Sigmund readied to clash against Ardena, but I placed a hand on his armored shoulder and gently stopped him.
"Leave her to us."
"What?" Sigmund's aquamarine eyes flickered with surprise. "Are you sure?"
"Sure as sure." I nodded firmly. "You go ahead and destroy the monolith. We'll deal with her."
Ardena held up her sword, her eyes still hollow. Yet, for the first time, she actually spoke, her voice soft yet as cold as an iceberg. I actually shivered from the chill that her words produced.
"You cannot defeat me."
"I wonder about that." I shrugged before readying my bow and pointing an arrow at her. "But we don't have to defeat you. We merely need to stall you for long enough so that Sigmund can complete his goal."
I glanced at him, seeing the worry in his usually neutral expression.
"Don't worry, if there's one thing that we're good at, it's surviving."
"Hey, it's not like we call ourselves the Survivors," Myria protested. "We aren't a party who have lost faith in humanity, and have a legendary sword called Kizuna that allows us to perform the ultimate technique Union."
"Myria, please don't ruin my moment." That said, I was taken aback that she actually knew about that particular light novel series with an anime adaptation.
Sigmund narrowed his eyes and was about to kick off to charge at Ardena, ignoring my appeals. With a sigh, I brought out my trump card.
Bam!
Hei Ba hissed viciously as his claws dug into the bark layered ground of the top of the World Tree, his nine heads snaking about aggressively. One of his heads unleashed a golden beam that forced Ardena back, the elf swordswoman cleaving the devastating blast into dissipating orbs with her sword.
She really was the sword Saint.
"I see." Sigmund was finally convinced. He nodded to me once before he took off, clearing the distance in a single bound and landing behind Ardena. The elvish Sword Saint spun around to intercept him, but she was forced to jump away when another of Hei Ba's heads crashed into the ground where she was standing on.
Cartwheeling in midair, she landed a few paces away before leaping once more to prevent herself from being crushed by another pair of snapping jaws. She deflected the gleaming fangs with her blade, but found herself pushed back drastically.
Even so, Sigmund found his path barred by Dire Wolves and their dark elf riders, as well as a few of the Saurian spirit beasts called forth by Ricowen. He gripped his sword and readied to unleash another wave, but before he could do, a barrage of spirit swords and a storm of lightning bolts descended from above, decimating the horde and leaving a molten trail dotted with craters. The ground might have been devastated, but the path ahead was now clear, the corpses impaled or charred.
"Please go on ahead," Sylvie said, her hands raised as she wielded several magic circles, the spirit arrays that she and her sister had set up glowing ferociously with arcane light.
"You can leave the small fries to us!" Silvia added almost gleefully. "Save your strength for when you need it the most!"
"Thank you." Sigmund nodded before he bounded ahead, following the route that Sylvie and Silvia continued to carve out with their arcane bombardments. Meanwhile, Morten and my earthbound spirit beasts continued to defend them, the Colossal Crabs forming a ring of crustacean around them, led by my King Crab and Da Hai. My ghost spirit beasts continued contesting the surroundings against the poison wielding dark elves, launching guerilla strikes from the shadows on beleaguered Cabal Knights, Gladiators and Gladiatrixes. By now, a few more Shrieking Banshees had joined the desperate melee, summoned by the dark elves as they committed all of their reserves to this final battle, but even these found themselves decapitated by vengeful Pumpkin Wraiths, while the Tree Revenants pulped the heavily armored Cabal Knights who otherwise were impervious to the relatively weaker attacks of my Phantom Stumps and Ghost Pumpkins.
All the while, my Guardian Golems and Titan Golem wrestled and formed a living barrier against the Growling Griffons and Wind Wyverns. Interspersed between the magma giants were large formations of Little Anglers and Lantern Fishes, who continued to fill the sky with countless forks of lightning or deadly electrical nets to bring down convulsing airborne spirit beasts to the jaws of waiting Lantern Sharks. They were also protected by Xiao Huo and Xiao Huo Long, my six-tailed fire fox launching fireballs from the ground while my shiny Charred Drake took the battle to the skies, wheeling about and incinerating whatever he could while he was joined by badly outmatched Owls.
