"What in the goddess's name is THAT?!"
Although she appeared to be alone earlier, once the encounter started, Melinda's opponents experienced a horrifying phenomenon.
All of them began to see a distortion in space in front of the gold-haired girl.
Some sort of ethereal being composed entirely of static distorting the space it resided in.
The being was vaguely shaped like a humanoid, the static-like distortion of space painting a picture of a silhouette of someone dressed in some kind of robe, possibly a dress.
"...on"/ *ou ^a$e ^ouc# Me!!y…!"
"!?!?"
The strange being appeared to be waving its arm to the side, and then the opposing group experienced an auditory distortion. They heard something vaguely resembling the common tongue used by humans, but it was so broken, scratchy, and echoey that it was almost impossible to figure out the meaning.
"Adi! What are you doing?!"
The gold-haired girl gasped in shock at the beings, clenching her fists with a worried expression.
"Me!!y *ou n[[d t; b; c@refu!!. &^ink @bo*/ /%e b)b^!"
"...ah…!"
The distorted voice called out again, and just as if she understood what it said, the gold-haired girl flinched and touched her stomach as the resolve in her eyes faltered.
"Dear Perseverance! Look at the level of that thing!"
"One hundred…! 159?! Is that a super boss? How did it get inside a human settlement?! How could we not notice it!?"
The knights began to call out in panic, taking out their weapons against the otherworldly threat at the command of one knight standing right beside the fox-like man instead of the knight at his side.
…although, not all of them reacted the same way…
Three knights, one being the one who was supposedly the wielder of the Magic Sense ability and two others staying at the back did put their hands on their weapons but kept glancing at the ambassador Marius without actually unsheathing them.
"Young Lady Fenrioette."
"..."
Marius straightened his back and spoke up with a gravely serious expression, fully opening his eyes and making Melinda grit her teeth and glare at him.
"Run. We only had ten people supervising y…"
*WHAM* *SQUELCH*
The ambassador called out, with his words being interrupted by the knight at his side, slamming his fist into the defenseless man's ribs and causing his entire ribcage to cave in before getting tossed to the side like a broken puppet.
"!!!"
For a moment, it felt as if time had stopped, with the motionless body of the consul lying in the enlarging pool of his own blood at the center of all of it.
"HURGH!"
"UGHH…!"
"Y-you…!"
The next moment the three knights who did not take out their weapons got jumped by their comrades, skewered by the same type of sword they each wielded, crying out in despair at the betrayal.
"Talk about being too clever for his own good~."
The knight who mutilated the ambassador snickered, waving his armored fist as if trying to shake off the blood and pieces of flesh that got stuck on the edges.
While the ethereal being took a few steps back, standing directly in front of the gold-haired girl, shielding her with its distorted body.
"...you aren't a demon follower… none of you are…"
Melinda gave up trying to get a clear shot at the knight with the staticky being getting in her way each time, dead-set on interrupting her form revealing her strength, leaving the girl to call out at the armored foe in annoyance.
"Aww~ That's so sweet! Do you believe that you become a demon follower only after taking demonic energy into their bodies?"
"...shit…"
The knight chuckled, causing Melinda to spit through her teeth.
"I am impressed that you could tell that with such confidence. Still, you've got a lot to learn if you haven't recognized a true demonkin like mysel…"
"INFERNO!"
*WHOOOOOOO*
The knight continued boastfully… at least until the elderly mage roared from behind him, engulfing him in a pillar of howling flames coiling around itself in a mad twister.
"PROTECT THE CITY! EVACUATE CIVILIANS AND BLAST THOSE TRAITORS INTO OBLIVION!"
The elderly mage roared while holding up his arm, his rolled up sleeve revealing a gauntlet with a crimson-red crystal embedded within it.
"EVAPORATE!"
*WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*
The old man growled, glaring at the pillar of fire and the crystal in his gauntlet shone brightly and the erupting flames concentrated, focused, and turned from red right into blue to the accompaniment of the howl of a jet engine while beginning to heat up the armors of the knights who murdered their comrades that were too close to it.
"Me!!y! G#t ^n/o t/# b^!d^ng!"
"Wh-why?! I can end this right now!"
The spectral staticky being turned around, grabbing Melinda's shoulder and calling out to her, but the gold-haired girl shook her head and gasped in disbelief at this clear lack of trust.
"L@st t^me t/e d*m(nk^n att*$k p^e>ct r^g/t t?ro "!!!" The distorted being shook Melinda's shoulder, and whatever she said caused an immediate effect - the gold-haired girl's expression turned terrified and she took a step back while protectively placing both arms around her stomach. "I w^!! t@k* c@>e o/ it! H^de!" "Don't do anything reckless!" "PRIMAL THUNDER!" "IMPALE" "VOID BULLETS!" *WHAAAAAAAAM* The being declared, turning Melinda around and pushing her back towards the building, making her call out, only to get roared over by the mages one after another, joining the fight and raining down some of the highest known tier spells. While Melinda took cover in the building, getting away from the battlefield, it really did seem that the being of distorted space would have nothing to do. As it turned out, the mages working with the extremely important facility, which could turn into a natural disaster if operated incorrectly, were amongst the strongest in their occupation. The primal thunder, a violet, blue, and yellow lightning, turned the targeted knight into charcoal while also spreading the damage to all of his companions. Those who survived got skewered by quartz pillars that sprouted from underneath their feet, and those who somehow managed to live through that got riddled with holes by the buckshot of jet-black spheres that consumed all the matter in their wake, digging deep into the ground, even after passing through the sandwich of metal, flesh, and quartz. It really seemed that the danger had passed….