As we walk with the enemy general through the snow, I think about what's coming up ahead. Due to the level difference, I can't contribute to a fight against this guy even if I gave it my all. Any attack I throw at him, be it physical or magic, would probably not even deal damage. The same is true for the girls, of course, so all of us would just end up being dead weight. I could help indirectly by wasting a bit of his energy using a roundabout way to get to our destination, but then it would increase any suspicions he might have.
It's probably not worth putting everything in jeopardy just for that small of an advantage, we are already lucky that everything is proceeding this smoothly after all...
Without many opportunities to push the odds just that much in our favor, we eventually reach the place on which the final act will begin.
A small cave entrance stands in front of us. It looks pretty normal, except for two small dragon statues in front of it and a man-made stone gate. There is an air of mystery surrounding it thanks to the combination of a precarious stone gate, well-made statues, and a natural cave. Overall, there's nothing alarming about it, aside from being a bit of a strange sight.
???: "Those are dragons... so if this is a shrine, then it's true that they colluded with the Dragon King of Frost, huh?"
... I have absolutely no idea what this guy is talking about. I just asked Melissa to prepare anything that looked like a shrine, and she haphazardly threw this together. I'll later ask her what this was all about, but first, it would be ideal if this guy managed to enter the cave. Inside a closed space, his ability to fly wouldn't mean shit, and it would severely hurt his chances of escaping.
Miwen: "I don't know, but whatever this place is, they never enter or attack the cave, there's hardly anyone in the area surrounding it. Not only the tribesman. Come, let us talk inside."
???: "Sorry kid, I'd prefer to keep guard outside, at least until I can confirm their tribe doesn't invade the place. Maybe I should actually go back and drag that one girl here..."
He's being cautious. Under these circumstances, he wants to at least keep his escape route.
It's a shame we can't bring him inside, but oh well...
Miwen: "I see, I guess we should start then..."
???: " Oh yeah, do tell me how did you-"
A man suddenly comes flying in my direction. Normally I'd feel threatened by it, but right now, I can only feel pity. It resembles what he did to Mia, this time though, he was the one being thrown around.
Out of thin air, Melissa appears, throwing the cloak to the side.
This was expected, as she has been following us since the very beginning. Thanks to the cloak, her presence went undetected until she first attacked.
When this so-called Angel of The Night first attacked Mia, I thought for sure Melissa would strike at him with zero fucks given. Thankfully it seems she managed to maintain her composure and endure her rage until the right moment.
Even if she attacked him at that moment and he managed to escape, I could still say that I kept my end of the deal at the very least, although the end result would have been less than what IU hoped for.
But seeing how perfectly everything worked out, Melissa shouldn't have any complaints.
Before charging towards her prey inside the cave, Melissa erects an earth wall behind us that connects to the cave's entrance. Effectively, once again I find myself imprisoned by her. There's nothing to worry about though, if anything, I feel like I got front-row seats for a live wrestling match.
Licia: "You should've kept us outside!"
Melissa: "Is that so? Since the boy showed his worth, I thought about returning the favor."
Licia worries about our security, so she erects her own ice wall in front of us so that we can take cover. Well, looking at the level of the contestants this much would hardly even stop them for a second, still, it's the best she can do, so she does it.
It takes but a moment for the enemy general to once again stand up. With his back pressed against the walls of the cave, his only hope of leaving would be destroying the earth wall Melissa erected.
This is no easy task though. Even though this guy must be quite capable given the position he occupies in the Hamperlon army, standing in front of him is Melissa, 30 levels higher, a woman who leads a tribe of hunters and excellent soldiers. No doubt when it comes to battles, experience wise they should be evenly matched.
And so, Melissa finally charges at him, her acceleration is simply astonishing, she closes the gap as if it was simply a step away. The guy must have also been shocked, the first punch connects and holes are made in the ground where Melissa is standing, her strength so great that just her taking a position for a punch causes enough pressure for the earth and snow beneath her to disappear.
Her uppercut lifts the "angel" body out of the ground entirely, but even though it's clear he took a lot of damage from that, he slashes at Melissa with his right wing.
His wing must be as hard as steel, and quite sharp since it manages to draw blood from Melissa, If I had to guess, it's either due to his Gift or a skill, I doubt all harpies are like that.
Although her arm has a cut, Melissa grabs the wing that just slashed at her and strips a bunch of feathers from it.
Angel Of The Night: "Gh...!"
He's visibly in pain from that. Well, not that "visibly" to be honest. Thanks to Melissa covering us in this earth dome it would be quite hard to see what's going on, even more so with their absurd speed.
Claire, however, used her magic to light small fires around the dome, which are providing enough light for everyone to see what was currently happening. I was capable of watching it quite well before, but I guess it was harder for her.
Not to be outdone by her opponent, Melissa's nails extend, resembling more the claws of an animal than the nails a human possesses. She sinks her claws into the harpy's arm, closes her hand, and pushes it, bringing with it almost half of what used to be a perfectly healthy arm. She throws it to the ground, blood spattering from everywhere, the snow around them drenched in red.
The look on his face is one of pure fright. In his mind, he's beginning to understand just what he got himself into. He's trapped, his opponent is above his league, what can he do?
For now, he can still somewhat fight, but it's clear to anyone that he'd be lucky to even manage to take a limb off Melissa, much less kill her.
