56 Chapter 56: Tactical Withdrawal

Clang! Wham!

In contrast to Alicia and my fruitless ranged support, Cecilia was actually fighting evenly with Hades, her sword clashing fervently against his scythe. She made use of her smaller stature to weave in and out of Hades' wide swings and large attacks, dodging his slashes and countering with sharp thrusts and stabs of her own. Hades was skilled enough to see those attacks coming, and would always step back in time to evade them.

Moreover, his raw strength was giving him the edge in this battle.

With a bellow, Hades knocked Cecilia off her feet with a powerful slash, causing her to stagger back.

"Cecilia!" Alicia cried out in panic.

Fortunately, the Crowley Academy representatives' captain realized that her situation was pretty grim. Her guard had just been destroyed, and Hades was now bearing down on her, eager to seize the opportunity to scythe her down once and for all.

Whoosh!

My Orion's Belt exploded in Hades' face, followed by explosive magical bolts from Alicia's guns. The goliath roared as he stumbled back, blinded by the smoke and steam. With a grateful nod in our direction, Cecilia quickly withdrew to restore her defensive stance.

We kept up our bombardment, forcing Hades to stay on his toes as we peppered him with our magical projectiles. Cecilia, seizing the opening we bought her, ran through the rain of devastation to strike the faltering enemy. To his credit, Hades shrugged off our onslaught to focus on the immediate threat before him, deflecting Cecilia's strike and countering with a vicious slash.

Cecilia whirled around and answered with a riposte that almost tore through Hades' ribs had he not slide his body out of the way in time. Stomping forward, Hades swung his scythe down like a cudgel, as if to crush Cecilia with its sheer weight and mass, but she sidestepped the attack and allowed the crescent-shaped blade to bury itself in the ground.

Several more detonations stung Hades' face and chest as Alicia and I fired at him relentlessly. Hades stumbled, seeming to hesitate for just a second before he began to pull out his scythe – but that single second was more than enough.

Cecilia jumped atop Hades' scythe, preventing him from retrieving his weapon, and quickly seized the chance to attack with a lethal thrust toward his heart. If that landed, it didn't matter how good his regenerative ability was – he would die from that.

If it landed, that is.

To our amazement, Hades willingly relinquished his hold on his scythe, letting go of the thick shaft and doing a cartwheel to avoid Cecilia's sword. Moving with astound agility that belied his massive size, the giant delivered a flurry of kicks and punches that forced Cecilia into the defensive. Despite slamming his fists and feet against Cecilia's sharp blade, the goliath's iron-hard skin seemed impervious to metal. His barrage of physical attacks hurled the stunned Cecilia back through sheer force alone, the swordswoman barely able to keep up with his speed.

"Guuh…!"

Cecilia slid back a few meters, her hands still trembling violently from the impact of parrying those blows with her sword. Panting, she studied Hades, who had now retrieved his scythe now that there was no longer any impediment.

"He must be based off the legend of a warrior of great renown in the past," Cecilia repeated her speculation from earlier, clearly impressed and astonished. "Even in the grip of madness, his skills have not been blunted."

"I would say his berserk mode actually gives him mad skillz," I muttered, earning an annoyed glance from Alicia. Sorry, no matter how bleak the situation seemed, I couldn't resist throwing that joke out. "We should be careful."

"That's true," Cecilia conceded reluctantly. "We won't get away with simply being hurt if we underestimate the enemy."

Except that you're the only one underestimating our enemy…

Suppressing the snide remark, I sent another huge arrow into his temple, the missile detonating against the side of his head with the force of a tank shell. Despite the violent explosion, my arrow had no effect at all.

Hades merely stood there without budging, completely unaffected by the direct hit. Clicking my tongue, I shook my head in disbelief as I watched his unscathed features.

"He's almost like an elemental force of nature, the very embodiment of madness itself."

"Like I said, isn't he getting stronger?" Alicia's voice quivered a little. "Our attacks are having less effects as time goes on. It's like he's getting immune to our spells."

"That can't be good," I muttered as a chill ran down my spine. If what Alicia observed was correct, then our situation was growing increasingly grim.

"My attacks are still getting through," Cecilia informed us coolly. Oh, there was that, of course. Perhaps Hades' ability only worked against ranged spells?

Was it even an ability to begin with?

"You're the one who is most familiar with summoned spirits, Richard." Alicia turned to me, her expression anxious. "What do you think?"

"I don't know," I replied, a hint of frustration creeping into my voice as I studied Hades. "He's different from any other summoned spirit I've encountered. Unlike Angelica, this Hades guy has been silent the entire time. Usually contracted spirits are sentient, and Hades gives off the vibe that he's a contracted spirit and not a soul beast."

"What's the difference?" Alicia asked, unfamiliar with the subject.

"Contracted spirits are created by establishing a contract with an already-existing spirit – you probably know the difference between spirits and monsters, and how they are hypothesized to come from different dimensions, right? Soul beasts, in contrast, are aspects of your soul, created and formed entirely from your imagination before you cast a complex spell to manifest them in reality. In contrast, contracted spirits can be summoned immediately as long as you have the contract in place."

"So you believe this Hades is a contracted spirit," Cecilia noted tersely. "Are there any special characteristics or abilities that I should keep in mind regarding him?"

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"If you were to put it in human terms, I would classify him as a berserker. Much like Theodore Hammond…"

Cecilia didn't seem to recognize the name, but Alicia certainly did. She nodded.

"Yeah, this spirit definitely shares characteristics with the berserker class."

