218 Aggravation of chaos

Mia kept charging at Ellie with a pair of red claws on her hands to try and pierce her stomach, but the girl just continued to block it with shields made of diamonds and metal. Her defense was so strong that even Mia was having trouble getting past it.

Ellie wanted to find an opening to get in contact with Gustav, but Mia was just chasing her like a cat following a light dot, not giving any chances.

The soldiers and the mages from Ellie's side didn't know how to react since they had no idea who this kid was and where she had come from, but they were more than glad to see she was managing to stand toe-to-toe with Mia.

Not very happy, however, was a certain red-haired lady who was trying to not pull her hair out while witnessing Ellie's action.

"DID SHE LOST HER MIND!!!???" Ashley screamed, "what is she thinking!!?? We had a plan!!"

"What? What happened??" Lilith wondered as she was completely clueless about the current situation.

"Evlin's niece is fighting Mia!" Ashley responded.

"WHAT!!??" Lilith shouted, very similar to how Ashley did.

Claire tried to stand up despite still not feeling at one-hundred percent and approached the two ladies, "Hey, is this really that bad? That's what we came here to do right? Have Ellie defeat Mia?"

"Yes!! But not like this!!!" Ashley shouted while glaring at the curly-haired kid, "these things have an order!! We had to get Mia as weak as possible before trying to face her!! We needed to make sure we had all the advantages on our side so we could-"

"Ashley!!" Lilith interrupted as she noticed that Ashley was about to go on a long speech, "we can't worry about that now! We gotta focus on winning this war! How do we proceed?"

As she kept looking at Lilith's facial expression, she could tell that her friend was also worried but still knew that they needed to keep themselves focused on what mattered so that all their efforts weren't in vain.

"R- Right... Right..." Ashley replied before taking a deep breath and trying to relax, "what do we do now... what do we do now..."

She then spotted Detra coming closer carrying Daren in her back. Such a feat would usually be impossible in the middle of a battleground, but the woman was making use of the fact that all the troops were currently fazed and didn't even notice her.

"East!!" Ashley shouted.

"Someone, please... take him off of me..." Detra begged while trying to find someone to hand Daren over to.

"Daren!!" Lilith shouted as she heard his voice grumbling while still being unconscious and rushed over to hold him.

"Daren!! Daren!! Please!! Talk to me!!" Lilith shouted while crying.

Daren still didn't open his eyes. Having the spirit Mia implanted in him forcefully removed completely drained his body.

Lilith just kept caressing his hair while sobbing all over him, "it's going to be ok!! Everything will be ok now, I promise you!!"

Detra snapped her back after finally being free from Daren's weight over her and started to analyze the situation.

"I'm going to guess you weren't the ones who told little miss sunshine to march into battle..."

"She just stormed off when I said Gustav had a purification blessing!" Ashley explained trying to defend herself.

"Whatever... What's done is done... Did we managed to get Mia to waste enough power?"

Ashley looked at the field, "I'm not sure... All the red golems started to crumble but the possessed mages and the creatures are just standing still and not moving... I think Mia is so focused on Ellie that she forgot about them..."

"What...?" Detra asked. She turned around and indeed, all the members of the opposite side were acting like they were frozen in time, "then what the hell are we waiting for??"

"No, East, wait!!" Ashley tried to shout as she saw the former goddess raising her arms to shout.

"LEONA!! HER SOLDIERS ARE NOT MOVING!! TAKE THEM DOWN!!!"

Leona, who much like the rest of her fellow mages were in a daze watching Ellie's fight, finally returned to reality and followed Detra's command.

"Everyone!! This is our chance!! Let's go!!" Leona yelled, lifting the spirits of her allies.

The mages prepared to aim their staffs at the opponents, but Mia noticed the commotion and waved her hand in response.

"Whoops! Almost forgot!" she whispered.

Ellie looked in the direction she was staring at and noticed that the red glows on the eyes of her army were all vanishing.

"What did you do...?" Ellie wondered.

