~ CHAPTER 293

The moment Mimi called for us to kill it, all of our ranged fighters began to fire at it immediately. The demon trying to pull itself through the small portal was huge. Its giant clawed hands gave our frontline fighters a good target as well. Bolts of fire rained down on it from Morrigan's use of the abundant fire mana flooding the room but it seemed unfazed. It just continued to smile and absorbed the bolts unperturbed.

"Lilith! Fire magic isn't having an effect! Give me something else!" Morrigan called.

I adjusted [Light Siphon] to spit out ice mana instead by switching the spell it was failing to cast to [Frost Imbue]. There might be a better way to do this, but I wasn't able to experiment with it more right now. Switching from one imbue to the other lets me keep things more or less the same.

The rain of firebolts changed to shards of ice that fell on the monster and the difference was immediately apparent. The giant demon cried out as the first wave of ice hit it. With that in mind, I cast [Frost Imbue] on Torien and Lori's arrows since they were close enough for me to quickly tap them. I would have to get closer to the frontline if I wanted to cast it on any of them too, but this was good for now.

"Raya! Switch to illusion magic and play a defensive role. Your fire magic isn't affecting it!" Morrigan commanded.

"Okay! Got it!" Raya replied. A few clones began to appear of various members in our group. They looked lifelike, and in the heat of battle, they would make things much more confusing if it weren't for our ability to sense each other through the bond. With our connection, none of us should make a mistake. We were hoping the demon didn't have a way to see through illusions as well, but considering it seemed immune to fire magic, this was still the better option.

I began casting [Ice Shard] at it myself, opting for the system magic version rather than attempting to wildcast it. I wanted to increase my proficiency with ice magic now that I had access to it, and I hadn't learned to wildcast it yet. I just had to hope that Morrigan could handle the increasing concentration of ice mana in the room herself. While doing that, I began to get closer to the enemy so that I could reinforce the front line's attacks with ice as well.

So far the demon had been trying to swipe at Silva, Kal'daeryn, and Sibyl, who had been fighting near the front. It was becoming visibly frustrated at their ability to effectively dodge its attacks, trick it with the clones running around, or shrug off the hits it did land with healing. At a certain point, it screamed and began to inhale some of the ambient mana in the air.

"It's using magic! Back off!" I called.

I slipped my book into my hand and began to use my water fording spell through [Light Scribing]. It was taking longer than it normally would since I was simultaneously keeping [Light Siphon] running, but I couldn't afford to let that spell drop. Before I could finish my spell, it began to breathe fire at our front line who hadn't completely gotten out of range. All three of them caught fire. The fire armor Morrigan had cast on them earlier helped to soften the blow, but it quickly shattered and began to spill onto the fighters. The three of them blazed with healing magic from our two healers, but they cried out in pain until my wall of ice finally finished casting.

The ice wall flashed up and blocked the path of the demon's flamethrower, but our frontline had taken significant damage already. The ice was also quickly melting, but it had been enough for the fighters to get out of range and back to safety where our healers could fix up their wounds. I winced as I saw Silva and Sibyl's nasty burns where they had exposed flesh. The cloth pieces of Kal'daeryn's armor had completely burned away and the metal of her armor still looked hot. The demon stopped casting its fire breath just as it had finished melting its way through the ice and began to cackle at their misfortune. Most of Raya's clones had been destroyed as well, but she quickly began to replace them.

"Lilith, switch back to fire mana, I want to layer more fire armor on them before they go back near that thing," Morrigan said.

While I switched the aspect [Light Siphon] was pouring out to fire magic again, I noticed the demon take advantage of that and steal some to shoot fireballs at us. Morrigan was quick to respond, and they began to fight a duel of magic, each of them intercepting the coming attacks with her own.

"Raya! Help me fend off the attacks so I can cast fire armor on everyone!" Morrigan yelled.

"On it!" Raya replied in panic.

I knew how difficult it was to cast multiple spells at once and I got to see some of Morrigan's mastery in action. While continuing to catch the demon's fireballs midair with Raya's help, she worked through casting [Armor of Fire] on everyone one by one. While she was working on that, I was quickly casting [Frost Imbue] on everyone's weapons to increase the amount of damage we would do when we went back in. Even as Morrigan was continuing her spell duel, Torien and Lori were peppering the demon with frost imbued arrows.

"Okay, that's everyone. Are you guys ready for another round?" Morrigan asked.

Silva laughed. "Let's hope we can get out of there faster next time."

"I'll have an ice wall ready!" I promised.

With that, I shifted the ambient mana back to ice and our frontline ran forward again to attack the demon's large claws. With less ambient fire magic in the air, the demon stopped casting fireballs and focused back on the fighters closest to it again. Raya and Morrigan hadn't let any of the fireballs slip past them, but I could see that the duel had taken its toll on both of them. Raya was acting sluggish and Morrigan's face was tense in concentration.

"Raya, ease off on your magic use. You're going to burn yourself out before the fight is over," I told her. "Take a rest and wait for the next round of fire breath. Cast your clones again if you start feeling better, but don't overwork yourself."

"Yes, Lilith," Raya said with a nod before taking a step back from the fight.

"I'm running out of arrows," Lori said suddenly. "Tori has already switched to shadow arrows."

