Chapter 94 - Hold Your Ground

"U-Ugh...my head hurts. I never expected Mama Mari's fist could be that heavy..."

By the time Ivan regained his consciousness after being struck very hard by Mari, he found himself lying down on the ground inside their camp grounds, alone, as if everyone went on without him.

Looking around, he wondered: 'Where did they go?'

As he stood up, he felt the earth underneath him rumbling--or rather, pulsating--as the tremors proved to be regular and predictable.

"W-What's going on?! An earthquake--eh...?!"

There's an earthquake and yet, no sign of panic or fear coming from nearby birds and animals was evident from the surroundings. There are also no humans other than him at the moment, but they too were far too calm about the situation.

Was all of this just part of his imagination? Maybe. But the shaking of the ground was too real to him that the sense of urgency in his heart can't be dispelled so easily.

"Geez, I think those guys have something to do with this. Guys? Where are you? Guys..."

He called them a few times, but no response was heard. He also looked at each of their tents if they brought their weapons with them, but it seems that only Kai, Karen, and Rin are the ones who did so.

"Strange. Even Kai's armor is still here..."

Where could they possibly be? If they aren't hunting, then it's possible that--

"The lake..."

He turned his back facing the lake and he saw with his two eyes a terrible sight lying in wait for him.

"W-What the hell? Where did this thing came from...?!"

There's no lake in front of him. Instead, a huge black spherical void replaced the entire lake, its farthest reaches already within meters from him. Ivan cautiously approached the black hole while keeping himself alert, ready to summon his weapons anytime as needs arise.

"C-Could it be...guys..."

He slowly extended his arm towards the void, curious as to what it feels like to the touch. Swallowing his saliva, he extended another arm, and--

"N-No, no. I have a bad feeling about this," he said to himself as he quickly backed off from the mysterious void. He thought, there must be a reason why his classmates aren't around, and the void must be that reason for it. If he were to touch it, who knows what will happen next.

"I-I have to report this to others, fast!"

And so, he immediately ran towards the palace, hoping that his classmates are in a good state, wherever they might be.

-----

"T-This...this is crazy! Everything we do, they just keep on coming and coming!!!" James shouted in exasperation as he crushed a demons' face with his punch.

Being surrounded in all sides by the demons and with Mari under a meditative state, he and his friends are consequentially trapped inside a narrow part of the abyss--the only thing they can do is to keep their enemies at bay until Mari wakes up. With their abilities they were able to kill hundreds of demons in a few minutes, but it's nothing compared to the total number of demons inside the abyss, which already exceeded ten thousand.

"Not only that, but many of them have very tough armor that resisted even this sword Ivan forged!" Rin also spoke, blocking with her sword a set of piercing attacks coming from a pair of demons with horns like that of a unicorn. She then deflected their combined attack in the process, and slashed both of them in one strike in their weak spots.

By using her enemy's momentum against them, she can follow up a counterattack that is effective as it is less energy-consuming. But not only her does that kind of trick: Kai and James also successfully parried attacks in greater numbers, and even Karen managed to use the moves she learned from Rin to incapacitate a demon that is twice as large as her.

However--

'At this rate, our weapons will break first before them!' she bit her lip in frustration.

Though an avid fan of anime and video games herself, she's more or less still a realist. She knows that even in another world, life and death are two inseparable things, and that the former has more importance than any power or object she could ever possibly find.

If, at any moment her weapon fails, so does she. It's as simple as that for her.

While defending against a large group of demons, she glanced behind her and muttered:

'Prez...please wake up already...'

"Guuh...I can't...I can't hold out this barrier any...mooore..."

Meanwhile, the two girls who have defensive abilities are also having a hard time keeping their classmates, and themselves, alive. Iza, in particular, has to create a barrier around them strong enough to withstand the attacks of hundreds of demons coming at them from all sides every minute. Given her current mana capacity and mastery of her ability, about 1000 is the maximum number of demons her barrier can withstand, and thus it became a task for the rest of the group to keep the number of concurrent attackers below that threshold.

"Karen...can you give me another pill? My mana regeneration is struggling very hard to keep up with the cost of creating this barrier..." Iza asked Karen with her voice beginning to sound raspy rather than cute.

"O-Okay," Karen quickly responded.

Taking out a small, black vial from inside her pocket, she hurriedly opened it and--

"T-This is bad, I'm about to run out of pills!" she exclaimed.

"E-Eh?! No way?!!"

Out of 30 pills she had before they got sucked into the abyss, she has already used 24 of them to sustain the mana-intensive abilities of her classmates. Now that they only have one pill left for each person, would it be enough for them to survive in the abyss?

Forcing out a dry smile, she said to Iza: "It's okay, you can use mine if you need to."

"W-Wait, Ka--"

Taking out two blue pills from the vial, she placed one into Iza's mouth and the other in the little girl's chest pocket, so that she can replenish her mana later. Iza vehemently refused taking Karen's own allocation, saying that she also needs to replenish her mana as a healer, but Karen replied:

"Don't worry about me. I still have some tricks up my sleeve, you know?"