Mia smiled at her, "You should be honored! You just gained my undivided attention!!"

Mia stepped on the ground and a small earthquake was released making its way towards Ellie. The girl saw the earth shaking and quickly dodged out of the way as her future sight alerted her that a massive diamond pillar was about to erupt aimed at her head.

She backflipped a couple of times to gain some distance and the second she landed on the floor, she copied Mia's move and stomped the terrain to force a wave of diamond pillars to appear and try to pierce her.

Mia saw the incoming attack and barely moved. She just smiled and raised her arms to reveal a pair of mouths in her palms, proceeded by swallowing up the magic on Ellie's diamonds, making them turn into regular rocks and crumble.

"It seems like you have improved a bit... but not by much..." Mia taunted, "I spent the last two-hundred years fighting demons and monsters every day and night without resting... You won't take me down with a simple diamond spell!"

The nightmare queen punched the ground and a large number of vines started to appear and attempted to wrap themselves around Ellie.

The girl turned her left arm into a blade and slashed every single one of them in a matter of seconds.

One of the vines, however, survived and tried to strike her in the back, but Ellie saw it coming with her blessed eyes and moved in an arc to cut the vine right in the middle.

"Good for you... I just spent a whole month training with the world's greatest swordswoman, a master-class ice magician, and the son of the living weapon! Without resting!!" Ellie responded while shifting her focus towards Mia again, who just reacted with a grin as usual.

Gustav, who was on a front-row seat to behold the entire battle, could not believe his eyes. He heard that Evlin's niece was a mage and that she would be the one to actually face Mia, but he didn't expect her to perform that well.

"Amazing..." he whispered as he felt for a moment he was in the presence of Evlin herself while looking at Ellie's expression of resolution.

He quickly had to turn away though, as he heard the sound of screams coming from his fellow troopers.

The creatures and the red mages started to act again, except this time they were just rampaging randomly over the field with no clear target in mind.

"What!!??" Gustav gasped.

The war had started once again, but now it had turned from a battle of strategy to absolute chaos. The monsters weren't trying to march to the other side of attempting to target the mages from Ashley's guild or the East followers, they were instead trying to eat the possessed mages.

Leona and her group were forced to intervene as she knew these were innocent people being controlled by Mia and was forced to stand in between them. The only problem was, although the mages were no longer under Mia's control, they still were spirits inside the bodies of civilians, so they had no reason to fight on her side either, and once they realized where they were, they all just panicked and started to attack everyone as well.

"Oh no..." Gustav whispered, [Ashley!! Are you seeing this??]

Ashley felt the telepathic message Gustav tried to deliver and gave her response, [How could I not?? Things somehow managed to get even worse than before!!], she responded while glaring daggers at Detra.

The former goddess herself just sighted and began preparations to return to the fight.

With the creatures rampaging they had little options besides finishing off every single demon and monster, as well as rescuing the captured individuals from Evlin's city.

[Gustav! I need you to reunite with our group and form a small purification team to help you free the imprisoned souls!!] Ashley stated.

[Understood!! But what about the rampaging monsters??]

Ashley spotted one of her allies coming out from the recovery unit, which by this point was packed with wounded soldiers and mages, and marched right back into action after charging himself with energy from an absorbing crystal.

It was Marcus, finally up again.

She also ordered Detra to take a crystal as well and reunite with him. Detra nodded and rushed to the side of her son and once they saw the chaos spreading, decided to unite their forces for the first time ever since they met.

[Don't worry about that! I'm sending two of our heavy-hitters to handle the job!] Ashley explained.

Gustav wondered what she meant by that until he finally saw it, the former goddess of the East, returning to the fight with a metallic silver staff and unleashing her frozen magic over the rampaging creatures.

"Are you ready? My champion?" Detra asked.

Marcus felt insulted for a second but then he realized that this was her idea of a sense of humor and just went along with it [As I will ever be, my goddess!]

The two laughed and started their own rampage against the enemies.