It would be difficult for Elise to ascertain her position by looking around while moving due to her speed and the fact that the environment around the edges of the river didn’t have a lot of unique features in that area. However, the girl had already thought of that.

She knew more or less where she had gone into the river, and she knew that from that point, the river was more or less straight for around twelve kilometers, at which point there would be a sharp turn. Elise decided that such a distance was just about right, as she wasn’t trying to outrun the opponents (which she knew would be impossible given that they should be able to call for another transport), but simply to give the group enough of a buffer to accomplish what she wanted.

It took only a few minutes for the girl to reach the river’s curve, upon which she moved herself to the edge and climbed out of the water. Elise hadn’t gone nearly far enough to reach a different environment, so the place she was greeted with was still a grassland, but there was a relatively large hill close by, which was probably the best place for them to make their stand. Though it would need some help:

‘Are you seeing this, Yura?’ She asked the elf while running to the hill.

‘Yes.’ Came the response, which was a given since Elise was still sight sharing with her.

‘I’m gonna need you to turn this place into a good defensible spot, so rest for a little bit and think about how best to do that.’ Elise said, before letting Yura out of the mindscape, having already reached the foot of the hill.

She then sent out Nina with instructions to help Yura. The elf had sat down and was resting as instructed, but she told the rabbit girl to begin digging up the earth on one side of the hill and pilling it up. With that out of the way, Elise could turn her attention to Nalia.

‘I did my best to help with your injuries, but it’s still gonna be painful when you come out. Are you ready?’ She asked.

Nalia did the mental equivalent of a long sigh before replying okay, upon which Elise raised her hand, palm up, and brought the fairy onto it. Nalia winced at the sudden pain, but avoided letting out any noise. She just lay flat on her contractor’s palm, looking incredibly haggard.

“You can cancel the spell on me. We don’t need it anymore.” Elise said, and the fairy did so.

The spell was the type that could persist independently of the caster, which was why it was still in effect while Nalia was inside the mindscape, and it was fueled by the power of Elise’s own soul, so the girl decided that it was best to cancel it in order to have as much energy as possible for what she was planning to do.

Speaking of which, the fairy began to talk “Okay, what’s the plan here? I can’t move at all, and even canceling that spell was difficult, so using any other magic is pretty much impossible.”

Nalia’s current state was a good illustration of various principles related to the power of the soul. One could say that such power was unlimited, but harnessing it put a burden on the body depending on the amount used. That burden would manifest itself as tiredness at first, but if one were to keep using magic despite it that would result in damage to their body.

One of the main aspects of growing stronger in terms of the soul was increasing the tolerance of one’s body to the magical power, allowing the user to harness more energy for longer, without putting as much of a burden on it. But there was another limitation to soul power. One couldn’t pull out too much power at once, for that too would result in damage to the body.

That limit was also something that could be increased by training, but even with how much stronger Nalia had gotten since the beginning, the amount of power she forced out in an instant to cast that spell was far beyond her limits. In fact, she wasn’t that far off from literally killing herself with that magic.

The damage to her body had been massive, and while Elise’s healing was enough to keep her stable, Nalia’s body remained on such a fragile state that harnessing more energy than the bare minimum was quite likely to kill her.

Yet, in response to the fairy’s question, Elise smiled.

“I have a way to heal you and make you stronger.” She replied “That’s the one plan I could think of that had any chance of saving us.”

“Really? That sounds…” Nalia couldn’t quite figure out what words to say “Almost too convenient.” She noticed Elise’s expression become serious “There’s a catch, isn’t there?”

“Yes.” Elise admitted “It depends mostly on how much stronger you’ve gotten, which is why I haven’t done that to you or Nina yet.” She sighed “You’re not quite there yet, but you’re closer than Nina, so I should be able to force it.”

‘I can make up the difference.’ Elise thought to herself ‘I have to. It’s the only way.’

Nalia could tell that her contractor’s plan was not something to be done lightly. She could tell that Elise herself wasn’t sure of how feasible it was, but the fairy didn’t have anything she could do to help the situation. She cursed the enemies for forcing the group to have to go to such lengths.