The Round Owlets, Arrow Owls and their commanding Grim Owl had come in force too, but as I had suspected, they were completely outclassed by the hordes of Mystic ranked airborne spirit beasts. Fortunately, I was able to communicate with them via Xiao Huo Long, and they kept low, keeping to the safety electrical net that my aquatic armada provided or seeking cover behind my Guardian Golems and Titan Golem. Additionally, the spirit arrays that Sylvie and Silvia set up flared occasionally, hurling thunderbolts into the heavens and searing swathes through the pursuing Growling Griffons and Wind Wyverns, keeping the main strength of their air force at bay.
Even the Raiders weren't impervious to the fairy sisters' spells, and I saw a squadron list and plummet, their hulls broken apart and smoking profusely from repeated strikes from the powerful blasts of lightning. Passengers spilled from their transports, right into the waiting jaws of my Lantern Sharks or fiery fists of my Guardian Golems, while opportunistic Colossal Crabs scuttled forward to seize them with their giant pincers.
Hei Ba continued to assault an evading Ardena, who skillfully deflected and parried his nine jaws with her sword. Though she was tiny when compared to the titanic Abyssal Hydra, she appeared to be faster and a more difficult target. Leaping, flipping and cartwheeling, she weaved through the pounding heads and skidded away. She then spun around to block another strike from Hei Ba's head, ingeniously using the momentum from the blow to widen the distance between them. Once she was sure that she was out of range from his physical attacks, she planted her feet firmly, her holy blade glowing fiercely with overcharged mana.
Recognizing the danger, Hei Ba hissed defiantly and mirrored her stance, slamming his claws down on the earth. Or the World Tree, to be more exact, but you know what I mean. All of his jaws accumulated golden qi before he unleashed them in a city razing volley that obliterated an entire section of the forest atop Yggdrasil, leveling the land and turning the surroundings into a blazing crater.
Surely, nothing could have survived that, right?
Wrong.
Amidst the hellish inferno, Ardena stood stalwartly, both hands holding her glowing sword. Somehow she had managed to dodge all nine golden beams, her nimble elf body a blur of white, green and yellow, and now she had come to a stop, confronting her enemy with everything she had.
"Dainsleif!"
For a moment, I was blinded. I couldn't see anything as a supernova flashed across the forest, and even though the lenses of my glasses darkened, I still found myself dazzled and seeing bright spots as I clamped my eyelids shut. Blinking them away, I shook my head and watched in horror as Hei Ba was engulfed by the tsunami of golden destruction. A few seconds, as the colossal wave died away, I saw that there was very little left of my Earth ranked Abyssal Hydra.
Most of his body was gone, leaving just one ravaged head that lay limply on the scorched earth. The other eight heads had ceased to exist, disintegrated by the sheer power of the blow. The tail was missing, as was the majority of his once majestic body. even though the eight heads were slowly regenerating, I could see that the damage was far too extensive, far too grievous for him to recover. He would need to recuperate in the Abyssal Cavern for a very, very long time before he could be restored to fighting strength.
I hastily dismissed him back to my dungeon before Adrena could finish him off. The elvish Sword Saint still had their hollow expression, as if she didn't care that she had just defeated a formidable foe. Did she think that such a feat was a given? That it wasn't anything impressive?
"What the hell was that?" I murmured, though I had seen Ardena execute a similar technique to counter Sigmund's Balmung.
"An A++ Anti-Fortress treasure weapon," Myria replied. I tried not to roll my eyes.
"Are you serious?"
"I thought it would be easier for you to understand if I explain it in gaming or anime terms."
