BXBX NOVEL Chapter 96: Inevitable Destruction.
"This, is unexpected, is it some kind of test?" Usami was out of breath, at her side was Bruce panting as well and behind them there was Eris who was equally exhausted with her hands pressed to their backs casting [heal] on them; the three were currently inside of a small dense barrier that Dina had created for them to recover while her and Ikaris continued to fight.
"What the fuck kind of test would this be?" Eris lowered her hands and took a deep breath as the last of their small wounds closed up.
"It\'s more like a nightmare." Bruce stood straight and readied his sword.
They were surrounded by hundreds, maybe thousands of demonkin all mid-level at the least. Level 100 and above, the gap in strength was close, especially for Eris who despite being durable was physically the weakest, putting her strength just about parallel with the monsters around her.
"Dina, fortify your shield around them." Ikaris called to her, diving toward the horde with her hands crossed summoning two blades of white mana.
"Oi!" Dina panicked for a second before her barrier started shining brightly as she abandoned what she was doing and put all of her focus on the barrier when Ikaris unleashed [cross impact] and flew by like a bomber plane dodging several projectiles being thrown and shot at her as she retreated back up to the safety of the sky with her wings opening up again and stabilizing herself in her approach to Dina.
"Keep it steady." Ikaris held out her hand while a bead of sweat rolled down Dina\'s forehead as she feared the slow approach of the attack would kill the three.
*Snap
[Cross-impact] exploded in a dome incinerating and blasting everything away from the shield but not harming it in any way other than making it shake while the three inside waited.
"There is no end to them, could there be a rift close by?" Arla asked, casting small barriers around the most dense groups and incinerating everything inside with her seventh tier flame magic, but as she expexted; the monsters just kept showing up, the field had been completely overrun and the only reason her and the others had yet to simply retreat was because they only planned to move northward, the creatures had appeared from all directions and continued showing up.
It was to a point where she was starting to believe that within those close-by mountains to the North, the forests to the east and east, and the hills they had crossed from the south there could possibly be hundreds of thousands of demons pouring toward them, or maybe even millions.
On the ground Dina\'s shield vanished from around the other three heroes and the heat of the explosion caved in on them causing them to wince before a gust of wind from Arla blew all of the fire and smoke away.
"Hey Usami, what about that fancy new skill of yours, it would seriously come in handy here you know." Bruce looked at her and then at the demonkin that were swarming toward them after the fires were blown out.
"Sorry, I can\'t use it." She answered placing her hands on the ground and summoning a wide circular array of diagonal spears out of the ground and impaling the demonkin en mass and then twisting her hands creating a second and third wave of spears out of the ground.
[Maximum spear capacity reached]
"What do you mean you can\'t?" Eris looked at her, readying her fists again when the demonkin started flooding over the barrier of spears just before Ikaris swooped down again and unleashed a stream of crimson fire decimating one side of the incoming horde and landing with Arla at her side while several [origin explosions] from Dina went off on the opposite side.
"It\'s passive, I have no control over it, and there are conditions to it\'s activation with the most important being that I have to have no choice left, which means so long as everyone here is alive and I\'m not out of mana and on the brink of death it won\'t activate." She chuckled nervously.
"That\'s awful." Eris scrunched her nose. "It only serves you."
"It\'s called \'essence of the spear hero\' what did you expect, a party buff?" Usami retorted, cancelling the summon of her spears and creating a smaller array around them again and expanding it with her spear manipulation technique turning them into massive pillars and clearing the opening a third time.
"There\'s not an end to them in sight!" Dina landed and created a barrier before the enemies could choke their escape and took a breath. "We\'ve been at it for at least three hours, what\'s the point of fighting an endless army?"
"I agree with that sentiment." Arla nodded spreading her hands in defeat. "If it comes to retreat then as long as we have a second to spare Sara can easily get us out of here."
"Then shouldn\'t she be here?" Usami asked looking around at everyone and not finding the aforementioned maid.
