272 Extermination 1

"Move up the left flank! We can't let them overwhelm us now!"

Shouting over a hail of machine gun fire and relentless close air support, Solaris weaved together a defensive spell as she continued barking orders.

"Alice reel them in, I got you covered!"

"G-got it!"

Trusting her commander, Alice lept straight into range of her opponents as a shield made of concentrated mana crystals surrounded her right before she brought down her greatsword and cleaved one of her targets in half along with the building behind it. Letting the greatsword which was taller than herself flow freely in her hands like it was made of soft foam, Alice brought it down on another target with such force that it shock the already ruined city which she continued to decimate along with anyone unfortunate to get within her range.

"... I swear that girl is such a brute sometimes."

With the church tower gently swaying from Alice's sword strikes over a kilometre away, Lilly's mouth drew into a thin smile as her golden eyes surveyed the battlefield. Finding a cluster of enemies moving in towards Solaris and her drone detachment, Lilly's eyes slightly narrowed as her smile disappeared before she reached into the empty air in front of her, pulling an arrow made out an arrow made of ethereal mana which she nooked on a bow which seemed like nothing more than the passing wind.

Unless you saw the world as Lilly did that is.

"Goodbye children."

Releasing the arrow Lilly followed it with her golden eyes as it passed straight through multiple buildings before reaching its destination in the matter of a split second, then it detonated in a bright and strangely mesmerising explosion.

"YOU FIRST!"

"!!!"

But right after releasing the arrow something suddenly spoke out from right behind her. With no time to think or hesitate, Lilly trusted her instincts and leapt forward out of the bell tower. Turning around in mid air, she released another arrow which almost immediately detonated, but the figure which had snuck up on her was nowhere to be found.

"Shi-"

Even before she could utter a full word the figure once more emerged out of the nearby shadows, closing the range in an even shorter time Lilly only just managed to block its strange claw like appendages with her dagger as the figure once more disappeared into thin air.

"It's here!"

Breaking her own fall just in time with a powerful whirlwind, Lilly was immediately swarmed by enemies which surrounded her on all sides.

It would be way too late before she realized that they were stalling for time, by that time she was the only one left standing.

-

"... I can't believe we lost that."

"Well, what do you expect going against Dax?"

"True…"

"Still, what was that drone? The one with the claws."

"Probably some sort of prototype..."

"Nope~ It's a production model."

Appearing out of nowhere with a large smile on his face, Dax corrected Alice as he placed a hand on her shoulder to keep her from running away.

"Now, my dear Alice. Getting up close and personal is great and all, but make sure you're not too caught up in it to notice changes in your surroundings. Failure to do so will get you killed."

"O-okay, got it."

"Then there's you Solaris."

Having finished saying what he wanted to say to Alice, Dax turned his attention towards the archangel who flinched slightly in response.

"Keeping track of the battlefield is a good thing to do, but if you can't act on any chances then it means nothing. With your control of mana and defensive capabilities getting stuck in like Alice isn't a bad idea once in a while…. As for you Lilly, I don't think I need to say anything, both for the sake of your pride and my own health."

"A wise decision."

Breathing a short sigh to switch gears after he had avoided his untimely death, Dax turned serious, something which had an immediate effect on the girls who also shaped up.

"If this had been a combat exercise there's still a lot of things I would have wanted to say, but that wasn't the purpose of our little bout. While we fought I took the liberty of looking over every single one of the numerous training and qualification exercises Lux had kept hidden from me, including the live combat engagement where you took down an irregular elder. Faced with the results of those feats along with recommendations from my staff, I have no choice but to recognise each of you as Hellwalkers with sufficient experience and skills to participate in live combat operations."

Hearing the exact opposite of what they had been expecting, the girls were momentarily stunned by Dax's words which were too serious sounding to be a joke. Having expected Dax to try and use the test they had just failed as a justification for keeping them from live combat, being approved for it instead came as a bit of a shock.

"Wait, what? Didn't we fail that test just now?"

"Yeah, if that was a test then you would have all failed pretty hard, especially you Lilly~"

Attempting to pat Lilly's head with a large smile on his face, Dax hurriedly retracted his hand as he would like to keep it with all fingers attached before giving the pissed off elver a serious answer.

"It wasn't a test, but more of a personal assessment for my own sake, it's kind of an unofficial welcome ceremony for the 125th, every single Hellwalker has gone through it."

"Meaning?"

Feeling like there was a simpler reason behind Dax's very professional sounding response, Lilly raised an eyebrow as her lips curled up in a slight smile.

"I have a better time understanding my teammates when I've seen how they react being torn apart. That aside, are you girls ready to exterminate the last remnants of the elders?"