'3 minutes? Boy, oh boy!' Arthur clenched his teeth as he kicked a demon that lunged on his leg before he quickly vanished into the shadows. His body was now riddled with all kinds of injuries from head to toe.
The pain he was feeling now was so immense that he could barely even keep thinking straight. He had lost too much blood and his whole armor was now coated in a thick layer of it.
Another huge problem Arthur was facing was the depletion of his mana pool at an extremely rapid pace. Using Shadow Step consumed a lot of mana naturally since it was a very powerful ability. Arthur could feel his mana pool going down rapidly as he moved from one place to another killing monsters.
[Demons killed. (95/250)]
"Hah… Hah… This is no good… I won't be able to keep this for long enough…" Wiping the blood on his face, Arthur cursed as he jumped outside and sliced with his dagger. However, because his vision was growing cloudy, his dagger missed the lethal spot he aimed to hit.
"Shit!" With clenched teeth, Arthur quickly rushed to the monster and stabbed him in the throat before he quickly tried to jump into the shadows. However, he couldn't easily do that without getting bitten at least once.
'Stop biting me, fuckers! They're like stupid insects!' He cursed before he stabbed the second monster in the eye brutally, piercing its brain.
When he entered the shadows again, Arthur sighed.
'3 more minutes… How am I going to survive this?'
At the same time, Mino and Boriat were in no better shape than him. Their bodies were soaked in a mix of their own blood and the blood of their enemies. Both had strong frowns from the pain and sheer exhaustion they were feeling.
However, at the same time, the number of demons didn't seem to be decreasing at all. In fact, the more the trio fought, the more they increased in numbers and overwhelmed them.
The situation was quickly going south and nothing could stop it. At the back, Ani and Kali were watching and both of them were quickly panicking. They knew that the trio wouldn't be able to hold on long enough for the fireball to be finished.
Kali's face was dead serious and slightly pale from the number of boosts she had cast on the trio. Her face was trickling with sweat and her arms and legs were shaking.
'Ani is still far from done… They won't hold on long enough…' She clicked her tongue as she tried to find a solution. She knew that she was the only one who could act at that moment.
'Should I use that?' She asked herself with a frown. She had an idea as to what to do but she was hesitant because the repercussions of what she was going to do could end up killing all of them. However, there was also a chance it worked and that chance was something Kali was ready to bet on.
"Sorry, Ani… I will leave everything to you. If I die, please take care of them for me."
"W-What? What are you talking about, Kali?!" Ani's face paled when she heard her friend's apologetic tone. She knew Kali long enough to know that she wasn't someone who would lightly say such words.
After saying that, Kali stepped forward as she stopped casting buffs and instead clapped her hands together as if she were praying before she closed her eyes. A few seconds passed in silence as Kali prayed silently. Then, out of nowhere, her hands started shining with a bright light. The light grew and grew quickly until it covered all of her body.
The sight was as close to divine as one could get. So much so that all the hero's party noticed this change and looked at her.
"Kali…"
They all understood what she was doing and their faces paled immediately.
"Kali, no!!!" Mino yelled at the top of his lungs. However, he couldn't run back to her as he was stopped by the demons, and even if they weren't there to stop him, it was already too late for him to reach her.
A second later, the bright light around Kali finally exploded as it rose to the sky like a pillar.
"What… in the…" Arthur watched the sight with jaw-dropping shock. He had never seen anything like this before.
It was akin to a pure light piercing the clouds and connecting the world with the skies above it. A calm ringing sound reached their ears originating from that light that surprisingly calmed them and made their brains less clouded.
At the same time, the pillar of light started shifting and changing, separating parts and connecting with others, creating multiple limbs of light. Then, those limbs quickly started descending on Arthur, Mino, and Boriat.
The moment they were touched by that light, they felt warmth fill their bodies. It was akin to wrapping yourself in a warm blanket on a cold night. Arthur looked down at himself in awe of what was happening. He couldn't even find the words to describe what he was feeling. At the same time, he noticed that the demons around him stopped attacking him completely and started cowering in fear as if they were looking at some kind of nightmarish horror.
Arthur was sure that this was because this light was perhaps a divine spell that would hurt any demon that touched it.
'I'm… getting healed?'
As seconds passed, Arthur noticed that his injuries were starting to heal at an extremely fast rate. The huge ones visibly closed and the smaller ones turned into nothing in a moment.
The pain also subsided and his clouded mind completely regained clarity, not to mention the fact that his body's lost energy returned out of nowhere.
"This is… amazing…" He murmured in disbelief as he stared up at Mino and Boriat who had the same experience as he did. However, they weren't as happy as he was. Instead, they had complicated expressions that he couldn't describe with ease.
"Kali…" Suddenly, he realized what they were looking at and quickly shifted his gaze there. The divine light didn't last long so Kali herself was now visible to him and her appearance shocked him to the core.
She had a deathly skinny body, her face had sunk in as if it was merely made out of skin and no muscles. Her eyes turned hollow and her arms were as frail as straws. She looked as if she had gone without food for tens of days.
However, even as she was like that, her small smile never left. Instead, it widened even more as she opened her dry lips.
"Please… survive…" She murmured before she coughed out a huge mouthful of blood and then fell to the ground motionless.
"Kali!!!!" Ani was the first to react as she tried to run toward her friend. However, she heard a loud yell.
"Ani!! Don't stop! Kali had given us a chance to win! Don't let it go to waste!!" Boriat stopped her in her tracks with his voice.
Ani's steps halted as she stared at the giant man for a second as if she realized what he wanted to say before she clicked her tongue in frustration and nodded her head.
"I… I understand…" Then, she quickly resumed her casting process.
At the same time, the demons finally found the opportunity to attack the trio again. However, this time, they were back in full strength.
"Let's end it, boys!"
"Yes!!"