Her clothes were the first line of defense against the flames devouring her luscious body but they didn't last very long. Her clothes looked like they seized to exist after coming into contact with the baleful fire. There was no smell of burning or ashy leftover of the clothes. The flame temperature was likely so high that even gases couldn't escape burning to oblivion.
It didn't take Luna very long to be in her birthday suit as all her clothes had been reduced to nothing in a matter of seconds. In place of her clothes, the glittering blue flames were draped around her in a fiery costume that made her look like a phoenix reborn in human form and kept her private parts away from the prying eyes of the others.
Slowly the shape of the flames began to change. Her arms began to expand in size and took the specific shape of wings at her sides. She looked like a bird human in this state but it seemed as if that was just the beginning. The entire suit of flames around her began to change shape as well. Her arms had already taken the shape of wings, her legs changed into talons and her feet took the form of fiery claws of a bird of prey.
The flames around Luna really turned into a complete bird. The surprise had not ended just yet. The blue bird that was encasing Luna in its midst actually took flight in the air like an actual bird and not one made of flames. She let out a loud shriek and circled in the air over the forest far above the towering trees with her sights on the ground waiting for the enemy of her master to arrive.
As soon as the panther arrived at the spot where Zach's group was resting, Zach stood up with a little difficulty, ready to face it with whatever strength he still had in him.
In the first look, Zach could easily tell the difference in the panther that had sauntered in just now and the one who attacked them at the site their trucks got destroyed. It was slower; not so much as to give them a fighting chance but definitely slower than it was in the past.
Zach thought to himself that Sarah must have worked hard to stop it and to drain its stamina to such a degree.
Before Zach could make a move or even order his group to do so, Luna in her bird form swooped down from above like the phoenix descending from the heavens with righteous indignation against the bloodthirsty beast.
The collision between one bird and one panther was far from normal. Flames spread around the area of effect and drowned everything in a sea of blue that danced in rhythm with Luna. This wasn't a fight between humans but rather a fight between two unnatural beasts. While Luna looked like a pure and unblemished bird of magnificence and sacrifice, the panther was the embodiment of darkness, desperation and selfish behavior.
The panther wanted to run in one go towards his true target Zach but it had to reevaluate the strength of its opponents. Luna was quite formidable to have enough juice to take him on without bothering about the injuries.
It got a strange feeling in its gut every time it laid its eyes on Zach as if some force was trying to keep it from going after Zach. Therefore, the panther knew that it had to take care of the bird first to reach Zach. The only one capable of awakening its danger instinct in this forest was the flaming bird that was capable of fighting it head on.
Their fight looked a bit primitive as if two beasts were fighting but the explosions in their vicinity were enough to determine whether the battle was as primitive as it looked. The blue fire and the dark shells collided from time to time leading to complete devastation of the landscape. Each and every move the two made was in fact precisely calculated and every step was taken with the intention of bringing ruin to the other party.
As they fought the distance between the two and Zach's group continued to increase. Luna was decisively moving the panther away from Zach's group in order to give them a chance to escape. Zach couldn't help but feel that the same thing was being repeated all over again. First it had been Christina, then Sarah and now it was Luna doing the same thing in order to protect him.
Zach could only see two dim silhouettes fighting and clashing against each other every few seconds. It was getting harder to differentiate between the two but Zach was sure that the blue silhouette belonged to the fiery bird that Luna had transformed into while the dark one was the panther that was intent on hunting the rest of them.
Every clash between the two was laden with enough force to dismantle the surroundings. Even the air around the two evaporated as a result of their fight.
Thankfully, the battle was taking place far away from them. Had it been close to Zach's group, they might have suffered from asphyxiation due to them going all out against each other.
Every time the two specks of light came close to each other and burned with increased vigor and luminosity but disengaged after a few seconds following a series of explosions that thundered all around them and cast fear in the hearts of all those witnessing the bout between the two.
Diana and Bruce were just as stunned as Zach was at the strength that Luna was displaying. They had always thought that Zach was the true fighting force of their group and Luna was someone Zach loved and protected under his name.
They could never have imagined that the succubus who always wore a tattered robe to avoid troublesome matters was in fact so strong. No wonder she never strayed far from Zach. She might have been acting as his protector all along with this kind of strength and extreme battle potential.
The collisions in the distance gradually grew less destructive and less frequent because the panther seemed to be losing its pace as it fell behind every now and then. It was suffering from the flames that Luna spewed from all over her body. The dark fur on its body was slowly being singed into a sooty color and the burns were so painful that it shrieked every time they pulsated on its body as if asking for its attention to torment it.
Luna on the other hand seemed comparatively fine. The panther deduced that the direct entanglement approach wasn't good enough if it wanted to make good on its promise to the Prince. If the same situation persisted, it was bound to lose to Luna in a disgraceful manner; not that it cared about grace at this point after all the mage had already been reduced to a beast.
The panther, therefore, pulled back in an attempt to create some distance between it and Luna. The distance was just enough to keep it away from the blue flames surrounding the fiery bird and just within the range of its ranged combat tactics.
Of course Luna didn't let it pull back nicely without any resistance. She tried to close in on it but it sprayed a bountiful of dark shells made of some kind of rotting mana towards her. Every time the shells reached her or were close enough to her, they exploded with enough force to turn any normal human into a pulp. Luna dodged the shells she could deftly and endured through the explosions that took place very close to her in an attempt to not let the panther create a gap between the two.
While the panther was retreating without even looking back, Luna was advancing bravely enduring or avoiding the explosions in her path while throwing some of her fireballs at the retreating figure as well.
While the two were fighting their battle, they were cut off from the rest of the world as there were a number of things going through their heads, battle strategies, weak points of the opponent, the people they wanted to protect, their motivation to survive the battle and their hopes for the future. They hardly had any time to bother about other things.
But Zach as the third party observer was able to witness a battle that left him dumbfounded. He could never have imagined that this isekai also held this kind of power. All he had seen so far was sophistry that could be dealt with the modern hot weapons and battle tactics. This was the first time he failed to ensure his victory and had to rely on other people to survive. When he looked at Luna and the panther engaged in combat, he felt as if he was looking at an F-22 Raptor aircraft going against an anti-aircraft gun that was operating on the surface to air mechanism.
The fighter was skilled enough to escape the barrage of the anti-aircraft gun as it maneuvered itself between the gaps in the shells fired and countered by spraying fireballs on the anti-aircraft gun in an attempt to be the sole authority under the skies of this world.
Unlike the panther that was moving across the ground on its feet, Luna had an advantage in terms of flexibility as she could move along all the three dimensions compared to the panther that was restricted to operate in the two dimensional movement spectrums.
Based on her higher agility and flexible movements, Luna successfully dodged several dark shells and launched her counterattack with fireballs that she spewed from all over her body.
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