Around the time the horde of monsters had thinned enough that people could see the northern horizon between gaps in their lines, Alta collapsed. He'd used up all of his own mana, along with the mana stored in the ring Elias had given him.
"Ngh, it seems this is as far as I can go. My apologies… I cannot muster a single fireball anymore."
Alta fell to the ground face-down, but mustered all of his strength to look up at Elias. His face was deathly pale as he apologized. It was obvious he'd used up everything he had.
"That's good enough. For a pervert, you're pretty strong. Leave the rest to us and restore some of your strength." Elias said calmly
"You're so kind, Master… I was certain you would insult me, and yet… Though, sprinkling a few compliments in between insults is enticing… Can I expect ever harsher treatment from now on?"
Alta's exhausted body tingled with excitement. Despite being white as a sheet, his expression was ecstatic.
"Go to sleep you intersex beast and never wake up."
Elias shook his head in disgust, then turned back to the hugely diminished swarm of monsters.
There couldn't have been more than that. The army had been well and truly decimated.
And yet, the monsters continued charging mindlessly. Or rather, a portion of monsters were still mindlessly commanding the remnants to charge. Most of the monsters had completely lost the will to fight, but they still dutifully followed their leaders orders to charge.
It had taken their numbers to be thinned this much for me to notice.
In his initial explanation, Alta had speculated that the robed boy had only brainwashed the leaders of each monster race's respective tribes, and had them full control of their clans. From the looks of it, his hypothesis had been correct. That was a very efficient way of gathering troops.
Even someone with overpowered skills like the robed man, who had been able to brainwash a beastfolk like Alta, wouldn't have been able to gather so many monsters in such a short time. That meant the fastest way to bring this to an end was to simply cut down all of the leaders, whose movements had already been dulled by the fact that they were hypnotized.
With their leaders and commanders gone, the monsters would return to following their instincts and flee in the face of the party's devastating fight.
I looked down at my launcher. It is smoking from the barrel. It was clear the cooling system was starting to fail. If I pushed them any harder, they'd overheat. They were more or less at their limit. Despite being an ancient artifact, it still resembles modern-world technology.
Of course I could repair them using my blood, but as complex as their machinery was, it would take time. It wasn't exactly something that I could do on the spot. It seemed smarter to just change tactics and weapons.
"Catherine, how much mana do you have left?" I shouted
"Mmm… about two rings worth. Gravity magic takes more time than I thought. I need more practice."
"You already took down two thousand on your own, I'd say you're doing pretty well. I'm gonna try and pinpoint specific targets from now on, so just back me up."
"Okay!"
Catherine managed to grasp the entire situation from my brief explanation and nodded. They really were perfect in sync. Satisfied, I turned to Patricia.
"Patricia, can you tear them apart?" I asked calmly
"Yep. There's the controlled ones that feel like Alta did, and then the feeling ones, right?"
"Fleeing… Yeah, pretty much that. The controlled ones are probably the leaders of each unit. If we can just get one of those, the rest of the monsters'll flee."
"Oh, good. I have finished warming up my body, so I wouldn't be able to keep this up much longer anyway!"
"Y-Yeah, is it just me, or have you gotten a lot more fierce recently?"
"Of course I have. Who do you think I've been hanging around all the time? I need to contribute."
I grinned at Patricia, who was guarding the walls and protecting the villagers, and smiled kindly back. But there was no time for sentimentality on the battlefield.
I quickly put back the launcher into the ground and immediately equipped the blood bow into my hand. At the same time, Patricia unsheathed her rapier and charged directly at the horde.
There were about a hundred leaders left. Their manipulator was probably worried about losing control of the few remaining monsters he had left, so he'd kept them near the back.
With Alta down for the count, and both me and Patricia's heavy weaponry no longer in play, the monsters finally saw their chance. They charged forth with the renewed vigor.
In order to open a path for the duo, Catherine cast one of her spells.
"Goddess of wind and sky, lend me your strength. Pulverizing Typhoon"
Dark clouds appeared in what had been a clear sky seconds before, crackling with electricity. Seconds later, a goddess composed of the lightning descended from the heavens with a thunderous roar. It swept across the monster army vanguard, its gaping maw vaporizing anything unfortunate enough to be caught in its path. The monsters faltered, their charge broken.
"Let's go, Patricia!"
"Aye aye, Eirene!"
Patricia and I dashed through the gap. I sped forward beyond the walls, firing multiple blood arrows nonstop. My arrows weaved through the waves of monsters, finding the smallest gaps until they arrived at their intended targets, the monsters' leaders.
Each arrow accurately struck a vital point, paired with defense reduction, their armors were useless. Killing the monsters instantly.
The monsters in the vanguard couldn't understand why their leaders were dying one after another, so they started to panic. Around the same time, a shadow suddenly appeared above one of the monsters. It looked up, and saw a girl with a shining rapier in her hands.