Lady, I might be an otaku, but even I wasn't delusional enough to mix up reality with fiction. That said, I supposed Myria had a point. suffice to say, the treasure weapon that Ardena possessed – Dainsleif – was incredibly powerful. One of the most powerful treasure weapons I had ever seen, especially since it could almost utterly destroy even the Earth ranked Hei Ba in a single blow.
This wasn't good. I was loathed to summon my Elder Tree Revenant. Losing yet another Earth ranked spirit beast to Ardena's Dainsleif would be a devastating blow from which I couldn't recover from. And my Titan Golem was wrapped up in the defensive line behind, an unyielding bastion of hope for the rest of my spirit beast army. Moving him to the front would cause the line to falter. Besides, he was much slower than Hei Ba, and I had already witnessed how Ardena overwhelmed the Earth ranked Abyssal Hydra with superior speed.
No, this wouldn't be a battle of strength. It was a contest of skill.
"I will take her on," Myria told me, already rushing forward. Her sword morphed into that flexible water whip that struck from unpredictable angles, forcing Ardena to the backfoot. Even so, the elvish Sword Saint fended off the multiple strikes with astonishing ease, deflecting and parrying each and every one of them. Myria leaped off the ground and flipped over Ardena's head, her blade retracting to stab at her opponent's face, but Ardena caught the blow with her hardened glove before countering with a sweeping strike that Myria vaulted over.
She landed right next to me in a crouch while heaving wearily, but her eyes were still on Ardena. I kept the enslaved elf at bay with a volley of azure arrows, and while she cut many of them down with her sword, she also avoided a few lethal blows by twisting her body deftly. Even so, she wasn't reckless enough to charge straight through the deadly hail of arcane projectiles.
Myria exhaled as she straightened from her crouch, already reassuming her stance. She narrowed her eyes.
"If I go at full power, I might be able to match her for two minutes, tops." She nodded subtly. "I'll buy you the opportunity you need."
"The opportunity to do what?" I asked distractedly, keeping my aim on Ardena and discouraging her advance with a few precise shots.
"To project a shield from your Reality Marble while the soundtrack, The Four Rings, plays in the background."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"You know, to reduce the power of her Dainsleif by 90%, so that it will allow me to overwhelm with a counterattack from my own treasure weapon."
"I don't suppose you have a white winged horse that you can summon from somewhere?"
"Nah, but I can get you seahorses if you need me to. Speaking of which, how come you haven't looked for Sea Horses in the ocean? I thought you would make a contract with them."
"Um, I'll consider it," I said before releasing another arrow that Ardena dodged. She cut down another volley and closed in, but Myria had recovered by then. She kicked Ardena from below while the latter was distracted by parrying my arrows with her sword, but the elf blocked her foot with an elbow and allowed herself to be hurled back. Hitting the ground, she then slashed at Myria, who ducked and countered with a series of snaking water whip strikes.
Ardena continued to evade, block and parry, but this time, she didn't just have Myria's water whips to worry about. While much of her attention was occupied by my partner's unpredictable sword techniques, a hail of arrows arced before raining down from above, striking her with uncanny precision. Each detonated with the force of a bullet…no, a tank shell. Ardena found herself buffeted by explosive blasts that knocked her lightly armored body off balance.
Frankly speaking, Ardena was…uh, skimpily dressed when compared to other elite warriors such as the Cabal Knights. It was only natural because she had focused more on speed and agility, and armor would only weigh her down. Unfortunately, this appeared to be a fatal weakness through which I could exploit. With Myria pinning her down, I could hit her with powerful arrows and shred her pitiful defense.
Or so I thought, but when I caught sight of her staggering figure after the smoke had cleared, my jaw dropped in disbelief.
"You've got to be kidding me…"
Apart from a few bruises, Ardena was unscathed. She was winded, to be sure, and wincing from pain where the arrows had struck, leaving ugly welts across her exposed once delicate skin, but otherwise she wasn't incapacitated at all.
"Well, I did think that this wasn't going to be easy," Myria muttered before she charged in once again, surrounded by her rippling water whip sword.