216 Gambit of the Diamond Princess

Mia glared at Gustav with an extreme desire to stab his heart stamped in her face.

"How did you get past my soldiers??" she demanded to know.

"I walked..." Gustav bluntly replied.

"..."

Mia snapped her finger and pointed her index at the blond man. Suddenly, several of her servants appeared and aimed their staffs at him.

Gustav gently placed Daren, who was on the verge of passing out, on the grass so he could recover himself and vanished in thin air.

"What!!!??" Mia gasped.

She tried to search him and saw a blur moving across the field and getting behind every single one of her mages.

Every time the blur came close to them, a blast of blessed energy would be released and they would start to expel the spirits that were taking over their bodies.

The blur finally stopped moving and reappeared close to Daren, revealing that it was Gustav himself.

"Looks like Marcus gave you quite the present..." Detra whispered while still being under Eclipse's paws.

"The best kind..." Gustav replied.

He then removed the red robe he stole from one of Mia's mages and revealed a pair of silver bracelets and silver greaves under it. Holy metal, blessed material capable of boosting one's strength and speed.

Mia glanced at him again and then watched at how the imprisoned souls kept coming out of the mages she had gathered.

"I see... You were the guy from Evlin's team that had a blessing with the power of purification..." she commented.

"Ah! You know about me! I don't know if I should be flattered or not..." Gustav smirked, "while your army kept focusing on going after the heavy hitters of our side, I just kept sneaking around here and there and slowly continued to rescue the souls you captured!"

Gustav then looked at Detra and used his power of telepathy, the ability that granted him the position of being in charge of communication on his old group, and started to send messages to her.

[Can you still fight?] he asked.

Detra glared at him, [... I'm fine by the way... thanks for asking... I still have some energy left, but not much... I need to get some absorbing crystals to recover my power...]

[I'll give you my bracelets... You take Daren and get to the other side as fast as you can... I'll distract her...] Gustave continued.

Detra noticed that the blond man was trying hard not to look directly at her. She assumed that he was still not fully happy with the two being on the same side due to their history.

[Very well...] she finally replied.

Mia kept watching the two standing still in absolute silence and at last understood why Detra was so calm until now.

"I see... So you can exchange information through your minds..." she commented.

Mia just glared at him even more, "You can free my possessed mages, trade crucial data with your allies, and move around the field with great speed... You're too dangerous... I need to get rid of you now!"

Mia snapped her fingers and Eclipse and a couple of monsters and golems started to go after the telepath.

Detra used this opportunity to rush towards Daren. Gustav saw that the two were together and quickly rushed to hand over to her part of his armor.

[Well... Looks like you will have no trouble with getting her attention...] she commented.

[Just go!!] he shouted in his mind.

He still had armor for his legs, and making use of it, began to run away from his pursuers.

While Detra carried Daren away from there, Mia ordered her mages to keep their distance from Gustav and to start attacking with ranged spells.

"All of you... KILL THIS MAN!! KILL THIS MAN RIGHT NOW!!!!"

Part 2

Claire was finally done with her treatment and had managed to get her shoulder healed. The girl still didn't have any strength to continue fighting so she simply opted to watch the progress of the war.

A large number of mages trying to contain waves of demons and beasts on one side, a couple of injured warrior coming back to the other side of the portal to get treatment from the medical team of healing mages, diamond golems getting shattered only for more to appear from the ground, and a large hydra made of water and ice strolling through the area and facing a group of spellcasters that were trying to contain it with lightning magic.

Among the chaos, she spotted her mother in the middle of the war, wearing a red robe and carrying a pair of swords made of diamonds and stabbing some of the east followers.

The scene made Claire want to jump out of her improvised rescue stretcher and go after her mother to bring her to her senses.

She also noticed that Ellie's parents were there as well, and glanced to see how her friend was holding up.

Ellie was about to tear up while grabbing her own shoulder. It seemed like she was fighting back against her desire to enter the battle.

"Lilith... Ashley..." Ellie whispered to the two women that were standing by her side, "how much more do I have to wait...??"