Patricia used Elias' dark magic as a launchpad, and jumped further into the horde of monsters. Patricia repeated that action a few times, skipping from monster to monster, until finally she jumped off the last one with enough force to slice it, and used her shining rapier to lighten her attacks.
When she reached the peak of her leap, she multiplied her weight exponentially and dove staring toward the ground. She was heading straight for where a clump of monster leaders were hiding together. Using her human skill as her recoil. Patricia hit the ground at breakneck speed. She transferred all the kinetic energy into her rapier and swung down.
"Ahhhhh!"
Her shining rapier slammed into the ground with the force of a meteorite. The ground trembles, as if an earthquake had just occurred, and massive shockwaves spread out from the point of impact.
The high orcs that had been struck directly by the rapier were sliced into sashimi, chunks of flesh flying in every direction. After a long fight, they fell to the ground. All that awaited them now was a slow decomposition and a return to the land from which they came.
The monsters that had been nearby suffered a similar fate. Nearby rocks and boulders had been sent flying from the force of the rapier's impact, and they blew through the nearby monsters, shredding them.
Patricia hefted her rapier out of the ground and asked for another group of leaders. Naturally, the monsters weren't going to stay idle and let Patricia have her way with them. They crowded around her, hoping to overwhelm her with numbers.
"You're going to need more than that!"
Patricia charges her rapier with a glinting golden light. The magic sword, backed by centrifugal force, sent the monsters flying.
No high orcs spared her wrath. A single dainty-looking girl was knocking monsters like ping pong balls with a rapier that is sharp enough to cut through steel. It was completely surreal.
Patricia completed one full rotation, reset her stance and started heading to the next group of leaders once more. But before she got very far, her instincts picked up the sound on something rapidly approaching from her right. She calmly swung her rapier around, turning with her swing.
"Grrrrrrr!"
"What?"
However, the six-legged lizard that had come charging straight at Patricia had predicted her attack and stopped just in time to avoid getting blasted away with his rapier.
Normally, monsters would charge the moment they saw an opening. Patricia had expected this lizard would be no different, and so focused her body strengthening on her leg, aiming a kick at the lizard's head. However, it acted contrary to expectations.
"Wahhh!"
Instead of charging at Patricia, the lizard leaped at her rapier, wrapped its powerful jaws around it, and tried to pin it to the ground. Though of course, with how much she'd strengthened her body, a mere lizard's strength was nothing to Patricia.
That being said, its movements had been so unexpected that it still succeeded in confusing Patricia for a moment, which was all the time she needed. With perfect timing, another lizard leaped at Patricia from behind, jaws open wide. Patricia quickly undid the body strengthening around her leg, then applied it around her entire body. This way, she'd be ready for the coming attack.
A second before it reached her however, something blocked its path.
A blood arrow shot directly at the lizard's head, while Patricia sliced the other lizard with no effort. The blood arrow shot at the lizard's head, saving Patricia's life in the process
"Fweh? Wh-What the heck is this thing?"
Patricia picked up the blood arrow in her hand, and suddenly, it melted like real blood. Instead of diminishing it, the blood arrow melts on impact, Patricia can tell who is behind all of this.
At a fascinating silhouette, I saw Patricia kill one of the lizard's from her way. I raised my blood bow and pulled the bowstring tightly, then killed one of the monsters behind Patricia's back.
"Don't let your guard down, Patricia. A few of these monsters are clearly on a different level than the others. They don't seem to be either hypnotized or following any other monster's orders. Get the group leaders over there. Catherine said she can only hold the frontline for another five minutes."
After what I just said. Patricia quickly snapped out of her stupor and regained her focus. She touched the choker on her neck, who she refused to call a collar, and replied.
"Roger! Thanks for the save. You really helped me out there!"
"Yeah, just be careful."
"You've started acting a lot nicer to me recently, Eirene. Just a little more and you'll be head over heels for me!"
She smiled softly to herself as she looked at my eyes. Her motivation renewed, she charged toward the remaining leaders while I transformed my blood bow into a blood sword. Awaiting my close combat.
"Sheesh, that girl's always getting herself into trouble…"
I muttered to myself as I moved down another wave of monsters. While I sliced them apart, at the same time, I drank their blood in the process.
[Drain Activated Extraction Completed consumed ten liters of blood]
Because of my fangs, I can drink their blood easily in under two seconds. With the blood I've consumed both my health and mana were restored. Also, I felt that my stats were increasing for a moment. But I didn't have enough time to view both my current stats and my blood curse. It was time-consuming.
As I killed one of the last leaders in the monster army. My communication stone rang. It was not White who dialed me, but Elias himself.
Before our battle, Elias imbued my communication stone with his dark magic, meaning that I can call my brother easily over long distances. But seeing the vibrating tone passed through my hips. I knew I would respond to him immediately.
I grabbed one of my stones and dialed Elias, soon enough, his expression said otherwise.
"Eirene, this is urgent! You need to listen to me!"
"What is it brother?"
"The robed man, he is retreating! I will send you the location and coordinates of that man. Bring him back alive! You hear me Eirene!"