Noah who was clashing on the air against Reyne, had a clear view of the previous scene, needless to say but he had an unsightly expression at how Sarah casually killed two enemies with a higher realm than hers, and also reduced the power of a third one, by forcing the swordsman hobgoblin to cut off his own arm
That being said, he didn't understand why the swordsman cut off his own arm, until he saw the severed limb melt, before it even fell to the ground, it had turned into a viscous puddle of black liquid, bones, flesh and even armor included.
Sarah didn't bother to hide the fact that she could use poison, since she had already used it before to melt the shield of a defense type goblin quite a few rooms before, the hobgoblins already knew it.
But that didn't mean they could do anything about it, and that was only poison applied to the needles by the crazy girl previously, she had yet to use her battle aura and had been fighting using the needles and her raw physical strength so far.
"Don't let then regroup!", shouted Noah, unaware that he just fell in Daimon's trap.
From the very beginning, he didn't intend to steal the prey of those two, but that's something that the soon dead to be enemies didn't need to know, in fact this worked in their favor, because that would put more pressure on the hobgoblins and the Ghouls who weren't engaging in close combat.
As they would be under the misinterpretation that Daimon, Sarah and Reyne even needed to join hands to kill all of them… when that wasn't the case.
"Aghh!", Noah suddenly felt a huge amount of pressure coming from his hand, it was only a fraction of a second but he faltered in the clash he was having against Reyne, and the layer of blood battle aura he had applied on his weapon was burned by her fire battle aura.
And in a purely physical clash, Noah was taken by surprise at the fact that Reyne had the upper hand, resulting in him being forced backwards all the way to the other side of the room.
In fact, he had to stab his sword on the ground to dimmish the impulse, otherwise he would have been smacked against the wall, Reyne's image flashed and the next second she was already standing in front of Noah, holding her knight's lance as if it was a sword, her wielding technique was quite unusual to say the less, but it seemed to perfectly counter Noah's family's technique.
"You should worry about yourself, aunt Emily taught me all the techniques of all the noble families, her father didn't go down until he killed at least one direct descendant of each noble lineage after all, all for when this time came", she said as she flashed towards Noah who had an expression of disbelief on his face.
"The seeds that traitors who show empathy towards cattle should have been exterminated a long time ago!", he shouted, his previously noble demeanor was nowhere to be seen, instead of that his eyes got bloodshot, in his clan's case, the one who was killed was his mother who tried to sneakily kill Emily's mother, just to be turned into meat cubes and burned until there was nothing left of her, so that regeneration couldn't be performed on them even with the most advanced rituals of blood sacrifice.
Noah's body exploded in a blood red light, before a crimson liquid of the same color was poured out of some secret compartments in his belt, the nearby air was filled with an iron-like smell, which was understandable as that was blood.
That was the ability that only the direct descendants of the Gartner family could use, Blood Enhancement, it was a technique that worked both for defense and offense, allowing the user to burn the blood of other beings to increase the strength of the user's battle aura, which is why all the direct descendants of the Gartner family were knights, who used serrated swords, the idea was to make the enemy bleed and use their blood against themselves, since there was a requirement of them having to be the ones who obtained the blood.
In part that's why Noah's ancestor personally killed Emily's father, since his most talented daughter was killed by him, then he took some of his blood and swore to kill Emily using that blood when the time came, that's how deep the blood feud between them ran.
By the moment Reyne's lance clashed against Noah's serrated sword, the thing had been dyed in a viscous mix of battle aura and blood.
"Clang!", this time the one who was force to step back was Reyne, and that was only the start, Noah followed with another swing of his sword and then another, it was a consecutive assault of fierce slashes, which resulted in metal colliding sounds as well as sparks flying all over the place.
And they weren't the only ones, Daimon and the ogre were also fiercely clashing with each other, the shockwaves created by those four, disrupted the mana in the air and also made both the Ghouls and the hobgoblins feel a certain pressure on their chests, which made it harder for them to breath.
Such was the effect of people whose battle prowess had surpassed the Lord rank, on those who haven't.
'What the hell, I can't even properly aim at them without my vision getting blurry!', inwardly screamed the girl from the church, ultimately, she gave up and decided to change targets to the dark green haired woman who was basically keeping everyone else in check, including her.
