Ash's new strategy proved to be immediately effective. In choosing to allow the soldiers around her to fight for themselves, only interfering when she saw the opportunity to land a killing blow, Ash gained an abundance of EXP.
"H-HELP ME!" A soldier cried out as he was about to be slain, just before Ash rushed in behind the demon attacking him, and stabbed through its back with her right hand.
EXP Gained: 120
EXP: 120/540
I'm getting a lot less now, even with Quick Learner. I need stronger enemies, Ash thought as the demon fell to the floor. The soldier she'd saved looked up at her like he was seeing a god in person. Ash pulled him up to his feet.
"I didn't help you so you could sit there like an idiot, keep fighting!" She told him.
And, as she pushed him towards a nearby enemy, he did just that, maybe out of instinct.
Looking around, Ash saw that a large portion of the human forces had sustained grave wounds. Ash nodded to herself and breathed in.
"This is a place of piety, let our faith be rewarded and our wounds become old memories, soon forgotten!" She cast Land of Grace, healing back a portion of the soldiers, though she noted that a couple hadn't been healed by her magic.
Cursed, Ash thought, nodding to herself. Unlucky.
But with the soldiers back up to a fresh condition, once more the forces of humanity fought back with vigor.
A few of the demons, seeing that Ash had done this, targeted her and some Lust demons flew straight towards the Savior. Ash waited until one got close enough and she ducked under a swing of its hand, grabbing it by the right leg. Then, putting as much strength into it as she could, Ash pulled the demon down and slammed it into the stone.
"Akgh!" The demon choked out as its head bounced off the street before Ash finished the job by giving it one powerful stomp on its neck, earning a cracking sound.
EXP Gained: 110
EXP: 230/540
To the right, Yumi was fighting a level 32 Wrath demon. She sidestepped one of its swipes, leaned out of the way of a bite, and then pushed her naginata into its chest, impaling it, and then kicking it off of her weapon.
This is going well enough, I'd say, Ash thought. Well, from a survival perspective anyway. The real question is how the hell are we going to make it to the portal?
Even though they were resisting the demonic siege, they also weren't making any progress in terms of cutting their way through to the two portals just outside the city. Every time they killed five demons, five more would either run or fly in to take their place.
On one hand, this meant that if they did make it, there would likely not be enough forces to stop Ash from reaching the pyramids and shattering them. On the other, it meant that Ash had been stuck here for almost half an hour.
"Yumi!" She called out to her partner. The masked woman turned towards her. "We need to get through them!" She pointed ahead. "If we let them keep us here, we'll never make it to the portals!"
"I see," Yumi replied. "Between the two of us though, there's only so much we can do."
Ash immediately understood what she meant by that. If the two of them ran up, charging through these enemies like animals, it was a very easy way of putting targets on their backs. They'd need the soldiers around them to help if they wanted to remain safe throughout this.
So, Ash gritted her teeth and took a deep breath as she looked around for anything she could stand on. Come on, a crate, a barrel, something!
She found no such thing. Instead, Ash saw a Gluttony demon, so large it could almost be mistaken for a Nightmare, dead and laying on its back. Ash nearly gagged at the thought of touching this thing, but it was the only thing that could reasonably serve as a platform. So, she ran up and jumped on top of its body.
Once here, she cast Land of Grace again, covering every nearby soldier in a white aura. A few of them glanced at her, and that was all Ash needed.
"HEY ASSHOLES, HELP ME DRIVE THEM BACK!" She yelled from the top of her lungs, hoping at least a few of them would hear her. "I NEED TO REACH THE GATES!"
"The gates?" A soldier who wasn't currently fighting asked behind her.
A commanding officer, dressed in heavy metallic grey armor then stepped forwards. And, with a booming voice that was far more adequate for this sort of thing than Ash's, he yelled:
"You heard the Savior! Push them back to the gates!"
One by one, suddenly given purpose, Ash saw the faces of the men and women fighting on behalf of Onyx suddenly turn focused. Granted, this new determination wouldn't make up for the raw power disparity between forces, but it did mean that as Ash now turned her attention on taking out as many demons as she could individually, the ground was being covered.
Still, Ash thought. We're basically in the middle of the city. It's gonna take a while.
And it did. This was the beginning of a long, drawn-out attempt to drive the demons far enough to where Yumi and Ash would have the opening they needed to enter the portals. With one short fight after another, Ash held back on using her Dark magic to damage her enemies, as she needed to save her mana to heal up the soldiers around her.
Even then, despite her best efforts to keep these soldiers healthy, it would happen far too often that one of them would be caught by some unprecedented attack and die spontaneously, too quickly for Ash to do anything about it.
To her left, one soldier was fighting a Wrath demon when a Gluttony demon suddenly wrapped its tongue around him and pulled the soldier to it, swallowing the man whole. To her right, a girl was fighting a Lust demon when another one then landed behind her, picked her up by her waist, and flew away, before Ash could react.
Even though she could heal them all, she couldn't stop these sorts of things from happening. All she could do was focus on maintaining the health of those who were just a little bit luckier than the rest.
Having Yumi there was a factor that Ash knew would help, but she hadn't anticipated the masked fighter to be this integral to their success. The woman sliced through the demons, one at a time, with an elegance that only matched by her relentlessness in cutting off the heads of her enemies.
That 100 Dexterity is no joke, huh? Ash remarked as she saw Yumi, at one point, killing two demons with a single swing of her naginata.
It served as a reminder that of course, as her Quick Learner trait did affect her ability to learn different weapons and raise her attributes individually, Ash had more routes towards improvement than just killing hordes of monsters.
