Vol. 12 - Ch. 762 - A Desperate Battle Against Fiend Kind Mara

The sudden arrival of Lupto and her three subordinate angels prevented the tragic turn of situation. It must have been her teleportation skill. 

Lupto held Homaru in her arms, and soared before the Queen, who had fell to her knees out of fear.

"Ah, Lupto-sama!!"

"You have come to protect us!"

The Heavenly King shouted in surprise as he hurriedly walked toward the Queen to be her support. The soldiers swiftly catch up with them, creating a protective formation around.

(That was such a timely save! She should have seen through the demon's planning, and came here. And if she teleported right here, then she must have been told everyone else to escape via the ship. Her message must have come earlier.)

Merus appeared just as astonished. The only explanation could be that she noticed what demons were planning before they could've retreated. Earlier, she had been running around to Great Spirit God and his entourage, and once the situation had reached an equilibrium, even gaining upper hand, she should've connected the dots. 

With the inkling, she presumably commanded Heavenly King to escape into the vast Divine Realm along with First Angel and his kins. Meanwhile, she also rushed here to protect them in lieu of any chase.

«i knew you would come here, brother.»

«Obviously. But it's quite bold of a reason to stake it on us to notice their movement. Shouldn't you have enough leeway already?»

Merus and Lupto addressed each other in a familiar tone, with Mara standing as the obstacle between them with her two archdemons. 

Meanwhile, the destroyed Magic Ship left the departure point and disappeared from everyone's vision. 

Great Angels should've dropped the ship on the lower floor to save, as well as give passengers a chance to retreat. 

«...Hmph, do you think you can win just because there are two of you?!»

«I do believe so. Do not expect to make a return so non-chalantly. Index Invocation!!»

Merus exercised his authority of «Angel's Halo», and used Allen's «Index» skill. 

(So, it's against one Fiend King and two Archdemons, huh. Mara's clearly a mage oriented, and has low resistance and endurance. Should we take her down? Wait, she definitely isn't without her plan it seems.)

Having conferred a cruel devastation to the Divine Realm, they need to bring down even one more demon possible. If they made it back alive, they could always call it a failure of strategy, and then come back repeatedly. 

The demon's invasion had only lasted for an hour, but tens of thousands of dragonkin and other Divine Realm's citizens were already brought to a sad fate. Even the Divine Arena had lost nearly thousands of angels training there. The damage this time was too great.

Amidst his thought, Allen suddenly felt their opponent hadn't completely exhausted them when he noticed Mara's expression. If she was acting according to her strategy, then she should still have her trump card. 

«As long as I can kill you, my objective will be finished! You are going to lament why you hadn't defeated archdemons at the first giving  opportunity! I will make my triumphant return with First Angel Homaru, and present him to the Demon King! Remember it, Magic God alone isn't in the research of Ultimate Magic!!»

All of a sudden, Mara's body began to transform at a visible pace. At the same time, she gained 50,000 to all her stats. 

[Name] Mara

[Age] 187,200

[Race] Fiend King (Transformed + Buff)

[Strength] 334,050+50,000

[Mana] 338,000+100,000

[Attack] 245,000

[Endurance] 274,250+50,000

[Agility] 271,000+50,000

[intelligence] 388,000+150,000

[Luck] 206,000

[Attribute] Nil, -50% Offensive Spell Cast Time, -50% Cooldown, +50% Magic Damage

[Resistance] Nil, Magic Resistance (Strong), Evasion Rate (Strong), Abnormal Status Resistance (Strong)

(Heh, she's quite open about her end goal, eh? ...And she gained an uptick in her statu—wait, t-this?!)

If an enemy willingly exposes their objective, this could either mean they'd have another underlying mission, or they're confident to make it a reality. And with her offensive stance, it appeared the case was later.

She was now brimming with mana, perhaps deciding crushing every obstacle with fearsome strength should do it.

(We need to defeat her in one attack, or she would wreck everything up. Leave the magic, give her a good ol' bashing, Merus!)

Allen replied with an urgent voice. As much as he had liked to help him out, he himself had his hands full with Virdiga. 

«I can see that. Broadsword......»

Merus changed his weapon «Twin Sword» of Angel B to «Broadsword» of Angel B, and acquired related skills.Then, he chose to enhance the might of his awakening skill.

«Oh dear, no more help...? Fufu, so you must be at your wits end, then. You two, cover me up until my spell is ready!!»

«Gaoorg!!»

«Gaoorg!!»

The two archdemons stepped up, becoming a shield for her as they huddled together. Amidst that, Mara flashed a smile as she channeled her mana into her hands, and addressed the two archdemons.

«...What a nice kid. Now share your mana—no, share your life with me!!»

«Gaargh!»

«Aaargh!!»

Suddenly, she began to absorb mana out of archdemon, despite herself supporting 200,000. 

