"CROSSBOW MAAAAGE!!!!""CHUUUUUCK!!!"
[...]
Evlin started to charge towards the demon leader while he was taking the form of a ma.s.sive dragon and the two started to destroy the southern kingdom even more with their battle.
Evlin would move towards different spots of his body and release a blast of her triple magic bullet composed of a diamond surrounded by raw energy and blessed energy.
"Graaaahhhh!!!"
The bullets managed to pierce the demon"s skin, which right now was looking like a mish-mash of monster bodies stuck together, and actually ended up hurting him.
"Yes!!"
Evlin was feeling happy about seeing her attacks working against the giant but she soon lost her optimism as the wounds started to close one after another.
"Oh, come on..."
[Evlin watch out!!!]
"Ashley???"
The three dragon heads charged towards Evlin and almost swallowed her, but the mage girl managed to dodge their mouths once she heard the voice of her sister warning her of the incoming danger and managed to fly out of the way in the last second.
[As.h.!.+ Is that you??]
Evlin looked at the ground and noticed that all of her friends had run around the dragon and were now circling him on all sides.
[Yes!! I asked Gustav to connect all us using his power! We will keep you safe!]
[Perfect, all of you can be my eyes and ears and let me know when I can dodge and when I can attack!]
[Understood!!] x 6
"Marcus let"s kick his a.s.s!!"
[You"re the boss!]
"No... We are!!"
She charged at the dragon again and aimed both of her crossbows at him to release a barrage of triple-magic bullets.
The dragon tried to block the bullets with his enormous wings but the moment he tried to close them, both wings got entrapped into a pair of golden energy barriers.
[Do it Evlin!!]
[It"s your chance!!]
"Ria!! Auren!! Thanks guys!!"
She combined both of her crossbows into a much bigger one and release her strongest bullet yet. The attack managed to strike the beast right into its torso and opened a hole in its center.
"Guaaahhhh!!!"
[Evlin!! He is swinging his tail right behind you!!]
"I see it!! Thanks Daren!!"
She increased the power of her boots and moved out of the way from the tail.
[He"s trying to grab you! Turn off your power!!]
"Understood Lilith!!"
She saw a pair of gigantic hands coming at her at an absurd speed. She stopped releasing her raw magic from her feet and started to fall from the sky like a meteor to create some distance from the hands and successfully dodging them.
[Now Evlin!! Blast the hands with everything you have!!]
"You got it sis!!"
Evlin felt like she was a videogame character being controlled by six different players at once. But she didn"t mind. These people were her family, she had absolutely no problem in trusting her back to them, and just like they promised, they were all fighting together.
While she was falling, Evlin converted all of her armor towards making a pair of crossbows and shot two huge bullets at the dragon"s claws.
The impact made several demons start falling from the creature"s body and hit the ground. But once they did, the beasts simply stood up and marched to rejoin with the body once again.
Evlin started flying towards the sky again and observed the situation with concern. Even with Marcus using his power to boost her attacks, all she managed to accomplish was to create momentary wounds that continued to close themselves in no time.
"This is ridiculous... I keep shooting him and he just keeps fixing himself... Marcus, you have any ideas??"
[Me??]
"Of course! We are partners now right? I trust you!"
[Huh... Well...]
[Evlin!! Duck!!!]
"!!??"
Evlin heard her sister calling for her and turned around to see one of the dragon"s heads shooting another blast of dark energy towards her.
"Oh no!"
She rushed to create a s.h.i.+eld while trying to move out of the way, but the blast was too fast and powerful. The impact managed to bypa.s.s her defense and damaged her body.
"Kyaahhhh!!!"
[Evlin!!!] x 7
She was knocked out for a second but the voices of all of her friends helped her recover and wake up. She realized she was falling at a crazy speed and started to release raw magic from her boots again to return to the air.
"Oh my G.o.d, that was close!!"
Marcus was also relieved from seeing that his new friend was ok, but he was still thinking about how they could take this thing down.
[I don"t know what to do... Blessed energy is the only thing that can harm demons, but his real body is hidden beneath all that ma.s.s of creatures...]
"How do we reach the real body?"
[We need to remove the source of his power.]
"The source of his power?"
[My mother once told me that the reason my father couldn"t defeat the demon leader was because he had some kind of sword that continued to give him power while healing his wounds.]
"The sword!! He"s using the sword to boost his power?"
[I think so! If we remove the sword we might have a chance!]
"But how do we-"
[Evlin!!! Dodge!!!] x 6
"!!!"
Evlin heard her friends calling her attention and looked around to notice that all three dragon heads, both of his arms, and even his tail were coming at her from all directions.
"Dodge?? Dodge where??"
She changed her armor into a coc.o.o.n in panic and covered her whole body with it to receive the impact from all six attacks.
"Gaaahhhh!!"
She was smashed between all the parts of the demon that were coming at her and began to drop from the sky again.
She fell on the snow and felt her whole body being covered in pain from head to toe.
"That... Hurt... A lot..."
She started to lose consciousness once again but Marcus tried to bring her back to reality.
[Evlin!! Hurry, apply healing magic!!]
"Mom... Just five more minutes..."
[Evlin!!!]
"Huh!!?? Oh! Right! Magic, magic, healing magic!"
She fixed her body and saw a dragon head charging to bite her.
"Wait!! Time out!!"
"Wraaaaghhh!!!!"
She created her diamond and metal s.h.i.+eld again and tried to block the head. The demon leader was trying to bite her with his fangs but he suddenly felt his body being frozen by some kind of force.
He turned his attention to it and saw that Ria and Auren were locking his tail inside some kind of energy barrier.