+0+

After that, Yura finished her rest and began turning the area into the most suitable battlefield she could. Elise told her and Nina about the plan, saying that the process would take a few hours, so the duo was responsible for holding the line if the enemies arrived before she was finished. She also informed them about what she had learned from using her ability on the enemies earlier on.

The elf started the process by moving around the earth of the hill to shape it into a sort of cave around Elise and Nalia, leaving only a small gap to the side to serve as an entrance and exit. Then she began creating a veritable labyrinth of earth, making tall and thick reinforced walls that connected together into a multitude of paths, some of them short and others long, all enclosed by an even more reinforced ceiling.

Yura also created small openings at different heights that connected some of those paths together. Said openings were just big enough for Nina to be able to go through, specifically to allow her to more easily use a hit and run style of fighting (Yura could just dig her way through the walls themselves).

Meanwhile, Elise was focusing on her connection to Nalia, as well as the fairy’s condition, both that of her physical form and of her soul. Nalia was giving what support she could to that by focusing on herself and sending everything she felt to her contractor through their bond.

That was all preparation, and yet it over an hour for the girl to decide that they were ready. Once it was done, though, Elise took a deep breath and sent a message to the duo of Nina and Yura, saying that she was going to need full focus and to not bother her unless the enemies had appeared.

Then she asked Nalia whether she was ready, received a positive response and began the procedure, sending energy from her soul into the fairy, channeling it towards the connection between Nalia’s body and soul. Said connection wasn’t truly a physical spot, but rather more like an idea. Still, what Elise was doing required incredible trust from the other party, as a small misstep could result in the connection being severed, meaning instant death.

It was also quite uncomfortable for Nalia, but the fairy already knew that was going to be the case and was fine with it. She also knew that it would only get worse as the process continued, both for her and for Elise. She was considerably less fine with that.

Elise’s energy focused together before finally overflowing, spreading across Nalia’s entire body while still tied to the connection with the soul. It was time.

“One step towards transcendence…” Elise spoke, and her power acted.

As stated previously, Nalia’s current state was due to damaging her own body by channeling power beyond its limits. Transcendents had bodies which were in perfect harmony with their souls, so they didn’t need to worry about that, but there were also beings like the dragons who had bodies that were naturally better at channeling the energy of their souls, meaning they could get stronger easier, at least during the beginning.

But what if one could change their own body to become more like those beings? It would still be a far cry from transcendence, but one would be able to instantly become a lot stronger, simply from not having to deal with as much of a hindrance to channeling the power of their soul, never mind the higher attributes of that kind of body.

The technique Elise was using was essentially that, which was why she called it “One step towards transcendence”, but it mas better known by a different name:

Evolution.

+0+

As that was happening, Yura was doing her best to make the most defensible battlefield possible, and Nina was following her around to get a grasp on the many complicated interweaving paths of their earthly stronghold. It was honestly kind of impressive how much work she was putting into it.

“Err… I think that’s enough.” Nina eventually interrupted the elf “You should rest and recover to one hundred percent while we have the chance.”

“Ah? Ah, oh yeah, you’re right…” Yura replied, slightly startled “Sorry, I was just having so much fun I lost track of time…”

‘That’s unusual.’ Nina thought with slight amusement.

The two of them walked to the outside of the stronghold and sat down to rest and keep watch. After a little bit, Yura decided to ask Nina something.

“How long have you been Elise’s partner?”

“Not entirely sure… Maybe a month?” The rabbit replied.

“A month…? How is it that…” Yura could not think of a good way to finish her thought, so she changed tack “And what about Nalia?”

“She’s been with Elise for longer. I think the two had been partnered something like three weeks before they met me.”

“Just three weeks more…? But did they know each other for a long time before making a contract?” Yura tried to understand the whole situation.

“No. Apparently they made a contract on the same day they met for the first time. Same as me.” Nina explained.

“But that doesn’t… How do you…?” The elf was baffled by what she was hearing, to the point where she had to stop and think for a few seconds to figure out what to say “Forgive me for asking, but why are the two of you so loyal to her after so little time?”

