The skies had turned dark, inside our room, Mana and Kaori together with me started planning out and laying down everything we knew about the devil; Mana talked little since she knew almost nothing, but she offered solutions now and then which were handy. Flora and Crystal weren’t informed at all, we placed the two to sleep before starting our plan.
“What kind of formation do you think would be best?” I inquired while looking at the two as we sat on a tiny round table filled with paper documents. We finished writing down the seal formation and the weakness of the devil which was on her forehead, but the issue is how to reach her.
Her weakness is naturally protected heavily, not to mention, she has powers that far surpass any other devil we have created. We can only imagine the situation if indeed the sealed dimension she was locked on moved faster, she was an immortal, to say the least. There was no end to her lifespan, the only way she could die is when her magic crystal is completely broken.
“I think it would be best if we form eight teams, two at each corner, basically surround them while the main team which is basically the frontline will be facing straight in front of her. The reason being, her weakness is situated on her forehead,” Kaori responded.
“That sounds a bit risky, what if she acquires a power that allows her to petrify or completely annihilate the first creatures before her?” Mana intervened to which Kaori frowned.
Indeed, Kaori’s suggestion would be the normal route we would go but the issue is, this devil is basically a level or two higher than the serpent I have fought with the headmaster and His Majesty. Though compared to the serpent, the devil should be at a lower health point—probably by 99.5% lower than the maximum health of the serpent which is still at ten billion.
“Then how else should we approach this?” I looked at Mana and asked.
“In my opinion, the best way to attack the weakness is through long-range and that is none other than Ayumi. If I remember correctly, you have that odd weapon of yours that can turn into some sort of projectile type of weapon right?” Mana inquired before I nodded.
The dagger that can turn into a shotgun that Mom gave me, I hardly had any use for the shotgun mode which is why I kept utilizing the dagger mode. Not to mention, her suggestion would also fall into impossible ranges since the shotgun has a pretty short range though there is also the Angelic Bow which has very high damage with a super long range.
“Indeed but the gun won’t work instead the bow will, but that doesn’t mean the devil will be taken out with guarantee. At most, I expect the bow to only take around 5 percent of her total health points for each strike on the forehead which is hardly enough…” I smiled wryly.
All of us were running out of ideas on how to approach this issue, indeed, my bow was one of the best ideas to take down the devil, but it isn’t the most ideal. If you think about it from a game perspective, having the most damage on a raid boss—damage that surpasses all damages around you—basically means you take the aggro away even with a defensive type of user with an aggro skill which is never ideal.
“I have an idea…” I said before continuing, “I don’t think I mentioned this to Mana yet but during my coma, Kaori and I managed to meet my mom who had supposedly died in the other world. There I was given a chance to be trained by her personally, basically, inherit her fighting skills—anyway, that is the talk for another time.”
“Basically, among those skills is a special sealed skill called ‘The night when the stars falls’ which I have personally used once. It is a skill that unlocks all the seals that she placed on me, in a sense, boosting all my statistics by over 5000%...”
All of them were surprised with Kaori asking, “Why haven’t you used it yet? Does it have some kind of consequence after using?”
“Well—there is one consequence, the reason why she taught me this skill is for me to use in an inevitable situation where the chances of death are 99.5 percent higher than the chances of surviving, the reason being, the skill unlocks all other skills at the same time which also apparently releases the mana seal imposed onto me by the Goddess and as you know, suddenly having your mana increased by a high percentage such as a 1,000% percent within a few seconds makes your body unstable…” I smiled wryly.
“Are you serious?! You should never use that skill then! You are risking death, Ayumi!” Kaori and Mana suddenly both shouted but soon realized that Crystal and Flora were just a room nearby and lowered their voice in an instant.
“I know—the skill will only be used in a situation where I am forced to, I also have some other skills that were taught to me, for example, the Angelic Rose skillset which consists mostly of archery skills and the Queenshelm Inheritance skill paired with Astral Skies which are both dagger skillsets,” I smiled.
Astral Skies is basically Mom’s very own dagger technique she taught to herself—it is around twenty times more powerful than Queenshelm’s very own especially when you consider that she taught it to herself for a super long time inside her own sealed dimension, moreover, what makes Mom’s dagger skillset more overpowered is the fact that it can be paired with another dagger skillset like the Queenshelm’s but it requires two daggers if you wish to pair it with another.
“I understand, how do you want to approach this then?” Kaori questioned.
“Kaori should also have her very own skillset pair right? If I remember correctly, Mom should have taught you her own sword skillset before I came to her dimension, is that correct?” I asked before she nodded.
“The Starry Night skillset which is a custom one she created specifically for me. It allows me to dual-wield two swords while also utilizing my other skillset which is basically flying swords, it is a pretty heavy pair of skills to utilize which is why I don’t like using it. Why?” she asked.
“I have an idea—” I said before explaining my entire plan with them which was soon approved. Not long after our little planning session, Kaori and I left the house and started making our way towards the headmaster’s residence which was basically our meeting place wearing our own equipment.