Of course as an elite from the church she had no need to chant to cast spells, but in exchange she had to put a certain amount of focus if she wanted to cast a strong spell, and as if the green haired woman could tell when she was about to launch a large area spell, a needle was shot her way, forcing her to either dodge which broke her focus, or change the spell to a water wall, which actually turned pitch black at the moment of contact with the needle, before the water was dissolved.
"Just how poisonous are those things!", shouted the girl from the church as she changed her position once again, though she didn't have a high enough capacity to use light mana to be considered an affinity, she could manipulate light mana around half as much as water mana.
Which is not bad at all, considering that those without the affinity to x element can only manipulate mana from around one to ten percent of the amount that they can of those elements to which they have affinity with.
In other words, though she isn't a dual affinity she can be considered a prodigy, and has the potential to awaken a second affinity with some resources, and a light affinity to top it off, and yet the combination of her defensive water and the cleansing light she was so proud off was being utterly crushed by the poison in those needles.
'Humph, I don't believe you have an infinite amount of such a horrible poison, sooner or later you'll run out of it, then you'll be a delicious "meal" for these savages', she thought as she surrounded herself with a crystal-clear water cupule, her security was first after all.
"Hey, don't hide you stupid woman, without Noah covering our ass, I will rip you to shreds!", shouted Call, the Ghoul wo was missing a hand as he rushed towards the water cupule while he glared at Sarah with hatred filled eyes as he saw the multiple puddles of black liquid that were behind of him.
His family is a mage centered one, because their ability requires them to use mana, said ability allows them to turn the humans they kill into lifeless dolls to protect their own murder, they rot overtime and have to be replaced though, but for a mage to have a lot of meat shields is a dream come true.
Unfortunately for Call, though his ability would have surprised the crazy girl before, now that she met Daimon, she got to know about necromancy, and this was the crappiest form of it, the undead created through this method didn't even keep a tenth percent of their original strength and had limited lifespans, the only "advantage" was that they could be stored in tattoos on the body of their owner, in great quantities, but since they were empty shells without even instincts, they had to be controlled and that required the mana of the user.
So, Call has been using them to take the hit from Sarah's needles, which would have turned him into a puddle of black liquid if it wasn't for that, as the other Ghoul who was accompanying him earlier, that was now a stain on the wall after trying to face the crazy girl head on, suggested.
"Shut up, I'm preparing a spell to reduce the effectiveness of that poison in a wide area, you still reek of death, so you should have a lot of those disgusting things left, just hold on for now and protect me", the voice of the girl could be heard coming from the water cupule which had started rotating as some needles were trying to pierce through it.
Each time a needle touched the water, that part was cut off from the cupule which then replaced it by absorbing more mana from the air, after seeing how the swordsman dealt with the poisoned needle, they came with similar solutions, but instead of taking the hit themselves they were using discardable things to defend themselves.
"It better be worth the wait or I'll fucking bite your throat out later!", shouted call, as he released a huge amount of mana, two red tattoos on his arms shone in black light, and a large amount of low class undead such as skeletons or rotten zombies, appeared in front of them, and piled together to form a wall of bone and flesh that was covered in an ominous black mist.
Though this spell had an imposing name like "Death Wall", in truth it was just a cannon fodder wall covered with the harmful mana that corpses produced if not properly dealt with, nothing more, if anything it certainly looked dangerous as the flesh of the zombies pulsated from time to time.
Seeing that those two were cowering while isolating themselves, Sarah decided to focus on slaughtering the hobgoblins, of course she didn't lower her guard as she kept throwing needles at the wall from time to time, forcing the Ghoul to keep dumping mana into it, to detach the affected part, and replace it with more of those things, as for the bitch from the church, the spell she was preparing wasn't an offense type one so she didn't care about her.
Instead of that, she skillfully maneuvered on the air to dodge the spells of the remaining hobgoblin mage, as well as the explosive vials of the masked hobgoblin, all the previous while clashing with the one-armed swordman hobgoblin and one of the ninja ones, that kept coming in and out f the walls, floor and ceiling, as for the spearman one, Sarah killed it already.
Unlike the ninja and swordsman hobgoblins who were using martial arts to propel themselves into the air, trying to push Sarah towards the spells or the explosives, the crazy girl fluttered like a beautiful yet deathly butterfly, it was "night" and so she was boosted to be able to float and fly to a certain extent and she was making full use of it.
