(MC POV)
For the second time today, I watched as Lilith rose up out of the debris with a look of hatred on her face.
Her eyes shined red and black coloured lances appeared in a circle around her, each of them launching themselves at me with blinding speed.
I tensed my muscles and dodged them by tilting my body left and right, allowing them all to impale the ground behind me.
While dodging them, I charged a Divine Lightning bolt in my right hand before blasting it at her.
Lilith merely flicked her left hand in an arc which redirected my lightning to crash into one of the pillars.
She reached out her free hand and clenched, summoning what appears to be a dark orb right in front of me.
Sensing my feeling of weight shift, I tried to teleport myself out of the vicinity only to find myself unable to.
Thinking fast, I collapsed the earth beneath me, dropping myself into the hole just as the orb detonated and ripped the space I had been apart.
Using my current position to my advantage, I burrowed myself under her position before springing upwards.
Unfortunately, she seemed to have followed my movements as a crystalline spike was hurled towards me the moment I emerged.
Narrowing my eyes at it, I detonated the air beside it in a small explosion, shifting its trajectory enough to pass by my left side without touching me.
I noticed the smirk on her face a little too late though.
The crystal exploded behind me, showering my back with a hail of shards.
One of my protection inscriptions kicked in, covering my body in a protective bubble that took the brunt of the blow. The force behind the explosion still sent me tumbling away from her, however.
I was in the midst of getting to my feet when the ground trembled beneath me.
Enhancing my arms, I stretched both my fists to the side just in time to punch the two slabs of earth that rose from my sides attempting to crush me, shattering them.
Gaining control over those slabs of earth, I used them as improvised projectiles and hurled it at her.
Lilith floated herself out of the way, her hands charged up with blood red energy that she launched as a beam towards me.
My right fist glowed blue as I gathered my own Energy Quarks in it, punching straight into the beam when it reached me.
The impact caused an explosion that pushed the two of us away, myself skidding to a stop a metre away while Lilith did a backflip to regain control over her flight.
While she was doing that, I placed my palm on my chest, inscribing an inscription that recorded my current position. With that done, I strengthened my legs and leapt towards her, ending up within touching distance of the demoness.
Before she could lash out at me, my right hand had reached out and snapped, activating my Technique and inscription which teleported me right back to where I had been moments ago.
Barely a second passed before the location where I snapped flash froze, encasing Lilith in ice where her hands were stretched out in preparation to disembowel me.
That attack proved to be about as useful as trying to build a snowman in summer since she broke out of the ice almost immediately, a red miasma surrounding her.
She lifted her right hand before pressing down, causing the gravity around me to increase exponentially, cracking the ground in the process.
I managed to withstand it by enhancing my body, using the chance to manipulate the air on her sides. Clenching my fists, I collapsed the air I had been controlling, causing an implosion that sent her crashing to the ground and releasing her hold on me.
Ducking under a stray Technique shot from one of her thralls, I grabbed my right wrist with my left hand and stuck a temporal inscription there before lowering my stance to prepare for her counter attack.
Lilith once again took to the sky, sucking in a lungful of air before letting out a shriek at me.
The soundwave tore the ground to pieces as it travelled towards me, any of the thralls or monsters that had been caught in the blast immediately disintegrated.
I reached up both my hands in the air and did a clawing motion, the sound of the air tearing itself could be faintly heard.
The sound wave was ripped apart and stopped just short of me, though quite a lot of thralls and monsters were caught in it.
That still didn't stop their own fighting though.
When she said those Thralls got a power boost for serving her, she was not kidding. All of them were now at least Elder level with quite a large number of them being Masters.
That still didn't really matter much since my monsters were actually quite the powerhouse on their own already.
The orcs just shrugged off most of the Techniques thrown at them like a tank, relying on their physical prowess to smash their oppositions to the ground.
The kobolds used their impressive agility to weave through everything, skewering their targets when they managed to get close.
Our Lich proved to be both a capable strategist since she is both commanding her undead in the battle while also throwing out necromancy Techniques at the same time.
Squidface guy and his merry tentacle pod were flinging both Techniques and people away with their telekinesis, their powers seem to also consist of summoning Eldritch tentacles to… Well… 'Capture' their enemies.
