Half an hour had elapsed since the battle between Allen Party and demons unfolded.
«Hold on to your position and keep pushing. Our opponents are forced to face no matter what.»
Virdiga's inhumanely voice echoed around, inspiring the archdemons and demons to stay put in the battle. They, the evil incarnate, had already formed a defensive circle around Scree, keeping any harm from reaching it.
The great spirits continued to put Sophia and Luck's safety as their foremost priority while occasionally providing ranged fire to break the opponent's formation.
«True Archery!!...True Archery! Tch... Arrow Barrage!!»
«Scree!?»
Formar's arrow initially shot straight toward the high ceiling—then, midair, its trajectory curved gracefully. Suddenly, it split into 32 arrows, and rained down in a deadly spread aimed directly at Scree.
Five arrows wedged themselves into Scree's huge eyeball, while the remaining arrows traced their way toward the demons and archdemons that were at rearguard.
This was an attack buffed by triple «True Archery», and the arrow had been created from the S-rank magic stone via his Divine Skill «Infinite Quiver». Each arrow was a deadly shot to demons no matter how strong they're. Some pierced their heads, some sliced through throats, and some buried deep into chests and abdomens.
Panicked, the demon army scrambled to heal their injured and reform their heavily defense-oriented formation.«Haaaa!! Absolute Zero!!»
Magla followed with a powerful ice breath attack, freezing all the enemies at the frontline, and even the midguard lineup into popsicles.
“Infinite Heaven Piercing!!”
Leon seemed to have expected the situation to take this turn, and invoking his skill, split the golden scepter into ten parts and struck Virdiga.
«Gaaahhh! H-h-how did you!? No, is this what you're planning using that «Scepter»?!!»
But having read the pattern of Virdiga's attack, Leon used his skill countered instantly, invoking the Divine-Class technique Peerless Heaven-Infused Rod, unleashing ten simultaneous strikes with blinding speed.
Each hit of Leon's attack carried an immeasurable strength, engulfing even the surrounding demons and archdemons. Virdiga boasted the staggering endurance out there as the holder of «Physical Resistance (Extreme)» stat, plus he also had the benefit from Mara's buffs, and yet, Leon's strike shredded his defense like paper. A drizzle of purple rain scatters in the surrounding area.
Though in his pursuit Leon had also ventured deep in the opponent's formation, alone, and immediately spells and arrows fell at him like hail from all around.
«Evil Flair!»
«Darkness Spear!!»
«Burst Arrow!!»
«Grh... there's no escape huh.»
Demons didn't miss their chance, and under the barrage of attacks, Leon turned into a light bubble from over damage. But within a heartbeat, he appeared at the frontline of Allen's team again, full of health. He was resurrected by the blessing of his skill «Reincarnation».
Allen, who had been pushed back to the midguard position of his team, got up to his feet, recovering from Virdiga's tackle.
«*Haa*... can you not play a bit more defensively? The damage will take over you if you keep outpacing recovery...»
Tonis, the great spirit of water, heaved a sigh and conjured a lump of water above the clam adorned wand, abruptly tossing it in Allen's direction. As soon as Allen was doused with water, the damage accumulated from his confrontation against Virdiga immediately heals up.
(Well, at least every demon has now turned into evil incarnations.)
Scree continued to revive the fallen demons, having been defeated by Allen and Leon.
«Guuurrgaahh!!»
With sickening creaks and cracking bones, the demons rose again—roaring, their bodies reanimated in hideous transformation.
«Fufu, and now everyone has become evil incarnates. You can panic, but you will only be wasting your breath now by attacking Scree. And I doubt you've the firepower to wipe the floor completely, or do you?»
(Still trying to rage bait me? I presume, this is how badly they want to stop me from reaching Divine Arena and Heavenly Kingdom....Oh? Space-Time God has finally healed. Alright, then it's time to gear up our plan.)
Allen had yet to figure out the plot of demons for why they wanted him here, but he was assured that it had to have some greater significance. Meanwhile, the Space-Time God had completely regrown his severed hands at last by the courtesy of great spirit's healing.
This had been their plan all along. He and Leon would deliberately crash into enemies, trying to appear desperate, but all along their plan had to stretch everyone's attention on them rather than trying to defeat their opponent quickly.
«Absolute Corridor!!»
*Ka-chin!*
Space-Time God didn't immediately jump in the fray, and focused on converging his divine power. The converged divine mana manifested into the shape of a barrier, and swooped at the demons, now the evil incarnates, encasing them inside it.
The evil incarnates tried to bang their weapons against the barrier but to no avail, then Space-Time God greatly pulled his hands backward and in a poltergeist fashion, he lifted the spherical barrier and slammed it into the wall behind Allen's party.
He forced the barrier to push against the wall and continued until it was good 1/3 inside, and then affixed it in the spot.
"This settled 22 evil incarnates. Luck, are you alright?!"
"*Huff* *Huff*... I think I can still go on. Anyway, focus on the battle, not me!!"
Allen inquired how Luck was faring, concern evident from his tone as Luck had been the heavy lifter of their current battle formation. Luck sure would've wanted to lie down there, nevertheless he infused some strength in his throat and pushed Allen to focus on himself.
At his footsteps, the magic circle to divine technique «Spirit God's Sanctuary» and «Ying-Yang Formation» could be seen stretching and covering their opponent.
In this kind of battle, where both sides relied heavily on formations, Luck’s area-based debuffs were proving crucial. But the demons weren’t passive. Led by Mara, they were actively layering buffs, doing everything they could to counter Luck’s suppressive magic.
