*
"BANGG!!!!"
"Differential movement, black hole attack. " (Neli)
This time it was a kick to the Demon King's jaw, from her perspective she wasn't attacking the Demon King much, but actually 'falling' into the Demon King with great force. Enough to cave in his helmet. The Demon King recoils from the kick and loses balance, reflexively letting go of the child who falls from the height she was lifted into. Barius who had recovered, helped the child up and urged her to run before facing the Demon King once again.
As the particular 'weakling' of the group, she was targetted first by the Demon King in order to cull the number of his enemies. Leaping with all his strength, he cuts down the distance between them before the little girl could follow his movements, if she was still standing around. Fortunately, she had firmly left and hid under the blocky sea of grey and brown. The demon King arrives in front of Barius with raised claws, Kaede and Neli arrives right between them with their blade and fist position to smash into the Demon King's face respectively.
The demon King reacts in time and brings his left claw up to guard his face while the right claw carries on the attack. Neli thrashes in the palm of the claw while Kaede skewers through its middle right after.
"HRMMMHHH!!! GET CAUGHT IN MY TRAP! Second skill, [Authority of the Demon King]." (Demon King)
A wave of blurry red light akin to the aurora borealis rushes out. Upon seeing the light, Kaede abandoned the blade and picked up Barius as she ran away. Neli followed suit and they watched as the void rapier turns into Ash and disintegrates into nothingness.
"Magic erasure...!?" (Barius)
To be frank, the other 2 didn't seem to care that much. For one thing, their attacks are physical and the void rapier can be created as many times as needed. At this point the void rapier was on the level of a Stick, bearing its unique magic effect of 'moving' away enemy defences, but it couldn't be sustained without Kaede's well so it was not a Stick yet.
In any case, if it alarmed Barius, then that was bad news... It would affect the plan. They have to prevent the Demon King from using the magic erasure as much as possible. Kaede resummons her vacuum blade, this time she shouldn't impale the Demon King any longer and would only use slash attacks. Neli will have to stop relying on her differential movement technique to power her attacks.
"I'll take the lead." (Kaede)
Neli protects the injured Barius from long range attacks and stray attacks, while Kaede assaults the Demon King with superficial attacks. As if they were watching an elegant dance, it looked like the world itself became a stage for Kaede's beauty. Her body smoothly maneuvers through the air, dodging claw after claw and hacking away at flesh after flesh.
Her void rapier smashes and breaks against the Demon King's armour multiple times, it did not possess enough energy to overcome the armour's defense and move through it. It was like pushing against a large river current with a small hose. If Kaede's well wasn't so destroyed and she possessed more magical particles, there was a high chance that she could bisect the enemy cleanly. But that was unfortunately not the case.
The Demon King smashes his claw into the ground and erupts with more magic erasing red light. She dodges the claw but the red light phases through her and disintegrates her clothing. Her unblemished skin is exposed under the darkening evening light as she slash low at the Demon King, cutting into his shins before leaping forward to avoid the next attack.
She spins around and cuts at his helmet, the demon king believed it to be the most opportune moment to unleash his magic eraser. Since she was right in front of him, he didn't realise that she had jumped over him as she tried to cut his helmet. The wave of red light passes under her as she thrusts her blade into the observing gaps in his helmet. The helmet was like a jail cell covering the front, and a horde of feathers covered the back.
"...!? Almost there! Just a bit more!" (Barius)
If he died, his well would be gone. Then Kaede couldn't recover... That was the plan, to steal his well and make it hers. It was an A grade well, which was around the level of her previous one. Fortunately, Kaede's void rapier missed and only sliced through the opponent's cheek. It didn't touch his brain at all. Kaede and Neli was undoubtedly having the upper hand, but that was manufactured through an advantageous strategy.
The Demon King sent a long range claw attack since his physical claws couldn't reach Kaede who was standing on his head. She jumped straight into the air, while Neli assaulted the Demon King to distract him from Kaede. Despite all the attacks they've done to him, he looked good as new. His regeneration was still monstrous no matter how they looked at it, every attacked was healed in an instant. That included his armour.
Sending multiple consecutive claw attacks in a straight line, an enormous slash radiates outwards, cutting down everything in a kilometre within 180 degrees in front of the Demon King. Neli reinforces her body by moving gravity outwards with herself at the centre, while Kaede hops over the attack... It was a mistake. The Demon King knew she would try to dodge the attack instead of blocking it to reduce stamina consumption, but that made her vulnerable to attacks as she's in mid air.
A sharp armoured kick strikes at Kaede's abdomen with unnatural precision, sending her flying further into the sky. The Demon King then relaxed his shoulder to launch a giant claw attack that flew towards her. Black crescents tear through the air arising from his big swing, the wind in its vicinity become akin to ants in its devastating wake. A large rumbling sound approaches Kaede as it approaches her.
"... She'll take care of herself, the best way to protect her is to distract the Demon King long enough for her to recover her wounds. She's still a magical girl, our regeneration is just as monstrous as his. Nevermind about me, I'm almost there. It won't be long until we succeed. " (Barius)
Taking her advice, Neli rushes forward with the differential movement technique. The Demon King was wary to attacks after sending so many towards Kaede, he was practically waiting for a surprise attack to happen at any time. Because that's what he would do if he was in their place. So he released his magic erasure immediately into his surrounding vicinity. The erasure clashes with Neli's technique, her leaf green dress is torn from the sudden deceleration, her muscles and tendons ripped out of her flesh.
