The afternoon blue sky was painted black by a cloud of smoke created by an explosion in the distance. It was by no means large enough to be concerning but it seemed serious to the point that Robert called off the training.

“I think it may be another wave of those things.” He spoke as he adjusted the collar of his robes. “Well, do you want to witness combat against death angels first-hand?”

“Death angels?” Just the mere mention of those things made her break in a cold sweat. She swallowed dry as she continued her question. “Do you have to fight them from time to time?”

“It’s the norm here. If we don’t do that, Nara won't stand a chance.”

Her body was trembling ever so slightly. The mere thought of fighting one of those abominations again was trauma inducing. It reminded her of the time she was attacked by one during her escape from Arcadia and the fight against Jakob.

However, despite the fear, she knew that could make her stronger by simply watching more seasoned spellcasters do their jobs.

“If… if it won’t be too dangerous or troublesome, I’d like to see it.”

He nodded upon hearing her answer. At the same time, Miyamoto, Yuna, Tomoe and Ren came running towards them—each from a different direction.

Aside from the swordmaster and Yuna, Tomoe and Ren were armed each with a different weapon. The maid wore a full set of plate armor that only protected her from the front while holding a double edged battle axe almost the same size as herself while Ren kept his attire to just robes and a leather caligae with a small one handed crooked wooden staff in his right hand.

“Robert, is it happening now?”

Miyamoto asked which prompted the sage to nod.

“Are you all prepared?” Robert asked. “This might be a big one since it has been a few weeks since it last happened.” Everyone nodded without hesitating. “Good, we have no time to waste. Let’s move.”

He raised his hand and with a snap of his fingers, everyone vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving Leona standing there. It was at that point where she felt a strange sensation within her mind.

“Wait…”

About five seconds later, Robert appeared again.

“Sorry, there were a tad bit too many things for me to teleport at once.” He placed his hand on her left shoulder. “I will leave you somewhere where you can safely watch, so don’t worry.” She took a sharp breath and nodded. “Here goes.”

Once more, she heard the familiar snap and her entire world began to twist. She stood atop of a snow covered hill in the blink of an eye. There, she could already witness the on-going battle against the death angels.

Purple blood being splattered across the white snow tainted the otherwise would be peaceful environment. Earsplitting roars echoed each time one of the abominations were struck either by deadly precise sword strikes from Miyamoto or earth shattering swings of Tomoe’s axe. Setsuna, Yuna and Ren remained behind them in order to provide support with their spells.

The beasts were nothing any human could hope to comprehend. Their unnatural anatomy just served as a reminder to Leona how far from home she truly was. Humanoid, non-humanoid, bipedal, quadruped, multiple arms, multiple legs, multiple limbs, different sets of heads, the list went on and on, but one thing was common in all those abominations. They wanted flesh, flesh rich in mana so they could lavish upon their primal desires.

Needless to say Tomoe was the prime target from their hunger. In their senses, she smelled the sweetest of the six. Oni blood was not too different from demon blood in the sense that they always had their mana oozing out of their bodies. They were made to use magic after all.

The hill where Leona stood served to gauge the size of the horde and after she looked upon the horizon she couldn’t help but look utterly terrified.

“How…” Leona muttered under her breath. “How have you guys survived for so long…?”

For anyone else, that would have been the last thing engraved in their eyes as the plain covered with snow was trampled with a multitude of stomps across the horizon. The horde could be seen thanks to the vastly different color of their gaping maws in their bodies showing as small darkened dots across the vast white plain.

One death angel proved to be more than enough to deal with almost an entire army of a kingdom as she recalled from her stay in Londria. But that, that was much more than just one, it was a veritable company of death angels.

Numbering in the hundreds, they marched towards the group of six. Suddenly, Leona felt like her body was starting to break down from fear. The cold sweat was starting to wet her back as her breathing became sharp and shallow. Her trembling worsened and it felt like her ears were starting to pop with a crackling sound muffling all noise from outside.

‘This… this is impossible…’

That was the thought that kept repeating inside her head.