A fierce tug-of-war was underway—Luck poured a torrent of spiritual and magical energy into his spells, struggling to extend the range of his debuffs all the way to the fissure where Scree loomed.
On the other hand, Kaka, the great spirit of fire, had burned through not just the sparred mana but even a portion of his stamina, incinerating the enemies. Since the fire element had quite an upper hand against the evil incarnates, Kaka had burned 12 of them so far.
Nevertheless, as he had been maintaining not just spells but the materialisation of seven spirits, Luck's mind had been tethering at the edge of unconsciousness, his gaze cloudy, barely holding to the thread of sanity.
«Oh dear, it seems your friends are already at their limit, eh, Allen-kun? You'd tried hard, but how many of us did you take down? Not even half. How long can you hold on? This is why they say, haste makes work imperfect.»
Mara flashed a grin, trying to rile Allen up.
"Haste, and me? I was sure it's you who must be panicking. Even your buffs wouldn't last more than... 1 hour? Or maybe 2?"
Since the demon's plan had been to confide Allen in Space-Time God's territory, they must have a time limit, and that means their buffs must have a limit. After all, as much as it holds true that Allen can't leave this place, it also means Mara and the accompanying demons couldn't leave the place to support others.
«...You're shrewd, that I give in to you. Still, you can attempt all you want, but you low-lifes can never grasp the essence of our one great plan.»
Mara seemed to have noticed the implication in Allen's words, and retorted in impatience.
(Hmm, so it's better to assume they may not be held for up to 2 hours huh. But the damage to the Divine Realm on other hand is...)
A half an hour had elapsed since the beginning of their battle, with Allen often checking on other demon divisons via Kuwataro's ability, and the scenery shared with him was... hopeless to say the least.
＊＊＊
Soon, the Demon King's Army—composed of Bask, Gandira, and 200 demons and archdemons—had landed at stone throwaway distance from the pyramid shaped capital Rapul of Heavenly Sandal Kingdom.
A step more, and they were within the boundary of the capital. As soon as they'd landed, they began their assault on nearby towns and cities.
At the outskirts of the royal capital was a huge downtown, and was occupied by hundreds of thousands of dragonkin and its inhabitants.
"Stop the Demon King Army! He's the commander!!"
The dragonkins had been spread around the outskirts of the royal capital, and it was guided by Borman. At the command, tens of dragonkin hoisted their spear, and rhythmically lunged at Bask.
«Tch, pathetic worms! You really think you skinny lizards can make a difference—True Asura Tornado!»
Bask raised the greatsword in his hand and spun on his heels like a thunderstorm, shredding away the incoming dragonkin into mere flesh chunks. The dragonkins had been donning Hihirokane metal armor, which Allen had offered them, however the power output of Fiend King Bask was too much to be stopped by them.
"Wh—no, it can't be!!"
«Haa, so you're their commander huh. How dare you attempt an attack on this one. Prepare to die!!»
"No—gaaahh!"
"Chief?!"
After turning the dragonkins into chunks of meat, Bask leaped up, raising the magic sword Onuba overhead, and landed beside the Bormar. Bask performed a downward slash in tandem with his landing, and split Bormar into two along with the adamantite gears he had on his body.
It was an instant kill, eliciting a cry from dragonkins. They tried to muster their battle intent, but Bask's power was too overwhelming for them, giving them cold feets.
«Hey, what now. Are you guys scared just from this much? If no one is stepping up, then I will, and I will turn all of you into minced meat. I am what I say, right, Merus-chan?»
«Your mouth stinks!»
«Merus-dono, let's pin him between our offences!»
Merus and Luvanka were clear Dragonkins weren't even fodder against Bask, and stepped in to take their place.
Merus's face pull a scowl at the strategy of Luvanka, nevertheless he had to nod. He had wanted to keep Gandira, the second Fiend King, busy between them, but he knew they lacked the strength to stretch thin.
As if reflecting his inner thoughts, the numerous dragonkins bore a dumbfounded expression when they glanced at the colossal entity Gandira. They're so overwhelmed they lost any will to fight, their weapons slipping out of their grasp.
The colossal entity—the giant golem, taller than even the town's defense wall, took its steps toward them.
"No, please noooo!! Stop, put it down!"
Gandira suddenly lowered its hand, and gouged a building along with its foundation straight from the ground.
The building still had many families living there. A divine realm denizen, and seemingly the father of one of the family within that building, pleaded to Gandira.
But Gandira said nothing. A magical circle flickered to life around his eyes as he peered coldly into the building’s interior.
«…No match found.»
With that cold, mechanical murmur, Gandira reared back, and flung the building like a discarded toy, hurling it high into the sky.
*BOOOOOOOM.*
The structure spun through the air before slamming into the far edge of the city’s outer wall, exploding into a cloud of dust and rubble. Below the wall, a grim mountain of splintered wood and shattered stone had already begun to form, wreckage from all the other buildings Gandira had hurled. Not a soul had emerged from the wreckage.
«Eeek. T-that monster is heading this way.»
A small angel, trembling in terror, peeked past the adult shielding them and screamed as Gandira approached.
Dozens of eyes were wet with tears and wide with dread.
This wasn’t just any building, it was the city’s only school. It'd harboured not only young divine realm people, but many angelic toddlers as well, all sheltering together.
And now, shaking the ground with each step, the Fiend King Gandira was heading straight for them.