With Maria’s transformation completed, she wielded both her weapons and pointed them at her enemies. Her clones emerged from her shadow before they began summoning the golems while the shadow puppets appeared. No one did anything and only watched how Maria had suddenly summoned an army of her own. The Necromancer class was the only class that was known to be able to summon an army of minions but Maria, as a Dark Priestess, was able to do that too.
However, unlike the Necromancer class, Maria was also able to fight using her spells and close combat skills making her much more deadly than the former. Just having her around would give any guild or team a large boost in overall combat power.
Everyone got ready to attack. Maria could see all of the enemy players charging up their skills and casting their spell so she couldn’t help but grow a bit nervous. She was secretly palpitating inwardly since if all those attacks landed on her, she’d be dead without a doubt. Her [Full Counter] only lasted 3 seconds and even then, she didn’t believe that she’d be able to survive the sheer amount of attacks that would land on her if she were to use that skill. The only way out of this was to dodge all of the attacks and use her familiars as shields to tank some of the ones she wouldn’t be able to dodge.
‘Maybe waiting for them to surround me wasn’t so smart…’
Maria slightly regretted her decision to act arrogantly like that on the battlefield. This time around, she wasn’t facing those weak players but the 2 factions’ elites along with their leaders. Some of the players below even started summoning their Summons just so they could be absolutely certain in bringing her down.
“Sheesh, you guys are even using your Summons,” Maria said.
“Of course, we have to be sure that you’re ejected from the realm. We can’t have you pulling another trick up your sleeve and somehow escaping today, now can we?” Eos said.
“Hmph.”
Even when she was faced with all of this, Maria staunched any lingering fears as she smiled fearlessly and welcome the enemies’ attacks.
“Come on!”
“Everyone, attack! Don’t hold back we must kill her today!” Caedes ordered.
“Don’t fall behind, demons attack as well!” Eos commanded.
At their command, the 2 factions’ players all fired their attacks on the fallen angel in the sky. Maria watched as the rainbow lights of her enemies’ attacks moved towards her. It was quite amazing yet dreadful, but she only let out a determined smile before getting into a stance. Many people were quite familiar with this stance and they remembered it from when she used the technique that dealt over a million points worth of damage in her boss battle during the IGC.
“[Shin-Zantetsuken].”
Maria began to furiously slash out with both of her weapons in every direction around her. She used the entirety of her mana pool to strengthen each sword slash and managed to complete 9 slashes. Each of her slashes produced a wide spatial tear that canceled out a few of the hundreds of attacks that were coming at her. The spatial explosions happened next which further negated more of the oncoming attacks. Only a few made it past the spatial explosions and they were dealt with by her clones and familiars.
The majesty of her sword skill was unrivaled and everyone on the battlefield unconsciously froze in place as they bore witness to it. The attacks that were all meant to kill her were either negated or detonated in mid-air upon coming into contact with the spatial tears and explosions, creating a beautiful sight in the skies.
Once the smoke cleared, everyone was able to see that Maria was still standing, although she looked rather battered this time with her HP bar falling dangerously low. She quickly healed herself with a [Hi-Cure] and drank a few potions, bringing her HP back to healthy levels.
“Damn, she survived the attacks of a hundred and more players…”
One of the players below gave voice to nearly everyone’s thoughts at the moment. They couldn’t believe that even when faced with all of their attacks, she still managed to survive.
‘What the hell is this, a boss fight?’
‘I’m glad I’m not fighting her alone. I wouldn’t stand a chance.’
‘This is just crazy.’
Although what she did was amazing, let’s not forget that she was currently in the middle of a battlefield so the guild masters all commanded their players to launch the second wave of attacks.
“Again! Don’t let up! She’s vulnerable now!”
“She can’t use that skill in quick succession, hurry up and attack!”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
A second wave was launched and this time, Maria didn’t know what to do. The only thing she could think of was to fly away and retreat, though she was a bit reluctant to.
“Tsk, I guess this is the limit, huh?”
Her message window was constantly buzzing as her friends kept on telling her to get away if she could. If she continued to fight this losing battle, she’d just be wasting her time as it wasn’t possible to defeat these players.
“Well, before I leave, let’s give you guys a present, yeah?”
Maria used her familiars as a shield to block the attacks coming at her while her clones used [Shin-Zantetsuken] to try and cancel out as many of the attacks as they could. Her clones couldn’t exert the sword skill’s true power, only 30 percent of it, but that was more than enough to cancel out quite a few of the oncoming attacks and buy her enough time to complete the summoning ritual to bring Bahamut into the realm.
“This is my first time using it so please don’t disappoint me, Bahamut!”
{God of the eternal sky and everlasting father of the dragons, rain fire and incinerate my enemies with your divine flames!}
“Come forth, Bahamut!”
The players down below were still launching attacks after attacks at Maria but when they saw the humongous summoning circle suddenly appear in the sky, they all stopped.
“W-What is it this time?!”
“Don’t tell me she still has another trick up her sleeve? Just what’s wrong with this girl?!”
“Seriously, just get out of the realm and stop making our lives so hard!”
A figure began to appear from the summoning circle and when it fully emerged, everyone was shocked.
“What the hell?!
“It’s a dragon!”
The guild masters of the two factions still had their wits about and although they were amazed that Maria had summoned such a colossal and legendary being, they made sure to command their players not to let up on their attacks.
