this!"
Evlin started to slowly walk towards her wooden gauntlet and the slayers immediately jumped to intercept her. Lilith then quickly moved to block each of their attacks at lightning speed. The clash lasted only a second and from Evlin's point of view, it seemed as if everyone in the room had teleported and switched places. Lilith stared at her and shouted.
"Keep going!! Don't stop."
Evlin tried to walk again. At each step, all the individuals on the room would vanish with absurd speed and the sound of metal colliding would echo across the room. Evlin started to feel like she was inside of a whirlwind that was completely avoiding her.
The members of the slayer group kept trying to attack her but all of them kept getting repelled by Lilith's blade. Evlin was basically inside of an invisible wind shield protecting her from all the strikes.
She tried to adjust her eyes to take a look at Lilith again and was amazed by her performance. She was actually holding all of them down by herself.
"Evlin!!! Faster!!"
Or so he thought, but quickly realized that Lilith was starting to look extremely tired. Evlin noticed that she was probably overusing her future sight too much and that was starting to damage her body.
Evlin started to speed up and finally reached her wooden gauntlet. But just as she was about to grab it, one of the slayers rushed towards her and snatched it away from her. Worse of all, he had taken the metal gauntlet as well.
"Sorry, but we can't allow you to leave."
"Tch!!"
Evlin looked at Lilith that was by her side trying to understand what happened. Didn't she say they would be able to escape with one of the gauntlets? Why didn't Lilith's plan work?
She then realized that Lilith was drenched in sweat and breathing heavily.
"Sorry... I messed up... During one of our clashes, I hesitated again..."
So that's how it was. Her old trauma was back again. Evlin wasn't completely sure what her whole trauma thing was about. It seems like Lilith lost control while using Marceus in the past and ended up slaughtering an entire army by herself without realizing it because she just kept looking at the future and thinking about the next opponent to defeat. The shock of finally looking back at all the opponents she had killed must have been too much for her to handle.
But what to do now? Lilith was starting to lose her strength, both mentally and physically. At this rate, the two of them would end up getting captured. Should Evlin leave the gauntlet behind and just escape with Lilith? Their safety was more important than her magic. But even if they tried to escape, the slayers were all as fast as Lilith right now. They would catch up to them easily.
"Guhhrr... If only I had a little piece of the tree..."
At that moment, something flashed before Lilith's eyes. She whispered something inside of Evlin's ear and Evlin shouted in surprise.
"Seriously!!??"
"I'm sure of it!!"
"Ok... If you say so..."
Evlin started to run towards the exit door with all her speed. One of the slayers holding a silver spear shouted in response.
"She's trying to escape!! After her!!"
The slayers started to move after Evlin but Lilith rushed to stop them. Several lights of silver slashes could be seem flying around all over the warehouse. Lilith still didn't had in her to straight up kill a person again but she had no problem protecting Evlin from attacks.
Evlin finally reached the exit door. The slayer with a spear managed to escape from Lilith's grasp and leaped towards Evlin, piercing the door and completely stopping Evlin from leaving.
"Nowhere to run now!"
"...!"
"Your friend won't be able to keep up with us much longer. Give up now or we will cut her neck off."
"..."
"Your choice... Little mage..."
"... That's right... I'm a mage... Recently everyone's been picking on me because of that... Even myself..."
"...?"
"Mages have so much power but they become useless the moment they lose their staffs... We really can't do anything without magic..."
"Are you finally losing it or something...?"
"Sorry... Just talking to myself... There has been a lot going on in my head lately... Say..."
"...?"
"My friend just now told me something really interesting..."
"...??"
"She told me this wooden door that I'm touching right now... Just so happens to be made from the channeling tree!"
"What??"
Evlin immediately started to release modeling magic through the door towards the spear that was stabbing it and changed the spear into a gauntlet for her left hand.
"My spear!!!"
"Yeah... It used to be."
She quickly punched the slayer in the stomach and sent him flying across the room. Her signature move.
"Guuuahahhh!!"
Someone was actually stupid enough to use the wood of the channeling tree as an exit door. Who in the world did this warehouse belong to...? Is what Evlin was thinking.