"GAHHH!?!!!" (Neli)
She was careless, she didn't think the recoil would hit this bad and temporarily immobilise her. The Demon King wouldn't miss it at all, a fist bashes into the back of her head, sending her flying across the ground. In the distant skies, smoke was pouring forth from the point where the claw attack collided with Kaede. It had so much energy that it erupted into a point blank explosion. But it didn't stop Kaede, she was rushing towards Barius.
".... TCH!!!! ALMOST!!!!!!" (Kaede)
She was a little step too late, the Demon King had gotten to Barius first. But Barius gave off a charming smile, usually the Demon King's constitution skill would make it immune to any form of mental debuff... But he hesitated for a tiny moment in his rampage... No, he was not enamored by Barius's elegant beauty.
It was the emotion that permeated through her very eyes and lips, the slight wrinkle that stretched across her cheek and nose ridge... Her unnatural expression of ecstasy that raised a single crazed eyebrow over the other. He was using that tiny moment of time to analyze the battle, to see where he had gone wrong. Because that was the face of a hunter whos prey had entered their trap.
Even Barius herself didn't know she could make that face... Because it wasn't her... At the point in time, it looked like Barius and Kaede switched places and an ominous dark purple aura filled the Demon King's vision. Camouflage magic, Kaede altered the evening sun's rays to change how the shade of her and Barius's hair look like. That was an advantage unique to a battle during a setting sun, there was just enough light to mark areas bound by darkness and light, while not enough to differentiate the colours particularly well.
So she had made the colours of their hair switch, Barius was a middle grey, while Kaori's was a light grey. This was followed by the switching of clothes... Or combat dresses. And finally, their hairstyles. They simply tied their hair different from usual, by arranging for the other's hairstyle. By activating their magic, they retransformed back into their own magical combat dresses and hairstyles, as well as Kaede releasing her illusion over their hair colour.
Her Stick, the ominous automatic infliction double crescent horns materialised back on her own head. It wasn't the translucent fake on Barius's head, but an opague one. It didn't leak Faint purple aura, but dark purple, and it had been active enough to fill the Demon King's vision with this aura. The Demon King immediately realised that something was amiss and pressed his aura over her. No matter what, he was still an A grade. So his aura should at least stun her for a moment...
His own aura pushed away the dark purple clouding his vision to reveal her... Who was completely fine... This inconsequential fact thoroughly stuck itself into the Demon King's mind. First her mocking smile, then her dress. What was the entire point of that? Why would she go out of her way to switch appearances with her comrade...? Unless, there is a clear difference between them in my perception... So as to trick me into treating them differently...
He... He thought Barius was weak and Kaede was strong when it was the other way around. This momentary change brought plenty of hesitation into the Demon King's mind, playing him into their hands for... He was too intelligent. They completely predicted this confusion that only a mindless beast would ignore, but he was not such. He was the regal Demon King in full black majestic armour like a walking fortress that spread forth destruction.
He slipped through the front lines, but he hadn't wreaked havoc... Why is that so? It was because he was an intelligent warfaring species, he was there to collect as much information as he could on The Eye God before going to bout with her. He hadn't heard the news that she was gone.
It was only natural to do some reconnaissance, he didn't think there were strong enough magical girls to fight her this deep into The Sanctuary's territory. He had arranged to distract every city with a clone of himself, but as a clone himself he couldn't create more like the original could. So he summoned monsters to obey his command and raid en masse.
This plan was deeply tied to Kaede's objective. He had a damaged well, so he wanted to steal the Demon King's well. Even if it was lower than average for an A grade, it was still A grade and comparable to Kaori's completely healthy well.
So she had disguised herself as Barius to make the Demon King think Barius was weaker than Kaori, right after the multi target attack that had injured her badly, she activated her Stick while making a fake one on Barius head. So that when the Demon King realised what she was doing, his attention would still be fixated on the fake but stronger Kaede standing in front of him.
It was Barius in disguise, her goal was to entrap his attention onto her by doing as much damage as possible, and she did well and when he was hyperfixated on destroying her while she was stuck in midair. As for what the Stick was doing... Rather, as for what Kaede was doing the entire battle while posing as an injured Barius...
Kaede, the Stick and Grail-chan, all 3 of them were trying to find vulnerabilities in the Demon King's will stat, in other words his natural magic defence. Grail plugged up Kaede's well and looked for holes in the Demon King's will to dig into, the Stick digs and peels at these holes to try to bust in and Kaede either helped with the digging or helped Barius by materialising void rapiers. It was why the void rapier materialised slowly right after fake Barius or real Kaede was injured. Why fake Kaede or real Barius could exploit the timestop so well.
The entire battle, Kaede had been trying to infiltrate the Demon King's magic defence, and the constitution skill as well as the magic erasure didn't help. [Demon King constitution] bolstered his will stat slightly more and magic erasure erased the Stick's magic which was digging at the defence.
But now Kaede was done. With her C grade capabilities, she slowly excavated at the very same spot. It wasn't anywhere particularly noticeable like the neck, but it wasn't in a place that was too hidden and would be checked as well. It was at where Neli dealt the very first blow and got the armour dented for the first time during the battle. At the front of his chest.