Alissa found herself in a quandary as the dying Ragah-fiq grabbed her spear and refused to let go even as she was being assaulted by the axe-wielding [Champion’s Retainer]. It placed her in an awkward position as she was in the middle of trying to pull her spear out of the body of the dying demon. She gave it a try even with the incoming threat nonetheless.

She managed to block the first strike with her shield, but was forced to let go of her spear when she had to dodge the second attack. As she dodged, Alissa noticed a fallen spear, likely belonging to a dead soldier – whether it was a demon’s or a human’s she could care less at that point – and grabbed it as she tried counterattacking against the axe-wielding [Champion’s Retainer].

To her dismay the axe-wielding [Champion’s Retainer] directly cleaved the spear’s shaft into halves with one of her axes, the weapon clearly a lower grade than Alissa’s weapon and unable to bear with the rigors of higher-tier combat. Alissa ended up throwing the remaining half of the shaft in her hands towards the [Champion’s Retainer] before she unsheathed her falchion instead.

While Alissa had trained quite a bit with the weapon and used it from time to time, she wasn’t as skilled with it as she favored the reach of a spear. At least, however, the blade was better attuned for her usage given her level of power, which meant that it was much sturdier than the random spear she picked up and broke just earlier.

Sure enough, the falchion’s curved blade took on a blow from one of the [Champion’s Retainer]’s axes without any issue, while Alissa blocked the second blow with her shield. Atypically for an axe-wielder, the [Champion’s Retainer] was fast and agile, almost as fast as Alissa herself was, even. That said, the female demon clearly lagged behind in strength, and if Alissa guessed right, likely in durability as well.

As such, she shifted from the defensive to the offensive as she caught another blow from the [Champion’s Retainer] with her Falchion and pushed against the female demon, leveraging her advantage in strength to force the demon back. As the demon stumbled, she still managed to swing her other axe towards Alissa, but Alissa took a gamble.

Instead of avoiding the axe strike, she chose to tilt her body so the axe struck against the side of her chestplate, where her armor was at the sturdiest. Her gamble paid off and the axe careened along the front of her armor with some sparks, but failed to do much other than leave a slight nick at the corner of the plate. It felt a bit like someone punched her on the side, but it was worth it.

Because it gave Alissa the chance to slug the demon right on the side with her shield’s tip, which likely broke a rib or three. A shame that her skill was on cooldown, as it could have been an incapacitating if not fatal blow with it, but the way the demon’s face distorted from the pain was a good sign nonetheless. As was the way the demon frantically backed away from Alissa.

Unfortunately, while Alissa managed to get the situation at her side under control and even triumphed against two of the stronger demons, the same did not apply to the rest of the wall. The demons had struck in full force, and every single one of the human fourth tiers – even Sir Inolet and Sir Marsten, as well as Magus Drummond – as well as the rest of her party members were occupied by one or more demons around their power level.

The defenders were being pushed back, hard, and the demons already gained footholds on many areas of the fort’s walls. Those who had the power to turn the tables were occupied by either the stronger demons or abominations, which left the weaker soldiers to their own devices. At that point, it was only a matter of time before the defenses would truly fail and the demons would break into the fort proper.

Surprisingly, the fulcrum that actually turned the tables at that point was not one of the summoned [Heroes], but was instead one of their party members. A young woman of devout faith who had been inducted into the temple early in her life and walked the path of a [Temple Guard], only to later receive the honor of being chosen as one of the [Hero’s Associates].

“[Hallowed Retribution]”, intoned Silvia under her breath. Despite the soft whisper she said the skill’s name with, everyone in the vicinity felt as if something echoed within their eardrums, something that was more than mortal in nature, which caused both demons and humans to pause briefly in their grueling fight against one another.

Then everyone’s eyes turned towards her the next moment when her entire body seemed to glow with a golden light. A light that commanded respect and awe and even a desire to worship.

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At least for the locals, that was. Alissa also saw it – if from a distance – but didn’t feel most of those things.

What did happen in the distance was more impactful to those nearby. Under the skill’s buff, Silvia suddenly turned the tables on the demon fourth tier she was fighting against. The Temple Guard girl moved so fast that her opponent failed to react before Silvia’s spear skewered them through the heart, casting off their dead body from the top of the wall with a yell of triumph.

Silvia had not stopped there either.

The girl immediately rushed towards the next fight between fourth tiers near her – which in her case happened to be where Bronwen was fending off two demon fourth tiers – and interjected herself, killing every demon she passed by along the way. While the demons had seen her coming since there was no missing the eye-catching manner she used her skill, they proved to be ill-prepared for the force she actually brought with her.

