Lizzy, Maria, and Sky moved together with their Primals and began attacking Goddess Athena and God Mahadeva.
Despite hearing Maria’s deduction earlier, Lizzy and Sky remained cautious while Maria was the only one who went all out with Bahamut. Thanks to her relentless attacks, the 2 Pantheon Gods were continuously being pushed back.
“Hah, I can’t believe Mary’s deduction is actually true!”
“Are their Summons seriously this defective?”
The two girls couldn’t believe that Maria’s speculation regarding the Astrals and the Gods’ inability to use skills or spells was actually true. Even after being pushed back so severely, neither Arthur nor Mahadeva’s Summoner ordered their Gods to use an ability or spell.
“Sky, let’s go! We have to seize this chance since something else might happen!”
“Right behind you!”
Tiamat and Leviathan began charging up their secondary ultimate abilities and aimed straight for God Mahadeva, who was helplessly being trounced on by Bahamut. Athena and Arthur were trying their best to help Mahadeva out, but Bahamut was just so powerful and fast that whatever they did amounted to nothing.
Maria was also being a nuisance since she started firing off magic spells and abilities at Arthur and Athena to keep them busy. Of course, her skills couldn’t hurt Athena since there was that barrier around her, but they didn’t have to.
She used only skills and spells that would momentarily blind or obscure Athena’s vision when they struck her protective barrier. Her [Fire], [Blizzard], [Gehenna’s Eye], and [Ruin] spells did just the trick.
Even her [Zantetsuken]’s spatial fracture explosions did the trick and she was able to continuously launch those since she only used the minimum amount of resources needed to activate the skill.
Thanks to this, Bahamut was able to freely focus all of his attacks on Mahadeva and corner the God. He kept pushing the God back and isolated him and his Summoner away from their allies.
Bahamut could already feel Leviathan and Tiamat charging up their attacks, so he continued to distract the two Gods by using big spells and abilities that kept their attention solely focused on them.
Leviathan and Tiamat would occasionally send a small attack on the 2 Gods, but they had their attention focused upon charging their main attacks and once that was complete, they immediately fired them at Mahadeva.
“Oh no!”
Arthur had noticed it a little too late and it wasn’t like he could do anything about it. Bahamut had disengaged from his fight against Mahadeva after stunning the God and quickly moved to confront him and Athena.
“Tsk, we can’t continue on like this! We need to use our abilities!” Arthur roared.
What Maria said earlier about the Astrals and Gods not being able to use their abilities and spells was both true and false. The Astrals and Gods really couldn’t use their abilities on this plane, but that was only under normal conditions. They could use their abilities but special conditions needed to be met before they could.
For the Gods, they needed the Pantheon players and NPCs to send the Gods their faith, which would strengthen the summoned Gods. Depending on the amount of faith a God possesses, certain abilities and perks will be unlocked along with their increase in Stat values.
Faith was gathered by all of the factions’ members just offering their HP, MP, or SP to the summoned God of their choosing, so depending on the amount offered, a player or NPC could offer more or less Faith.
The Faith given to the God would flow into them in the form of light waves or particles–depending on the amount of Faith sent–which Maria had seen earlier. The powerup was gradual, so Athena didn’t suddenly experience a massive increase in stats, but with her stats slowly rising, Athena’s HP was too, which was why it seemed as if her HP wasn’t going down despite how many attacks hit her.
Astrals had similar conditions they needed to fulfill in order for them to use abilities and get stronger, but instead of Faith, they needed Starlight Energy which could be provided in a similar fashion by the players and NPCs of the Celestial Order.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Hm?”
Maria frowned when she heard that but she was skeptical as to whom Arthur was yelling that out towards. It could just be a bluff, so Maria didn’t stop Bahamut from continuing his attack on Athena. However, something happened behind her that caught Maria’s attention.
“What?”
She turned around and saw Mahadeva shining. This shine was a clear indication that it was preparing to use an ability. In the next instant, a massive wheel appeared in front of Mahadeva and it began spinning, forming a massive tornado that blocked the two attacks that were fired at him by the Primals.
The tornado only lasted for a second before Leviathan and Tiamat’s attack penetrated and continued flying at Mahadeva. This was enough, however, because the 2 approaching attacks had been weakened, so when Mahadeva received them, he was able to survive the 2 ultimate attacks with half of his HP left on his final health bar.
“You guys hid this for that long?! Well, this is the consequence of being such cheeky bastards!” Maria yelled at Arthur angrily before turning to Bahamut, “Finish him off!”
Bahamut fired a [Mega-Flare] at the severely injured Mahadeva and depleted the remaining half of its HP bar, sending it packing back into the Void Sea Realm.
