Chapter 186 Regroup

Shaman, being the first to arrive at the centre, sat on the ground waiting for the others and the oncoming horde of elven guards.

'Wish we could rest a bit before taking on the next wave.' Shaman put her hand on her stomach, which was stabbed in the last battle causing her quite a lot of pain. Although Shaman's healing was able to make her condition much more bearable, it still hurt to move.

"Shaman~!" Elysia was quick to arrive. Spotting Shaman sitting on the floor, she ran up to her in an instant.

"Hey Eli." Shaman glared at Elysia as she hadn't forgotten about the explosion she caused.

"Haha, Yeah I had a great fight, how about you." Elysia awkwardly laughed while looking away as she knew exactly why Shaman was glaring at her.

*Sigh* "It's too late now, I'm not mad. Anyway, my fight went alright although I did get stabbed in the stomach, I should be fine." Shaman couldn't stay annoyed as they had other pressing issues coming.

"Wait what?!" Elysia instantly became worried and kneeled next to Shaman to check on the injury.

"It's fine, don't worry, I already healed it as much as I can." Shaman regretted saying anything as she knew Elysia would panic over it when it was really fine.

"Stillllll, let me look, otherwise I won't be calm." Elysia needed to see for herself if it was okay so that she can put her worries to rest.

"Fine." Shaman moved her arms from her stomach, revealing the scab that covered the wound and finally easing Elysia's worries.

"Wait, let me try something." Elysia, wanting to rid herself of all her worries, clicked her fingers and a blood-red flame appeared on the tip of her finger.

"Your fire is different?" Shaman instantly noticed the colour change and wondered if it evolved or was a new element.

"Yes, during the fight my fire changed to a blood fire and by burning living things I am able to store their vitality, sort of like a vampire does with blood." On her way, Elysia checked the description of her evolved flame and found it to be a more destructive flame that can heal when it burns living things. It also had a small storage capability, so she can have a heal on the go without having to burn any bodies.

"Oh wow." Shaman was rather impressed as this was a huge upgrade for Elysia who hadn't had any way to heal herself. Although the condition was rather hard to achieve outside of a dungeon, it was nonetheless an upgrade.

"Hehe~." Elysia smiled, happy that she made some improvements despite probably being the strongest in the group. She then put her finger on Shaman's wound and let the fire on her finger spread over it.

Shaman squinted expecting it to hurt, but it was a surprisingly comfortable feeling which she didn't want to end. Soon the wound was completely healed, leaving only some lingering pains, but they were negligible.

"Ooo that's cool." Clara suddenly appeared behind Elysia watching her fire work.

"Ahh!" Elysia screamed and jumped away, pulling Shaman with her thinking it was an enemy.

"Oops." Clara chuckled, finding the reaction amusing and rather cute since it was rare to see Elysia scared. Shaman had seen Clara before she spoke and gestured to stay quiet so she could scare Elysia.

"Grrrr, don't sneak up on me like that! Otherwise I might kill you by accident." Elysia pouted. She had almost pulled out her spear before realising it was Clara at the last moment.

"Yes, yes sorry." Clara, who came out of her fight better off as her wounds slowly healed thanks to her demon side, was ready to keep going.

"Anyway, we are just missing Silver." Shaman looked off into the distance to where Silver was assigned, worried that something may have happened.

'Maybe I should go over.' Shaman was going to quickly go check on Silver, but before she could move, a little head appeared out of a shadow.

"Silver!" Shaman, instantly knowing who it was, ran up to him and opened her arms up for a hug.

"Hello Mother." Silver came out of the shadow as Shaman approached and hugged her back.

"Hmm what's wrong?" Shaman was instantly able to tell something was amiss and, when she wrapped her arms around Silver, she felt his clothes were torn.

"I'm just a bit hurt but that's all." Silver squinted in pain as Shaman accidentally squeezed right where the cuts on his back were.