"There's a real huge fella coming at six o'clock! Beware!" James shouted, while using the vibrations of the ground to determine the location of the demon coming towards them.

"Yeah, I'm on it!" Kai said, after he killed a demon that tried to spit acid at Iza's barrier.

In fact, even without James warning them, he can already ascertain the size of the enemy they're going to face by the aura it emits.

"This aura..." he softly spoke, his mouth slightly trembling. "is just like the demon who attacked Barchen."

"B-Barchen?!" Rin opened her eyes wide in surprise, almost letting her guard down for a moment. A demon tried to use that as an opportunity to attack, but she quartered the demon before it could even reach her.

"Nn. That's why, I'll leave the rest to you, Rin."

"W-What?! H-Hey--"

As she was about to stop him, Kai has already used his [Light Foot] ability to 'walk' in the air, and to close the distance between him and the impending enemy. With great speed he weaved his way through the waves of demons trying to attack him, and when he can finally see the outline of the demon hidden in the dark--

"O Goddess of Light, grant me power!"

Applying an immense amount of mana into his sword, Kai recited a shortened chant and then all of a sudden, he flew towards the large demon in a bright flash of lightning, his blade aimed straight at the demon's heart. The resulting wake decimated an even larger swath of smaller demons, leaving behind charred bodies or remains cut cleanly in halves.

"W-Woah, would you look at that," James gasped at his friend's power, "it's my first time seeing him use that ability..."

"[Arrow of Lightning Judgement], if I recall correctly that's what that ability is called," Rin replied.

Not only them, but the demons attacking them also stopped to look at him darting in unprecedented speeds. Seeing that many of them were killed in a blink of an eye by one human being, many of them retreated back to their hiding places, fearing that they too will be killed if they were to continue attacking them.

"Amazing! So Kai has a new powerful skill in his disposal!" Karen said, feeling quite relieved.

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As soon as Kai's blade struck the demon on its chest--

"A flashy skill like that won't be enough to kill a boss in one turn."

FWWOOOOOOOPPPPPPP!!!!!

"W-Wha--What the--"

Instead of a loud bang or the crackling sound of thunder, Kai's attack made no perceptible sound against the hard armor of the demon--the only sound everyone heard was the sound of his mana being suctioned out of his blade.

Seeing his powerful skill merely absorbed by the demon, Kai gritted his teeth and spoke: "I see. So that makes you the boss of this abyss, is that correct?"

Standing just at the edge of the abyss where Karen's [Midnight Sun] couldn't reach, the demon's features were only dimly seen by them thanks to the reflected light. The demon was indeed a large one, about seven to eight feet tall, and a bulky gray humanlike body that reminded them of bodybuilders. Combined with a dragon-like head and tail, the demon overall looked like a gargoyle that just had woken up from an eternity of petrification.

"Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..." The demon, capable of understanding human words to some extent, can only make rumbling sounds, as smoke comes out of its jaw.

Treating his response as a positive, Kai then said: "Alright. Then that means I have to eliminate you at all cost."

"Weh?! Hey, Kai--"

Filling his blade with mana again, Kai this time didn't recite a chant, as he instantly appeared behind the demon. Aware of the things that might happen next, Rin tried to stop him but...

"GUFUUUUUHHHHH--"

Before he could even cast his skill the demon swung its thick tail at him, knocking him many meters away like a speeding bullet. Not satisfied with only that, the demon's body became covered with electricity, and instantly zoomed into Kai, releasing shockwaves in its wake. Seeing the demon coming after him, Kai tried to block the demon's attack, but its lightning-covered fist pierced through his defenses and sent him crashing down the ground.

Watching the scene from afar, Rin and the others stood in horror as they saw Kai being pummeled with the same lightning skill he had used against the demon.

"U-Unbelievable. To think that the demon..."

"Tch," Rin clicked her tongue in dismay.

'So that's what his ability is,' she thought. It's not the first time she saw that kind of ability: in anime and video games, there would be some characters that have the ability to absorb energy from their enemies and use it to their advantage, the same way a sponge absorbs water. While the common counter to it is to not use their abilities when fighting, how can they beat the demon if they would only rely on their physical strength? It would be as if they're asking to be killed.

"Kai!" Karen shouted in despair as she tried to cast her healing spell at him.

"No, don't!" Rin stopped her. "Don't use any magic while that guy is around."

"Eh? Rin?!!"

"Even you, Iza. Stop using your barrier for a while."

"N-Na--?!"

The two girls couldn't believe what they just heard from her. 'What is she planning to do?' they thought.

"James, your ability doesn't use mana, right?" Rin asked him, who's also confused by her sudden change in behavior.

"Hm? Well, most of them, yeah. Why do you ask?"

"Okay. Then we're the only ones who can attack that guy," she said as she tightly held her sword.

Glancing again at Mari, she softly spoke:

'Prez, I may not be as good at you but I will still fulfill the responsibility you've given to me. I'm sure I'll mess up on the way so please, wake up...'

Without Mari to conduct the flow of battle all the strategy-making has been assigned to her by a unanimous decision, with her only guide being the years she spent playing RPGs.

A death sentence it might be for her, she might as well die trying to put her game experiences into reality.