"Hey! Wake up you lazy bumbs! No sleeping on the job! Get them!" Hikari yelled, throwing an angry yet oddly cute fit on the tree branch above, right as Alex and Abby were preparing to attack.

When Alex and Abby heard their opponent's words, they had the urge to burst out into laughter. They had no doubt in their mind that those people armoured in black were either unconscious, dead, or unable to fight.

In their perspective, all they saw was an angry child, a sore loser throwing a temper tantrum because things didn't go their way and were moments away from defeat.

As soon as Alex was about to make one of his usual snarky retorts, he felt sudden unease around him.

The sound of shaky metal clanking filled the air…

The armoured people that were littered all around the battlefield like trash suddenly stood up and began moving as if nothing happened to them. And without hesitation, they brought back out their weapons and rushed over towards both Abby and Alex as a unified force, their critical injuries seeming to not slow them down or hinder them at all.

This made Alex's confidence begin fading away immediately as many thoughts that he had thought before came back into his mind.

'Where is the blood?'

'Where is their sound?'

'Where is the smell of burning flesh?'

'Why are they not using any ability? Do they all just have simple, non-visual ones?'

It reminded Alex of the undead creatures that Abby had shown him prior. They didn't tire, and any usually fatal injuries to specific organs didn't do as much damage due to their state of death that does not require any working organs or blood circulation.

He wanted to voice his theories to Abby who he thought no doubt was thinking the same thing but with the hoard of incoming enemies, it seemed to be impractical and only served as a distraction.

Although his enemies were weak and easily defeated the last time, he could not allow himself to grow careless and let his guard down.

The most he could do now was try his best to unmask who was under the armour to see if his theory of his opponent not being human was true.

An arrow was shot to his back, and, with his enhanced sensory, he managed to catch the arrow in mid-air without even looking in its direction. The arrow in hand, he twisted his body towards where the attack was shot and sent the arrow hurling straight back at the attacker through the small seeing hole of their armour with even greater speed than it was originally shot at him, enhancing it with his own lightning to add a shocking effect to the attack and make it more potent.

Then, 3 people in front of him slashed down towards him all at once, prompting him to extend his spear to out range his enemies, chaining his lightning through all of them like he had done before which proved to be somewhat effective.

Not even a moment later, he felt another person come up from behind him with a sword, prompting him to slip his spear forward and strike them from the back with the hilt.

However, when he did, the attacker suddenly and unexpectedly dodged, sidestepping his strike which greatly surprised Alex.

It was almost like he was expecting that to happen and dodged before Alex even began his attack.

Alex cursed as he tried to force his body to evade but he was unable to fully do it in time, leading to his opponent slashing him in the chest with his broadsword, sending him flying and rolling across the grass.

*Clap* *Clap* *Clap*

"Yeah! Get him! That's the way you do it! Whoo hoo!" The sound of HikariYami cheering and celebrating like she was cheering for her favourite team in a sporting event filled his ears, making him clench his teeth and grip his spear tightly, steeling his resolve as he tried his best to ignore the pain and filter out her annoying voice to focus on the opponent in front of him.

The same person who had just flung him across the battlefield was once again in front of him, trying to perform a simple, almost robotic slash.

Without hesitation, Alex grabbed him by his hollow feeling helmet and discharged a great amount of electricity that flowed and ravaged around his entire body.

His opponent that seemed to be around the same level of strength as all the others was as slow as a snail, exactly like he remembered him. It confirmed that his power did not increase at all yet he somehow managed to dodge an attack that seemed to be impossible to dodge at his level.

It felt odd that his opponent did not squirm around or react according to how any other human in his situation would react. If anything, he seemed completely fine and unhindered.

Unknown to him, that was exactly the case...

Ignoring the high amount of electricity flowing through his body, the armoured person slashed towards Alex who had thought he had his opponent dead or at least unconscious, causing a fair wound on his chest.

Blood began dripping from his wound, his eyes filled with shock as he did not predict what had just happened.

'From when were they immune to lightning? Were they just faking it from before?'

With his hand still tightly gripping the enemy's helmet and without any hesitation, he ripped it right off, revealing who or what it was hiding underneath.

'I-impossible! Human!?' He inwardly thought, not even hiding his surprise.

It was definitely the last thing he was expecting, his opponent's actions, mannerisms and movements were anything but human and he could not allow himself to come to terms with what his naked eye was seeing.

So, that was what he did…

'Wait… No! It's an illusion!?'

When he used his knight vision and focused hard on the face of his opponent, the human face began to fade away and be replaced by white light.

They were no undead… No not at all… Far from it

They were light puppets that his opponent had been controlling, highly intelligent ones at that. Everything suddenly made sense to him. That was why usual attacks seemed to be completely ineffective against them, and why they lacked basic human things like blood, sound, and pain.

As long as their opponent had mana, they could fight and the more they fought the more they learned and the more accustomed to their opponent's movements they were which was how his opponent had managed to dodge his attack despite him not growing any stronger.

Yet, that did not change the fact that he still needed to find some way to defeat them.

He had no idea how efficient HikariYami's skill was and how large her mana reserve was and he had no time to wait and find out.

He needed some way to kill them, to sever their ties to their puppet master who was for some reason not joining the fight which made him believe that she was very weak and only strong due to her puppets.

He noticed dozens of armoured puppets headed his way so he had no time to experiment extensively, so, he just did the first thing that came up in his mind.

He surrounded his hands with lightning and opened them both, forming them like spears before he struck right through the metal armour of his opponent. Then, with his physical strength, he ripped the entire set of armour in half, throwing the empty, split, broken armour towards a few of his rushing opponents to slow them down, causing a pulse of light as soon as the armour was destroyed, making him inwardly smile.

'They are just light puppets! They aren't human! The only way to kill them is to destroy their armour!' Alex yelled to Abby who seemed to be somewhat struggling against the puppets that she had just beaten before like they were nothing.

'I had a sneaking suspicion that it was the case! Good call! That changes everything!' Abby yelled back, clear struggle in her voice.

Armed with new knowledge, Abby and Alex managed to hold off the constant onslaught of attacks headed their way as they tried their best to destroy all the armoured puppets. Abby trying to smash and melt them while Alex tried to rip them apart.

They had managed to kill a few but the ones remaining seemed to only be getting stronger and more accustomed to their moves, making them still struggle.

Watching the battle from above was the clearly entertained HikariYami still sitting beside Ren who was unconscious and foaming from the mouth.

"It seems like they figured you out! What now? You gonna join and finally end it?"

"Hehe, I was surprised that they managed to see through my illusion so easily even when they are so weak. But, It doesn't matter, even if they get past my little toys which I doubt they could, I still have everything under control! Just let me have my fun and keep your promise!"

"Yeah, yeah I'll keep my promise. You don't have to remind me!"

Yami's annoyance was not at all subtle, she clearly felt no joy in playing such games and wanted to end things as fast as possible to get the job done.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, from the high tree she was sitting on, HikariYami managed to spot a figure moving in the forest, coming closer and closer to their direction.

"Ooo! Is that another target! More fun for me!"

"Oh no you fucking don't! If that is a target then they are all mine! I only promised that you could have those 2! I said nothing about a third person!"

"Ughh fine! You can have them Yami-chan, I guess I was being a bit selfish trying to hog all the fun…"

"Haha! I'm glad you understand! You might be kinda stupid and annoying at times but I guess you're not that bad at times too," Yami said with an amused laugh, making Hikari feel warm inside as she took it as a compliment.