~ CHAPTER 290

We watched as the latest group of demons followed one of the summoned demons away from the camp and into the forest. A different cultist had already begun summoning a new demon to lead the next group, but the latest runner hadn't entered the dungeon yet. It was time. A chorus of agreement went through the bond, and we began.

Since there was so much fire mana in the air, it was a simple task for Morrigan to collect it into an intense fire spell. We didn't want to fight in a blaze though, so she was tuning it to burst hot and fast. It would be an opening salvo for us that would do damage and hopefully take the cultists by surprise.

A hot flash erupted in the camp as a wave of fire rolled over them. The cultists yelped and screamed in alarm. Not all of the cultists there were high enough level to resist the worst of the fire. Morrigan had nearly killed a third of the camp with one spell.

Silva, Sibyl, and I rushed in with sparkling duplicates of ourselves at our sides. Raya's fire magic wouldn't be very useful to us right now, but she had also been working on her illusion magic. She was already much more skilled with it than I was. The copies wouldn't fool anyone if they were scrutinized, but in the rush of battle and combat, they were effective at distracting and confusing many of them. Cultists stumbled after trying to swing on something that wasn't there, it was something effortless for us to take advantage of. The instincts I had gained from [Swordsmanship] told me that none of them were well-trained in melee combat.

I hardened my stomach as I cut down one of the cultists near me. It hadn't gotten much easier to do, but I was able to push through my discomfort and do what needed to be done. I would reflect on what I was doing later. Right now, I had to focus and keep my family safe. The three of us melee fighters worked in tandem. Sinking into the bond and sharing each other's senses allowed us to defend or dodge attacks that would otherwise have been impossible for us to see. It made the three of us much more effective against a larger group of enemies than we should be. Our efforts during our practice sparring while using the bond paid off significantly better than I had hoped.

A massive rush of tangled roots split open the earth and twisted around many of the cultists. Over half of the ones that were caught let out a strangled cry as the roots injected them with poison. Many of them were able to escape the roots, but they looked pale and sick or had disgusting black welts where the roots had grabbed them. The gentle Bella's magic had become scary. Her natural affinity for poison had started to come into play as it mixed with the darker side of her nature magic.

I caught a blade with my mithril sword and flicked it away. The combination of my Finesse and Strength made the maneuver effortless. I scowled with disgust as I finished the man off. I collected magic into my left hand and summoned a coin before flipping it at the partially complete summoning ritual that had continued despite our assault. It landed heads up and plinked to nothingness, but the second one landed tails up and sent a destructive wave of magic at the altar.

The summoning ritual had been interrupted, and unlike most of my ritual magic, the crumbling of the spell caused an explosion of magical feedback that threw the summoner off their feet. Immediately after, a huge explosion of blue lit up the sky above us as Nelly finally set off the magical flare. The shining light lingered and illuminated the fight in a blue glow, unfortunately erasing the remaining clones Raya had cast of us.

"Lilith!" I felt a sharp panic fill Silva through the bond, and I rolled out of the way of a sudden attack.

When I returned to my feet, I saw a golden-furred dogkin with scars all over her arms and long floppy ears turn to face me. She had a grim look on her beautiful face, but her eyes seemed filled with sorrow. I remembered hearing about her. She was one of the cultists Faelyn's maid had identified. I thought that she had been grabbed up in Goldenhearth, but she must have escaped. The woman didn't say anything, she just cracked her knuckles and began to charge at me.

The only thing I had time to do was throw up a quick pane of [Light Ward] between us, but it didn't even slow her down. She backhanded the light spell and spun into something akin to a flying roundhouse kick. I lifted my arm to block and thrust out my sword, but she just flicked it out of the way with one hand and sent me flying backward with her kick.

I felt a warmth infuse me as Nelly cast a healing spell over me. The bruises and aches that came from that tumble faded away as I managed to scramble to my feet in time to block another attack. This time I dumped more of my mana into [Light Ward] and tweaked the pane to look almost clear. It was still light magic, so it continued to glow, but the nearly clear glass made it harder for the dogkin to react as quickly. Her fist slammed into the spell, and a spiderweb of cracks spread out in all directions from where she made contact with it. This time, the spell didn't immediately break despite the sounds of shattering glass that erupted from it. The dogkin sneered and leapt backward just in time to dodge an attack from Kal'daeryn.

The dogkin was fast and danced out of the way of every feral slash that Kal'daeryn had tried to hit her with. Using the silent communication of the bond, Silva and Kal'daeryn coordinated to swap out in perfect synchronization. The moment Kal'daeryn took a step back, Silva tried to stab her in the back with her spear. It didn't connect. Like she had eyes on the back of her head, she tilted her torso to the side and dodged the attack. She spun around and kicked Silva in the side. She stumbled, but the attack was far less powerful than what she had been trying to hit me with. The attack was merely used to give herself some breathing room though, and she took the opportunity to glide out of the way. Fortunately, she hadn't had time to react to Sibyl, who got the first hit in against the woman.

Sibyl's blade drove a bloody line through the woman's left arm, but it wasn't a particularly deep wound. The dogkin shrugged it off and used a punch combination that threw Sibyl backward off her feet. Sibyl was much lighter since her change and hadn't fully adapted her fighting style to that yet, and the floppy-eared dogkin had somehow taken advantage of that. She didn't have time to pursue her further though, because Silva and I were right back on top of her.

