NOVEL NEXT Masked Group Beating
Although they were both six-winged angels of the same rank, Claudia was clearly much stronger. Nicola's face turned red from exertion, but she couldn't move the Condensation Sword at all.
"Such inferior sword skills, and you dare attack me with a sword?" Claudia sneered coldly, about to move her fingers to counterattack. But suddenly she realized that her right hand holding the sword hilt was starting to become transparent and illusory, and the effect seemed to be spreading up her arm towards her body.
"What is this..." Her expression changed drastically. She let go of the Condensation Sword and retreated back dozens of meters in panic. "What did you do! No...what kind of sword is that?"
Claudia looked at her entire right hand and forearm dissipating into black smoke and disappearing into thin air in terror. Luckily she had retreated quickly, otherwise her whole arm might have been gone.
Fresh blood gushed from the severed elbow, but before it hit the ground it too turned into wisps of black smoke and vanished. I feel this is similar to when I bleed, except her blood turned into black smoke while mine turned into white light.
"Wind element...this is time!" After sensing her wound carefully, Claudia cried out in alarm.
Having lost a hand and bled heavily all of a sudden, her originally dark complexion seemed to turn much paler. Her whole being was clearly weakened.
Huh? Time? I didn't expect her to utter the word "time".
Of course I know the Condensation Sword is sharp, and I also roughly know it's made of wind element, but what does this have to do with time? I turned back to look at Eleanora, Selene and the rest, but everyone was just as lost and had no idea what had happened.
As for Nicola herself, she also had a dumbfounded expression, seemingly unable to believe that the sword in her hand had made the opponent's hand disappear without even touching her.
"You weakling, blaming time just because your skills are inferior." Since this wasn't the time to be hung up over such things, Nicola didn't want to rack her brains over what couldn't be figured out. She pointed her sword at Claudia to blame everything on her.
Seeing that Claudia's wound was healing quickly and the bleeding was slowing down, Nicola didn't dare give her a chance to catch her breath. She raised the Condensation Sword again to attack while the iron was hot.
"My ability to control energy comes from Lady Michelle, I definitely did not get it wrong!" Claudia's pride couldn't let her ignore such slander. She just had to retort back defiantly to defend herself.
Claudia still didn't dare use her hand to block. She could only dodge awkwardly in midair with her left hand clutching her right arm. Her movements were clearly hampered by the pain.
"If you're so powerful, then stop running away!" Unable to slash the evasive Claudia, Nicola could only shout angrily. Although Claudia was weak now, she wasn't struggling too much to dodge. So the two ended up in a tense standoff, neither able to gain an advantage.
But those of us watching the fight below were getting anxious. Putting aside the surrounding monsters gradually closing in, Claudia's injuries seemed likely to slowly recover over time. So now every second was precious. We had to take out the three top fighters on this island first, before dealing with the other small fries.
"I'll handle this dark elf." Since Alfreed couldn't fly, naturally his target wouldn't be Camille still in the sky. He drew his sword and walked towards the male dark elf standing at the intersection.
Seeing this, the dark elf wasted no time whipping out two daggers to fight. The instant Alfreed swung his sword over, there was suddenly a "bang!" as the dark elf disappeared from his original spot.
"What kind of trick is this!" I exclaimed in surprise, but Alfreed stayed calm. He swung his sword back behind him.
"Over here!" With a metallic "clang!", the dark elf reappeared right behind him, his daggers blocking the longsword's blade just in time.
"You're a 6th rank swordsman..." These were the first words I'd heard the male dark elf say. He didn't make another sound after that before disappearing again.
"Aren't you 6th rank too?" Alfreed shouted, then suddenly stabbed out with his sword towards the left.
This time, his weapon's greater reach proved advantageous. Although the dark elf's dagger barely grazed past his neck, Alfreed's sword directly stabbed into his shoulder.
"Evenly matched!" Alfreed gave a faint smile, pulling his sword back out without stopping as he continued hacking at his opponent...
The injured dark elf's movements were no longer so illusory and bizarre. He also didn't use that incredible invisibility trick again, but could still match blows for a short while without falling behind. Wielding the twin daggers exquisitely, he occasionally managed to fend off Alfreed's fierce attacks with his superior speed.
But that was the best he could do. Gradually, Alfreed began seizing the advantage by exploiting his opponent's injuries to take control of the fight. The scales of victory tipped increasingly towards our side.
That left only the succubus. I looked at Camille still circling high above. She had been watching Nicola and Claudia's fight from afar, but didn't dare intervene.
"Lady Nicola, take the chance to get rid of that succubus if you can!" Selene shouted at the two angels above as if wanting to scare Camille away. As expected, Camille immediately flew even further away upon hearing this.
