<~> Chapter 319"Lilith, they're coming!" Silva called out.

  The golden-furred dogkin and four other cultists leapt down from the ptform they were on and started running toward us. The four others wore robes over bck brigandine armor, and two were wielding swords. It didn't look like they were going to give us any time to recover.

  "Nelly! Refresh our stamina with your magic and come take Morrigan!"

  Without skipping a beat, Nelly ran over and took Morrigan from my arms while the others formed up toward the quickly approaching enemies. From behind, I felt Nelly's magic pulse out and ease some of the aches and exhaustion from our muscles. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't like we were fully rested again, but it would help.

  "Mimi, protect the backline, everyone else, get ready!"

  I stood up front with Silva, Kal'daeryn, and Sibyl. Dozens of Raya's illusions scattered, and the four of us mixed ourselves into the crowd. We couldn't completely rely on them, but they would make an already confused melee that much more difficult for the other side. Our bond let us perfectly coordinate with each other so that we wouldn't get confused ourselves.

  "Fire!" Torien called. She, along with Lori and Raya, fired their bows and magic at the approaching group. One of the two mages waved a hand and summoned a wall of earth from the ground that blocked the incoming attacks. A moment ter, the wall fell apart without having slowed the cultists down. Torien clicked her tongue. "Fire at will!"

  Torien and Lori went in opposite directions, firing from different angles, while Raya stayed behind with Bel to use her foxfire magic to attack them from the front. The two mages began to block with terra and ice magic while the three warriors ran forward, dodging Raya's foxfire.

  I pulled out a mana potion and drank it. The potion turned my stomach a little, but I put up with it. I used [Chromatic Halo], recast [Domain of Light], and began throwing [Blinding Crescents] at the quickly approaching group.

  The golden-furred woman was fast. From this distance, the travel speed of my crescent attacks made her impossible to hit, so I focused on the other two warriors. One of them was unable to dodge in time and was blinded. He tried to continue running without his sight, but he became unable to dodge the other projectiles coming for him, and fell over dead from a well-pced arrow to the skull.

  [Your party has killed a Soldier level 45]

  I didn't have time to think about the kill, I had to stay focused on the fight, but I felt the bile in my stomach rise up again. I pushed down the emotion I was feeling and gripped my light magic sword tighter.

  ("Grasping roots coming in!") Bel called out through the bond. The ground exploded with activity as roots shot up, hampering their dash. The isnd we were standing on was free from trees, but that didn't stop Bel's powerful nature magic from creating roots that tangled them up and attempted to slow them further.

  The enemy mages skidded to a stop and began their countermeasures against Bel's magic. Roots exploded into fire, froze into ice, or crumbled away with a dark magic that smelled like decay. The mages were surprisingly effective at protecting themselves from Bel's crowd control attacks. Walls of hardened earth rose in a loose ring around them to block projectiles from different angles while leaving rge enough gaps that they could continue firing at us. Fortunately, while they were working on stopping the roots from suppressing their melee fighters, they weren't able to continue protecting them from all the arrows as easily. Before the battle truly began, we got a few good hits on them before they were able to csh with us.

  Unfortunately, they were already too close to exploit the vulnerability for long. Silva, Kal'daeryn, Sibyl, and I met the two other fighters. Just like st time, the golden-furred dogkin woman only had eyes for me. I was prepared for her to approach me, but she suddenly did something unexpected. She jumped into the air and caught an arrow that was headed toward one of the mages, before redirecting its momentum and throwing it at me instead! I wouldn't have believed it was possible if I hadn't seen her do it with my own eyes.

  At the st moment, I raised my shield and caught the arrow she had redirected, but by the time I lowered it, she had appeared right in front of me, past my other teammates! Reacting instantly, I sshed at her with my sword, but she dodged the bde. Somehow, she was even more slippery and hard to hit while I was in my true form. It wasn't that I was slower or more clumsy. She was just able to use her speed to slip past all of my attacks. After only three quick exchanges, she nded a blow on me.

  All of my breath left me as she nded a solid hit on my ribcage with her steel-like fist. I felt a crunch as several of my ribs broke from the impact. She hit me like a truck and threw me back with the attack. She had an enormous amount of strength hidden in her small frame. After our st fight, I thought I had a measure of her strength, but now it felt like she was holding back before. But why?

  Rejuvenating magic flowed into my body, and I felt my ribs painfully snap back into pce. Thankfully, the green motes of light from Bel's magic felt soothing after the initial burst of pain, and I retook my stance.

  Kal'daeryn roared as she sshed at the dogkin with her cws. The woman caught Kal's arm and redirected it away from her, but Kal was able to use the change in momentum to follow up with a spinning kick. The dogkin was forced to block the attack with her arm and tumble away. Kal'daeryn didn't allow her to flee and followed up with combination punches that forced the woman to deflect them rather than evade. The two suddenly looked like dancers, reacting to each other and fighting in a graceful hand-to-hand brawl. I hadn't known Kal'daeryn was so experienced in unarmed combat, but considering she often doesn't even bother drawing her bde, I probably shouldn't have been surprised.

  While Kal'daeryn kept the dogkin busy, I refocused on the other fighter that Sibyl was fighting. I fnked the man, making it impossible for him to escape Sibyl's acrobatic attacks. Because I was now pressuring him from behind, he was forced to catch and deflect her bde when it came for him, rather than dodge out of the way.

  It didn't take long for us to dispatch this man as well. Once I had an opening, I took the opportunity to hamstring the man by cutting the tendons in the back of his ankle, which made him unable to escape Sibyl any longer.

