Chapter 141: Green, the not so stupid demon (1/2)
A surge of ash spread around her as the demons tried to get through her armor, scratching at the metal with their savage claws. Ilea used each impact to send a destructive Wave of Ember through the attackers combined with Destruction and reversed Reconstruction. The damage was enough to give her a minuscule time frame where none of them touched her, letting her blink away. The mind weaver was dead and her task was to focus on more of them.
The reason this city wouldn’t be taken by their small group of seven with Sulivhaan at the lead was because the enemy had leaders too. ‘One down…,’ she thought as she stood on top of the house, moving to the side to dodge a bone projectile flashing past her. The sky was burning with fire and ice, magical explosions destroying walls and parts of houses as they impacted into the demon masses and their stolen defenses.
Another four projectiles made her concentrate on her surroundings, blinking to the next house as she looked for mind weavers in her Sphere. Finding nothing, she spread her wings and flew to the next building, continuing to ignore the growing number of both ranged attacks towards her and demons chasing her as they tried to climb the buildings or rushed after her on the crowded streets.
Someone in the distance must’ve taken notice as a massive rock flew her way. Ilea smiled on top of the building and stopped her search, waiting for the demons to flock towards her before she blinked away right before the projectile landed. The piece of rock clipped the side of the building, taking a big chunk of it down with it as it smashed the demons below into a bloody paste before it rolled further, taking out even more of them.
The streets so far back weren’t as crowded anymore as the northern part of the city, where the demons tried to attack the enemy but Ilea didn’t have to try hard to have a large demon following. The long ranged mages in the distance took notice as they shot projectiles her way to avoid trying to hit the front lines of demons protected by the city walls.
“Another one…,” Ilea said as she appeared inside a house built a little higher than the ones around it, bladed gauntlets slashing through the thin mage’s body as ash entered the space around her. She pushed through the demons in front of her and right through the wall of the house to avoid a similar outcome as her previous target. Cutting off the arm of a demon hanging onto her leg, she blinked upwards when a fireball landed in the crowd below, the fiery explosion heating her back as she continued running over the rooftops.
She could see another warrior mimicking her behavior a couple hundred meters to her left, the two working as beacons for the artillery to attract demons around them. Killing the controlling mind mages brought chaos to the monsters around them and Ilea started to see some of them attacking each other as time went on. An effort by Weavy to be sure but soon enough the monsters would do so on their own volition with all the spells flying around and no clear target in sight.
A third mind mage was found when Ilea saw the warrior from before fly through the window of the house in front of her. Certainly an unorthodox approach, she thought. Especially head on but she wasn't one to judge. Seeing the demons in the house cut into the man left her with more than just a bit of doubt towards his approach. She appeared inside the stone house, her bladed gauntlets cutting through the monsters occupied with the warrior's body. She could see his eyes staring at her from behind his horned helmet. The monsters hadn't managed to rip open his chest piece but the cuts were getting deeper and deeper while his arms and legs were bleeding profoundly from wounds near his elbows and knees. Ilea created ash around them as she grabbed the man, and ran through the house's wall, seeing the screaming demons below her as wings spread and carried the two through one of the neighboring building's windows. She landed on her feet and felt his vitals with her healing skill, pushing some mana into the man. He was stable but it would take another couple minutes to get him up to fighting strength again.
“Go for the demon...” he said, blood spurting from his mouth as his wounds slowly closed. She nodded and blinked into the other house again where the monsters were scrambling towards the opened wall to get to them, jumping out and into the masses below while screaming. The mind weaver had four high leveled demons right beside it, knowing the imminent danger of the human warriors. Ilea dodged the claws of the first one and let two others cut through her Veil as she delivered a blade into the mind weaver's head and continuing forward with the force, the demon beind the mage falling down as she got the blade out, blinking out of the building and back to the wounded man.
“He's dead.” she simply said and pushed healing magic into him while the demons on the ground floor finally managed to break through the building's door and started scrambling up the stairs. She knew she had around seven more seconds to heal the man and would take every moment she could get while he was still stable on the ground. Moving him while injured was bad and it was reasonable to avoid it for as long as possible.
“Not the mage...” the man said as he coughed again. Ilea saw that above the building a demon had landed but it didn't look different than the ones coming up the stairs. Perhaps a little more muscle but its actions spoke more than its looks as it looked around, walked to the edge of the building and looked over to the other house before it looked down. Ilea saw its hideous mouth curl up a little into the resemblance of a grin. She grabbed the warrior below her and used her full strength to jump out of the building.
The two flew out as her wings spread from her back and the demon previously standing on top of the building was now standing on the ground floor, two huge holes above it, one of them right where Ilea and the warrior had been. She flew upwards, holding the man under his shoulders as she pushed more healing mana into him. Ranged demons shot their projectiles towards them as she flew through the city, low enough to stay below most of the building's roofs.
Three streets later she saw movement in her sphere behind her, the demon from before running on the ground and catching up quickly before it jumped, a clawed arm aiming for her back. She managed to move to the side quickly enough to change the direct hit to a glancing strike. The force was still overwhelming and sent her spiraling into a nearby stone house, her armored body breaking through the wall before she rolled on the ground, dust whirling around her as she stopped on her knees, turning around to find claws heading straight for her face. Ilea blinked a mere step backwards before she answered the now open demon with a hard punch to its stomach.
The impact felt more like she was hitting a punching bag in the gym and less like her overpowering strength that usually straight up demolished the enemy monsters. She barely managed to stop the monster's approach as it swung at her again with its free hand. Ilea moved her torso backwards, aided by the backlash from her previous punch and the strike missed but it was followed by a kick of the monster too fast for her to anticipate. The foot landed on her chest and she flew backwards and through another wall, several ribs broken and her spine at least injured.
Landing hard on the wall behind the building she had just been in, Ilea started to circle healing mana through her body as she slowly staggered away from the wall, expecting the next move of the enemy to follow right after. Luckily the demon had stopped its attack for a moment as she didn't see anything in her Sphere, looking towards the hole in the wall where the monster was slowly walking towards her, in its right hand the warrior she had tried to save before, his neck broken and bleeding as his corpse was dragged on the ground with the sound of screeching metal.
A quick motion from the demon sent the heavy corpse flying towards her, the body spinning twice before it impacted the wall behind Ilea who simply stood there, mending her broken bones and the internal bleeding.
“Throwing not good.” the demon snarled in a barely comprehensible voice, already an impressive feat considering the zombie like state of most of its bretheren. Not even the mind weavers had the ability to actually talk using vocals.
“Throwing not good.” Ilea mimicked, remembering her own attempts at the form of attack, though she deemed herself at least better than the demon before her who was now standing in the hole of the wall.
[Demon – lvl ??]
At least it wasn't more than two question marks but still, it had taken out the warrior who was at least healed enough to react and it had broken her hardened bones with a simple kick. She was wary to say the least, her initial plan to find and kill more mind weavers left her mind as she thought of more possibilities. If there were hundreds of demons capable of what the monster in front of her displayed, they might be in trouble.
More likely was that the enemy was an anomaly, and who better to distract this monstrosity from slashing through their long ranged artillery than herself, she was durable at least. Seeing the man behind her slid off the wall, his armor the only thing keeping his corpse in a presentable state Ilea prepared herself, clearing her mind.