The equipment I wore basically composed of the armor Aurora had given me in the past, the dagger I bought from the shop which was basically that Anonymous Dagger which has apparently grown in stats by a marginal amount for some reason—the dagger Mom had given me which was also tremendously strong by itself.
Kaori wore a simple white dress as always; she apparently doesn’t use any gear since her gear is her own weapons. Each weapon that she summons also adds another layer of invisible shield around her which is not strong but if you stack them up to the hundreds is a formidable armor by itself. She brought no weapons as well since she only summons them with her skill—convenient indeed.
We soon arrived at Aurora’s residence, greeted by ten different groups of heavily armed people. The entire living room was packed with people, His Majesty and her daughter were present; Seele was also there and several dozens more with even the Guild master—that red-haired lady.
“The two of you have arrived,” Aurora appeared from the side with a serious expression. She wore a black gothic dress with a single emblem on her chest. A beautiful emblem of a diamond dagger and a black dagger with a crown above it.
“Indeed, we have also come up with an entire plan for everything. Have a look,” I said while handing out all the papers we had causing all the leaders of the other groups to also come here and take a glance. The plan was solid in my opinion, it took us almost three hours of planning back and forth to create it.
It relied mostly on the cooperation of Kaori and me, Leisha couldn’t join in sadly since she was already asleep by the time we came back, and we didn’t want to disturb her sleep which meant we lost another huge force but it was still possible with only us.
“This looks pretty good—but if the weakness is on its forehead, then can’t we all focus on attacking its forehead instead?” a beautiful orange-haired woman asked, she wore a red heavy armor with a gigantic red sword on her back.
“It is possible but doing that will cause a lot of spells and attacks to invalidate each other. Imagine what would happen if a hundred spells were fired at one point, all at the same time, wouldn’t they all invalidate each other and cancel out?” Aurora replied to which the woman nodded.
“We will proceed as planned then; the heavy defense will be standing at the forefront with the dagger group together with a split of the archer group stationed at the back of the devil. Another split of the archer group will be stationed together with the Magus group behind the heavy defense.”
The reason why we wanted to split the archer group is because we want the devil to be distracted by the sudden attack from its back and the sudden attack on its front. It will be confused over where to put its aggro on while Kaori and I prepare.
“The swordsmen and other short-ranged weapons will move out after the heavy defense takes the initial attack of the devil which according to what Ayumi here wrote is an area of effect that affects everything until the walls of the room, raising the temperature to around 250 Celsius for ten seconds. I believe we have a few dozen shields that can resist such temperatures right?”
The ones that wore heavy defense armors all nodded at the same time, in Solis, shields that can sustain 500 Celsius were all over the market but the issue back on Solis at the start was no one expected the initial burst, and everyone died in an instant except for the one who was their defense, that is because no armor can sustain such heat except shields.
“Ayumi and Kaori will basically act as a separate team then, their plan is something that cannot be shared so we will let them act to their whim. For each wave of arrows thrown from the front team, the back team should follow immediately to make the devil confused as according to what Ayumi wrote here, the devil has no area of effect attack that will work against such tactic.”
“His Majesty’s team which consists mainly of high-damage magicians will be stationed at the very back. Seele and I will accompany Kaori and Ayumi as well since our skillset matches.”
“All in all, our main goal is to annihilate it fully since we don’t want to leave the future generations a threat that could be the cause of their annihilation. Remember, this battle is not for jokes—all of us could die in this battle which is why I hope all of you have already left wills and other necessities for your families to live even without you,” Aurora said with a serious tone before all of a sudden, a loud rumble exploded around the city.
The rumble caused the entire city to shake heavily, only to stop a few seconds later as a white hooded person appeared beside Kaori, whispering to her a few kinds of stuff before vanishing as Kaori looked at us with a heavy expression, swinging her hand to the side, creating a dimensional crack.
“We have no time now, the devil was summoned—” Kaori shouted to everyone, “All of you who are prepared can head inside the dimensional crack, my very own team has created a special seal that splits that space into another dimension for as long as the mana stones can sustain.”
“Let’s move!” Aurora shouted to everyone who all nodded at the same time, rushing towards the dimensional crack with the heavy defense people at the very first of the line with their shields up.
— Somewhere —
“Your Highness, the devil has been summoned!” a black-hooded woman bowed down towards a black-haired lady who wielded a skeleton staff.
In an instant, the black-haired lady stood up and pointed at the door with her skeleton staff before the door exploded, turning into a black hole to which she ordered, “All of you, as planned, move out! It is time to defeat the devil!”
“Yes, Your Highness!” everyone bowed down before in an orderly manner, rushed out towards the black hole as the black-haired lady looked up at the roof with a worried expression.
“Ayumi… Kaori… be safe, I will be there soon,” she mumbled before vanishing from her spot.
—And so, the Battle of Flames started.
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