"Camille, you dare not watch the fight? Dare you come down and fight us?" I shouted up to challenge her. From the earlier fight with the vampire, I could tell that Camille's strength was below 6th rank, probably only 5th rank. If all of us here attacked together, we could definitely mob her to death.
The only tricky part was that she could fly while only I could fly on our side. I definitely didn't dare to challenge her alone. I still remembered her chasing me all over Val City last time.
"You think I'm stupid? So many of you beating one of me, if you have the guts then fight me one-on-one!" As expected, Camille's mind was still clear. She wasn't provoked by my words at all, only keeping her distance in the sky.
"Nevermind, Feliciana you go fight her. With us here, I'm sure you won't lose." Adrian suddenly pushed me from behind and whispered to me.
"You can't be serious!" I hurriedly turned back to look at him. I was only 3rd rank...or 4th rank at best. There's no way I could beat this succubus alone. The outcome was set even before the fight began!
"Don't worry, just trust Adrian. If he says you can do it, then you definitely can." Eleanora also came over to persuade me.
What could I say, I actually somewhat suspected Adrian still held a grudge about me rejecting his advice to run away last time, so now he's finding a chance to get back at me...
Seeing Eleanora's mysterious smile suddenly directed at me, maybe they really had some way for me to win, like helping me secretly during the fight. So I decided not to refuse anymore.
"But I don't have any weapons now." I was about to unsheathe my sword when I found my waist empty. Only then did I remember it had broken during the earlier fight with the vampire.
"That's easy! Hayden, give your sword to Feliciana." Eleanora turned to Hayden behind her and said. Without a word, he immediately detached his sword from his waist and handed it to me.
"This is a pretty good sword..." I swished it around a few times. It should be a standard military-issue longsword, much better quality than the cheap 100 silver I bought.
"Well, I'll go give it a try then?" I said, then turned to look at where Camille was. Spreading my wings, I prepared to take off.
"Go for it, have confidence!" Adrian nodded at me one last time.
Alright, an utterly absurd fight was about to start. I never thought I'd make such a silly decision. I could only bitter smile as I flew to Camille and stopped not far in front of her. She also had a dumbfounded look that I as a 4-winged angel actually dared to come challenge her.
"Don't you still want more of the lesson from last time? I won't let you escape this time." She took out her long whip and swaggered it threateningly.
"Aren't you the pub's boss lady? Why aren't you running your business but staying here instead? How did a 5th rank succubus like you get involved with such a military place?" I was quite curious about this. The other two were understandable, but it was strange for her to appear in this kind of restricted area, and seemingly quite highly ranked too.
"Hmph, with all the regular customers enlisted to battle, where's there still any business..." Rarely, Camille revealed a helpless expression when talking about this.
"I was also drafted, but I'm better at serving people than fighting. Luckily I managed to please Lady Mika and so was kept by her side."
Oh, so many private factors were actually involved. Feeling somewhat awkward hearing that, I instantly turned silent.
"Speaking of, since you don't like fighting, why must you invade the Astral Realm Kingdom?" I asked puzzledly. After coming to this Dark Continent, I felt that demons also had their own lives not too different from the human world in many ways.
"Then go ask Lady Michelle yourself!" She finished and immediately lashed her whip at me.
"Who wants a sympathetic angel chitchatting with me! Who wants you prying into my affairs!"
"Hey! No need to attack just because of some words!" I hurriedly raised my sword to block. Actually it was mainly because she was far stronger than me that I didn't dare attack first, so I could only use words to disguise that.
Unlike normal weapons, as soon as my sword touched her whip, it got tangled up and wrapped around several loops. Camille seized the chance to yank back forcefully once my weapon was snared. My grip almost slipped under the immense strength, but thankfully I was wielding with both hands and barely managed to cling on.
With her 5th rank power, I was no match for her strength. Even though I hadn't lost my weapon yet, this tug-of-war could only end with my defeat.
"Show your real skills if you have any guts!" I pulled with all my might to wrest back some advantage, but her whip's ability to restrain swords was just too oppressive, it's totally unfair for me. With both hands occupied I also couldn't cast any Purification spells.
Suddenly an arrow of light shot up from below towards the succubus. Caught unaware, Camille dodged sideways in shock, and my pressure instantly eased up. I immediately unwound my sword from the whip and retreated back several meters.
"Too sly! Dare to fight without help!" Camille screamed furiously.
"Sorry, I can't hear you!" I knew we were the shameless ones, but this was never meant to be a fair fight, to begin with. Moreover, they had already promised to help me, I wouldn't have dared come alone otherwise!