"Her affinity had to be wind, fucking hard to catch poisonous bitch!", venomously said the now one-armed swordsman.
"Don't lose your cool, that's how Andal died", limited to say the ninja hobgoblin as he blocked one of Sarah's needles by throwing a knife at it to intercept it, only to see the knife melt the next second.
In case you wonder how could that ninja be able to catch up to Sarah's throwing skills, the remaining hobgoblin mage has wind affinity and was using it to slow down her needles, it was unable to deflect them without affecting its companions, but just slowing them down was possible, the rest was up to the ninja, which was a hobgoblin that specialized in speed and accurate attacks, as well as sneak ones, it required those two working together to match up to the level Sarah was showing right now.
"Are you still not finished Merk!", shouted the hobgoblin mage at the one wearing the mask, who has been throwing explosive vials at Sarah, blocking her from directly clashing against the swordsman hobgoblin who used long range sword slashes to try and cut the crazy girl down from distance.
The masked hobgoblin nodded and then took out a different vial from within his ragged mantle and broke it with his hand, this happened at the same time as the crazy girl changed her focus to the hobgoblins, so she practically vanished from the sights of the ninja and the swordsman hobgoblins to appear in front of the one with the mask, just to pierce its forehead, face and neck with needles all at the same time.
Surprisingly that wasn't the end, the mask crumbled apart to reveal a deformed and twisted face, full with burns and wounds, goblins weren't exactly lookers to begin with, so the result was quite horrible.
Another surprise is that below the mantle this previously masked hobgoblin had another set of arms, though smaller than the main ones, they were quite fast, those were the ones that the hobgoblin was using to prepare the explosive vials.
The ninja, suddenly appeared from below aiming a knife at Sarah's neck, with a smug face, that vial allowed the masked hobgoblin to inflict a crippling fear to the one that saw its deformed face, result of creating its explosive formulas, it was a mental type attack, also it allowed the masked hobgoblin to discard its upper body, as it was essentially two beings who merged in one, as the double set of arms suggested.
Though it will put the masked hobgoblin in a bad spot for a long time, it gave it a second life, that's why it was used as bait to kill a tough enemy… or at least that was the idea.
"Blegh!", the ninja hobgoblin whose knife was just about to reach Sarah's pale smooth skin, suddenly vomited blood, there was a short one-edged sword piercing his chest, not even a second later, the body of the ninja dissolved like a candle exposed to a high amount of heat, armor, weapons and everything else included.
"Screeee!", at the same type the formerly masked hobgoblin followed, but in its case the melting started from its legs, in other words, it was meaningless to discard its upper body.
Sarah whose eyes had a cold light on them, stabbed another needle on the abdomen of the hobgoblin, where its new head was, instantly melting it into a puddle of black liquid.
"Was that supposed to make me feel "fear" what a joke, the real fear dreadfully runs deep invading every centimeter of your existence, rendering you uncapable to even think of rebelling, only he is allowed to bring me the delight of feeling completely powerless~", mumbled the crazy girl as she licked her lips while stealing a gaze at Daimon.
To then take a 180° change in attitude as she glared at the remaining hobgoblins, who were now shaking at the result of their carefully planned tactic, that even involved one of them "dying" in order to take out the enemy.
"If you want to experience what true fear is, then look at that", she said as she pointed at a particular area of the room.
The swordsman hobgoblin as well as the mage one, couldn't help but look at where the crazy woman was pointing, only for their faces to pale at the sight of the "short" masked human casually grabbing their general, an ogre whose height elevated to more than two meters, by his head.
There were many craters surrounding them, and there was a broken hilt on the ground, which they recognized as it was the weapon that the ogre used, an Arch ranked treasure.
"Urghhhh!", the very moment their eyes landed on that part of the battlefield, they saw the hand of the masked human burn in white flames, followed by the beastly scream of the ogre who was trying to escape, squirming, kicking and punching the enemy which only resulted in the ogre breaking his own bones.
At the same time, a light blue light appeared on the ceiling as the girl from the church finished her spell, making rain fall down in the whole room.
