"Ouch..."
With her health nearly depleted, that was all she had to say. Maria quickly cast [Heal] on herself and her surviving subordinates to stop any [Bleed], [Stun], and [Disable] status effects.
Most of her subordinates that came with her and were struck by the attack were all severely injured with a few of them even dying. Alexa had a few broken bones but she quickly got up and limped her way to Maria and asked, "A-Are you okay, big sis?"
"Mhm..." Maria grimaced when she saw the young vampire severely injured.
She looked around and her face darkened when she saw the dead bodies of her soldiers. This was the outcome of war so it was inevitable that a few of her followers would die but they all died trying to protect her.
It left behind a horrible feeling but she had to focus herself back on the war at hand and help her soldiers that were still alive. She could mourn for her losses after the battle.
The ogres on the walls saw the injured Maria resurface from underneath the rubble. They all jumped down from the walls and began moving their way towards her, intending to finish her off.
The vampires who had remained in the sky from before and weren't struck by the devastating attack quickly flew down and formed a wall formation around Maria and the injured vampires.
Maria glared at the approaching ogres darkly and reached out with her hand.
"[Fallen's Cruelty]..."
+1 Sin
She activated the skill and gained one Sin stat. Maria still didn't know what the SIN stat was for, but it didn't have any negative effects on her as far as she could see. In fact, it didn't even provide her with any bonuses or benefits.
Maria targeted one of the approaching ogres, the one who was at the forefront. The ogre fell to its knees and began wailing in pain as a gray light was ejected from its body. The light gathered in her hand and she placed it onto her chest.
The light entered her body and it healed a sizeable chunk of her HP. Maria's nearly empty HP bar increased until it was above 50% just from this one skill. With her HP increasing, the wounds on her body quickly began mending themselves.
Her bones snapped back into place while the cuts and bruises on her body slowly began to disappear. The visuals of her recovery were rather magical and it amazed most of her viewers. [Disable] and [Broken] were actual status effects in the game which indicated that a part of the avatar's body was broken and unusable.
[Cure] and [Heal] couldn't recover or dispel this status effect, only the high-ranked priest class skill [Mend] was able to heal this. However, the audience noticed that Maria's skill had also recovered her HP and the visuals were different from the normal [Mend] they knew.
Also, when she mumbled her skill name from earlier, it was clearly different. She had chanted [Fallen's Cruelty], not [Mend]. A few brought this up in the chat, but it was quickly buried by the fans' chat that expressed their relief to see Maria recover from her severe injuries.
[Fallen's Cruelty] was a skill that took 25% of the target's HP and MP and transferred it onto a target or the caster while also alleviating any status effects. Maria used it on herself and healed all of the status effects she was afflicted with while also increasing her HP, resulting in the sublime visual of her recovering from her injuries.
Ogres didn't have a large mana pool, to begin with, and with the size of her mana pool, it didn't even increase by 1%. It didn't matter though since her MP's battle recovery was high and she had a large amount anyway. Maria quickly began casting [Cure] and healed up all of her injured vampire soldiers.
The ones with [Broken] or [Disable] status effects, including Alexa, were ordered by Maria to refrain from participating in the battle until she healed them. Her [Fallen's Cruetly] had a 5-minute cooldown so they needed to wait. They couldn't do anything about this and listened to her orders despite being reluctant to do so.
Some only had a broken leg or arm and since they could still use the other, they wanted to fight and rely on their enhanced regenerations as vampires to gradually heal themselves. Maria could clearly see this so she firmly commanded them not to do anything stupid.
"If you know what's best for you, you all better stand down and wait until I heal you! I have no need for suicidal fools or insubordination amongst my ranks!"
Maria's words dissuaded any of the injured vampires from trying to 'show' their loyalty to her. It wasn't like she was in some kind of hopeless situation and it really pained her to see her people die.
"Out of my way!"
Maria bellowed and the vampires that were in formation ahead of her quickly made way without question. She wanted to deal with the approaching ogres and find the one who attacked her and killed her subordinates. She wanted to personally and slowly plunge her Calamity into the bastard's heart.
Maria still had her [Gehenna's Sacrifice] buff so she readied the most powerful attack in her arsenal.
"Disappear! [Dark Ray]!"
A large concentration of energy began gathering from Maria's wings and it moved towards the finger she had pointed in front of her. The flaming eyes on her wings also began gathering up energy and concentrated it onto Maria's finger.
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The atmosphere grew heavy and Maria's outstretched finger began turning black. The pressure that suddenly appeared was the precursor of her skill. Maria had an angered look on her face as she poured nearly all of her mana into the skill.
She released the skill after her MP bar was 80% empty. In the next moment, a thin ray pierced through the air from her finger. It didn't look too dramatic but the effects that came after it was devastating.
Once the ray faded, multiple explosions of black energy bombarded the area where the ray passed through. It immediately blew away the rubble and the semi-collapsed portion of the wall.
Everything in front of Maria was obliterated and the explosions continued to go until it eventually disappeared into the horizon. It was the first time she used the skill to such an extent. Even she didn't know that it was possible to adjust the amount of mana the skill used.
The power and destruction naturally increased but so did the cooldown. She noticed that the normal 5-minute cooldown had turned into a 5-hour cooldown.
She didn't mind it too much and instead bellowed, "Attack!"
Maria's blood ogres quickly moved past her and began flooding into the new opening she made. Berserker arrived next to her and stretched out his arm. Maria flew onto his open palm and stood on it.