"I can help!" Mimi said. She hadn't been doing much since the fight started. Whatever was happening in this room had been bothering her, but this seemed to be easy enough for her to help with. She waved an arm and dozens of bundles of arrows materialized on the ground. She had been keeping quite a few of them on her.

"Thank you, Mimi," Lori said before picking up one of the bundles and sliding it into her quiver. I recast [Frost Infusion] on it to give her more ice damage.

Over time the demon was looking much worse off than it had started. There were a lot of arrows sticking out of its body and black blood was running over most of its body now. Its sinister grin had faded and it was now looking desperate to kill us.

Eventually it began to inhale the ambient mana again. In response, the room grew bright as I shunted my concentration away from [Light Siphon] and focused on throwing up the ice wall as quickly as I could. This time the spell went up only moments after the fire breath started and only barely hit our frontline long enough for their fire armor to shatter. While they ran back, I switched [Light Siphon] back to fire magic while Morrigan prepared to recast the fire armor for the next round.

"More enemies crawling up!" Torien called out. I turned away from Morrigan and saw a dozen demons pulling themselves up from the gaps between the giant demon and the edge of the hole in the ground.

"Raya, Torien, Lori, Sibyl, focus on those ones!" I yelled.

"I'll help too!" Bella called as she cast some of her nature magic. Thick vines colored a sickly green and purple pushed through the ground and began to wrap around the nearest demons. It didn't catch them all, but it slowed them all down considerably.

"Should we avoid that too?" Sibyl asked as she fought one of the demons close to the vines.

"It'll be okay! Even if you get poisoned, I can neutralize it before it has any effect on you!" Bella replied.

"That doesn't sound reassuring..." Sibyl said as she fought the nearby demon.

I glanced at the wall of ice. It was almost gone now, but the giant demon was still trying to melt it down. We needed more time to deal with the additional monsters so I pushed more mana into it. I felt a sharp pain above my eye as the sudden spike in mana use took its toll on me. I redirected some of the mana [Light Siphon] was expelling into myself to refresh me. If Morrigan noticed the dip of ambient mana, she didn't say anything about it. She just continued to work through refreshing everyone's fire armor one by one.

"I'm done!" Morrigan finally said.

The giant demon had finished using its fire breath attack and was now attempting to lob fireballs over the remains of the ice wall. Without saying anything, Morrigan and Raya began to counter the spells with their own.

"M-mana potion," Mimi weakly said before handing Raya a bottle from the supplies we had brought from Traehall. Raya paused to suck it down and then coughed awkwardly before returning to the magic duel. I turned to help the group kill the demons by shooting more ice shards from a distance. By then, most of them were already dead. Now that Silva and Kal'daeryn had their armor refreshed, they helped mop up the rest of the additional enemies.

"Lilith! It's doing something different!" Morrigan yelled.

I turned to see it collecting ambient mana again, but rather than the fire breath it was gathering earlier, the mana collected in one of its hands. I scrambled to cast another ice wall and got it up just barely in time to block the start of its attack. A beam of fire released from its hand and began to drill through the wall of ice. The hot spot was focused right where Morrigan was standing, and it was large enough that everyone who had been fighting from the back would be caught in it.

"Scatter!" I yelled while scooping Mimi up. She groaned but didn't fight me as I pulled her out of the way just in time to avoid the beam of fire that lit up where we had been standing a moment before.

Once I had pulled her to safety, I looked at the demon who was struggling to follow Morrigan with the beam, but it couldn't move the spell fast enough to catch them, especially once it had been blocked by the remains of the ice wall I had hastily thrown up earlier. I let out a sigh of relief as no one had been caught in the attack.

"The demons are dead! We're going back on the big one!" Silva called out as she ran toward the demon's hands again.

"Silva, it looks close! Use magic to finish it off!" I called out.

"Okay!" she replied before stopping in her tracks and beginning to charge one of her heavy lightning attacks.

Kal'daeryn and Sibyl ran back up to the demon's hands and began to attack them again. The giant demon wasn't laughing anymore and was frantically trying to kill them now. It realized that the group of enemies it had come to fight was much harder to deal with than it had thought, despite our size relative to it.

The lightning magic in Silva's hand began to crackle as she charged it up more than I had ever seen before. Even when we fought the demon in the capital, she had released it by now, but this time it looked like she was pouring everything she had into it. The demon's eyes shifted away from the two close to it and toward Silva after a while. I swore it had a look of horror on its face. It could see what was coming.

Kal'daeryn and Sibyl dodged backwards as the demon swept the area in front of it one last time before trying to crawl back down into the hole it came from. We haven't come this far to let it escape. The room flared in light as I diverted as much mana as I could to [Light Scribing]. I needed to put it down before it could leave! Right before it could finish slinking away, my spell activated, and a curved wall of ice formed around it and trapped it in place. The demon began to frantically claw at the ice around it, but it was too late.

A bright flash of lightning exploded from Silva as a large spear punched a hole right through the demon's head. The accuracy of the attack was perfect, probably owing to how well the demon had been trapped in place despite its struggling. The shockwave from Silva's attack cracked the ice and it shattered a moment later when the weight of the demon collapsed on top of it. The corpse fell down into the blinding abyss below us.

[Your party has defeated a Bride of Astaroth]

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