“That’s… How do I say it…? She promised to help me reach my dreams, and I’m sure she can do it. Plus, she also treats us like family, and never asks us to go through anything she wouldn’t endure herself.” Nina smiled “Despite how little time we’ve spent together in comparison to the length of my life, being with her just feels natural.”

“Family…” Yura muttered to herself. Nina could tell that there was a lot of emotion behind those words.

+0+

Back with Nalia and Elise, the fairy was experiencing something she could have never imagined: Feeling her body melt like clay.

It wasn’t as painful as that sounded, since her nerves had been mostly deadened by the process, but Nalia couldn’t help but think that pain might have been preferable. What she was grappling against was the feeling that she was losing herself as her body lost its shape, feeling like she was becoming wrong, as it became harder and harder to recognize that melted mass as being part of her.

Yet the fairy couldn’t allow herself to give up. Elise was giving it her all to make her stronger, and that was the only way the group would be able to survive, so she did her part, continuously engraving the mark of her soul into the melting flesh. The goal of the process was creating a new form adapted to the strength she had gained from Elise’s training and the many fights she’d been in, so she had to imbue the mass with her power as deeply as she could.

Meanwhile, Elise was struggling. She was holding Nalia on top of her right hand, but by that point she needed to hold onto her right arm with the other hand in order to keep it upright, as that arm had completely lost strength and sensation. Still, the girl forced herself to focus on the evolution process, remolding Nalia’s body in such a way that the fairy wouldn’t die, and trying to establish a new harmony between it and her soul.

Elise’s heart had gotten out of rhythm, and her sight blurred beyond being able to recognize anything other than vague shapes, but her focus was completely on the process. It felt agonizingly slow, but eventually the fairy’s flesh began to change back into a recognizable shape, little by little, until it suddenly stopped halfway through.

It wasn’t enough, just as expected, so the girl did not hesitate. She called upon power from the depths of her soul and forced it through the connection. Elise could feel her right arm again, but only as a flaming mass of pain, and her vision went from blurry to completely dark.

Yet the girl did not stop, for her efforts caused Nalia’s transformation to resume. Just a little bit further…

‘Big sister, the enemies are here.’ Came Nina’s voice through the connection.

Elise almost laughed. She had been expecting that message, but she had almost begun to believe that the evolution would be finished before it arrived.

‘Almost done. Just buy me a few minutes.’ She sent back, and turned her focus completely to the task.

She was going to finish it no matter what.

+0+

The enemies had come in a helicopter that looked almost the same as the one from before, except with some silver accents. The helicopter landed about two hundred meters away from the earth stronghold and opened its door, allowing thirteen people to disembark, but although it was the same number as the last time, there was a small difference.

One of the people who had been there during the previous time, a blond-haired human woman who used ranged attack spells, did not appear among the ones disembarking, while a new person, a male human wearing long robes, was there in her place.

‘Is she the one piloting the helicopter?’ Nina questioned.

She could tell that there was someone sitting at the controls, but the angle and the distance made it hard to discern their identity.

‘It would make sense for them to leave someone guarding the transport after what we did last time.’ The rabbit reasoned ‘And this new person… If he’s a substitute for the flying elf, then he must be a strong one.’

Thinking up to that point, she reflected on what she knew about the enemies. Besides the windmaster, there were two other members of the group who stood out in terms of strength. One of them was a male elf whose skin tone was the same as Yura’s, who wielded two long swords and wore conventional leather armor. According to Elise’s power, he was an Elvish Dualblade, an expert in a fighting style consisting of slashes that were both fast and heavy, and someone Nina was very wary of, given he was likely to be able to break through her defenses and kill her with a single clean hit.

The other one was the person who had blocked Nina’s initial surprise attack. A black-haired human woman who wore light clothing that emphasized her figure, which also served as a sort of boast, saying that she didn’t need protection. Her strange technique was a blue slime contained in her body that she could manipulate in extreme ways. Nina didn’t know what the thing was, but it could block her strikes perfectly and was also dangerous on the offensive.