"I am on standby," Sara answered from right next to her.
"I am nowhere near as strong as any of you are, despite my adamant request to remain with Sir Vestic and Lady Ikaris I am only good for running away in situations such as this, please leave any future retreats in my hands, I will not disappoint." She smiled fearlessly after admitting she was basically useless and Ikaris chuckled and walked to the edge of the dome Dina had made.
"Let me handle the rest; Han has become stronger than us, and every moment he remains in that nightmarish place he continues to grow, I do not want to fall behind." Ikaris pressed her hand on the barrier, facing the demon that had locked eyes with her on the opposite side and gone still in anticipation.
"Ikaris, be careful," Dina closed her eyes as she tried replenishing her mana.
"Open it."
"Eh?"
"I just explained my motifs did I not?" Ikaris looked around at Dina who was staring at the massive monster directly in front of her. "I have... All of us have a duty, a single goal, if this drags on too long I will not be able to fight any more," she threw her sword to the side and opened her palm toward the barrier.
"Are you sure?" Arla asked, already sensing a large buildup of mana from Ikaris who wanted to continue despite the quantity increasing outside.
[Infernal magic unknown tier: -]
"In the future, I will not be able to fight and grow with the rest of you, I want to become powerful in my own right before then, open it, and retreat for a few minutes."
"We couldn\'t possibly-"
"Just do as I say!" Ikaris snapped at Bruce.
"...Alright." Dina closed her eyes again and raised one hand causing a fissure to burst outward from the barrier leaving the creatures directly before it stunned and Ikaris used this small moment of confusion to escape before it slammed back shut and they all vanished within their shadows with Sara waving before she vanished as well.
A moment later there were three large scars across the land; they just seemed to appear out of nowhere, and from the inside of them thick red flame magic started pouring out like magma, and then more massive scars started showing up, as if an unseen giant clawed hand was dragging itself through the ground the creatures all stared at them in shock and confusion while Ikaris continued to ascend.
[-Devil\'s Nails]
The ground around the claw marks began swelling displacing the crust in a crimson phenomenon that became visible for miles in every direction like a distant volcano encompassing the entirety of the horde, from the hills in the South and the mountains in the North, to the forests on the East and West.
"In one fell swoop, all of you, fall to inevitable destruction and burn beneath my heels..." Ikaris ascended until she was at the edges of the atmosphere and then looked back down with an unusually sinister smile outside of her usual character casting her in a shadow of evil as the red glow beneath her highlighted her glowing blue eyes. "Disappear!" She clasped her fist.
[Mana: 90k\\\\121k]
[Mana 3k\\\\121k]
The marks all ignited and fire rapidly started to spread from them growing and swallowing everything as they reached for the skies in a slow explosion that caused the ground to rumble and the mana in the atmosphere to tremble.
Far outside of the range the others stared in shock as not only did it encompass a much larger area than Dina\'s [pulsar] ever did but it continued to grow in size, and right when they all thought it was over the large flames exploded a second time, swallowing the light of day as crimson created a sunset and massive fiery cracks ran all across the ground in every direction, reaching even their location forcing them to split apart when the ground caved and collapsed around them.
Above all of the destruction Ikaris floated with a passive glance watching Arkadian soil beneath her burn as not even a single one of the horde had been spared.
*Ding!
[You have slain 2,754,109 demonkin mixed from mid to low-tier]
[You have killed 500 high tier demonkin]
[You have levelled up: calculating...]
[Your mana has increased: calculating...]
[A new title has been rewarded]
[The gods have been shocked by this ungodly display of power]
[The goddess of flames expresses her intrigue in your continuous use of foreign infernal magic]
[The god of destruction is bewildered by your display]
[Calculation complete: you have gained 103 levels, mana has increased to 250k. All mana has been recovered, all fatigue has been alleviated]
[Heroic title: (Goddess of Battle) has been rewarded]