The bear-owl hybrid monster had also joined in with its family, smashing thralls left and right with its fists before pecking their eyes out.
Then there's the floating eyeball that's tossing various elemental attacks from each of its individual eyestalks which numbered in the double digits. That thing is already worth multiple Practitioners by itself.
The bigger monsters like the hydra, behemoth, leviathan, giants, slime cubes and foxes seem to be hanging back from the fight for some reason, probably acting as a reserve for now.
The newcomers themselves don't seem to be doing badly either, though most of them had already fallen either to the thralls or to the crossfire between Lilith and I.
A few of the thralls had thought me distracted and tried to launch an attack from behind me. I just needed to wave my hand in their direction before earthen spikes skewered them through the chest.
That action, unfortunately, left me open for Lilith to circle around behind me to stab what looks to be a crystal spear made of pure darkness through my head, its tip piercing out through my forehead.
I could sense her smirk even as she stood behind me wielding said spear.
My right wrist glowed as the temporal inscription activated, teleporting me a step towards the left and my body entirely unharmed.
Lilith was still trying to figure out what happened when I spun on my heel, my left fist charged with Divine Lightning.
I could have aimed for her face but… Well, as low as my standards are, I at least still won't do that to a woman even if she's trying to kill me. Not that it would stop me from punching her in her stomach though.
And so my fist buried itself into her abdomen, the Divine Lightning blasting her flying back several metres away from me.
She flipped and smashed her fist into the ground, stopping her flight halfway.
Her eyes glowed again before her fist sank deeper into the ground.
I sucked in a breath and crossed my arms in front of my chest, armouring by body up with the strongest light barrier I could.
Earthen spikes shot out from the ground to impale me, their tips breaking the moment it came into contact with my barrier.
Cutting my hands down to my sides, I broke the rest of the spikes and created a crack in the ground that snaked its way towards her.
The demoness reared her body and smashed the ground with both her fists, stopping my crack from reaching her and caused the magma I had been sending to spew out in between us.
Unperturbed, I sent out a blast of wind that propelled the magma in the air towards her.
Lilith flicked her hand and the magma was sent away, splashing itself against a few of my monsters.
Poor sods, the magma melted through them and they disappeared in a flash of light, most likely going back to my Sealing Orb to reform themselves.
Lilith flew up once again, her wings outstretched dramatically to form nine miniature black holes in front of her. This girl really likes having people beneath her huh?
Right, no time for quips, nine black holes in front of me first.
The demoness was just about to launch those balls at me when nine needle-like projectiles penetrated the centre of those black holes, causing each of them to collapse within themselves and wink out of existence.
Lilith growled at me while I just smirked back at her.
She stretched her arms out to her sides, summoning blood red orbs that dripped with caustic red liquid around her, melting even the stone ground.
"I have never wanted to crush a mortal so badly before."
"You must not be very well travelled then, spend much of your time cooped up in your room?" I quipped back, materialising a white coloured ball in the palm of my hand.
She shot the balls at me without warning, all of them coming from every direction around me.
My fist clenched around the while ball, expanding it to form a dome around me that disintegrated the red balls.
A dark red Lightning soon impacted my barrier, breaking it to pieces.
Oh? Lilith's eyes are now literally on fire.
The Quarks around me shifted, all of them gathering on my chest and right above my heart.
Er… That can't be good.
I was just able to shift my heart a few centimeters to the side when a red light shot forth from her outstretched finger, piercing through where my heart had been.
I gasped and sank to a knee, sucking in a breath as I fought to keep the burning flames inside my body down.
"Kyahaha~ Not so talkative now are you? I'm impressed that a mortal like you can actually keep me this entertained for so long, but I'm starting to bore of you already."
Ok… I think it's time to get a tad bit more serious now…
I healed the wound while I drew in my consciousness, gathering up the feeling that I've grown familiar with now.
The stars blinked and shone in unison, filling my body up with power and causing me to glow in an ethereal bluish light.
I thought Lilith would have another insult or even get scared of my change, but instead, I was given the coldest glare I had ever gotten in both of my lives. Even being wrapped in this power of mine, I could feel the temperature drop several degrees.
"You… You are one of them aren't you?" She growled.