(Woah? Did she bring archdemons to merely be her shield and mana refilling tank? Well, that certainly works well for spells with longer casting duration. So a logical answer, I guess? Anyway, it's not the time to be impressed. So the question is if she can deal with archdemons?)

Allen analyzed the situation. Luvanka and other summoned beasts had already dragged two of the archdemons each, so it didn't seem like they could help. 

«It seems we can only give it a try. Lupto, move back with Homaru. Spirit Devil Merge—Lightning Judgement!!»

Merus prompted the technique he had learned at S-rank. In it, he poured the entirety of his mana into the «Broadsword» of Angel B, bringing forth a devastating lightning strike.

(Alright, now we should have the upper hand with our stats. Though I still can't be sure if that would be enough to blast out Mara with her bodyguards. And it seems like Mara would require some time to refine her mana. If she does manage to finish it, that spell can be devastating.)

With stats commonplace in this world, it was quite too easy to manipulate the victory by gaining the upper hand in one. Though, even with twice the stats, one couldn't guarantee one-shit kill, unless the difference towered by four or five times at least. 

The angel's instructor, Murai, was far more proficient in swordsmanship than Kurena, yet an attack from Ordo wiped him out. On the other hand, Kurena had managed to withstand the minimal difference in their status.

At present, Merus, enchanted with all buffs possible in the present scenario, featured 300,000 stats in both spiritual force and mana, meanwhile his attack rested at 480,000. On the other hand, archdemon's resistance was only 200,000, while Mara boasted 330,000 stats.

After invoking Lightning's Judgement at the expanse of entire mana and spiritual force, then recovering them back with the help of heaven's blessing, Merus re-channeled every list of his mana and spiritual force into his broadsword.

«Thor Slasher!!»

Invoking awakening skill «Thor Slasher», Merus swooped down headed straight for Mara. 

[Effect of Spirit-Demon Union]

1. Techniques and awakening skills can be activated twice, disregarding cooldown.

2. One-hit attack turned into two-hit attack. 

3. The attack must be one-hit. 

«Ahh!»

One of the archdemon wailed as Merus's broadsword cut him apart. Another archdemon hurried to jump between him and Mara. But, the lightning-clad broadsword easily smashed through the second archdemon, and closed up to Mara's flank.

«Aaargh! But, it's you who's going to die! Every one of you, saving Homaru, turns into dust for me!! Heavens Catastrophe!!»

Merus's strike opened a gaping wound in Mara, spraying purple blood around, but she managed to invoke the spell, powered by her and two archdemon's mana. 

Mara seemed to have an unwavering conviction of her victory now that she had activated her spell as her lips twisted in laughter. The space around her warped, a testamount to the amount of mana she had used.

«Haaaaa!!»

Merus desperately tried to cut her, with all the mana and spiritual aura dried up, plus the might weakened by the other two archdemon, he couldn't completely slay Mara. 

A mass of jet-black mana, overflowing out of Mara's hand, took the shape of skulls and rushed in Merus's direction. It was a moment where it was clear they had all but failed, with Mara's chanting coming to an end, and Merus completely void of his mana, Mara was inches away from perishing him. 

A moment all it would take, but suddenly Lupto's voice followed.

«Brother! I will help with support!! Critical Edge!!»

Lupto, who had taken Homaru under her protection, invoked her support skill. It appeared she had been preparing her skill while keeping others safe.

Mara's ominous mana in the shape of a skull was mere inches away from Merus when he suddenly felt a newborn strength inside his arms.

*Squelch*

«Gaaahhh! H-How could it be!!»

Just by a breath of hair, Merus overtook Mara and cleaved her from abdomen. 

(Kuwataro, appraisal eye! And—great! Her Mana is 0!!)

With Lupto's support, the cleaved upper body of Mara slammed into the floor of Rabul, devoid of any strength. From the cleaved part, black fumes had begun to rise, and it was apparent she was steps away from oblivion.  

«F-forvie me, Demon King. If only I could have been of any more help...»

On the floor, Mara uttered words of regret as if in confession, the jet-black feathers of her slashed wings piling upon her. 

(All the archdemons have been eliminated. My word, this one was such a close battle, but we barely managed to win—Hmm, what's this?)

Merus and Allen finally put down their hanging heart, an expression of relief covering their faces. 

Merus turned to Lupto, whose timely help had prevented the tragedy. However the sight that greeted them was a magic circle suddenly appearing before Lupto. 

[5 seconds until Demon King's army retreat.]

«What are you saying? We have our target because of you. You did well for a fake battle.»

Kyubel's familiar voice rang around. 

«Aargh!?»

He suddenly appeared out of the magic circle, and grabbed Lupto by the nape of her neck.

T/N - If your preferred genre is dungeon x light-hearted story, try out LET ME SPEND MONEY, DAMMIT!