Surprisingly, the wounds on the hobgoblins and the ogre not only didn't cure, but they felt as if salt was rubbed against their live flesh, making them scream and collapse, the wall of flesh created by the Ghoul exploded in light blue flames and a loud scream could be heard coming from behind of it.
As soon as the wall was destroyed, the though still alive, charred Ghoul Call, who was now laying down on the floor, was revealed.
"Y-You what the hell are you doing you bitch!", shouted the Ghoul, the pain was killing him, unfortunately not only he was taken by surprise, since he didn't consider that spell harmful as he was healed by something similar earlier.
But he had also used a lot of mana to keep the wall, because Sarah never stopped attacking it to keep them under pressure, so he bathed in that rain thinking it will relieve his fatigue only burned by it.
"Even if our forces are allied, ultimately, I'm a human, and I don't have any intention on becoming a filthy creature like you, I can't die with you beasts here", coldly said the girl as she stabbed the Ghoul with a silver dagger she had hid in her dress.
At the same time, a limbless body fell from air, crashing against the ground, the wounds were cauterized and while the person was still breathing, his eyes were rolled backwards, as it was at the verge of dying, it was none other than Noah.
Reyne graciously landed next to it and stabbed her lance on Noah's body, making it shrink as the lance slowly dyed red, she nodded at Daimon while she sweetly smiled, she was obviously in a good mood.
That being said, Sarah who appeared behind the remaining mage and the swordsman, to casually twists their necks, killing them on the spot, wasn't any worse, she was stealing gazes at Daimon from time to time with a slightly flushed expression.
'Ahh, I nearly…', her weird train of thought was interrupted, when she saw the girl from the church smiling at Daimon as she walked towards him.
"This young master was able to use one of the "keys", meaning you should be a man among man, I'm the daughter of Cardinal Ely, would you be willing to form a contract for mutual benefits, as you can see, I won't slow you down, I was ordered to enter this place against my will", she said with a mellow voice, as she rose the sides of her dress like a proper lady, while also giving Daimon a glimpse of her thighs and legs.
To no one's surprise, a fake notification was triggered at the very end of her words.
[A nice young lady has requested amnesty, as a hero you are obliged to listen and protect her from any harm]
The girl inwardly smiled at the fact that the masked man in front of her was thinking about it, because she could feel the murderous gazes of the two girls that were accompanying him.
'Heh, you stupid bitches don't know how to handle a man, sit on the bench and let me…'.
The disdainful thoughts of the woman were interrupted at she felt a burning sensation on her neck, she looked downwards just to see a needle piercing it, next there was the tip of a lance coming out of her chest from behind, and that wasn't all, there was a sword made out of white flames stabbing her stomach.
"I don't have time to lose in Adam's whores, or whatever you are, right now", he said in a voice that only the girl from the church could hear.
She didn't even have the time to scream, before her body dried, melted and finally burned into thin ashes that disappeared not too long after.
"That was unnecessary", said Daimon just to see both Sarah and Reyne smiling at him.
"She was wasting everyone's time", said Reyne.
"Whoever wrote that "thing" has a really bad taste~", playfully said the crazy girl referring to the notification qualifying that girl as a "nice young lady".
Daimon chuckled, he then snapped his fingers and the drops of water that fell on them were instantly evaporated, neither Sarah or Reyne even thought of resisting and simply allowed the white flames of Daimon to remove the water from that girl's spell from their bodies.
To begin with, he didn't need an "outsider" to mess up with his team, so though there was space for four survivors, only three were going to be used, not to mention not even a single word that woman uttered was truth and that spell was used for torture, it was meant to produce an insane amount of pain by mixing something in a water healing spell, it was done so the interrogation could continue indefinitely, of the victim was about to faint then the healing spell would kick in, it could be activated at will too, which is why it took the girl so much time to cast it.
There was a chance that in the next room they met Adam, so the girl was preparing the stage for him to win, though Daimon noticed some interesting things about the current situation.
Reyne who was all smiles right now, casually stabbed all the bodies on the battlefield with her spear, to be sure, while the crazy girl stuck to Daimon like bubblegum, surprisingly he didn't stop her from doing so, naturally a notification was triggered as they killed that girl, but they ignored it.
Once Reyne stabbed Noah who was still alive, the door from which the goblins came opened, while the one from which the Ghouls came crumbled apart.