She proceeded to convert the entire door into her usual armor of bracelets, grieves, and crossbow. No necklace though, the door was smaller than she expected.
"Ahhh! It's good to be back!!"
She then rushed towards the fight that was still going between Lilith and the remaining five slayers.
"Lilith check this out!! A metal gauntlet and my usual armor!!"
"You created a new future! You got the wood and the metal!! Then, we can leave now?"
Not exactly. Evlin in fact ended up losing both her wooden gauntlet and her metal gauntlet. The new future she created was one where she obtained new materials but the slayers still had her old armor pieces.
"They still have my old wooden gauntlet... Is there any future where we managed to recover it?"
"... There are three, but you lose a leg in the process every time..."
"Ugh!! Never mind!! Let's get out of here!!"
Evlin rushed to Lilith's side and shot the floor of the warehouse. A storm of rock-spikes started to emerge from the ground non-stop creating some distance between the two girls and the demon-slayers. Evlin and Lilith took this chance while the men were distracted and using their boosted speed rushed out of the warehouse.
The slayers destroyed the spikes and quickly started to follow after them.
"Lilith, I will be relying on you to carry me..."
"!!!?? ... Understood!"
Evlin turned around and leaped backwards. She started to focus all of the magic energy Sphinx could provide and tried to bring out all the power from her silver gauntlet. She focused all of her armor into a larger wooden crossbow. Still leaping backwards while aiming at the slayers coming after them, she released all of her magic power in one shot.
This wasn't modeling magic, earth magic, or any type of elemental magic. It was pure raw magic energy. The first attack she learned when she first came to this world. Back then she was a clumsy girl just swinging a staff not knowing what to do.
Right now, she had all the experience she obtained over the years, all the power she was accessing from sphinx's massive pool of magic and the silver metal's incredible boost in strength.
A gigantic wave of raw magic energy was released from Evlin's crossbow and completely blew away the slayers trying to catch up with them. They tried to evade the attack but the wave was too large in scale to escape.
The warehouse behind them was completely destroyed and even part of the geography had been altered by the impact.
Lilith couldn't help but be in awe.
"A- Amazing..."
She grabbed Evlin in mid-air as she was about to fall and carried her as far away from there as possible.
"Evlin!!! That was amazing!! How did you do that??"
"... Two years of built-up stress released in one go... I feel so much better now..."
Part 2
"Evlin!!! I was so worried!!! I thought I was never going to see you again!!!"
"C- Can't... breath!!! H- Help!!"
A crying Ashley was grabbing Evlin in a bear hug right now completely unleashing all of her relief by almost poping the poor girl's eyes out.
Lilith was being healed by Auren since she was still feeling the knockback of using her future sight so much.
The whole group was drenched in relief after seeing the two girls returning safely. Evlin tried to bring the team back to reality after managing to escape Ashley's deadly hug.
"We need to leave now! Those guys might come after me again."
"!!" x 6
"If we are really going to the demon kingdom we better go as fast as we can. We can't just keep traveling at night. That will just keep inviting more chances to be captured."
Daren came closer to her who was still stuck on her golden form and unable to change back. Since she couldn't move nor did she had any magical energy left, she would be stuck like that until her strength returned. Ria was really sad to know that Sphinx would not be back for a while.
"You're right..."
"Good, then let's start moving then..."
"No Evlin... I mean... You were right... About everything... You and Ashley..."
"... Eh...?"
"While you were away... We discussed something... We are still stuck on the past and right now you two know more about this world than any of us..."
"Wha- What are you saying...?"
"... We assumed we could handle anything if we were together... But the truth is... We are weak... Right now, we are really weak..."
"...??"
"We decided that there is no way we can charge into the demon kingdom like this... So we will be following your original plan..."
"... My original plan...? What's my original plan...?"
"... We are going to find Marceus's son... And with his help, we will go to the southern kingdom..."
"Really!!?? ... Does this mean you guys will finally start to listen to my opinions?"
"Not just that..."
"...?"
"We want you to be our leader!"
"...!!?? Beg your pardon...?"