Chapter 177: Individual Battles

With the advantage of speed on her side, Habona was able to run circles around her opponent and while she wasn’t able to defeat it quickly, it was only a matter of time before she wore it down.

As per my instructions, Numila, Eugenia and Elena engaged the two five-stars from mid air by tossing their magicks at them. Though their spells weren’t able to inflict much damage or even break through their skeletal exterior for that matter, they were at least able to attract the attention of the titans.

Turning their empty eye sockets onto those pesky harpy witches, the lumbering titans chased after the three, arms wildly swinging about in a bid to swat these annoyances. Naturally, their attacks were useless against the highly mobile harpies. Thus, they were slowly but surely lured away from their undead brethren.

Seeing that scene play out before my eyes, it almost reminded me of someone chasing after a bunch of flies… ‘Oh…err…calling them flies would be rather rude. Those sisters were rather fetching after all…’

There were only two four-star titans in total and one of them was assigned to the medusa sisters, Manasha and Majosha. Using their snakes, they were quickly able to grab the attention of these mindless undead with a few acid spits.

For the most part, the spits didn’t deal much damage to the titans but despite that, the titans blindly chased after the medusas simply because they attacked them. I guess this was only to be expected since most undead below the level of seven-stars had no mind of their own. Had it been anyone else who fought the medusas, they would’ve instantly realized that this was a ploy to lure them away.

While they had no legs to run with, their speed didn’t suffer much because of that. Slithering in an S motion, their speed was a notch faster than the titan skeletons chasing them. In such a way, they continued kiting the titans around the massive arena and while they weren’t able to damage the titans, the act of distracting alone was advantageous enough.

On the side of the lizardmen, Westley and Weslin weren’t the only four-stars that came along for this final assault, there were at least six other four-star leaders. Not too long ago, they swore loyalty to Westley and given that Westley, in turn, was a willing subject of Habona, these lizardmen ended up being a powerful yet trustworthy force for us.

With one more titan up for the taking, Westley led his sister and the six other leaders in a brave charge against the colossal skeleton.

Because the lizardman race possessed no magical abilities, they could only call themselves the draconic race rather than an actual dragon. However, each and everyone of them had astonishing physical abilities to make up for this defect, abilities that wouldn’t balk in the face of these titans.

Diving head first, the first thing these magic-less lizardmen did was rush the titan and topple it with a powerful combined collision. Yet just as I thought that the battle was decided, the titan violently jerked its body and without any warning, flipped over onto two lizardmen who couldn’t escape in time.

Thankfully, their draconic bloodline afforded the lizardmen an astonishingly thick hide that, even after being squashed by a titan, allowed them to crawl out from underneath nearly unscathed.

With no losses to speak of, the eight lizardmen, under the leadership of Westley, climbed onto the fallen black iron titan and tried to dismantle the skeleton with their brute strength.

As for the remaining four-star skeleton titans, the tallest among them, the seven meters tall one, mostly likely had the power of a four-star while the other three were at most three-stars. Thus, I had the the three of them lumped together in my considerations.

“Mo En, I want you to distract that seven meters tall titan with two other four-star dogmen. Mo Xixidi and Harlow, you guys will handle one each with the remaining four-star ratmen. As for the last titan, leave that to me.”

Having said all that, Mo En wasn’t particularly receptive to my commands at first but thankfully, his wife Julia was here to save the day. Twisting him by his ears, she used her own brand of loving to make him submit. As for Mo Xixidi…

Lips smiling but eyes cold, I threw out the most effective weapon I had against this glutton of a devil: “If you refuse my orders, I will limit your rations.”

Being the potato that he was, his brain couldn’t process the meaning behind my words. Face scrunched up in confusion as he scratched his head, he asked: “Didn’t you already limit it?”

“What I mean to say is that if you don’t listen to my orders, it will be limited even more.”

“…okay…I’ll listen to you.” With my threat finally taking effect, he tossed the meat he had in his hands right into his mouth, swallowing it in an instant, and patted his hands while striking up a confident pose: “Speak then, who am I fighting?”

“Just that.” I pointed at the five meter tall skeleton and smiled: “I’m not asking for much, just restrain him and prevent him from attacking anyone else other than you and the rodents assigned to you.”

“What if it doesn’t attack us.”

“Then I’ll dock your rations.”

“…drat…”

Throwing a pitiful look at Julia, he attempted a last ditch effort at garnering her support. Too bad for him, Julia was my staunch supporter and merely brushed him off with a cold snort: “If you can’t even finish our Highness’ task, I think you should lose some weight as well.”

“…” Raising his head into the air, he started to shed tears of pain as he yelled: “Damned undead, time to die!”