One of the demons – the one that turned to face Silvia while the other continued to fight Bronwen – only barely avoided getting skewered through the face by Silvia’s spear when she struck with far more speed and power than any of them expected. Even though the demon managed to avoid the thrust, the spearhead still scraped a bloody wound along their cheek.

Worse, the demon found out that Silvia was much faster than they themselves were, and before they could react, Silvia had withdrawn her spear and thrust a second time, this time going for the demon’s solar plexus. The demon couldn’t react in time to stop her with their weapons and the spear went straight through their body and out their back.

The swift demise of their compatriot surprised the other demon greatly, but across from them, Bronwen’s face turned into a dismayed frown in realization of an ugly truth. Even so the Temple Guard turned [Hero’s Companion] just stoically gritted her teeth and attacked the demon she faced once more, while Silvia joined her from the side.

It did not take long for the second demon to fall before their combined onslaught.

After the demon fell, Silvia looked at Bronwen and only gave a firm, resolved nod, which the other woman returned with some sad acceptance. The two of them immediately split off, Bronwen headed east where Silvia came from, while Silvia herself continued westwards where there were more demons and abominations assaulting the wall.

The girl continued her solo rampage across the wall, slaying hundreds of demon soldiers as they crossed her path, as well as two of the abominations created by the [Mother of Monsters]. She helped another three fourth-tier defenders deal with the demons they faced, but all that paled to what she managed to accomplish in the end.

Namely how she tackled one of the three high leveled demons which kept Sir Inolet busy fighting them and killed it in a surprise attack.

The sudden aid allowed Sir Inolet to turn the tables on his assailants, swiftly slaying one of the remaining two demons, while the last one apparently decided that discretion was the better part of valor as they turned and fled before Sir Inolet had the time to take care of them as well.

Much like Bronwen, Sir Inolet seemed to understand what was going on and gave Silvia a nod of respect before he leapt down and took the fight to the demons. The domain from his skill expanded and enveloped hundreds of demons even before he landed, and the large-scale skill that followed directly crushed them into pieces.

Silvia herself continued her rush across the wall, killing or driving away demons in her path with all the strength she could muster. After they noticed that Sir Inolet had been freed and now took the fight over to them, however, the demons lost much of their motivation to keep up the offense, and most of the demons she ran into later on fled before she could kill them.

The demons as a whole started to retreat little by little, with the ones who retreated the fastest being the ones closest to where Sir Inolet rampaged with his large-scale fourth tier skills, slaughtering them by the hundreds with every strike. Even so, he couldn’t move as fast as he normally would while using the destructive skills, which gave the demons a chance to escape with their lives.

Around the time Silvia drove away Maribel’s demon opponent – just further east of where Alissa herself was – the rest of the demons had run off, with their fourth tiers actually buying time for the rest of their army to escape. Even Alissa's opponent, the [Champion’s Retainer], had fought her viciously despite taking multiple injuries, and only retreated after the Ragah-fiq demon Alissa thought dead lunged at her and made a distraction the [Champion’s Retainer] took to escape.

It was only then that Alissa had the time to look around properly and noticed the change on the battlefield, with how Sir Inolet, Sir Marsten, and Magus Drummond were viciously chasing the demon army while using their skills as often as they could. The demon army itself was in full retreat now, leaving thousands of their dead piled up around the fort. Even the abominations had all been eradicated at that point of time as they were used up to slow the three human powerhouses down in order to prevent them from catching up to the demon army.

Alissa saw that the receding tide of demons was already a good distance away, so there was little point of her joining in at that point, especially since she didn’t exactly have any large-scale spells to contribute with. Instead, she walked over to where Maribel, Nadine, and Silvia stood, Silvia’s body still emanating the same iridescent glow as before, if notably dimmer now.

For some reason it gave Alissa the impression of a candle’s last spurt of brightness before the flame extinguished itself.

The way both Nadine and Maribel had melancholic looks on their faces redoubled the gut feeling Alissa had that whatever the buff Silvia used was, it likely had some horrible drawback to it. She was still walking towards them with feet that felt like lead – perhaps now that the fighting seemed over, her body decided to let her feel all the fatigue at once – when it happened.

Silvia seemed to have noticed something, and knelt down on one knee as she clasped her hands in prayer. The glow around her body seemed to grow brighter for a moment, and even from the distance Alissa could see the serene, accepting look on the girl’s features. Then what took place next was something Alissa would never forget about.

Before her eyes, Silvia’s figure dissolved into motes of light that seemed to ascend into the sky, leaving nothing behind, not even her weapons or armor. Not a single sign of the girl’s existence was left behind.