Their chests penetrated, blood must have flooded their lungs.
Coughing up bloody foam, a single adventurer mustered the last of his vitality to bring his weapon down again.
But even though the hit landed cleanly on Jaldabaoth, it didn’t seem to hurt him in the slightest.
The fact that they were here meant they had to be capable adventurers. Surely, they had armed themselves with consecrated weapons as part of their preparations. If they still couldn’t harm him, Jaldabaoth had to be one high-level demon.
As the situation continued to evolve rapidly in the space of a few blinks, Remedios had closed their distance and swung her Holy Sword down diagonally.
Jaldabaoth jumped aside and used his tentacle-like wings—Or maybe they really are tentacles?—to hurl the bodies of the impaled adventurers at her.
She had no interest in catching them.
Removing her left hand from the hilt of the sword and punching them aside, she simultaneously used a martial art—“Flow Acceleration!”—to swoop in. Then she lunged.
The Holy Sword she’d thrust toward his throat was parried with nails that had lengthened instantaneously—
“Holy Attack!”
The moment her sword connected with the claws, her power flooded into him through the blade.
This skill paladins gained early on was really supposed to be used when their sword cut deep into their opponent’s flesh, but it was still possible to use even with a glancing blow. The holy energy would bubble away on the surface of their target’s body, so the damage wasn’t terribly high, but the reason she used it anyway was that her instincts as a paladin—“animal instincts,” her sister called them—screamed at her to prevent a fall in morale by demonstrating they still had a way to fight Jaldabaoth even after all those adventurers were killed.
“I see…”
The angels positioned themselves between Jaldabaoth, who had jumped back farther, and Remedios.
Floating at nearly her height, they attacked Jaldabaoth.
Tch, Remedios clicked her tongue.
The high-pitched metallic noise that had rung out when her Holy Sword clashed with Jaldabaoth’s claws told her how hard they were. And though her form hadn’t been perfect, the fact that he could easily parry her boosted attack spoke to his physical strength.
Only a handful of the strongest could fight an opponent so powerful. Angels summoned with tier-two and -three spells were fine for exterminating regular old monsters, but in this fight, they were only in the way. The angel shoes dangling right in her field of vision were especially maddening.
“Penetrating Magic: Holy Ray!”
Her sister loosed a spell. But it disappeared before Jaldabaoth as if it had been repelled.
“Twin Penetrating Magic: Holy Ray!”
Calca shot two rays. She must have hoped that at least one of them would get through Jaldabaoth’s magic immunity ability, but unfortunately, both of them ended up just like Kelart’s.
He must have quite high defense against magic. Which means…I have to do everything I can!
She roared with even more spirit. “Please use your brains and make the angels fight smarter! This is pointless!”
And in fact, despite the angels occupying an advantageous overhead position, and the soldiers surrounding him, Jaldabaoth was still composed. But that made sense. Despite the number of opponents encircling him, no one had managed to land an effective attack yet.
Adventurers raced over to recover the bodies of their fallen comrades lying on the ground near Remedios. The fact that they didn’t so much as twitch must have meant they were dead, but maybe the living were choosing to have faith in slim possibilities.
“…What a pain. Even puny worms are irritating when so many gather up in one spot.” Jaldabaoth was completely at ease.
And if he was immune to the spells being cast and could evade every physical attack, then he probably thought he had an overwhelming advantage. But…
You think I’ve never fought someone like that before?
Unless the caster specialized in summoning, the summoned monsters would be weaker than the caster themselves. So it wasn’t unheard of for the attacks of angels to be ineffective.
The optimal way to use angels against a powerful opponent—
The angels swooped down to attack Jaldabaoth all at once. Not slashing with their swords, but tackling.
—was to stop them in their tracks.
That was effective.
Perhaps he was feeling some pressure? Jaldabaoth transitioned to offense and sent several angels back to the void with a single swipe of his claws.
But the gap made by any angel that had been cut down was simply filled by another that continued the assault.
That was the true horror of summoned monsters. They were beings for whom death didn’t count as death, so they could use their abilities to the fullest.
Remedios’s eyes widened as she watched the waterfall-like hammering of angels and the way Jaldabaoth handled them as if he were working an assembly line. However…
He’s letting his guard down!
After approaching quietly, she waited for Jaldabaoth to be critically distracted by the onslaught of angels and then leaped into range.
“What?!”
“Ahhhrraahhhh!”
She activated a skill and struck a mighty blow with her Holy Sword using a martial art.
Her instinct whispered to her that it wasn’t time to unleash the sword’s greatest reservoir of power that could only be used once per day.
On the receiving end of her second most powerful attack, Jaldabaoth went flying in what seemed like a horizontal flight path. Then he ducked into a shop on the opposite side of the square.
Remedios stared down at her sword hand.
“Crap!”
“Honored sister, you did it!”
Kelart sounded so happy, but Remedios yelled back at her. “Not yet I haven’t! There’s no way he’d go flying like that.”
“I think it’s possible given how insanely strong you are…”
“No, he flew away on his own!”
Yes. Not only had she let him slip through the encirclement, she’d given him the opportunity to hide in a building.
The only reason they’d had half a chance against him was because they had him surrounded and forced him into a fight of one against many. Combat in a cramped house would be too dangerous for Remedios.
And maybe Jaldabaoth had decided