By now, Mo En had already engaged with the titan skeleton. Looking at his tactics, they were truly a strange sight to behold. Though they seemed really slow on the surface, each time the titan tried to attack him, he would always be able to dodge it safely. However, his offensive powers weren’t as impressive and couldn’t break through the titan’s defenses. As for the dogmen I assigned to him, they might as well have been spectators.

Unlike the slipperiness of Mo En, Mo Xixidi had a completely different approach to battle that was akin to the lizardman’s own style. In other words, he used his brute force to tackle the titan directly.

As a devil blessed by the sin of Gluttony, his evolution path took him down the road of a horned demon, purgatory devil and finally an abyssal devil. Devils of this branch of evolution were known for the being strongest in terms of physical power. Yet in spite of that, I was still astonished when I saw him take on that titan on equal grounds. Don’t forget, that titan was at least five meters tall and was at least twice as tall as he was.

As for the rodents I assigned to him, they were busy spectating just like the dogmen…

Being a demonic werewolf, Harlow’s style of fighting was nearly identical to his sister’s. His first action was to charge right up to the titan and cling onto it. With its clumsy and unwieldy attacks, it often missed the more nimble werewolf. However, because his opponent was only half the height of Habona’s, he couldn’t hang onto its body for long and could only dart in from time to time to try and extract its soul flame.

As for the four-star rodents I assigned to him…they were actually trying to actively participate. Unfortunately, their speed wasn’t on par with Harlow’s and were promptly swatted aside after a few attacks.

“Summon all the three-star warriors, if we aren’t able to take care of them ourselves, have them join the battle as well.” While the battle wasn’t going too badly for now, it didn’t hurt to prepare for a rainy day. After giving out those instructions to Julia, I rushed to face the smallest titan amongst the three.

“Master, let us take care of him instead.”

Behind me, One-eye, Nine-finger, No.3 and Big 4 were all ready to substitute me for this battle. However, I knew very well that their attacks wouldn’t even be able to penetrate the titan’s defenses so I merely shook my head and rejected their goodwill:

“There’s no need for that, your attacks are too weak and you guys aren’t fast enough to dodge as well. Having you all attack would only put you guys in risk, just support me from the backlines.”

“Master…we’ve failed you…”

“It’s not your fault, it’s just that this opponent isn’t suitable for you all to handle.” I smiled at their crestfallen faces before promptly turning around. “Be careful everyone, make sure not to get hit!”

Without looking back, I charged at the titan I chose for myself. As his towering figure began to grow with every step I took, I was awestruck by its terrifying height. If I had to describe the situation right now, it was as if I was an elementary school student facing off against a Yokozuna.(Author: Yokozuna is the highest rank of sumo wrestlers.)

Naturally, all that was merely a difference in body size. In actuality, my strength wasn’t any weaker than my opponent’s.

No, I am definitely stronger than it. Just watch, I’ll use Shadowfang to slice it in ha—.’

In the midst of my charge brimming with confidence, I reached for Shadowfang and to my horror, discovered that it was missing… ‘that’s right, I just lent it to Habona not too long ago…’

Thus, in midst of my heroic dash, I made an equally shameful dodge right as we were about to clash…

‘It’s really not my fault…it’s just that my epic weapon isn’t with me, alright…’

The fist which came my way was already bigger than my body and while it didn’t leave a hole in the floor as it impacted just to the side of me, there was no doubt in my mind that one hit would be enough to blow me away.

‘Hey…just wait a moment, stop chasing me, let me get my weapon back first…we aren’t meant for each other, really, so stop chasing me…damn it…all I wanted to do was show off my dashing side…’

While I was busy being chased by that titan, Numila and Eugenia had just fired off a composite magic spell. Combining their fire and wind magicks, the resulting power of that spell skyrocketed, especially given that Numila had Flametail to boost her fire spells. An instant later, a roaring pillar of flames rose up from beneath the titan and completely swallowed it up as it took to the heavens like a mighty fire dragon.

From the looks of things, its soul flame wouldn’t last much longer especially since the undead were susceptible to fire, not to mention that Numila was still channeling more mana into the spell while all this was happening.

At the other end, Habona’s own battle was about to reach its conclusion as well; Shadowfang lived up to its reputation as an epic weapon once more. In face of Habona’s nimbleness, its six-star power might as well had been zero given how unwieldy its movements were. From start to finish, Habona was able to run circles around the titan and when the opportunity came, she would sneak in a deadly slash from Shadowfang. After ten such slashes, Habona finally managed to behead the titan.

And with that, the towering colossus collapsed to the ground with a thunderous boom…

At that same time, Numila’s flame pillar had just finished its work as well…