Ok after seeing Akane get wrecked by Archer I think I can safely say plan “hope she defeats him and we don’t have to die” is out the window. Judging by Quincy’s most recent action I think he’s putting in the unspoken plan “Sacrifice Adam” so we can run away or at least that would be my plan. I’m sure that with my portals I could safely get everyone in my party out of the vicinity within 5 seconds, Quincy’s party is standing a bit too far away, and Adam is a necessity to distract Archer so I definitely can’t save them.

Are you seriously planning to abandon your friend to the hands of this murderer?

“Hey I’m just considering multiple plans at the same time, in order of varying degrees of success. It just so happens that the plan ‘Sacrifice Adam’ has the highest chance of success, plus Quincy is already putting it into motion. Isn’t Quincy such a great friend Mythril? Sacrificing his party so that we can get away.”

I believe that he wouldn’t agree with that statement on several levels.

“Well that’s plan A, plan B which has about a 25, no, 20 percent chance of success is to actually defeat Archer, which involves several factors coming together. First of which requires the information of his spirit’s abilities. Now that it’s exposed itself, you should have been able to analyze its abilities during Akane’s and Archer’s brief battle.”

Yes his spirit allows him greater usage of his electrical abilities. It essentially allows him to completely disregard stamina or stress limitations when using fire and electricity magic.

“Well that’s not fair, so he basically can shoot an infinite amount of fire or electricity without any downsides at all?”

Not infinite, while the stamina limit does not apply to himself directly it does apply to his spirit. If he uses too much magic and burdens his spirit enough it will eventually dissipate, leaving him for a short while.

“I see, well in that case there’s two ways to deal with that spirit, one; try to defeat it or two; exhaust Archer to the point that it can’t sustain itself.”

I’m suddenly distracted by the large boom that goes off as I see Archer fire his pistol straight at “The One of Blackness”. I barely manage to react by opening a portal in front of Adam and open a second one sending the bullet straight for Archer’s face. Surprised, he quickly turns his head to the side with the bullet barely grazing against his cheek.

“Hmph, neat trick, it won’t work again,” He says as he wipes away the blood from the small cut on his left cheek.

I think this man just tried to straight up murder Adam or at least critically wound since I think he was aiming for Adam’s groin. That would have been murder to any man, but since it’s Adam it probably wouldn’t hurt that much.

“Quincy why would you say that, I could have died right there?!” Adam whines.

“Good, it would have saved me the trouble of doing it myself someday,” Quincy responds.

“Guys I think we have bigger issues than who the one of blackness is right now. First we should decide how we’re going to deal with Archer!” I stated.

“How do you suppose we deal with him then?” Quincy asks.

“The biggest problem that we’re facing right now is that spirit aiding him, if we don’t deal with it now then we’ll never be able to beat Archer. Don’t ask me how but that spirit allows him to use seemingly inexhaustible amounts of fire and electricity.”

“Ok so what should we do?”

“I’m thinking we need to distract Archer, if I can separate the spirit from him I should be able to take it down. I don’t think he’ll be expecting us to go after the spirit right away, so if your party can manage to deal with Archer for at least five minutes I think it’ll be enough. Take Lilith with you, since I think it's Archer who’ll be doing most of the damage anyway.”

I quietly inform everyone of the current plan as Archer continues to slowly walk in our direction.

“Are you all done saying your goodbyes? I see you are all prepared to die then?” the man states.

“THE ONLY WHO SHOULD BE PREPARED TO DIE IS YOU!” Nerva yells as she unleashes a huge fireball that blocks out Archer’s vision and creates a large smokescreen allowing all of us to run deeper into the forest.

“You can run, but you can’t hide. I’m going to kill each and everyone one of you,” Archer states in a calm yet threatening voice.

Suddenly a rock is sent at Archer at high speeds, but he effortlessly catches it with one hand, applies fire magic to the rock and proceeds to toss it back in the direction it came from. A loud explosion is heard with the shockwaves violent enough to cause tree branches to fall. Archer begins to quickly move in the direction the rock came from heading towards Quincy and Adam.

“I see you two are volunteering to be the first ones to die,” Archer claims.

“Yeah the one of blackness is volunteering, I’m just here to watch,” Quincy says.

“N-not this again!” Adam whimpers as he’s faced with the barrel of a gun.

Archer smirks as he steps forward about to shoot with his shotgun when a landmine goes off from beneath his feet.

“Ah yeah ! You're not the only one who knows how to make landmines,” Ryder yells from a distance.

The smoke from the blast clears revealing Archer perfectly fine, brushing off all the dirt on his trenchcoat.

“I would ask you not to throw so much dirt around, it's already a nuisance to clean blood stains off my clothes,” he says nonchalantly.

