Chapter 106: The Demon Queen's War (03)

By making her heroic appearance at the last second when all hope was lost, you'd think she was some sort of knight in shining armor coming to save the day. But that's not the case. That girl is simply a ferocious beast waiting to free her body and unleash all her power.

With the Dungeon constraining her and the kingdom not offering any worthwhile opponent, she only gets to exercise what her body is capable of during training, and even then, it's not like she can fight to kill either.

All this time, and we've yet to see what Mia is capable of.

And now that she's also wearing the necklace, she should be able to go even further beyond.

Thus my hopes fell on her.

Anna, Claire, and Ellie managed to make this demon waste a lot of her mana. Beatrice seems to have made her demonic power reserves dry up with her last show. And now, it's up to us to finish the fight.

Well, I say that but... it's hard to keep up with Mia in this state. Like Melissa before her, she started letting her claws out and her body became closer to that of a beast, she activated every skill she possessed to increase her odds and went all-out on the offensive. All I could do was provide a distraction for the demon queen in the form of another target.

Before, the demon queen kept herself in the air, firing at us from above. This gave her a big advantage against our melee attackers, but now, it is the other way around.

Thanks to the increase in status, Mia is capable of reaching her from the ground quite easily.

Not only does that take away her advantage, if the demon lord were to on the ground with Mia, she should be able to simply shoot her lightning straight when Mia dashes in her direction, but by standing above, she needs to constantly adjust her aim to where Mia will be. It's way more complex.

Still, Mia had yet to land a hit, given the distance between them, once Mia left the ground, the demon queen could easily evade, even though Mia was quite fast.

It would be a standstill like this since neither could hit but... there was still a trick up Mia's sleeve.

A light slap on my shoulder was all she needed, and in her next attack, much faster and more powerful than before, she finally managed to make contact with her enemy.

Mia's Gift is pretty incredible. She needs to be engaged in battle to use it, which for her Gift, means hitting someone. Since it doesn't matter if the person hit is an ally or an enemy, she often uses me as her punching bag- as her trigger.

Once she does that, the number of levels she has turns into both a timer and a percentual buff, in her current form, this means she gets a 69% increase in her status for 69 seconds.

With each second that passes by, the buff becomes weaker but... she can always end and start another battle.

Still, with everything that has been piled up, I think Mia would put up a good fight even against the strongest on Earth, hell, she might even win against a small group of high-rankers as long as their Gifts aren't among the most overpowered.

Mia: "So... I have good news and bad news..."

She landed next to me to reset her timer again, but it seems she also managed to figure something out.

Mia: "She's employing a barrier. Perhaps all this time. The good news is that I might be able to break it if I hit her a few more times."

Which would be great but it appears that the Demon Queen is quite used to fighting. The moment her advantage became a liability, she threw it away and descended to our level.

Miwen: "Now that she's on the ground, you can't charge directly. I doubt a zig-zag will work on her either, you'll have to improvise a confusing path."

Thanks to a few obstacles and rubble, it was possible for her to do it, but with the Demon Queen's barrier still standing, a few hits wouldn't do anything, and with enough opportunities, the Queen would probably adapt too, making it harder and harder for us.

Honestly, I don't think we can bet on slowly chipping away at her barrier to then start hitting her. We need to make use of the advantageous situation we have while we still can and I think for that, it would be better if we could shock her with an unprecedented attack that both breaks the barrier and deals damage to the demon.

Miwen: "I'll be counting on you, Mia."

Since she was able to hit the Demon Queen, what we lacked was a finishing blow, so I gave her [Physical Prowess], [Last Man Standing], and [Focused Strike]. Since she wasn't using bladed weapons and I wasn't sure if her claws counted, I kept [X-slash]. Either way, all of these skills would actively help her with her next attack now that the Demon Queen had defeated so many of us.

Carrying our hope, she dashed toward the demon queen. By keeping track of her eyes, Mia could tell where she was aiming, and using the rubble from the houses around us to maneuver in an unpredictable way, she closed the distance, and with her next attack, charged with everything I could offer her...

We finally managed to see blood coming from the Demon Queen.

It was only a bit from her shoulder since she managed to dodge it at the last moment, but Mia could still keep going and tried to use the opening to tear the Queen's neck.

I also went ahead to try and finish it in case Mia failed to since now the barrier was down and I could reach the Demon Queen, but...

Both Mia and I had our bodies trapped by earth magic.

This girl still had things she could do. It was like she was prepared for every situation.

Mia: "Miwen... I destroyed multiple barriers... but they delayed my attack."

... It was strange that she managed to react, and Mia's attack seemed to slow down before contact, but I wouldn't have guessed that there was more than one barrier.

Wait... How deep does the mana reserve of this girl go? She fought Claire and Bea, she's used enough magic to defeat Anna, she destroyed all of Ellie's arrows and you're telling me she still had not one, but multiple barriers set up to defend herself?

It's not like she's been casting weak magic either. Her first attack alone managed to pierce through Licia's ice barrier as if it were butter, I can't see that not costing a huge amount of mana.

Well, grievances aside, this seems problematic.

This ended up being a mistake though...

Her lightning attacks were still faster than what I could react to, and she managed to hit me while I dashed in her direction.

Demon Queen: "To think... I would come so close to dying... and this damned blade still stole my divinity too... but no matter... this is the end now, king."

But it's not.

I stared at her eyes and threw a fireball at her. I didn't have much mana left, and this one wasn't particularly strong, just a bit big is all...

Just enough to cover her vision.

Using the speed granted to me by the sword, I managed to throw it quite fast. Even without that though, it would've been enough.

I knew she was going to receive it either way.

And as I stared at the Queen's eyes, her head separated from her neck and fell off.

Standing behind her was the person I counted on more than anyone else.

Licia: "Sorry... I was late."

Miwen: "No... you came at the exact time I needed you. As expected of my knight in shining armor."

Though she lacks the shining armor. And Claire is actually the knight.

This would also make me the damsel in distress, but aside from all these problems, it's a perfect analogy.

This time I thought the battle had ended for sure.

But I was proven wrong.

Once again, the same lightning bubble hit both Licia and me, throwing us away.

The vision I saw was beyond creepy and grotesque.

That girl... she was regenerating her body from the neck.

Miwen: "What the fuck... how come you can do that?"

It's not unprecedented for a mage to use healing magic but... to such an extent?

And after everything that happened?

I even felt more barriers breaking when I hit her earlier, so what's the deal here?

How much mana does she have?

Demon Queen: "... I shouldn't have underestimated you... But you unless you have something else up your sleeve... this time... you..."

I guess even for her this was a bit too much... her body was regenerating fast, but she had to focus a lot on it.

If she dedicated that focus to defeating me now, she would've been able to do so instantly since she was not going to underestimate me anymore.

Still, thankfully, may this be luck or not, finally something was going in my favor. And it couldn't have been at a better time.

Miwen: "As a matter of fact, I still have a card to play. If you get through this one, victory is yours."

Obviously, that wasn't going to happen.

How deep her mana reserves run.

How much magic she knows.

Demonic Power... Divinity...

None of that would matter.

The moment this became a battle, all I had to do was buy time and guarantee that she didn't kill anyone.

The fact she wanted to recruit us helped a lot in that regard, but if anything became life-threatening, I would've gotten the girls out of the kingdom one by one.

Miwen: "Took you long enough."

It's the most unreliable card ever, but if it was going to show its worth, there wasn't going to be a better opportunity.