"So, Darlius, what's your affinity?" Asti asked.
"You think now's the time for that, Asti?" Darlius growled.
"I was just asking… considering how many are coming," Asti replied.
"I'll show you, but watch my back!" Darlius declared, charging toward their enemies.
"Kill them all! I want thirty on the ones on the ground, the rest, we'll deal with that metal monster!" he shouted, pointing at Simone.
Darlius was only twenty meters from impact. He hesitated on how to fight, ultimately choosing a risky style that relied on someone covering his rear. He hoped Asti was keeping a close eye on him.
Drawing his sword, he didn't attack the enemies directly in front of him. Instead, he slipped through the gaps they left open. As he weaved through, he swiftly sliced open their stomachs, leaving them to spill their insides.
"Where is he?" one man shouted.
"I don't know, he was right in front of us before making those weird moves!" another replied. The second man suddenly felt an itch in his stomach. Touching it, he found a long horizontal gash across his lower abdomen, his organs tumbling to the ground.
Asti, witnessing the gruesome spectacle, cleared his mind and focused his gaze. At least six enemies had been struck by Darlius. He grabbed his bow and fired at every head he could see.
Meanwhile, Darlius continued his strange, unpredictable movements. But one of the enemies he'd already cut down, still lying on the ground, grabbed his foot.
"I… got… him, guys… kill him!" the man gasped, bleeding out.
Darlius found himself surrounded in the middle of their group, unable to move. Ten red shadows charged at him.
"Damn it, I'm not even sure this'll work!" Darlius exclaimed in the heat of the moment.
Suddenly, eight of the red shadows collapsed, each with an arrow lodged directly in their brain.
With no time to look back, Darlius parried the two remaining attackers simultaneously.
"Why did our machetes veer off?" one of them cried.
Darlius had coated his sword with a thin layer of water, enveloping the blade's edge, which caused the deflection.
Earlier, I used the water body technique. I move so strangely and unpredictably that it seems like I disappear, but really, I just slip into the small gaps between you, Darlius thought.
He stared at his two opponents. But if it's my sword that becomes the water…
Darlius swung his blade at the man on his right, who was already preparing to parry. But the man on the left seized the opportunity to strike at Darlius's blind spot.
Inwardly, Darlius grinned. Everything was going as planned. In a completely unpredictable move, his sword, aimed at the man on the right, suddenly pivoted and decapitated the one on the left.
"You filthy bastard!" the remaining man roared before charging at Darlius. But he noticed too late that Darlius's sword was back in his right hand. The enemy, unable to stop his attack, tried to adjust his speed to hit Darlius. A blade then pierced his throat.
"Honestly, why attack vertically when horizontal is so much faster?" Darlius quipped, pulling his sword from the man's throat.
He glanced around. There were still enemies left. Suddenly, he heard Aconé shout, "Duck if you don't want to die!"
Arts of the Broken Dimension: Wave of Blades!
With each swing of Aconé's saber, blades of air surged forward, crashing into their enemies. Asti, in a state of monstrous focus, had almost transformed into a master archer. Every target missed by Aconé's attack was instantly taken down by Asti's arrows.
Seeing Asti's precision, Aconé had an idea and approached him.
"What do you want?" Asti growled, not even glancing at him.
"Let me touch your arrows before you shoot," Aconé said.
Asti, without questioning, complied.
Aconé touched one of Asti's arrows, and its tip burst into flames. "You'll see the result, Asti."
Asti aimed at a red shadow trying to kill Darlius, who was on the ground, and released the string. Aconé watched the arrow speed forward and lodge itself in the target's throat. The fire flared, leaping from the arrow to another enemy, then splitting and spreading further, growing in size and number, all manipulated by Aconé's gestures.
Seeing their enemies burn, Asti lowered his bow and collapsed to the ground. He had entered a state of absolute focus, his only goal to kill. He'd fired over fifty arrows in a row. At first, he missed, but the more he shot, the more terrifyingly precise he became.
Exhausted, his right shoulder felt as if he'd used it nonstop for days. He turned his head to check on Simone.
Around her, the ground was soaked in blood. Corpses lay in impossible positions, her blood-covered iron starfish matching Simone herself. She had descended to fight hand-to-hand, her metal gloves also drenched in red.
Darlius stood up and rushed toward Aconé, grabbing him by the collar.
"Are you insane? I almost got sliced up like them! And you're burning them alive? You could've warned me—I nearly joined them in the afterlife!" he growled.
"Chill, you're alive! And thank Asti. When those ten guys had you surrounded, you'd be dead without him," Aconé shot back.
Darlius turned his head toward Asti, still on the ground, but before he could say anything, Simone interrupted.
"Listen up. Now that I have my starfish, our best chance to escape is by air," she declared.
"You saw how we took them all out? There's probably more coming, but with our power, we can wipe this place clean!" Aconé protested.
"And you think you can keep up this pace much longer? Look at Asti—he's almost done. Darlius, your fighting style only works with people like Asti and Aconé covering you, or you'd be dead back there. And I'm starting to feel mental exhaustion. We need to leave now," Simone insisted.
"Leave? You want to abandon us?" a voice called out behind them.
Sonia appeared, followed by a hundred others. She drew an ether sword and swung it four times, sending ether blades toward them. But they didn't realize it, only seeing Sonia waving her body without a visible weapon.
As the ether blades closed in, they were suddenly shattered by Tony, wielding a black sword. He stepped in front of the group.
Sonia, stunned by his arrival and even more by his ability to destroy her ether blades, glared at him.
"Who are you?" she demanded, her face dark and ready to strike at any moment.
The next instant, Tony unleashed a Black Bang horizontally, while Hikiri, still in the sky, launched Ventamulionne.
"We're leaving now!" Tony shouted.
Simone climbed onto her starfish, followed by the others. She ordered it to rise into the air, and it soared, descending the hill.
"Tony, where are Dina and Hikiri?" Asti asked.
"They're coming… but I think we should focus on something else right now," Tony replied, his gaze fixed behind them.
Asti, Aconé, and Darlius turned and saw, to their horror, that Sonia, unscathed, was pursuing them with a chillingly sinister smile.