Lilith hugged the girl. She also was trying hard to control her emotions as she knew Daren was in danger as well so she could understand how Ellie was feeling.

Ashley tried to study the situation, "Mia hasn't left her throne yet... Until she herself enters the fight, we can't risk you wasting your strength with her underlings... You're the only one who can face her, so you need to be at full power!"

A thought came to Claire, "what if Mia is waiting for Ellie...?"

The three of them just glanced at Claire.

"I mean... What if she's doing the same thing we are? Just waiting for us to use all our strength on her army so she can face Ellie at full power?"

"It could be the case... But unlike our side, Mia is the one controlling her army... She needs to keep concentrating for them to fight under her will..." Lilith explained.

Claire just tilted her head, "what happens if Mia stops controlling them?"

Ashley began to ponder while holding her chin, "who knows... probably they will start to rampage wildly... without her to coordinate their attacks, they would just be like regular creatures acting with no clear goal..."

Lilith began to wonder as well, "but what if Claire is right? What if Mia is just waiting for Ellie to jump into the battle as well? If we get her to drop her control, we could have an easier time handling the creatures and then give our support to Ellie after we finish them!"

"Maybe..." Ashley admitted, "but do we really want to take this risk? Use our ace in the hole before the time is right?"

"Guys!!" Ellie interjected, "Please just reach a decision!! I don't know how long I can hold myself back!!"

Ellie was tired of watching all these people fighting for her. So many of the mages were getting injured as this fight kept dragging on. So much destruction continued to spread across the field.

Ellie just wanted this war to be over so she could reunite with her loved ones, but at this rate, she didn't even know if her loved ones would come back from the war.

She kept telling herself, 'Don't make another mistake! Don't mess up again! Be patient!!' as she continued to stop her legs from moving.

Her desire to help and her fear of making things worse were colliding with each other inside her heart and she didn't know what to do. She just wanted some kind of signal, any signal, to show what action she should take.

"We're almost there Ellie" Ashley reassured her, "just wait a little more and have faith in our group!"

"O- Ok..." the girl whispered.

She tried to keep watching the battle and spotted a blond man being chased around by a large group of monsters, which piqued her curiosity.

"Hey... Who's that?" she asked while pointing at him.

Ashley looked at the direction she was talking about and replied, "ah!! That's Gustav!!"

"Gustav!!?? Gustav is in the battle!!??" Lilith gasped.

"Gustav...?" Ellie repeated, "the telepathy guy?"

"He's not just a telepath... He can also purify cursed beings out of the bodies of people with his blessing..." Ashley added.

Ellie heard that comment and felt that time had frozen again, "... ... ... what...?"

"During our travels together, we encountered the god of south and he granted Gustav with a blessing called purification" Ashley continued, "he learned how to use it in combat by combining it with well-placed pieces of holy metal to allow him to- Eh...? Where is she?"

Ashley had to interrupt her speech once she turned her head around and noticed that Ellie was gone.

"WHERE IS SHE!!!???" Ashley repeated.

"Oh..." Claire responded while pointing at Ellie halfway across the field, "she ran off right after you said 'during our travels' and started to dash towards that Gustav guy."

"WHAT!!!??" Ashley yelled.

Ellie started to reinforce the power of her legs with the blessed energy of her metal greaves and began to run even faster as she finally crossed the portal West had created for them.

"Hey!! What are you doing??" West shouted while watching Ellie run past her.

The girl then felt the ground shaking under her feet and spotted a monster centipede appearing out of the earth to try and eat her arms and legs.

Ellie just glared at the insect that was as tall as an elevator and glared at it.

A couple of weeks ago, such a beast would probably terrify her and put her ina shaking fetal position. But now? Now this kind of thing was just an annoyance.

Ellie raised her amputated arm and began to gather pieces of diamonds. The pieces surrounded her missing limb until it formed a right hand in the shape of a fist. She aimed it at the creature and smacked it right as it was about to attack with a huge impact that turned it into pieces.

As the monster's remains continued to splat itself across the area, she finally gave her reply to West.

"I'M GETTING MY FAMILY BACK!!"