Slade’s harpies climbed into the sky, gathering energy for their strike, before diving towards the fierce naga and the magi. But his attacks could only wear them down a bit at most.

[https://i.imgur.com/avVkNzZ.jpeg]

On the ground, the oceanids clashed against the crowd of dazed gremlins. They swam around gathering speed and rammed into the gremlins with their trident. This shock tactic allowed them to avoid being swarmed and compensated for their weak footing.

The gremlin struck back with iron balls chained to their wrist. Though the damage on the hovering mermaid was light, it pushed them back to awkward positions.

For instance, a mermaid pawn was thrown into the iron golem and locked in a deadly embrace before the dwarven smiths smashed her skull with hammers.

On another part of the battlefield, the elven magi dealt easily with the captain and moved on to different targets.

The captain was swallowed by a cloud of wind blades that ignored his cover. Covered in cuts, he abandoned the battle and crawled towards the sea witches.

Metiva had to step out from the ship wreckage to block the magi’s strikes against the oceanids.

The four gnoll carriers found the resolve to help the oceanid too. The bravely faced the gremlins with planks of wood and other improvised shields.

“Gnolls? You dare to stand against us? That’s why we slayed your kin when you trespassed on our territory,” an elf spat at Metiva.

“Maybe I’m standing against you because you didn’t let us go in peace!” The matriarch growled with resentment.

A precarious equilibrium was maintained for a while. But after one pirate died, another would follow, each loss coming faster than the previous.

“Metiva, run! I’ll stall for you,” Slade commanded. He was never truly in danger of dying, so his greatest concern was the survival of his dear people.

He made the difficult choice to throw his pawns into the fray to defend the remaining oceanids. ’Damn it, I liked my pawns!’

As a result, one was skewered by the naga’s six swords, and the other was pummeled by the gremlins.

The naga yelled in joy, relishing the death of the pesky harpy that harassed her.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Slade repressed his burning hatred. He still had to protect the gnolls.

Shortly after, the last mermaid cleanly hanged from the naga’s sword, her neck pierced.

Soon, the small round slime was the only one left to protect Metiva without any able body to latch on.

“What in the world are you?” The naga stabbed the slime and lifted him up to investigate.

Thankfully for him, his slime unit only died if all the cores were physically broken. And even then, he still had two other units to use.

He glared with hatred at the naga who killed his beloved pawn. “I’m your future owner, stupid snake.”

“You-” As the naga was about to punish his insolence, a new harpy landed a kick on her side at a tremendous velocity, obliterating the warding aura that surrounded her and a few ribs at once.

[https://i.imgur.com/cpwdGIY.jpg]

Not too far behind, Violet landed in the midst of the magi and swept them with a warbanner.

[https://i.imgur.com/eZITDkS.jpg]

“Who are you?!” the surprised elves roared in outrage.

“Shut up! Gimme all your stuff!” Violet mugged the Tower people with a beating.

The newly arrived harpy wobbled towards Metiva. Laborious breath, profuse sweat, and eyes rolling up, the harpy barely managed to blurt some words before exhaustion overwhelmed her.. “I… can’t…”

Metiva caught her before she fell. “Thank you, Lorely. You saved me!”

With this, Slade's three slime units had converged to the same battlefield, one was skewered by a naga's sword, another wrapped Lorely’s body, and the last one wrapped Violet’s body.

A gremlin charged at Violet, motivating his allies to follow suit. “Don’t be scared, there’s only one left!”

“I am the sovereign Violet Ylenward, ruler of dungeons and terror of Rocksedge!” She smirked at the enemies’ disbelief. Trueborns and pawns had no chance to win against a hero, even less against a sovereign.

She rushed at the iron golem and swung her warbanner haphazardly. The worst part was that it worked thanks to her raw stats, even though she was supposedly a warlock and never trained in martial arts.

While Violet made short work of the stragglers, Slade moved back to healing their casualties. Once again, he felt the harrowing pain of having to prioritize the trueborns instead of his beloved pawns.

The last mermaid had her throat pierced, her nerves cleanly severed. But as long as her brain didn’t degrade from oxygen depletion, and as long as her mana core was intact, there was a chance that Slade could maintain her alive. Although whether she could wield a trident again was another question altogether.

He stopped her bleeding and cleared out her blood-filled lung, pumping it back into her veins. It wasn't enough to restore her blood pressure, but thankfully, he had a skill that could physically copy whatever he ate, including blood.

The limitation was that he couldn't reproduce magical properties, and considering that everything on Hekalys had varying levels of magic, it had a surprisingly limited range of application.

With that, he fixed the neck-pierced mermaid. Only to realize that she couldn't breathe by herself anymore.

Before long, the blimp's crew was thoroughly defeated.

Violet handed her warbanner to Metiva so that the witch could spellweave a large-scale healing spell. It instantly stabilized the pirates by mending their open wounds and stopping their bleeding, though they'd have to deal with infections later on.

Violet found the slime unit on the ground and didn’t miss the opportunity to tease Slade.

“Well, well~ Seems like I am always saving you lately.”