Using his wings as a complementary force, making use of his full speed, a flurry of attacks is launched toward Melissa. Even if one of his arms just got obliterated, he still tries his best to keep up a fight.
Claire: "Ohh, he's quite brave! I thought he'd be a bigger wimpy given his sneaky night raids. I'd have loved to face either of them back in my prime."
Licia: "She's taking too long, should I giver her a hand?"
The professional commentators on my side sure are excited, even Licia who was at first mad at Melissa's actions is now enjoying the show. However, what she just said piqued my interest quite a bit.
Miwen: "What do you mean? The level gap is too high for you to do damage."
Claire: "..."
Licia: "We should do a mock fight someday so that you can understand better, but Ice magic allows for quite good support you know?"
Claire: "Ice mages are all really annoying to deal with, thankfully they never really mess with me."
Licia: "That's because your magic is a clear counter to ours, it's not fair!"
Miwen: "So, how are you gonna provide support? I don't want to belittle you, but even if you tried to freeze his feet with all your mana, due to his strength, he'd break out of it instantly, as if it had never even been frozen in the first place."
When Licia talks about giving support through her ice magic, I think back to when she froze the Goblin Lord's weapon so that I could land a killing blow. But that was only possible thanks to a somewhat close level of strength between them, her ice magic being strong enough to overpower the goblin at the time. I'm really curious to see what Licia can do to help here, after all, it should be useful to at least learn it so that I can replicate it in the future if push comes to shove.
Licia: "Watch and learn."
She starts focusing all her attention in the fight, trying to read it as best as she can. By the looks of it, it's not going to take much longer before Melissa finishes her opponent, but she's also taking some damage, so it would be best if Licia acted fast.
As Melissa trades blows with her opponent, for only a second she leaves an opening, seeing this chance, the Angel of The Night tries to connect his hardest blow yet, but as he rotates his body to launch a slash at Melissa with his wing while protecting his face against a counter-attack, suddenly, he trips.
This girl...
When I thought she was going to do something insane, she just used an absurd amount of experience to read everyone's move and predict an opportunity.
When that arrived, like a kid extending their leg so you trip over, she just made a very small ice ramp next to the angel's feet.
Licia: "Even though it's not that big of an area if I focused all my mana on his feet, it would be too weak to have an effect due to the level disparity. But if I focus on an even smaller area? If I make it so that his feet only need to slide for a moment? Then I can do something like this."
Claire: "That's why no one likes to fight against ice users."
Licia: "How's that? Did you like it?"
Miwen: "You look more like a bully right now..."
Licia: "Ehhh?"
I admit it was most impressive, even more so how she managed to get such a good read on everything she was seeing, but...
This looked more like a childish prank than anything. It also doesn't help the fact that Melissa took that opportunity to start kicking the guy that just fell to the ground in the most humiliating way ever.
I feel like I'm watching two cold-hearted girls bully a poor guy while another one laughs at him... Add to that the fact that I was their accomplice in getting the guy in this situation...This whole sequence just made me lose a bit of pride in my actions thus far.
Still, the title of general ought to be respected. This guy is a genuine monster. He's fighting against a much stronger opponent, and even after being beaten to a pulp and losing one of his arms, he's still not giving up. Using his wings, he propels himself out of the ground, and in a desperate last attempt, flies at full speed towards the ice wall the girls and I are behind.
Maybe he thought that he could take one of us as a hostage, but it was a big mistake, he just turned his back to Melissa after all.
His current speed is probably a bit faster than what Melissa showed previously, it's obvious to anyone that his giving it his all right now, but..
Melissa shows her fangs, literally, and in an incredibly fast jump, that outspeed everything that has happened thus far, bites off the angel's leg, lands on the ceiling, and in another jump, from the ceiling to the ground, manages to knock the angel out, making a deep hole in the process.
At least that was what I think happened. I could only see her first jump, after that, my eyes, even now that they are enhanced by a skill, weren't able to follow her movements. The most I managed to see was a shadow moving everywhere.
After that, the battle was truly over. The angel didn't move anymore, and Melissa dragged him to her tribe. Although not dead, It wouldn't take too long for him to die without healing magic or potions. Melissa also took some damage, but nothing close to life-threatening.
Melissa: "Don't forget your cloak boy, you're gonna need it to sneaky back to your cell."
Miwen: "Eh? I thought you were gonna celebrate me as a hero ?"
Melissa: "I didn't agree to that. But fine, Mia should be waiting outside, sadly, since I have to carry this guy, I can't lend you a hand but..."
Miwen: "I get it, I get it, I'll be a good boy, please don't feed me to the wolves."
Melissa: "Heh, did I scare you that much?"
Miwen: "You have no idea."
Well, at the end of the day, I never managed to understand why Melissa made such an elaborate move to have Mia be part of this whole thing to start with.
And sadly my standing with the tribe didn't really improve since Melissa kept our relationship a secret and claimed the feat of defeating the enemy general for herself to boost morale amongst her army. All things considered, I might be more in danger now than I was before since Mia might be slightly pissed off.
But there's no way the results this time can be seen as anything but great. Not only did we deal a massive blow to the enemy, I'm sure Melissa trusts me a lot more now, much more than just providing her with useful items, by working together, one by one, we could be able to knock down every single piece in the board.