The other ten people were less dangerous, but the team clearly had a lot of experience and training in fighting together, as proven by how the trio of Nalia, Nina and Yura hadn’t been able to take down a single one of them during the chaotic brawl earlier. Six of them were elves, with two being long ranged attackers who used fire and impact based artillery spells, respectively. Two others were protection magic experts, one specialized in creating barriers while the other imbued his allies with protective enchantments.

The last two elves were close-ranged fighters, one wielding a spear while the other could manifest her aura physically to create large claws on top of her hands (and whose class notably lacked the ‘elvish’ descriptor, referring to her simply as a ‘spirit aura manifester’). The four remaining humans (not counting the pilot) consisted of another long range spellcaster, a mid-range magic user with versatile spells, a warrior equipped with sword plus shield and a telekinetic (at least that was what they thought he was) who controlled fifteen daggers and three large shields that floated around him.

Once the enemies began coming closer, Nina and Yura headed inside the earth stronghold, but the rabbit stayed close enough to the outside to be able to hear them when they got close. As such, she was able to hear the following words from a male voice.

“You three, attack this thing.” Followed by a series of positive replies.

Seconds later, the earth stronghold began to shake as it was hit by a succession of artillery spells. However, Yura had reinforced their defenses to a great extent, so even those powerful attacks failed to break through quickly, and the elf could simply using her earth magic from a distance to fix the damage before it went too far.

“Interesting.” The voice spoke again “Then how about this?” And right after saying that, a loud explosion noise resounded, causing the stronghold to shake even more fiercely for a few moments.

“I see.” The voice came once more “Repairing all this damage must take a lot of magic power, so I’m sure she wouldn’t be able to keep this up for too long.” He paused for a moment “But there must be a reason why she’s doing all of this to delay us, so we can’t be too passive. We need to attack aggressively.”

Hearing that, Nina backed up a little further into the stronghold. Meanwhile, Yura was still keeping track of the situation, as she was able to see through the earth with a little bit of effort. As such, she knew that the one who had been talking was the man in the long robes, who showed himself to be a mage when he attacked the stronghold as a test.

He then told the trio of long range mages to keep on bombarding the stronghold while the rest of the group invaded. Yura had left seven entrances to it, but only two of them didn’t lead to dead ends after a short while. The invaders didn’t split up enough to cover all entrances, but only into three groups, each one led by one of the stronger members.

The group led by the long robed mage happened to choose one of the ‘correct’ entrances, which was actually the one Nina was hiding at, so the first clash in the defensive battle wasn’t long in coming. The rabbit waited until they were getting close to a turn and acted lightning fast, doing an instant movement leap onto the wall in front of them and bouncing straight at the enemies with a flying kick.

Yet the mage was still fast enough to react, creating a wind barrier that slowed Nina down immensely, closely followed by a magical shield that managed to completely stop her momentum, despite breaking in the process. One of the people who was with him, the spear user, tried to stab her while she was still in the air, but Nina grabbed onto the spear and swung herself, avoiding the stab and turning to kick the mage.

He shot a quick magical sphere that Nina had to block with her arms, but the impact pushed her away now that she was no longer holding onto the spear, so the kick missed. The mage followed up with a cutting wind spell, but Nina reached for the wall with her arms and pushed herself up to avoid it. She then kicked off the ceiling to launch herself at the other person who was together with the mage, the sword and shield user.

But said mage wouldn’t allow her to do that so easily. He manifested a huge water sphere in her way that completely killed Nina’s momentum and followed that with a freezing spell to lock her in, but the rabbit charged her arms with extra aura and swung them together, breaking apart the water sphere into a multitude of scattered droplets right before they got frozen.

That left her hanging in the air, allowing both of the weapon users to strike. She kicked the arm of the sword wielder to avoid being slashed, but it was a shallow kick that couldn’t even knock the weapon away. She grabbed the spear again to avoid being stabbed and tried to swing around to throw herself at its wielder, but once more the mage interfered, shooting a flaming magical arrow at Nina and forcing her to change the swing to throw herself at the wall, bouncing off it to avoid the spell.