“Keep attacking, this is just her last-ditch effort!”
“Don’t stop!”
When Bahamut emerged, the first thing it did was cast a [Mega-Barrier] on Maria which shielded her from damage before bringing her on top of his shoulder.
“Summoner, you have finally called upon me.”
“Y-Yeah, I nearly died just now…[Hi-Cure].”
Her HP had fallen to 4 percent just now and if it wasn’t for Bahamut’s appearance, she would’ve died. Bahamut similar had a [Mega-Barrier] around him which completely nullified all of the players’ attacks though it was slowly breaking apart.
“Hm, my powers have been weakened in this realm but that is something I expected since I’m only using an incarnation,” Bahamut said to himself. He glanced at Maria and cast a [Mega-Restore] on her which brought both her HP and MP back to full.
“Shall we fight now?”
Hearing Bahamut’s question, Maria excitedly nodded her head and replied, “Hell yeah!”
“Hmhmhmhm!” Bahamut let out a chuckle before he yelled, “Tremble mortals! For I, King Bahamut have come for your lives!”
Bahamut opened his mouth and cast [Flare] on the players below him. It burnt a large swab of the land along with its players, logging out a few of them while the others survived before having their HP restored by the priests and healers that were at the far back. At the same time, however, the [Mega-Barrier] that was protecting him and Maria broke apart which left them a bit vulnerable. Bahamut didn’t care though because his HP bar was quite enormous.
Maria saw that her Summon had 50,000,000 HP so with the damage the players were doing only being in the thousand and ten thousand range, it would take a while for them to send Bahamut back to the Void Sea. With a perfect meat shield, Maria resummoned her clones and along with them, began firing magic spells at the enemy players while she stayed perfectly safe on Bahamut’s shoulders.
Bahamut began casting [Inferno], a high-tier flame elemental spell. Once the casting was complete, he raised his claw and a large ball of searing flames appeared on it. He then launched it at the players below before casting another [Flare] and aimed it in a different direction. The players had already begun summoning their Summons to fight against Maria’s Summon so she was finally able to see her quest targets.
“Bahamut, kill as many of those Summons as you can! We need to send as many as we can back to the Void Sea Realm!”
Bahamut responded with a mighty roar and began casting a different spell and this time, it was something called the [White Flare Array]. The casting time was short and multiple magic circles appeared behind Bahamut. The magic circles began launching white flames that specifically aimed for the Summons. The enemy summons wasn’t weak nor helpless as they did their best to block Bahamut’s attacks. The [White Flare Array] lasted for a while and in the meantime, Bahamut started casting a different spell.
“What the hell, just how many abilities does her summon have?!”
“Quick, dodge! It’s probably another AOE spell! Our priests and healers can’t keep up with the damage!”
“Change formations! Healers focus on the players whose HP are in the orange! Keep everyone’s HP in the green!”
“Don’t fall back! Continue attacking! We can’t break the encirclement or all of this was for nothing!”
Arthur, Eos, and Caedes, the 3 players that Maria was watching out for, had finally begun to actively participate in the battle instead of only commanding their troops. They had summoned their Astral and Gods to aid them while also activating their Awakened abilities.
Maria didn’t know any of their Summons but they all seemed very powerful. Eos’s Astral was Gemini, she could tell from the zodiac sign shining on its forehead while Arthur and Caedes respectively had Olympian War Goddess Athena and Roman Sky God Jupiter.
In reality, these mythical gods could never meet since they were all part of different myths and religions, but the game had grouped together every mythical god known to man and a few original ones that were made with the game’s lore together in what was collectively known as the Pantheon. It was with good taste as well since Pantheon directly meant ‘temple of all gods’ so every god should be a part of it regardless of whether they came from different myths and religions.
The gods that the Pantheon players had summoned all possessed a humanoid form. Maria didn’t pay attention to the other players’ summons, only to the 3 players who posed the greatest threat to her.
Arthur’s Summon, Athena, possessed an appearance that was quite like what people imagined her to be, a heroic female warrior with blonde-silver hair holding a shield and sword with large white wings on her back and a halo of holy light surrounding her body. Caedes’s Summon, Jupiter, was a buff bearded man wearing a white toga with a red sash around his waist holding a wooden staff that had celestial bodies and stars revolving around it.
Jupiter also had a halo of holy light surrounding his body just like Athena, and this halo was what separated these two powerful Summons from the rest. It was clear to Maria that these two gods were much stronger than the ones the other players had summoned. Of course, there were some Summons that possessed this halo but she kept an eye out for only these 2 because their halos shined the brightest.
The astrals, however, were quite different. Instead of possessing a human form like the Gods, they were instead in the shape of animals or spirits. Eos’s Summon, Gemini, was in the shape of two fairies whose bodies seemed to be made out of the cosmos.
Maria could see the stars and space just by looking at their bodies and the only distinct feature they had was the glowing zodiac symbol on their foreheads which seemed to shine brighter the stronger the Astral was. Their appearances were of no concern, however, because their strength was all that mattered. They didn’t seem to be as mighty as Bahamut whose size towered above every other Summons but Maria knew that she should never judge a book by its cover.
These Summons were dangerous and she was facing so many of them at once. Even with Bahamut, Maria wasn’t sure that she would be able to win and escaping might be hard as well now that they were in the picture.