Berserker then pushed his way through the army of ogres and rushed into the village. He smashed away an ogre that approached him while Maria coldly watched.
"No prisoners this time. Kill them all!"
Maria was holding a grudge for the loss of the soldiers in her personal army. Although she didn't know them personally, she didn't like losing anything that was hers.
She didn't forget her objective and continued scanning the area for the bastard that attacked her and killed her soldiers. A particularly large ogre was rampaging around not far away and beating back her army's ogres.
"Are you the one?"
The large ogre seemed to be the leader of this village so it was undoubtedly a boss monster. Her ogres were slowly chipping away at the monster's health while she stayed at the back, providing healing and support for the ones that were blown away by the boss's attacks.
Even though she was angered, Maria made sure that her ogres didn't severely damage any of the buildings within the village. She was going to claim this village as hers so she didn't want the structures to be too damaged.
"Berserker, you go. I'll join you when I'm ready."
"RAHHHH!!!"
Berserker roared and after placing Maria down gently on the ground, he rushed forward and slammed his body onto the ogre chieftain and smashed his war hammer onto the boss's face.
"Tch...I guess using the skill like that does come with a little backlash..."
Maria already saw the object of her grudge right in front of her but she didn't immediately rush at the ogre with guns blazing. This was because she had received a backlash from using her skill like that.
It was also a surprising discovery for her. She had recently received a new Magus Sub-class skill, [Mana Manipulation] after she increased the ranks of her previous sub-class skills and obtained the final elemental spell from Paimon's Spellbook [Aero].
The sub-skill [Mana Manipulation] allowed Maria to adjust the output of her mana to a certain extent to empower her skills or spells. Naturally, the more mana she used, the more powerful her skill or spell becomes.
This was the case with her earlier [Dark Ray]. However, using her mana like this came at a cost. It wasn't just the increase in the skill's cooldown but there was an additional backlash to the caster. Maria was inflicted with various psyche-related status effects such as [Dispirited], [Mind Down], [Overload], and [Fatigue] status effects.
She was also inflicted with other status effects like [Slow], [Focus Down], [INT Down], [Resist Down], [Weakness], [Enfeeble], [Recovery Down] and various others. The sheer amount of debuffs she received made her question the benefit of even using [Mana Manipulation] at all.
Naturally, there was an increase in the power of her [Dark Ray] and there were additional hidden skill effects like the explosions, distance, and Area of Effect, but the demerits... Maria had to wait out all of the debuffs she received because of the [Weakness] and [Dispirited] debuffs which nullified any status effect removing skills and spells used on her.
"Ahhh, bad move. At least now I know not to recklessly use it anymore and save it as a last resort..."
Maria didn't feel so good. She felt like throwing up and falling asleep. She began feeling dizzy and hot, it was like she had a fever. The effects of her debuffs began kicking in now and it wasn't anything good.
"Ugh, they made the game too realistic..."
Maria's viewers also took notice of how odd she was acting. Her face and lips were pale as a ghost's and she looked so feeble.
Maria tried breathing in and out. Slowly, she was able to readjust herself and only felt the weakness in her body. The debuffs would last an hour. It was really not something she wanted. Thankfully, she could adjust the intensity of the debuffs' symptoms through the game's [System] menu.
It was impossible to completely turn it off but it was with the settings set at low, it was much better than how she felt earlier. It was like she was actually sick or something and it was very unpleasant.
Now, she only felt the slight pangs of headaches and sickness. Her breathing was rough and she did feel awfully tired but she still had something to do.
By now, her soldiers had completely overwhelmed the ogres in the village. The ones that tried to surrender were immediately executed with impunity. The ogres fulfilled Maria's orders and left no one in the village alive and captured the ones that tried to flee.
She told her ogres to leave behind a few of the enemies since she had some use for them later. As for the others...Maria wanted every ogre in the village dead and that's what her ogres were trying to accomplish. The village's chieftain was already on its last legs now. It was constantly being beaten and smashed around but Berserker and the other ogres never delivered the finishing blow. Instead, they just toyed around with the nearly dead chieftain.
Maria walked over to where Berserker was and the large ogre quickly took notice of her and roared. He knelt and stretched his hand out on the ground, ready to pick her up. Maria shook her head and walked past him while dragging her ax on the ground behind her.
The sound of her ax being dragged on the ground rang in the air and it caused the ogres to stop bullying the poor chieftain who was already begging for them to end his life honorably.
"Pin him..." Maria said in a hoarse voice.
Berserker roared and the ogres near the enemy chieftain quickly rushed forward and tackled the monster down. They pinned his arms and legs down firmly, not giving the chieftain any room for struggle.
"Your...stupid resistance... caused me to lose a few good soldiers..." Maria said once she got close. She flew up and climbed onto the chieftain's body and glared down at it with a terrifyingly chilling gaze.
"Thanks for throwing... that ridiculously large boulder at me. I planned to spare a few of you but... I changed my mind. I'll massacre every single one of you that resists."
Maria's arms felt too weak to hold up the Calamity so instead of slashing down, she positioned the ax below her and stepped on it. Slowly, her ax's blade pierced through the chieftain's chest.
"You're going to die...slowly...and painfully..."
"MMMRRGGGGHHH!!!"
The other ogres had restrained the chieftain and bound his mouth so he could only grunt loudly and watch in horror as the ax slowly and painfully pierced through his chest.