Then she landed on the ground and jumped up into one of the holes that led to another part of the stronghold, deciding to retreat for the moment.

‘That was like fighting Nalia.’ Nina thought to herself ‘They got a really annoying one to come here.’

She stayed still for a moment to recover her breath and listen for noises, then began to move around the stronghold, aiming for another one of the enemy groups.

While she was doing that, Yura saw that another one of the enemy groups had gotten into a route that could lead to the end of the labyrinth, so she began to move, digging straight through the walls (fixing them as she went past) towards said group. She knew that her movement wasn’t quiet enough to allow for stealth, so she simply did a surprise attack, stopping when a single wall was the only thing in between her and the enemies and using her magic to drop the wall on top of them.

A barrier blocked the wall for a moment, before it got cut into pieces by two swords wielded by one of the three leaders of the group. But she hadn’t expected that to work, it was just a distraction as she dropped to the ground and used her magic to grow sharp spikes from below the enemies. The feedback told her she’d gotten several hits, but they’d all been unable to do more than cut the skin.

The reason for that was another member of that group, the user of protective enchantments. Then the elf slashed with his swords again, breaking her spikes and clearing the way for the last member of the group to attack her, which came in the form of three telekinetically guided daggers. Yura raised an earth barrier to block them, before molding it further to envelop the daggers as they tried to go around it.

Then she punched the wall, unleashing her magic to launch a bunch of sharp projectiles from it, forcing the barrier user to block and giving her time to stand up. But the counter attack came before she could act again, with the group’s leader slashing with one sword to break through the remnants of her earth protection then slashing with the second along with a step forward.

Almost instinctively, Yura made the earth under her feet carry her backwards and out of range, then several more daggers were flying at her, so she reached to the side and dropped the wall onto the daggers and the sword user, crushing the former to the ground and forcing the latter to defend himself with slashes, giving her time to reach for the wall on the opposite side, rip a big chunk out of it and throw it towards him.

Said chunk was cut apart as well, but it had served to block the sight from the telekinetic and slow down further attack from the sword user for long enough to allow Yura to perform her next move: Breaking apart the rest of the right wall, which was the last load bearing support of the ceiling.

Thus dropping it onto the enemies’ heads, distracting them while she retreated.

‘That should make it hard for them to figure out the right way forward.’ Yura thought to herself ‘I just hope we can buy enough time.’ She then spent a few seconds fixing the damage that the enemy artillery had done while she was otherwise engaged.

As that was happening, Nina was making contact with the third and final enemy group, the one lead by the slime controller woman. She jumped through one of the small passage holes and landed behind them, then dashed forward to attack the member on the back, who was the aura manifester woman. The woman blocked her initial quick strike with a manifested claw, but the follow-up hit was heavier and broke through a second claw but was stopped right in front of the enemy’s face when the blue slime stretched out from the group’s leader and managed to save the manifester’s life.

Then the final member of that group, the mid-range mage, began throwing spells at her. They weren’t all that strong, but just enough that she had to defend herself instead of simply ignoring them. While she was busy with that, the slime thickened and shaped itself into a spike to ram into her, but making it heavy enough to cause real damage also made it slower, so Nina managed to sidestep it, but then she had to exchange blows with the manifester while also defending against further spells.

The slime came to attack again, so she abandoned her engagement to dash to its controller, unleashing a series of attacks that all got blocked by the slime, then she jumped back to avoid the new round of spells and tried to kick the mage’s head, but the manifester jumped in front and used both claws to just barely block the kick. So Nina pushed off the wall and then the ceiling to force herself to the ground and punched the manifester, but the slime came fast enough to protect her again.

Deciding that was enough for the moment, Nina jumped away and retreated.

Both her and Yura continued their guerrilla attacks, switching targets again and again to slow down the enemy forces. But even with being able to disengage in between, the two of them were slowly growing wearier, the enemies were slowly reaching further into the stronghold and overall their situation was becoming increasingly untenable.

Then everyone in the area felt an explosion of magical power nearby.

Back with Elise and Nalia, the fairy’s form finished changing and power of her soul began to spread through it. The evolution was about to finish.