I'll have to think about it later... Whether it's worth it to focus on raising up a stat individually and getting my other weapon proficiencies back up to match my gauntlet or not. I... She paused in between fights. I mean, if I could have transformed my gauntlets into bows or spears or whatever when I was fighting that level 90 freak, would that have changed something?
It was like now that she had something to truly work towards, saving Kaori, she was seeing just how much potential she'd wasted by being somewhat lazy.
Focus up. She told herself though, shaking her head. Leave those questions for when you're back at the palace, making out with Keiko or some shit.
One skirmish after another, eventually, the forces of Onyx reached Caroline's inn, which let Ash know that they were probably close.
Ash gained a couple of levels from the fights leading up to this, putting her at this status, as she continued to focus on raising her Con and Strength, for now:
Level 56
MP: 230/230
EXP: 100/560
---
STR: 47
DEX: 21
CON: 26
INT: 20
WIS: 23
L: 100
However, another problem soon came to her mind. Even if they reached the western portal, who was to say that there wouldn't be fifty demons waiting behind it, to kill Ash as soon as she entered? If she were Niven, seeing Ash right now carving a path towards that place, that would be the obvious thing to do.
Ash thought about it in-between moments where she stuck her bladed gauntlets in Wrath demons' necks. As far as she could tell, there was only one real answer to this dilemma, but she'd need these soldiers to be just a little braver for it.
She quickly looked around, trying to locate the same officer who had helped her motivate the soldiers earlier. He was still going, slamming a giant mace into a Gluttony demon in front of him, who barely took any damage from the hit.
That was, of course, because as they were standing right outside the portal, Niven's Blessing was on the demons now, in full force.
Ash's own stats benefited from it, but she understood that it meant the soldiers were beyond outmatched at this point.
Level 56
MP: 200/330
EXP: 250/560
---
STR: 67
DEX: 41
CON: 46
INT: 30
WIS: 33
L: 100
Yeah, there's no way this amount of soldiers is going to deal with demons this strong. I... Crap, I need to get there though.
In the heat of the moment, Ash thought of a plan on the spot.
One that involved her taking off everything she was currently wearing. So, she ran to an alley and reverted her Lust back into a cube.
"Come on, come on, Ash, do it fast!" She muttered as she pulled off her armor, piece by piece.
Eventually, she was only wearing black gloves, a black cut-off top, and black shorts. The reason she did this was simple, her armor was too heavy and too flashy for what she had in mind.
Then, she ran over to the officer, helped him finish the Gluttony demon, stabbing it in the back as the man's mace then delivered a killing blow on its head, and she spoke to him. The man nearly raised his weapon against her, as he didn't recognize her immediately without her armor on. Ash ignored that.
"Tell some of your soldiers to follow me," Ash said loudly, talking over the sounds of swords clanking and people screaming. "I need some of them to come with me into the portal. The rest of you, retreat. You're done here."
Ash knew that whoever the man sent to help her was effectively being sent to their deaths, but she didn't care. She needed the help to take the portals down.
"Alright, Savior," he turned towards others with no questions asked, trusting that Ash had a valuable plan in mind. "The bravest among you, follow the Savior into the portal, the rest, retreat!"
He called out to everyone around them with authority. A few of the soldiers instantly began running away, but others didn't. Some stood their ground, a few of them dying immediately as a result, but others ran up to Ash.
"We'll fight with you, Savior!"
And you'll probably die because of it, nameless dudes, but thanks, Ash thought as she nodded to a small group of them. We need this.
Yumi then approached from the side.
"We should move now," the masked woman said. "Go in while we have the chance."
She said this, moving up towards the portal, but Ash put a hand on her elbow and stopped her.
"No," Ash shook her head. "I need you to help the others fall back. They'll probably be attacked on the way."
"What?" Yumi asked, baffled. "B-But, none of these fighters are of any quality, Ash, you know this. I am worth ten of these warriors."
I know that. Ash thought. Which is why I'm not about to risk having you die on me.
Instead of telling her this though, Ash shoved her towards the other soldiers.
"We don't have time to argue, Yumi, go! The rest of you, follow me!"
So, looking away from the masked woman who stood there, dumbfounded at what Ash was doing, Ash sprinted towards the portal with the other soldiers, and after clashing with a few of these demons, made it in.
Inside, Ash arrived at a swamp-like area, with a terrible smell and gasses visibly popping out of bubbles formed around her. What the fuck is this? She asked as she and the soldiers ran straight into an incoming group of demons who had been just about to move out the portal.
This, of course, was exactly what she'd suspected would happen.
"FIGHT!" She yelled out to the soldiers, right before she ran the hell away.
As soon as they started fighting, Ash went to the right, ignoring them. None of the demons noticed her, thanks to the fact that she wasn't wearing that bulky golden mess, and as Ash hid behind a giant, black tree, she took slow breaths.
Okay, now, the beams and then-
However, her thoughts were interrupted when Yumi arrived next to her, sitting down by her spot casually.
Ash blinked twice.
"W-What? Yumi!?" Ash asked in a hushed, confused whisper. "What the fuck are you doing here? I told you to go!" She said as the soldiers were being picked off in the back.
"Your plan is outright idiotic," Yumi replied in an equally low whisper, "if you die, the city is lost anyway. Plus, the soldiers you brought have already been defeated. There are bound to be more demons ahead and you cannot possibly handle them alone. See? You need me. Now, stop being foolish and tell me what the next step is."
Ash sighed, letting her head fall against the tree behind her.
Of all the times that she could have chosen to be stubborn... Dammit.
"Fine, but if you get killed, it's on you."
"I'm aware of that," Yumi replied, nodding. "Now, let's get moving, shall we?"
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