  [Your party has killed a Swordsman level 42]

  I grimaced and turned back to the dogkin, who was now fighting both Kal'daeryn and Silva together. Silva didn't look like she could do much to actually approach the scrap, but she restricted the dogkin's options. She boxed her in and made it more difficult for the woman to continue evading Kal'daeryn's attacks. The dogkin already had long gashes across several parts of her body, while Kal'daeryn had only received gncing rakes across her skin. But even throughout the fight, the golden-furred dogkin's eyes kept gncing over to me.

  Rather than approach, I kept my distance. I knew that my presence would only make it harder for the others, so I focused on the mages now instead. The two of them had dug in and created fortifications around themselves. They both had surprising amounts of mana. Most people would have been tapped out after creating the number of earthen walls they've made by this point. Instead, they shot back at Raya and the archers that continued to pepper at their protective walls of ice and rock. Several times, Torien had used magic to enhance her arrows enough to crack one of the walls open, but the mages quickly repced them and continued to retaliate.

  It was a bit of a risk, but I decided to use [Brilliant Laser] to destroy their defenses. If I channel long enough, I should be able to destroy both structures and possibly hit them inside as well. I hardened myself for the possibility and collected the necessary mana into my sword.

  The eyes of the two mages snapped to me as they likely felt the amount of mana I was condensing. [Brilliant Laser] was not a cheap spell, and that made it all the more devastating. Additional walls of rock and ice began to spring up in front of them, but it was too te. I activated the spell and pointed the tip of my sword at the ice mage's defenses. A horrible sound rang out as my intense light magic, enhanced with [Light Domain] and [Chromatic Halo], tore through his walls like a hot knife. I frowned as I saw the man's eyes widen from here, right before I received the notification.

  [Your party has killed an Ice Mage level 54]

  The moment I received the notification, I turned the spell toward the other mage, but I already felt the exhaustion setting in from holding [Brilliant Laser] active for so long. The rock walls he had erected crumbled under my ser as well, but I wasn't able to hold it long enough to actually kill the other mage. I released the spell and panted, taking a few steps back and wobbling on my feet. My friends kept up the pressure, and it didn't seem like it would take long for them to finish the job at this rate.

  "Lilith! Watch out!" Silva yelled.

  I turned just in time to see the golden-furred dogkin woman plunge a bde through my armor and into my gut.

  "I'm sorry former champion, but this is necessary." She pulled the knife out and smmed it back into my abdomen several times, creating a mess of blood and shattering my magic armor. I gasped out in shock as I fell over. I already felt faint. The woman stood over me, but rather than finish the job, she tossed her knife away and filled a potion vial with my blood. She looked down at me for a brief moment before turning around and running.

  She avoided the others and quickly dodged past them as I stared at her back in confusion. The woman dodged their melee attacks and twisted in midair to avoid the arrows and magic that shot past her. In mere moments, the woman was halfway back to the pilr's edge, abandoning the other mage that was still alive.

  Nelly and Bel both crashed to their knees next to me, only half a second apart. Green and gold magic lit both of them up as the two worked together to save my life. Each of them quickly drank a mana potion and continued as I shivered and tried to stay awake.

  "She... called me 'former champion' before she ran," I gasped out.

  Bel's eyes didn't leave the space she was working on, but she replied, "Former champion? What did you think she meant?"

  I shuddered as something twisted back into pce uncomfortably. "I don't know. What's a champion?" I croaked out.

  "A champion is like a high priest or padin. Something just short of a god's avatar," Nelly answered. She was just as focused on her healing as Bel was. I didn't feel pain... I only felt numb as the two worked to put me back together again. I couldn't help but imagine myself as a cracked egg on the sidewalk.

  "Keep talking, Lilith. Did she say anything else?" Bel asked.

  I licked my dry lips. "No, I mean, yes. She said sorry, it was necessary. I don't know what she meant." I coughed up some blood and felt light-headed.

  "She's lost a lot of blood, I think we should feed her some of my milk," Nelly said.

  Bel nodded. "Do it. Do you have any more bottles on you?"

  "Yes, here. I have to focus on this part." Nelly quickly handed over a satchel before furrowing her brow and squinting.

  "Got it." Bel gently lifted my head and brought one of the bottles of milk to my lips.

  I began to drink the milk. It tasted so sweet. I felt it travel down to my stomach and cool me from the inside. I hadn't realized how parched I was. The milk felt nice and pleasant going down as it quenched my thirst, despite its thickness.

  "Is she going to be alright?" Mimi asked with a pained voice.

  "I'll be okay, Mimi," I said weakly.

  "Bel?" Mimi asked.

  I frowned. Mimi sounded on the verge of tears.

  "She'll make it. I won't let Lilith die," Bel said with conviction.

  "I've got everything reattached and reconstructed down here," Nelly said.

  Bel nodded. "Good, I'll mend the rest now. We're lucky it didn't go any higher. It didn't touch her heart."

  Nelly's eyes scanned my innards. "Do you want me to handle the scarring too?"

  "Definitely the inside scarring, do you have enough mana for the outside?" Bel asked.

  Nelly nodded. "I can handle it, I think. I could also take another mana potion if I need it. I think healing the scarring will help her recover faster."

  Bel looked lost in thought for a moment before nodding. "Do it then. Just be careful not to exhaust yourself too much."

  "Okay, working on it," Nelly said.

  "I'm already feeling better," I groaned out.

  Bel looked down at me and smiled. "That's great. You can rex now. You're safe."

  I sighed and let go of some tension I had been holding. I couldn't let myself pass out, though. We still needed to finish the end of the dungeon. That woman escaped. She took my blood.

  What was she after? What is my blood for?

  Saine

  Hello! That was a pretty rough fight! Things have not been going well on this dungeon delve. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, thanks for reading!

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