Chapter 283

The air was hot with the constant fire this enemy put out. The walls of fire that Morrigan used to protect us didn't help our comfort either. It wasn't an issue yet, but a long, drawn out fight of attrition with this monster would wear us down.

The mummified gorilla of a demon turned back to Silva once the fire attack it had lobbed at me didn't work. It swept its arm toward her with surprising speed for its size, but Silva's disciplined footwork kept her one step ahead of it. As the demon focused hard on trying to break Silva's guard, Sibyl took advantage of the moment to leap back onto its back. It seemed that for a monster of this size, it was one of her favorite strategies. She shoved her sword under its skull and up into its head, but rather than kill the monster, that just pissed it off.

It turned away and twisted its body so that it could swipe at Sibyl on its back. Sibyl was too slow to dodge and was punched off and rolled to the ground, where she tumbled like a ragdoll. I had been worried for a brief moment, but the tough catgirl quickly got back to her feet and let out a pulse of reassurance through the bond. Her build gave her plenty of leeway to take hard hits despite her small stature. A shining example of why you can't take someone's appearance at face value in this world, doubly so for Succubi.

The demon reached back and managed to dislodge the blade that was shoved into its head and toss it to the side. The monster turned to charge at Sibyl, but its foot broke through the ground where a fireball had exploded earlier and tripped forward onto its knees. Its stance didn't make it completely vulnerable, but the hiccup left me a wide opening to take advantage of its misstep. I immediately activated [Coin Toss], flipped a coin toward it, and called tails. The moment the coin hit the ground, a blast of magic tossed it onto its side just as it was climbing back to its feet, and Silva was able to shove her spear into its arm and pin it to the ground at an awkward angle.

I slid my ritual book out of its belt loop and flipped it open as I began to cast [Light Scribing]. Since most of the non-luck-based magic I had access to was fire-based, I knew that some ice-based magic would be a welcome addition to my repertoire, and that had proved true when we fought the bone twister demon in the capital. The brief moment that Silva had the demon pinned was enough to cast one of the simpler ice spells I had access to, and my light scribing quickly resolved into a row of ice spikes that traveled along the ground toward the demon.

The demon screamed, and its skin burst into a gout of steam as the cold ice met its blazing hot skin. Silva dodged out of the way as it writhed in pain from the rapid change of temperature. It didn't stay knocked down for long though, even if the damage seemed especially effective.

"Lilith! We need to disable it. Prepare an ice trap again!" Silva called to me.

"Alright! It's going up ahead of us!" While what I said was a bit ambiguous, I was able to indicate the exact location where I was setting it up through the bond.

Sibyl was quick to jump in and grab its attention by shoulder-checking the demon before it could fully recover. I began to cast the spell at the tip of my sword, but it was more complex than the previous spell, so it would take longer to set up. The demon swatted at Silva and Sibyl as they worked to hold its attention. The hasted perception that was still active on me made it feel like it was taking even longer, but finally, the spell completed, and I signaled to the others that the trap was in place. Now we just needed to make another opening to shove it into the trigger.

I cast [Blackjack] to see if I could knock it around. Ten, four, two, jack. The cards erupted in my hand painfully as I busted. I gritted my teeth and cast it again. Nine and an ace of spades, twenty, that was a lot better. As the fight continued, the three of us became more in sync as we leveraged the bond even more than we had before. Training with the Succubi girls Oceane had sent with us showed our group how much more potential we had left on the table. Adapting some of their strategies was a helpful lesson for us on the trip. The moment I had a good hand drawn, the two moved out of the way, and the spell rocked into the demon and made it stumble. The moment the spell had faded, Silva and Sibyl synchronized to shoulder-check it at the same time and sent it falling backward right onto the ice trap I had set for it.

Spikes of ice shot up through the back of the monster and held it in place. All three of us dashed forward to hack off its limbs. Regeneration couldn't completely recreate body parts if dismembered, so that was our best strategy since fire attacks wouldn't work against this monster. While it was an easier to hit target, I untied my cursed claymore from my back so that I could probably chop off its limbs. The thin mithril blade wouldn't be enough to actually dismember its body without the help of additional magic. I swung the claymore overhead and brought it down on one of the legs that Sibyl held outstretched for me, and I severed it in one sweep. The monster screamed in pain and struggled against the ice. I turned and swung the claymore at the other leg and severed that limb too. For a moment, I thought that would be enough to secure our victory, but the demon flailed and broke out of the ice that was holding it.

Blood was pouring from the demon's severed legs, but it dragged itself along the ground with its giant front limbs. It had been significantly slowed, but the demon was still fighting. Sibyl took advantage of the demon's inability to defend itself with the limbs that were dragging its body across the ground and hopped forward to slash her sword across the demon's eyes, blinding it. The demon roared, and its eyes began to visibly regenerate, but the distraction was all Silva needed to blow off another limb with the lightning spear attack she had been charging in that time. Sibyl effortlessly moved out of the way just as Silva moved in to attack, perfectly coordinating with each other.