"Get lost, filthy humans!!"
He started to charge a dark energy beam and proceeded to release it towards the two. Evlin saw the scene and started to scream.
"Auren!!! Ria!!!"
The couple tried to block the beam with a pair of gigantic golden s.h.i.+elds but the dark energy was too strong and they could feel the power of the demon leader about to break their defenses at any second.
Evlin flew towards the head and with a pair of gauntlets, smacked his face to alter the direction of the beam.
"Guaaahh!!"
"You stay away from my family!!!"
"Grrrr!!! All I wanted was to use your power to boost the strength of my army... But now...? Now I won"t rest until I taste your flesh inside of me!!"
"Eww... Gross..."
[Watch out!!]
The demon leader opened his mouth and started to vomit a storm of demons on top of Evlin who were all chanting in unison while pouncing on her.
"The night shall fall... As we hear your call... The night shall fall... As we hear your call..."
"Aaaahhh!! Get off me!! Get off!"
Evlin started to blast the demons and suddenly began to feel her power getting weaker.
"What the...? Oh, no!"
The raw magic from her boots started to shrink and she began to fall once again.
"Aaaaahhhh- Oof!!!"
Luckily she wasn"t too far from the ground so the impact didn"t hurt her too much. She was laying on the snow with her arms and legs open as if she was a starfish while feeling dizzy from the fall.
"Ugh... I"m starting to remember why I was afraid of heights..."
[Evlin!!?? What happened??]
"I"m running low on magic... Moving that castle might not have been the best idea..."
[Don"t you have a way of getting more?]
"Well, I do have one way... But for that I would need- Huh!?"
Evlin looked at what was in front of her. A golden boy with two ma.s.sive wings covered in fur frozen inside some kind of ice block.
"Sphinx...?? Sphinx!!! My baby!! What did they do to you??"
[Who...?]
She rushed towards the side of her golden griffin who was now looking less like a beast and more like a male version of Evlin when she uses her golden form.
Evlin was about to break her griffin from the block of ice when she suddenly heard Lilith screaming inside her head.
[Evlin stop!!! That"s not Sphinx anymore!!]
[Lilith?? What are you talking about?]
[The demon leader converted his magic energy into cursed energy. He is not a monster anymore, he"s a demon!!]
"A demon...? Sphinx is a demon??"
[If you try to combine with him, you might get your body taken over just like Ashley!!]
"... A demon..."
Evlin looked at her wooden crossbow which was made from a piece of the channeling tree.
"Magic power..."
Then she looked at her metal crossbow which was Marcus in his weapon form.
"Blessed power..."
Finally, she looked at her pet griffin, frozen inside the block of ice.
"Cursed power..."
Marcus looked at her behavior and started to get concerned.
[Evlin... What are you thinking...?]
"West told me that I could use my power to combine all the three most powerful forms of energy in the world to make a superweapon capable of killing anything..."
[...]
Evlin watched as the demon leader continued to be troubled by Ria"s and Auren"s energy s.h.i.+elds.
[Anything...?]
"Anything..."
She then placed her hand on Sphinx"s block of ice.
"But what if I"m not supposed to make a weapon...? What if... What if I"m supposed to BE the weapon?"
[... Where are you going with this...?]
"Marcus... Do you trust me?"
[...]
"Marcus!!"
[I trust you!]
Marcus felt his bond with Evlin becoming stronger thanks to him accepting her, and he started to fuse with Evlin just like he did with Mia.
At the same time, Evlin started to release her recreation magic to fuse herself with Sphinx.
The powers of magic, blessings, and curses started to spiral around her and a small tornado began to cover her surroundings.
Gustav saw the scene from afar and became worried by what he was witnessing.
[Evlin!!! What are you doing??]
[The same thing I"ve been doing ever since I first stepped into this crazy nonsensical fantasy-like world...]
Evlin finished her magic process and a huge explosion of energy filled the area releasing several pillars of light in many different colors.
The whole group, as well as the demon leader, observed in shock as the crossbow girl continued to release all that energy around her. Suddenly, the power stopped leaking and began to move towards her body as if she was a black hole absorbing it all.
She could feel the cursed energy trying to take over her mind. She could feel the demon leader trying to obtain possession over her thoughts. But the power of the blessed energy suddenly started to block it and she managed to keep her free will.
However, she could also feel the blessed energy trying to burn her body which was now half-demon and she started to release healing magic to fix her wounds.
But at the same time, she could feel the cursed energy trying to convert her magic power into dark power.
All three types of energy were trying to fight to obtain control but Evlin slowly started to keep every single one of them in check until they reached some kind of harmony inside of her. The powers weren"t going to control her, she was going to control the powers. They were her tools, all she needed was to know how to use them.
Evlin"s body began to change.
A pair of wings started to come out from her back. The same wings she would always have whenever she would combine with her pet griffin. But this time, the wings were much, much bigger than before. Unlike the previous occasions she fused with Sphinx, her body wasn"t covered in golden fur.
In fact, it seemed like her demon half was being concentrated completely into her wings. The rest of her body was looking like her usual self, but her messy black hair was turning into some kind of silver color, very similar to Marcus"s usual hair color.
Everyone looked at her as she was taking the appearance of some kind of angel with two giant golden wings coming out of her back and silver hair above her head. All while releasing healing magic over her whole body.
Evlin had fused with Marcus, Sphinx, and her crossbow.
She opened her eyes and it was possible to see her iris constantly changing color from silver, to dark red, to green, and back to silver again as if in a loop. And with those eyes, she glared at the demon leader who was also looking at her in disbelief.
"I"m taking a gambit!"