“Leona…”

‘If this ever happened anywhere in Arcadia…’

“Leona…!”

‘No, not just Arcadia… the world would cease to exist…’

“LEONA!” Robert’s shout suddenly snapped her out of it as she turned to him with her eyes still widened in fear. “Stop looking at the horizon and focus on the small battles. Looking at the size of an enemy army won’t help if you can’t focus on the small skirmishes.” He pointed at Tomoe who was leading the charge. “Look, since she is the attention of the enemy, Miyamoto and the rest can focus on clearing out the sides as she carves a path through the center.”

She forced herself to swallow the saliva building up inside her mouth and took a sharp deep breath as she attempted to regain control of her shaking body. After breathing and exhaling quickly, she seemed to have fended off the dreadful grasp of fear for a time.

“Right… I came here to learn, not shake in my boots.” She grabbed her own face and tightened her grip while exhaling rapidly. “Robert.”

“Yes?”

She turned to glare at him between her fingers.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“How have you all survived all this time?”

“Battling them of course.”

“That is by no means normal. The magnitude of this assault is just beyond human comprehension.”

“You could say all of them can stand as heroes on their own.” He chuckled. “Besides, I could annihilate this horde in one spell, but that wouldn’t change anything. In fact, it would only make things worse.”

Her eyes narrowed in disbelief.

“Meaning?”

“They feed on mana because they have an inherent need for it. I do not know why, but it seems that there is a queen death angel of sorts. I’d rather not show my hand this early by using a powerful spell.”

“If you have this much power, couldn’t you just have wiped all of them off the map?”

“I wish it was that simple. The other ‘me’ already tried it once. It didn’t work. In fact, that was what brought Lastraeous closer to his goals.”

She lowered her head finally letting go of her own face as her breathing calmed down enough to the point she was no longer having trouble shaking. At that point she turned her attention fully towards the on-going fighting.

Tomoe’s frontal plate armor protected her enough to the point she could forgo defense and commit completely on cleaving the enemy in half with her battle axe. Said armor seemed to be just forged steel at first glance but seeing how it protected her from most attacks it prompted Leona to ask.

“Did you enchant the armor Tomoe’s wearing?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Normal plate armor would have been shredded to pieces by the claws and fangs of those beasts.”

“Well, you are correct, it is indeed enchanted armor. But not by me. It was Ren that did it.”

“Him?”

“He has a knack for it. That’s the only thing he had going for him before I brought him and his vassal under my wing.” He had a smug expression on his face. “That kid has potential to become the next ruler of Nara.”

She kept watching, this time looking at Setsuna—who seemed to be ever so slightly advancing with Tomoe. The shrine maiden used a combination of fire wall to blanket a large area beyond the close range fighters in a sea of flames that quickly melted the surface snow before unleashing a crippling cold wave of ice magic that froze the liquified snow in a snap. Keeping most of the death angels stuck in place as Miyamoto zig-zagged between the standing enemies in a flurry of deadly slashes that cut most of them down.

“That…” Leona squinted her eyes. “That was a combination of Fire Wall and Ice Wall wasn’t it?”

“Modified version of those spells, yes. She blanketed the area in front of the close range fighters in order to melt the water and instantly freeze with a follow up concentrated Ice Wall.”

Behind the main group, Yuna stood still in the middle of a circle drawn into the snow. She had her hands clasped as if chanting something.

At first Leona thought it wasn’t anything important until an orb of condensed dark blue mana started to form in front of the young shrine maiden.

“What is that spell?”

“Flare. It’s a sieging spell. Has low velocity, large area of effect and most importantly, high destructive potential. The main issue with it is the inaccuracy, but in this scenario it’s a viable choice to whittle down the numbers.”

“I see…” She then glanced at Ren who was right beside Yuna, seemingly focusing on another spell. “What is he doing?”

“Enchanting Yuna’s spell.”

She turned to him with widened eyes.

“Huh? Is that possible?”

“Did you think enchanting was only for weapons and armors?”

