“Your amputated lover is bleeding profusely, how about you come at me?” I taunted Cedric, with great results.
“[Fireball], [Water Bullet], [Cyclone]” I threw spell after spell at him, but he masterfully dodged or deflected them. His Swordsman class – or whatever it was – allowed him to summon forth shields that protected him, and he could also give his blades supernatural properties that allowed him to parry even attacks like a Fireball.
I found him to be an excellent blademaster who was equipped with the perfect tools to be a strong opponent against any sort of builds – be they fighters, mages or anything in between.
However, we were not alone. The remaining Phantom League soldiers swiftly managed to awaken from their shell shock of my strange and mighty display of strength and versatility, and longed at us, and especially at Cedric since my back was toward our backline while his was to theirs.
Naturally, a warrior on his level could not be so easily backstabbed, but not only was he surrounded, outleveled, he was even bleeding from his amputated arm. It was not at all a fair fight where he could display his true might.
He was forced to engage with our mutual enemies, which allowed me to cast my arguably strongest spell, Stormblade’s Fury. My movement speed increased drastically as I became a whirlwind barreling towards the hostile forces. I cut down two Phantom League soldiers before Cedric found himself caught between me and the rest of the enemies. A soldier lunged at him, piercing his side before getting eliminated by the heavily wounded swordsman.
“Sigh…” He sighed tiredly when he saw that my hungry pitch-black saber was already mid-arc as I swung at him, severing his remaining arm.
I didn’t stop there, though. My spell was still active, so I sent a mighty kick into his stomach, knocking him out immediately, after which I moved on to the remaining enemies.
…
In the meantime, Iris was busy engaging multiple opponents at the same time. She, the annoying midget woman she had a rather fulfilling duel with beforehand, the tank who definitely deserved her admiration due to her awesome frontline capabilities, and the axe-wielding berserker was fighting against overwhelming odds, but they were holding on rather well considering the numbers. Though, she knew that much of their success could be accredited to their backline.
The five ranger Heralds of Ambition were definitely the least impressive of the bunch in her opinion, but their constant volleys sufficiently suppressed a portion of the enemies.
On the other hand, the Enchanter who kept shielding and buffing them was an amazing supporter to have who Iris knew would be a real monster of a buffer with some extra levels under her belt, however, the Healer easily stole the show. She was simply wonderful.
Iris had a healer in her army regiment back before she was banished to the outpost for torturing and killing her two would-be rapists, but that man could hold no candle to this woman at all. She seemed to have a nearly endless amount of mana as she was constantly healing all four of them on repeat, and if that wasn’t enough, she was an even greater offensive force than the dedicated archers of Ambition while also keeping multiple frontliners taking heavy damage in tip-top shape.
She was straight-up OP.
“Master is ok.” Iris heard a silent whisper which she recognized as the dog-kin who backstabbed her back at the outpost and nearly took her life.
She held no malice towards the assassin, though. It was fair game. Instead, she could only blame herself for leaving her back open for such a clean, easy strike.
“Phew.” Blade sighed with relief while deflecting and parrying three fighters at the same time.
“Great!” The berserker shouted as she brought her sharp axe down on her victim.
At first, Iris thought that this woman would be a straight-up liability since she ate up almost the entirety of the healer’s attention, but as time went on, she became faster, stronger, and more durable, all the while Iris could swear that her strange axe was also getting sharper. Berserkers were scary like that. You had to blitz attack them before they had the chance to power up through shedding a river of blood and sustaining light injuries that only served to give them buffs. The longer this went on, the harder it was to put them down for good.
Iris capitalized on the woman’s successful kill as she spun around and lunged at an enemy, impaling him on her blade.
“Fucking dog!!! Get off me!!!”
She heard the traitor’s frustrated shouts. Once he showcased his mighty AoE capabilities, Ghost and the archer squad had not once allowed him to breathe – or cast his spells.
While Lyra – his bodyguard slave – could protect his life, she could not stop the assassin from interrupting his focus in its entirety, thus ruining his stronger spells before they were conjured. It was not the bodyguard’s fault per se, though. Her task was simply impossible because Soren was a badly trained Wizard who likely skimped on practice hours. Lyra couldn’t be blamed for the situation since a simple attempt on his life – which was not at all even close to injuring a hair on his head – was enough to repeatedly break his concentration and ruin his casting.
Iris had to give it to Devil. The last time she met him he was nothing more than cannon fodder. He didn’t even sense her blade being an inch from his throat, it was Blade who saved his weak, miserable life.
Now, however, he surrounded himself with outstanding followers and he was more than pulling his own weight.
She suddenly remembered Blade’s outrageous claim she uttered back during their duel.
“You’d be surprised… It somewhat pains me to say this, but with his rate of growth, he’ll wipe the floor with either of us in a couple of months. Maybe if the two of us will go at him together we’ll still stand a small chance.”
Iris knew that her prophecy did not entirely come to fruition – at least, not yet – since she believed that she alone could put up a good fight, but if Blade joined her in a 2v1 she saw no way for Devil to emerge victorious, but that mattered very little. Not even two months had passed since they met, and he went from a throwaway grunt to a promising Vesper Phenom candidate with by far the best team of Heralds supporting him, all of whom were not only strong but extremely loyal to boot.
It was not the time to theorize such things, though.
She was already buffed out of her mind with her Child of Agony curses and debilitating effects coursing through her body, so right now Iris knew that she was likely the highest statted entity in this scuffle, thus it was time to flex her numeric superiority.
She smartly utilized the wild berserker’s created space since none of the enemy soldiers were eager to stand in her and her mean axe’s path, and Iris used her imposing presence to hide her own.
In this manner she swiftly found herself near her target without his knowledge.
It was time she helped her would-be killer out in her strange battle against Soren and Lyra.