The demon was blown onto its back and was left vulnerable, with only its last arm madly flailing around. Sibyl used some kind of charged sword attack that blew its remaining arm out of the way for me to behead the monster with one last sweep of my claymore. With an audible thunk, the head fell to the ground and rolled away.

[Your party has defeated a Desiccated Flame Treiseki Demon][Your level has increased from level 52 to level 53][Novice Magic Swordsman has increased from level 15 to level 18][Enhancement Magic has increased from level 11 to level 13][Learned Enhancement Magic Spell - Frost Imbue][Ritual Magic has increased from level 17 to level 20][Ritual Magic Skill Ability Synergistic Connection has been unlocked][Luck Magic has increased from level 12 to level 13][Swordsmanship has increased from level 39 to level 40][Expert Swordsman class unlocked][Swordsmanship Skill Ability Blade Maintenance has been unlocked][You have unlocked the skill Ice Magic Lv. 1][Learned Ice Magic Spell - Ice Shard][Novice Ice mage class unlocked][You have unlocked the skill Pack Tactics Lv. 1]

I knew I didn't have time to look at anything in depth here, but I was excited to see that I learned Ice magic. I wasn't sure if that was because of my fiddling with ice ritual spells or if it was because I had learned [Frost Imbue], but either way, I was pretty happy about it. I didn't even have fire magic yet, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was a combination of factors. Still, I didn't have any other offensive spells outside of the random luck ones, so I still counted that as a huge win.

Sibyl came over to me, panting. "We need to get out of here."

I nodded and looked over to Silva, who looked pretty beat down herself. Morrigan was still keeping the monsters at bay, but the longer we stayed, the longer she needed to push herself. Silva poked at the demon's head a few times before coming over. "The demon didn't turn to ash. This one wasn't from the dungeon. Someone summoned it."

"We'll talk about that later. We need to get back into the city," I replied.

"The gate that Torien's guarding will be the easiest to re-enter, and the ice wall will be nice to cool us down," Sibyl suggested.

I frowned. That wasn't the closest gate, but it probably would be the easiest one to return through. It might be worth refreshing my ice wall if I could get the mana together by then. Either way, we needed to move before we got overwhelmed. "Okay, let's get moving." I turned to Morrigan and communicated where we were going through the bond. After a moment, I got an acknowledgment, and she sent a wave of fire in that direction to help clear a path.

We headed over and fought our way through the groups of demons. They weren't that challenging for the three of us, but there were still a lot of them. It took us nearly twenty minutes of wading through the horde to finally reach the melting ice wall. Despite the danger, Sibyl took a moment to rest against the wall while Silva and I covered for her. It was hard to blame her, she was still adjusting to her altered body. Her transformation had been one of the more extreme ones so far, and she was still adapting.

While she rested, I began to gather mana to refresh the ice wall. It wouldn't take as much mana to reinforce the ice that was already here, but it still took a lot relative to other magic. The amount of mana I needed to reinforce the wall would tap me out though. I dropped my enhancement magic and poured the rest of my mana into the wall to strengthen it. I had a mild headache from the lack of mana, but it wasn't too bad. I would need to rest for a while once we returned to the city walls.

The nearby soldiers headed up by Torien cleared the kill box for us, and we made it through the gate before any demons could follow us through. The three of us were exhausted by the time we made it back up to the wall, spent of all our mana and stamina.

I headed up to where Torien was and was surprised to find Bella there. "Hey, Lilith. You seem worn out. Take this," she said while holding out a bottle. "I have some for the others too."

"What is it?" I asked as I looked over the white bottle.

"It's ahem... Nelly's milk. It has restorative properties. Morrigan told me that you probably needed it after watching you finish off the demon that had been at the gate, so I came to deliver it for you."

I flushed a little from the source of the milk, but I opened the bottle and took a sip. It was surprisingly refreshing for milk, something I wouldn't usually classify that way. Drinking it made my muscles relax, the headache from my lack of mana faded, and all of the minor scratches and scrapes faded away. Plus Nelly's milk always tasted fucking amazing. I wasn't sure if it was because of my succubus nature enjoying fluids of all types or if it was just that good. Either way, I drank about half the bottle before calling over Sibyl.

"What's up, Lilith?" she asked tiredly.

"Bella brought us something to drink. It'll help," I told her as Bella handed her one of the bottles.

Sibyl was parched, so she didn't argue, but her eyebrows rose after she took a sip. "What is this?" she asked while looking down at the bottle. "I feel a lot better already. A potion?"

Bella coughed awkwardly. "Nelly's... milk."

"Oh..." Sibyl looked down at it for a long moment before taking another sip. "She tastes good."

I laughed at how unfazed Sibyl was in contrast to Bella's awkwardness.

"What?" Sibyl asked while looking at Bella. "I used to cook with cowkin milk all the time. It's not that weird."

I just shook my head and picked up the crossbow I had left there. While the worst of it has probably passed, the night wasn't over yet. There would still be plenty of demons to get through.