"Arcane Shield!" Tabitha put up a thin, glowing, yellow magical shield in front of her before Steve's spears reached her. Unfortunately for Tabitha, Steve's spears broke right through the thin shield, shattering it, and nearly impaling the mage.
"WUAH!!" at the very last second, Tabitha dodged the spears by falling on her face while three of the spears flew over her body. The rest lodged themselves deep into nearby trees, two times outright shattering the thin, brittle trunks and causing more splinters to shower over Tabitha.
Steve recalled his flying spears for another attack when two big-breasted succubi appeared before him, both with raised arms, they looked as if they were about to hug Steve and snuggle him with their giant, soft breasts.
"This would make for a very pleasant afternoon," Steve said with a melancholic tone and sighed before shouting, "If only you weren't defective!!"
Steve's resolve allowed him to see that instead of a hug, the succubi unleashed their sharp, long, deadly claws from where their fingernails were supposed to be. Steve swung his heater shield and aimed to maim the head of the succubus on the left side. But that succubus vanished as if it never existed and the succubus on Steve's right side pointed her index finger directly at Steve's eyeball.
"Extend Claw!" Beatrice said with a tone of a cold-blooded killer and her already sharp fingernail rushed forward, extending directly where Beatrice was pointing—into Steve's eyeball.
"Ghuh!" Steve moved his head and leaned away, but the extending claw was fast enough to nick his cheek.
Beatrice had no chance to do further damage as—with a motion of his free hand—Steve commanded his eight spears that returned from the attack on Tabitha to impale Beatrice. The futanari succubus was just barely fast enough to avoid being hit, but that was mostly because she was directly between Steve and the spears, and Steve had to restrain the speed of the spears to avoid impaling himself.
"I'm the one who marks female faces! Not the other way around!!" Steve shouted as he stopped the spears in front of his face and straightened his posture. This revealed a bloody scratch across the right cheek from which a thin stream of blood poured down.
"In that case, I'm taking over your face marking job," Beatrice declared, putting on a confident front while she considered her options.
"Your breasts are a hundred ounces too light to take me on!" Steve responded and took one of his spears into his right hand, keeping his giant shield in his left while seven spears hovered above him.
Beatrice was now 15 Stamina down from using her [Illusionary Split] and [Extend Claws] Skills, both of which were now on cooldown, as well as losing 6 Stamina per minute that she kept her [Sharp Claws] active.
But before Beatrice decided on her next move, both she and Steve noticed sudden movement through the trees.
"Sadist's Whip!" Tabitha shouted while a magical, brightly glowing yellow whip flung through the air toward Steve's neck. Tabitha approached from Steve's left side with her whip in her hand.
But before the whip could wrap around Steve's neck and strangle him, Steve simply moved one of his spears to intercept the whip. It neatly wrapped around the spear, Steve commanded the spear to fly to his right side, which suddenly jerked Tabitha's arm who did not let go of the whip in time and sent her flying straight into Steve's giant Shield of Dignity. Steve prepared an intimate introduction of his shield to Tabitha, and—like with Olivia—intercepted the hapless mage with full force and a heavy thud, before knocking her back and sending her body flying: broken and unconscious. When Tabitha landed with another thud she did not so much as twitch.
Beatrice barely resisted the urge to facepalm. Within four seconds of extending pleasantries with Steve, Beatrice was down her second ally who had no right engaging into melee range.
Steve was turning out to be a far tougher opponent than all his dead lackeys combined, while most of Beatrice's allies turned out to be the opposite. In the end, Beatrice's fears of Olivia being indeed too overconfident and rash were confirmed. It did not really surprise Beatrice, because otherwise, Olivia would have probably tried to take on Belmot's fortress on her own by now.
Meanwhile, Tabitha proved to be a barely competent support mage whose both defensive and crowd control capabilities were easily outmatched by the first semi-competent opponent they've encountered. And this left Beatrice re-evaluating her combat stats as well as her chances of victory.
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