When she saw me approach, she smeared the blood on her arm over her other hand and tried to hit me with another punch. Even though I had been ready with another [Light ward] charged to the same power as the last one, her glowing fist shattered it with one attack. She turned her forward momentum into a leap and tried to hit me with a crescent kick from above. I only barely managed to dodge out of luck more than anything else, but her momentum once again shifted into a spinning kick that threw me off my feet.

"Lilith, she's targeting you! Get back!" Silva yelled out angrily.

Before the woman could follow me, fireballs came at her from two different directions and forced her to evade long enough for me to get back to my feet. Lori appeared behind her with a soft pop and tried to stab her with a dagger, but the slippery woman used a technique to redirect the blade away from herself. Lori had the reaction time to dodge the follow-up attack but hadn't done anything more than distract her.

Sharp thorns sliced up from the ground, and the woman dodged those too, but she didn't think to dodge the burst of pollen that erupted from them. She jumped back and coughed violently. The poison seems to have been really effective on her because she looked dizzy and unstable after only being exposed to it for a moment. Sibyl took advantage of the slight distraction to try and slash at her, but she still managed to dodge away without much effort. She stopped a few yards away and glared at me before turning and running back into the forest.

With the threat retreating, I was able to look around and take stock of the situation. All of the cultists were dead, gone, or captured, and the summoning ritual had been interrupted before they could add more demons to the fight. It had been a total rout. They hadn't been prepared for us to attack them like that. The only real pushback we had received was from that woman who had fought all of us to a standstill.

"Good job, Bella. Your poison magic scared her off," I said.

Silva had turned in the direction the dogkin had fled. "That woman was tough. Unarmed fighting styles aren't typically well suited to fighting against people with weapons, but she was making fools of all of us at once."

"She looked like she was targeting me," I said.

"I think so too. Even when fighting all of us, she had been using most of her energy to get at you," Sibyl added.

I shook my head. "I'm not sure why she would have an issue with me in particular unless she knows something about the prophecy."

"Does anybody need any healing?" Nelly asked.

Sibyl walked over to her, cradling her side. "I could use some."

"What I don't get is how she can run through the forest when it's in this state. There's still a lot of smoke around us," Morrigan added.

"That was one of the people responsible for the attacks in Goldenhearth. How did she escape and find her way out here?" Torien asked.

"Unfortunately, we won't be able to ask any of these guys either," Lori grumbled. "Looks like they killed themselves."

"What?" Bella ran over to one of the cultists she had secured using vines grown from her magic.

Lori pulled his mouth open to reveal a rotting black throat with a sickening decay smell to match. "He used a fast-acting poison on himself."

Bella furrowed her brows and knelt down next to the man. She raised a hand and it glowed with a faint green light. "I was so careful not to kill any of them with the poison. I wanted to take as many of them alive as I could... This isn't a plant-based poison. I think it's venom. It had a strong interaction with the poison I used though, which killed them even faster..."

"Be careful, Bella," I said hesitantly.

"Don't worry, I just want to take a sample." Bella pulled a small package out of her bag and began carefully taking a small amount of the necrotic flesh the poison had left behind, as well as some of the mixed saliva and fluid.

I looked over my notifications and felt my stomach tense up in revulsion.

[Your party has killed 23 mages leveled 12 to 38]

[Novice Magic Swordsman has increased from level 18 to level 19]

[Light Magic has increased from level 15 to level 18]

[Light Manipulation has increased from level 12 to level 16]

[Mana Sense has increased from level 9 to level 10]

[Pack Tactics has increased from level 2 to level 8]

[Swordsmanship has increased from level 40 to level 41]

[Improved Light Magic Spell Light Ward]

[Light Ward - Light Magic Spell]

Create a pane of light that can block or deflect physical and magic damage. Strength of the barrier is affected by Magic Force and Magic Control. Brightness and size are affected by Magic Force. Color, shape, and range are affected by Magic Control. Light Ward is weak against shadow and dark-aligned attacks. Improved with increased mana efficiency at higher mana concentrations. Improved transparency control.

Despite the source, I was pretty happy to see an improvement in my only real defensive magic. Defending myself from that dogkin woman had been difficult. I was happy that I had gotten rewarded for it, even though it was the only thing new I received this time. The randomness of the system was a bit difficult to work with sometimes...

I also got a lot of levels in [Pack Tactics] after the three of us worked in tandem using the bond. I had an idea it was strong, but after using it in a few back-to-back fights, I think I had still been underestimating how effective this advantage was. Even though the dogkin was able to disrupt our coordination by brute-forcing herself through it, our group's teamwork allowed us to fight her without worrying about accidental friendly fire. I'm not sure if Bella's winning maneuver would have worked if she hadn't known exactly where we were all planning to be when she used it. The unity and coordination it allowed us to achieve was incredible. It made me wonder if we would also be susceptible to sharing negative emotions like fear and despair. That could be dangerous.

Raya was looking up at the blue flare still hanging in the sky. "Now that the dungeon is marked for them, I guess the next step is to enter the dungeon, right?"

Sibyl came up and hugged Raya from behind. She was shorter, so she rested her head against Raya's back. "Are you going to be okay coming down there with us?"

Raya nodded. "I've come this far, and I don't think it would be any safer for me to stay out here waiting."

Morrigan looked down the mysterious stairs leading into the dungeon. "We should give the dungeon some time to rest. The cultists have been pulling trains out of it for days. We might want to give it a chance to calm down in case it's angry."

I looked up at the sky. Sundown wasn't for a little while longer, but we would likely be delving this dungeon through the night.

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