“Dammit!” Arthur cursed. It was too late and, from the beginning, they shouldn't have hesitated in gathering Faith for their Summons' abilities. There wasn’t enough time for his faction to gather enough Faith for Mahadeva’s ability to activate at full power which resulted in Mahadeva's demise.
“Now it’s your turn, Arthur!” Lizzy yelled as she and Tiamat charged straight at Arthur and Athena.
Sky was right behind her and Maria was already about to attack him, so he roared once more, “Camelot players and all players of the Pantheon! Give me your Faith now!”
“Huh?”
“What now?”
“...”
Particles of light coming from the Pantheon faction’s castle began floating over to Athena. They entered her body and formed into a grand piece of armor as the sword she was holding transformed into a spear.
The shield she was holding also began to change as it grew a bit bigger and a symbol that looked like the head of a woman with snake-like hair appeared on it. The shield began to glow and Athena moved it in front of herself as a golden shockwave burst out and pushed back the 3 Primals that were charging at her.
Bahamut, Leviathan, and Tiamat were only pushed back by a bit, but Sky noticed that everything the golden shockwave touched, even the water from her Summon’s flood and the ground beneath it had turned into stone.
*DING*
[You have resisted the effects of Athena’s Gorgon Shield!]
“That’s an ability!”
“Hmph, you think that we can’t use any abilities?! How about you have a taste of this?!” Arthur roared.
Athena slashed out with her spear and sent another golden shockwave at the 3 Primals. Bahamut sliced it down with a [Dragon Claw] while the 2 other Primals coped with the attack in their own way.
They didn’t even take too much damage nor experience any debuff or special effects, so Maria was wondering what Arthur was being so happy about. Even if they could use skills, they didn’t amount to much.
“Yeah, so you can use skills, but they’re so weak we can hardly feel them!”
“Only for now! Once I’ve gathered enough Faith, I can take all 3 of you on my own!”
“???”
Maria thought that Arthur was being delusional, but when she looked up she saw the weird sparkles that had entered Athena’s body earlier appear again.
“Mary, be careful! I don’t know what he’s talking about but those glittering things might be empowering his Summon. We should deal with him quickly or else things will get messy later!” Lizzy said.
“Gotcha!”
The 3 Primals reengaged Athena in battle once again, but the girls couldn’t help but notice that as more waves of light entered Athena’s body, the stronger and larger she became.
“What the hell’s happening?” Sky suddenly asked. Athena was on her last bar of HP, but this last bar wasn’t going down any time soon even after their Primals had landed multiple attacks on her.
Maria had been tracing the origins of the light waves since earlier and she noticed that many of them seemed to be coming from somewhere far away from their present location. There were also a few waves of light that came from the Pantheon faction’s castle but Maria couldn’t determine what they were.
It wasn’t like she could just go there and investigate since she was in the middle of a battle.
Over on Caedes’s side. He and his 2 allies were still engaging Eos and his allies in a battle. Earlier, he had heard Arthur’s desperate cry and gave his agreement to start having the other players that were only watching to start sending in their Faith to them.
Many of the players and NPCs present and not present on the battlefield began converting their HP, MP, and SP into Faith, which they sent to Athena. The Celestial Order and Pantheon’s bigshots didn’t want to resort to using this method because it would weaken all of their forces, which was why their Summons couldn’t use any abilities or skills at the moment.
Lizzy, Maria, and Sky managed to push Arthur back into a corner after they killed both an Astral and a God, so he became desperate and shouted what he had said earlier to get Caedes’s attention. The other players needed both Arthur and Caedes's approval or else no one besides Arthur's guild members would start converting their resources into Faith.
Seeing Arthur's precarious situation, Caedes had no choice but to give his permission for it because if they lost Arthur and Athena, the Pantheon would lose a large source of both offensive and defensive power.
Caedes could see that Arthur was able to hold out for now, but that was only because his Summon’s stats were still increasing. Once they plateaued, the 3 Primals would be able to start depleting Athena’s HP again and, before long, send her back to the Void Sea while ejecting Arthur from the Realm of War.
Right now, he couldn't provide Arthur with any reinforcements because Caedes and his allies were currently being tied up by Eos and the other 2 Celestial Order players. With no other choice, Caedes had to make a decision to reveal their faction's hidden card.
“Dammit, I wanted to save this card but we can’t let Arthur lose!”
He quickly opened up his chat window and whispered to one of the players in his [Friend List].
[Caedes: Bob, you’re up!]
[Bob: I thought you’d never ask! Remember, you're going to have to pay me double now! And you had better have your players start sending me some faith or else I’ll just run!]
[Caedes: Just go and do the job we hired you for! Take out at least one of those girls!]
[Bob: Aye, aye, captain!]