Noel was crossing the woods while thinking, 'If there is an enemy hiding around, this place should be perfect. At first, I thought that Milfa's side would be the perfect place, but because of Duke Briton's power, it's not a perfect place to hide.
'At the same time, there is nothing but a barren plain on the south. In other words, if someone is going to hide, it's going to be on the west side between the city and the river.'
Noel contemplated. The enemy this time was actually able to ambush the city.
From the looks of the city, it seemed that they managed to sneak inside. He doubted the cause was a human since it wouldn't be good to leave behind any hints.
In other words, there should be another party observing from a distance, and this group was the culprit for all the commotion.
In Noel's mind, an image of a person who was capable of doing something like this appeared.
There weren't a lot of people that could sneak inside the city, let alone bring all these beasts. If there was a person like that, he was either the one working with the darkness or actually appearing out of nowhere.
If it was the former, Dimitri should have known them. If it was the latter, there was only one person.
She had the ability to create a portal and teleport from one place to another, so it wouldn't be weird for her to create a portal and drag all the demons inside.
With how Anna described their endings in their previous lives, Noel had taken this possibility into account.
And it seemed that he was right.
When he was crossing the woods, his Demon Hunter Medal actually picked up the presence of the demon. It was already weird for the demons to hide inside the woods while the rest were fighting on the front lines, let alone the fact that he felt more and more demons. Their numbers should be in the hundreds.
Without hesitation, Noel turned around and looked into this.
Instead of the demons, he was looking for a person. Though, it didn't take too long for him to find her, considering she had to be in the center of this mass so that she could teleport all of them inside the city.
*Roar!*
*Roar!*
*Roar!*
The demons seemed to notice Noel, but it was too late. Noel's speed was much faster in his True Spirit Body.
He jumped into the air while waving down his left hand.
Ice Lotus.
"!!!" The woman waved her scythe, creating a small vortex in front of the lotus.
*Boom!*
The ice lotus exploded, freezing not only the vortex but also the demons around it. The ice lotus turned into a giant ice crystal that was easily visible from afar.
'That form… True Spirit Body?' The woman frowned. There was only one thought in her mind: escape. Without hesitation, she swung her scythe to create another portal for her to leave.
"Do you think you can get away, Void Arbiter?!" Noel roared while waving his sword. The Sword Transmutation flew straight toward her, but a lot of beasts suddenly came into the way to block this attack with their bodies.
As Noel expected, the culprit was Josephine. However, he was surprised that Josephine chose to escape immediately instead of killing him here.
But he noticed one reason why it was best to immediately leave.
"There is no evidence." The Void Arbiter slipped into the portal and disappeared.
"…" Noel gritted his teeth. He was the only one who saw Josephine here, so even if he claimed Josephine was helping the Supreme Devil Organization, there was no proof. He could claim that she was the only one who was capable of doing this, but he still needed certain proof.
In other words, Josephine had prepared for this. In fact, she might have been waiting until the Supreme Devil Organization lured them out before making her move. It was lucky that Noel was actually fast enough to return. If not, the city would have been flooded by the demons.
However, Noel could see another problem in the future.
From that short meeting alone, he could see two facts. First, he got to see her with the Affection Medal.
Name: Josephine Lelaine
Affection: 100 (Hate)
Description: She will kill you if she has the chance.
Her affection had changed drastically since the time he met her in the palace. Back then, he hadn't revealed his trick and Anna hadn't shown her true affiliation, so Josephine was still rather friendly. Even her hatred was only 20 points.
But after realizing that she had been played this whole time, Josephine's affection changed as she turned into their nemesis.
This led to the second fact. As their archenemy, Josephine had to die. But could they actually kill Josephine?
Talking about her power alone, there was no one capable of stopping her from teleporting away. That was why her power was actually the most troublesome compared to other Arbiters.
If they wanted to kill Josephine, they had to create a trap that could actually bind her in a single space and take away her teleportation ability.
And with how Josephine controlled the demons, it was clear that she was affiliated with the Supreme Devil Organization.
Back then, Noel caused a commotion by providing an unlimited amount of water. His purpose was to sow discord between her and the Third Prince.
However, it seemed that his action made Josephine join the Supreme Devil Organization. The Third Prince was still connected to the organization, so there was a possibility that the misunderstandings had been solved.
But with this, the situation had just become more complicated. With Josephine's ability, the organization would become much more flexible in its operations. Qiel hadn't died and Laufey would still come back.
Those three and Alexander would definitely make the organization much stronger.
It seemed that even if they won this war, it was still not enough to crush the Supreme Devil Organization.
Unfortunately, he couldn't think much because he had to take care of these demons.
"Ice Burst!"
The cold mist spread, freezing anyone that came into contact with it. The demons charged at him, only to be frozen midway. Some attacked from a distance, but their attack also got frozen.
In the end, the demons had no choice but to run away from him.
That was when Anna appeared. It took her only one minute to loop around the city and reach his position.
"Noel!" Anna shouted while blasting the demons with her blood lightning.
Noel pointed at the demons. "Kill as many as possible and flank the demons from behind. After that, we will retreat to the city."
"Alright." Anna was worried about him, but the war wasn't over yet. So, she had to focus on the demons first.
Noel panted a few times, thinking, 'Maybe I should show my exhausted state to force her to attack me? This is getting annoying. Even though the only thing we need to do left is clean up the battlefield, it feels like we don't win.'
"What should we do now? Although I want to help, I don't have much energy left. I should conserve some strength to create a path back to the city." Noel let out a long sigh.
Even though most of what happened on the battlefield was within his calculation, it seemed that it was impossible to predict everything.
"Maybe I should have focused on killing Qiel… Without their brain, it should be pretty hard to function. Then again, Laufey is still kicking, so I don't think we have much luck stopping them." Noel shook his head helplessly.
No matter how hard he thought about it, there was no action that allowed them to get a complete victory. They should feel satisfied with this.
It took Anna several minutes to return.
"I have dealt a lot of damage on their side. It seems that Duke Briton is also directing the flying squad there." Anna reported while looking around to ensure that no one dared to launch a sneak attack.
"How is the city?"
"There are a lot of commotions, but Howard seems to have returned and taken care of the situation. They should be suppressing the enemies right now." Anna sighed. "What happened here?"
"Your former teacher was here."
"Josephine? Did she create a portal to send those demons inside?"
"Yeah. I couldn't get any proof as she immediately left the moment we met."
"She is the best at running away." Anna clicked her tongue, fully knowing Josephine's capability as she had been following her in her previous life.
"Do you have any idea on how to catch her?" Noel asked.
Anna shook her head helplessly. That power of hers was simply too overpowered for escaping.
"It seems that we have to find a new method to trap her in the near future. And after this battle is over, I'm afraid that the organization and the royal family will join hands to crush us. This might possibly be the reason why in our previous lives, I started a rebellion."
"An arbiter joining the organization… The connection between the royal family and the organization as well as the Third Prince. I see…" Anna closed her eyes for a moment.
"Well, even if we want to discuss this matter, we have to defeat the demons first. Let's go back to the city wall. I will create a path for us while you release your remaining strength to kill the last demon tree. Without Qiel, I'm sure they will still launch another attack once it gets dark."
"So, we will break their plan first."
"Yeah."
Noel and Anna looked at the city, ready to settle the battle.