"I-I, it's okay, ELI! Come heal Silver." Although he was ok, Shaman still panicked, struggling to find any words of comfort to say other than asking to get him healed. Hearing Silver needed to be healed Elysia panicked as well, so she quickly went up to Silver and looked for the injury.

Seeing the cuts on the back, she removed the bandages that he put on himself and let the fire do its work.

"Hopefully I have enough." Elysia was not sure how much stored vitality she had in her flames and hoped it was enough to heal Silver.

"Thank you Mama." Silver, feeling the warm flame, felt himself snuggling into Shaman even more, almost falling asleep in the comfy embrace.

After a minute of healing Silver's wounds, Elysia's flame ran out which caused her to panic a little, but the cuts were now much more shallow, which allowed Shaman to use her heal.

"There! you are all healed up now." Shaman patted Silver's head while using her other hand to heal the small cuts.

"I feel much better now." Silver no longer felt the pain in his back and was confident he would be able to fight properly again.

"Good thing we are all together now, but still, we will be dealing with over 30 of these guards." Clara was rather shocked at how well the guards fought, posing quite a threat.

"We should be alright together, but yes, we need to be careful we don't hit each other while fighting." Shaman foresaw the fight turning into a disaster, especially with Elysia's explosive way of fighting.

"I can take on a group of them myself while you three take care of the rest." Elysia was aware that she would be able to heal herself during the battle. There was also in her hybrid fire fox form which is what made her stronger than anyone else in the group.

"How many?" Shaman didn't want to leave Elysia on her own, but seeing as she came out completely unscathed, knew it might be the only option.

"I can take on around 10 at once, but more will be pushing it." Elysia wanted to take on more, but not wanting to worry Shaman, gave a reserved amount.

"Okay! if you can, that will be great. Me, Clara and Silver will take on the rest and try to stall while you kill yours." Shaman didn't want to go on the offensive as it would be difficult to fight through such a large group of elf guards.

"There might be archers as well, seeing as they did attack Kiruya when she was clearing the dungeon's first floor." Thinking about Kiruya's attempt it went to show how much stronger she was as she was able to solo it without getting hit once.

"If I get the opportunity, I can fire an arrow over at the archers, or I can do it right now?" Elysia pulled out her bow as she didn't mind sending a barrage of arrows at the castle.

"Wait no, we still don't even know if guards are coming because of the explosion, so until we hear anything don't fire." Shaman didn't want to attract attention, especially since they hadn't seen any guards come toward them since the explosion.

"Fiiine." Elysia was a little disappointed, but she knew if they were really in the clear then she shouldn't ruin the chance for a surprise attack.

"Speaking of which, I'm surprised they haven't come out." Clara was getting rather suspicious as last time when Kiruya made a bunch of noise, guards came out.

"They might be planning something, we shouldn't get too comfortable. There are still things we don't know about the dungeon so for all we know we might already be surrounded." Shaman knew they had a secret passageway into the castle, so there was nothing stopping them from also having passages into the town.

"I say we use the time we got and rest, but still, it is a bit eerie seeing no reaction from the castle." Clara looked towards the castle, which was dead silent almost as if it was abandoned.

"Mhm, let's try to rest." Shaman wasn't going to say no as she preferred to have full mana before entering the next fight.

*

10 minutes went by and nothing occurred, giving them enough time to be fully prepared for the next fight. Shaman and Elysia leaned on each other with Silver sitting in between Shaman's legs. Clara leaned up against a wall with her eyes shut, listening out for anything.

"FIRE!!!" Suddenly a shout came from inside the buildings and shortly after archers peeked over the many roofs of the nearby buildings.

"How did I not hear anything?" Clara looked around shocked as she didn't pick up any sound from the elves.

"Quick get in!" Shaman jumped up and opened a stardust portal to escape from the arrows.

The archers all directly fired on their location as they ran into the portal. Just as the arrows were about to reach Shaman, she entered the portal and closed it shut.