With Elvind and the two elite mages supporting him still recovering from Roxene’s full power attack, Lyra burst forward with her high-speed movement technique and began pressuring Elvind.
She unleashed a barrage of quick swipes from her kukris forcing Elvind on the defensive as he used his spear to parry Lyra’s attacks.
However, it was not just his injuries that were making things more difficult for him, it was that Lyra was much stronger than the last time they had fought.
When he had volunteered to deal with her, he figured it would be a walk in the park, and while things had been going well at first now, he was being pushed back.
Unfortunately, Lyra’s advantage did not last long as the two elite mages keyed in on her after healing themselves and lent their support to Elvind.
“Riptide armor.”
“Gale Soldiers.”
With one of the elite mages casting a tier five buff spell on Elvind, and the other conjuring twelve warriors made of wind, Lyra’s brief advantage was soon turned on its head.
At the very least though, Roxene swiftly joined the battle and began tearing through the soldiers made of wind and shooting of laser and darkness drill spells at the elite mages.
The five of them then continued to exchange blows, until Elvind’s forces soon caught up and began sending attacks at Lyra and Roxene.
Hundreds of spells and mana blasts came flying for them as Elvind and his elite mages backed off and joined the bombardment.
“Agh.”.
Eventually Lyra got caught by a stray attack as she tried to use her illusions to direct the fire away from herself.
There were just too many attacks and even though most of the combatants could not see her, the mass of attacks till scored a hit against her.
It was not a terribly strong attack, just a tier three spell, but it was still enough to leave one of her arms mangled.
And unfortunately, Roxene was not doing much better having to focus on evasion and defense just to stay alive.
Yet as she saw the deteriorating situation, she activated her last trump card and unleased her full power.
‘Soul Burst.’
For the first time Roxene used the unique skill that Marcus had shared with her, and all of her stats were doubled for three minutes.
Now teaming with greater power than she ever had, Roxene felt invincible, and the attacks that were giving her trouble before now seemed insignificant.
Racing towards Lyra, Roxene encompassed her within her mana barrier and the radiance scales spell to protect her.
She then grabbed ahold of Lyra’s armor and shot towards the city’s walls where the liberation army was regrouping after losing its first position.
However, as Roxene raced towards safety, her danger sense suddenly went off like crazy, and only thanks to her heightened stats, she just barely avoided a slash from an ax that was black as night.
Yet, as she did six other men covered in black cloaks descend upon them and a ring of shadows appeared and moved in to crush them.
“Owooooo.”
Seeing no other way-out, Roxene used her howl of night, and a burst of darkness spread out around her and fought against the ring of shadows that threatened to engulf them.
Eventually the two powers canceled each other out, and while they were uninjured both Roxene and Lyra were surrounded.
And to make matters worse Elvind and his elite mages soon caught up to Lyra and Roxene as well.
Except instead of these two enemies moving to work together, Elvind seemed pissed to see the seven cloaked men.
“What the hell are you doing here? I was the assigned to deal with Jadzia.” Elvind yelled at these men.
Still all of them just remined quite until the lead one with the black ax came over and said, “Great knight Elvind, you have already shown that you are not up to the task as Jadzia Augustyn was about to escape. Now go along and command your troops. You have an army to lead to victory, and we have a target to dispose of.”
Clenching his teeth Elvind looked furious, but he did as he was asked and moved away, heading back towards his troops who where the closest to the city wall and would need his and the elite mages’ assistance to breach them.
Of course, during this time, Roxene and Lyra had not been just sitting there idly, and had been trying to come up with a plan.
‘Lyra who are these guys, they were not mentioned at all in any of the briefings?’ Roxene asked wondering where they strong combatants came from.
‘I do not know exactly who they are, but those outfits are what the Whispers, the king’s personal intelligence unit wears. And if I had to guess, these guys are a part of their execution squad.’