“Well… it’s not common to see another mage ‘enchant’ another’s spell.”

“Remember well. It’s called ephemeral enchanting, normally used by mages that wish to give their own weapons a temporary attribute or element. But it can also affect other spells and if done right, you can increase the potency of the enchanted spell by at least twofold.”

She looked back at Ren. He held his wand out while drawing arcane symbols in the air as he enveloped the orb of mana created by Yuna.

“Interesting… is it possible to do it on your own?”

“No, unless you’re capable of parallel thought, it’s physically impossible to enchant a spell while casting it.” He stopped for a bit and chuckled. “Technically speaking, you could double or even triple cast spells with the aid of a specialized wand or staff. Setsuna’s staff, for instance, was tailored to increase the potency of her spells while using mana from the environment around her in order to ease the burden on herself.”

His grinning face made Leona look at him with a raised eyebrow.

“You sure seem proud of it.”

“Of course, I was the one who made it.”

“So you are capable of simultaneously casting spells.”

He shrugged off by raising both of his hands.

“You’d be surprised with the amount of things you learn once you live as long as I have.”

She returned her attention to the battle at hand and noticed how it seemed to be a certain rhythm to how each member paced themselves.

Tomoe rushes in while being covered by both Miyamoto and Setsuna who stay mostly on defense until they see an opportunity to strike hard and fast. In the meantime, Yuna and Ren focus on barraging the enemy backline with spells.

“Sis!” Yuna shouted from below. “It’s ready!”

“On it!”

Setsuna quickly backed away from the frontline and approached the two mages. The dark blue orb was hovering above the snow with its surface swirling with pure mana drawn from both the air and Yuna’s reserves. In the epicenter of the spell was an orb of fire violently pulsating with energy contained by both the mana around and the ephemeral enchanting made by Ren which kept the whole spell together.

Setsuna pointed her staff at the orb and turned around with her right hand pointing at the direction of the horde.

“Clear the area!”

Ren shouted as the older sister snapped her finger.

“True Teleportation.”

The orb suddenly vanished from Yuna’s grasp and reappeared a few hundred meters above the middle of the horde. Miyamoto heard the warning and simply dashed in the opposite direction of the horde while Tomoe stood her ground as a humanoid death angel approached her.

It was roughly three times her size with an inhumanly muscular frame. While it lacked a head, its pale rubbery skin broke in the mid section of its torso where it revealed a vertical column of serrated teeth served both as its mouth and eyes as the icky globules of white and red dots from inside its gaping maw twitches uncontrollably as it mindlessly charged against the oni maid.

“Stay down will you?!”

She swung the battle axe against its legs where they were crushed by the sheer impact of the weapon. Following it up with an overhead swing, she sunk the curved blade deep into the monstrosity’s torso before lifting it up in front of her.

Tomoe protected herself by using a death angel’s corpse just in time as Yuna’s enchanted Flare came down upon the horde. At first there was a bright flash of light before the violent shockwave swept through the battlefield with a reverberating sound wave of the explosion. The heat was so great it started to scorch the death angel’s backside as she held it in front of herself as a makeshift shield.

“What in the world…”

Watching everything unfold from the top of the hill made Leona tremble from the results of the battle. There were still a few death angel stragglers in the outskirts of the battlefield, but the once snow white plain was now scorched black with water puddling in the middle of it all.

“I told you.” Robert massaged his own shoulder as he was preparing to move. “They can be considered heroes for their strength alone.”

He was about to walk off the hill towards the group before Leona said.

“How far am I to reach them?”

“Not too far.” He smiled, but didn’t turn to face her. “You and him are capable of becoming this powerful.”

“Him?” He pointed to his left and upon trailing his hand, she noticed Krieg was kneeling overlooking the battle just as she was. “Krieg…?”

“Needless to say, you’ll need to put a lot of effort into it. Let’s go. I’ll bring everyone back and we can continue from there.”

She kept looking at her knight. He wore an expression full of bitterness which made her speak softly without taking her eyes away from him.

“Understood…”