This might sound like we were stating the obvious, and I could already see the readers screaming about this dialogue being "filler", but it was important, especially as it contributed the strategy we came up with. Obviously, combating a berserker who had lost all sanity and reason would require different methods than if we were fighting a cunning, quiet one.

"How troublesome." Cecilia grimaced. "Berserkers are extremely difficult to deal with – they are usually entirely unpredictable, they don't care about their lives or wellbeing. In other words, this Hades will be utterly focused on killing us, undistracted by anything else. We'll have to stay on our guard. Worse, it'll take a lot more to kill him because he evidently doesn't feel any pain, so he'll be able to shrug off a single lethal injury or two."

"Can we even hurt him?" Alicia asked timidly. She had a point. Our ranged attacks had thus far proved futile, and Cecilia's close combat attacks had yet to put a single scratch on him despite her claim that they were getting through. Well, she was forcing him to the defensive and causing him to parry and block her sword with his scythe, so that was an optimistic sign.

Unfortunately, we no longer had the luxury to engage in strategic debate because Hades once again leaped forward and bore down on her like a hurricane.

Cecilia found herself shoved back by Hades' attacks as he renewed his onslaught once again. Gritting her teeth, she parried blow after blow, inevitably giving ground as Hades pressed on with his barrage of slashes and strikes. The guy was amazingly fast for someone his size, and coupled with his raw strength, he was overwhelming even a skilled and talented swordswoman like Cecilia.

"Alicia! Richard! Please keep up the support!"

We were probably just wasting magical energy, but neither of us had a choice. I unleashed another volley of arrows that blew up the space around Cecilia and Hades, each projectile possessing enough power to raze a house. But every direct hit against Hades merely dissipated harmlessly against his dark, tattooed skin.

Alicia was also bombarding him from afar, her magic bullets slamming into his iron-hard flesh and detonating with the force of grenades, but for all her shooting, she might as well be throwing sand at the giant berserker.

He really can't feel any pain, can he?

Cecilia exchanged another furious blow with Hades. She desperately fended off Hades' slashes and countered with ripostes and strikes of her own, which Hades avoided just barely. Unlike Alicia's and my projectiles, it seemed that Hades actually feared Cecilia's melee attacks. Once again, I wondered about the significance of that.

Is his ability or enchantment specific against ranged spells?

I let loose another couple of shots, which merely vanished into nothingness against the goliath's shadowy bulk. I observed my attacks, as well as Alicia's – her bullets pounding mercilessly against Hades' face and chest – noting that they were not so much as ineffective as they were being nullified upon contact.

What the hell was with that monster's defensive ability?

I glanced at Selina, but she remained some distance away from us, leaving the murderous task to her summoned spirit. She had no intention of interfering – probably because she no need to.

"Ah!"

Cecilia was flung away as Hades overpowered her with a single brutal slash, knocking her sword out of her hands and sending her flying in the direction of the graveyard. He bent his knees, getting ready to jump, but I fired a single bolt of energy, the arrow-shaped destruction detonating against him and actually causing him to stagger for once.

Not done yet, I covered for Cecilia by jumping in front of her, distracting Hades with more of my arrows. Dancing around to evade his deadly scythe, I lured him away from the prone swordswoman, continuing to hurl more explosive projectiles against the raging berserker. He took the bait and swung his scythe at me, but I quickly dove to the side, maintaining a good distance between us. Hades tried to close the distance with a single bound, but I responded with a leap of my own. Soaring high into the air directly above Hades, I prepared my bow.

The berserk goliath turned his head up after he landed, almost as if he was watching me curiously.

I smiled grimly. That's right, you bastard. Look over here. It'll be the last thing you'll ever see.

"Betelgeuse!"

I unleashed an azure rain of arrows down below, thousands, no tens of thousands of arrows pouring down from the heavens (or from Orion, to be more accurate) and enveloping Hades in a series of explosions. Even as the gargantuan figure vanished beneath countless azure detonations, I mercilessly continued my bombardment of infinite arrows, the rain of deadly projectiles turning into a blizzard of destruction that razed the entire landscape below.

The last time I used this technique, it worked. Sort of. I was hoping to replicate the effect, slowly chipping away at Hades' defenses.

As my barrage of arrows faded, I landed a distance away from the devastation, panting from the strenuous use of magical energy. However, I was forced to bring Orion up to defend myself when a silver streak of light flashed from inside the smoke, slashing into me and hurtling me away.

"Gah!"

I crashed into a tree and felt the trunk break under the impact, falling onto the grass under a shower of splinters and wood. Getting up dizzily, I watched in horror as Hades lumbered out of the smoke, completely unscathed.

Even with the devastation all around him – the entire landscape resembled a pockmarked surface of the moon, littered with countless craters and broken stone, each hole a deadly consequence of suffering a hit from one of my arrows – Hades didn't seem to have taken any damage at all.

And that was after receiving one of my most powerful attacks…

"No way…impossible…"

I couldn't believe my eyes. Grimacing as I tried to get up, I felt a trickle of blood escape my mouth.

"Ignore the small fries, Hades. Their attacks can't hurt you anyway." Selina instructed, bored.

Hades turned and faced Cecilia, who raised her sword determinedly. She lunged forward, forcing the giant to dodge as her sword thrust right at his head. The tip of her blade actually scratched his cheek, drawing blood, and the giant whirled around to swing his scythe in a counterattack that Cecilia dodged. Breathing heavily, Cecilia retaliated with another strike of her own, only for Hades to easily parry it and knock her off. The bigger warrior pursued a retreating Cecilia, who could only focus on defense.

My eyes widened when I realized that Cecilia was actually running away.