Quickly appraising all of them, Lyra unfortunately found that all of their levels were either hidden by some sort of skill or item.
‘I have no clue how strong they are, but I doubt any of them are below level forty-five, and their leader is probably at least sixty.’ Lyra said with helplessness in her tone.
As far as she could tell they were surrounded and at any moment were about to be killed by these executioners.
‘This is not over yet. We are going to break through. Just unleash your strongest attack on my mark, and I will take care of the rest.’ Roxene said.
And right as they finished planning, Elvind who was occupying the Whispers attention left, ending their slight reprieve.
‘Lyra hold your breath!’ Roxene shouted over their telepathic connection.
Doing as Roxene told her, even thought she was not sure why at first, it took her only a moment to realize what was going on as she felt her body start to stiffen up a little.
‘Poison!’
Having breathed in just the slightest bit of it, Lyra felt the poison attacking her system. But luckily it was only a little, and her natural hardiness kept her from being paralyzed.
“Hm looks like you noticed.” The lead executioner said.
He and his men had not wanted to leave anything to chance, and even thought it seemed that they had ceased their attack while dealing with Elvind. They had actually all opened up canisters of what they thought to be undetectable paralytic gas.
Unfortunately, for them, Roxene’s nose was one of the best on the entire planet, and even just the smallest scent given off by the gas was detected by her.
Though this did not change the fact that they were surrounded and in a tight spot against these seven executioners.
The shadows around all of the executioner then began to shift encompassing the area and isolating them from the outside world.
‘Do it now!’ Roxene told Lyra.
Changing her posture and going into a position on all fours, Lyra began to glow brighter as her bluish sliver flames engulfed her and expanded, until she had taken the form of a giant shimmering nine tailed fox.
This was the ultimate form of her evolution, and while it boasted incredible power, it had little in the way of defensive capabilities and made her into a large target.
Using everything they had, Lyra and Roxene charged head on towards the lead executioner who stood in their way.
Of course, the other executioners did not simply let them do this and the domain of shadows they had created by working in tandem, began wrapping around and slicing into Roxene and Lyra as they ran forward.
All the while the lead executioner flew forward brandishing his ominous looking a black ax.
At the same time the other attack with their respective weapons all of them aiming for Lyra and completely disregarding Roxene.
They had been given only one order, and that was to make sure that the Duchess of Augustyn died, even if it cost them their lives.
Roxene and Lyra bit, slashed, and blasted their way through the executioners’ encirclement, all the while being stabbed, sliced, and assaulted by shadows.
Still, their unyielding drive and surprising power allowed them to break through, and they managed to bust out of the domain that had trapped them.
Yet just as they had escaped, the lead executioner positioned himself right above Lyra’s head, and brought down his ax with all his might and complete disregard for his own safety.
And his ax dug deep into flesh causing blood to spray everywhere, as Roxene’s right leg flew off and a large gash was cut into her torso as she took this attack for Lyra.
However, this was the last thing the lead executioner ever saw, as Roxene snapped her jaws closed around his head and ripped it clean off.
After that, the horrible wound inflicted on her caused her body to shrink back down to its original size, as she could no longer control the power of her supreme skill.
Roxene quickly began falling out of the air, but Lyra who she had just saved grabbed her in her mouth, and shot off in a jet of flames, leaving the other executioners behind.
Unfortunately, Lyra herself was horribly wounded, and after that last burst of speed, she felt her body give out.
She then crashed into the ground leaving a deep scar in the earth as she and Roxene impacted.
Quickly Lyra’s form reverted as well, and she looked at Roxene who was bleeding like a fountain not far from her.
She tried inching forward, dragging herself with the one arm that still worked, since the other was damaged horribly.
Alas, her efforts were soon proved to be in vain, as the six remaining executioners caught up with them to deliver the final blow.
Yet before they could, the ground seemed to begin shaking and the yells of hundreds of thousands of people echoed across the battlefield and thousands of spells flew towards the executioners.
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