Quincy and Adam continue running deeper into the forest with Archer in pursuit setting off dozens of landmines that Ryder prepared. However all these bombs do nothing when faced with Archer’s powerful aura acting as a strong defense. With all this running around Archer hasn’t realized we’ve been leading him into a trap. Eventually Quincy and Adam come to a clearing where everybody’s prepared our strongest sneak attack.

“Are you finally done running, I don’t have the time to chase you around all day?” he questions.

“Yeah we’re done running, everybody NOW!” Quincy yells.

Archer is met with as many powerful ranged attacks we can manage. The man with the trench coat is met with an assault of fire and wind magic along with a barrage of bombs. As our attacks encroach on Archer, Adam places a forcefield around Archer leaving him with no place to escape. To top it off I use my sword to chop down a tree sent tumbling in Archer’s direction. Since this man took Ryder’s MOAB to the face, I’m not really expecting this assault to do much to him other than annoy him enough to get him to use his spirit.

In response to all of our attacks an inferno erupts completely negating all the force of our magic and blows away the gigantic bluewood tree with its burning truck causing fire to spread to all the other trees in the vicinity. I can catch a glimpse of the blue salamander eel appearing behind Archer showing that the plan actually worked. Lilith charges through the smoke with her shield up ramming right into Archer as he puts his arms up to receive the blow. Archer is at least knocked back 10 feet away from the spirit. The spirit is then met with a violent gust of wind that knocks it into a portal.

“Good luck distraction team, spirit subjugation team we’re up now,” I yelled as I jumped into the same portal that took the eel.

Remi, Ryder and Azura proceed to follow me through the portal while Quincy’s party and Lilith are left to distract Archer.

I quickly close the portal to prevent Archer from chasing us, leaving our only opponent to be the bright blue salamander eel in front of us.

“So what’s the most effective way to combat spirits or should I just treat them like any non-human opponent?” I ask.

“Well Remi’s wolf always gets punted in the beginning of the battle, so maybe we can do that to the eel?” Ryder suggests.

“Shut up, that doesn’t happen every time, just most of the time. Either way Spirits are dangerous beings, so don’t underestimate them. We can probably expect the salamander-eel to be as capable of using fire and electricity as Archer is,” Remi informs.

Remi sends her wolf in to attack the spirit and as it bites down on its torso it is suddenly met with an intense electric shock.

“Damn it I should have expected that after seeing what happened to Akane!” Remi swears.

“We should probably focus on using mostly quick attacks that don’t maintain much close contact. So no biting or grappling,” Azura tells Remi.

But what Remi said did give me an idea, if I slash that thing with my sword I’m probably going to get electrocuted as well. I apply a bit of wind magic to my right sword, creating a mini barrier or wind that will rip apart anything that it comes into contact with, this way I can actually slash that spirit.

Ryder begins the fight by launching cannonballs directly at the salamander’s feet causing it to lose its balance. I run to its side and deliver an upwards slash with enough force that it sends flying into a nearby tree. The spirit retaliates by shooting several fireballs in our direction, but Remi counters it with water creating a large tide that covers the spirit washing over it entirely.

“Hah! Take that, this spirit’s not so strong without its partner huh,” Remi boasts.

It may not have much individual strength on its own, but it's high compatibility with this Archer is what makes their union something to be reckoned with. It will probably attempt to escape back to its partner given the opportunity.

Sensing the dire situation it's in the spirit shoots out balls of electricity in our direction, electrifying the four of us, as it tries to escape.

“Ugh! That stings, but we can’t let it escape,” Azura says as she winces from the pain of the salamander eel’s desperate attack.

Azura pulls out the book I gave her earlier and casts a spell that sends out bluish green light that envelopes all of our bodies.

“Whoa! What is this, my body feels way lighter,” I claimed.

“I just cast an agility spell on all of us so we can all move faster. Now get after that spirit,” Azura commands.

For an eel this thing moves way faster than I anticipated. It dodges a majority of our attacks, slithering back and forth between the trees like a serpent, but it's not fast enough. The speed Azura’s spell granted us allows us to easily close the distance between us and the spirit. As the salamander-eel is thrown up into the air by one of Ryder’s stray shots, I open a portal right next to it and the eel is hit with the force of a spirit bear’s claw. I quickly slash at the spirit with two consecutive strikes. As the salamander eel's body is ripped open with wind magic, my armor is covered in a thick viscous body fluid as it unleashes a loud shrieking noise. As I attempt to finish it off by cutting it in half, I’m shot once in the shoulder forcing me away from the injured spirit.

I slowly turn in the direction of the shot seeing the one person I really did not want to deal with right now.

“Damn it was the distraction team not enough to hold him, even for five minutes?” I complained.

“Oh don’t feel so bad, I’m sure not even the pathetic army you sent to entertain me even lasted five minutes,” Archer responds with a cocky smile on his face.

As Archer finishes a large fireball erupts from behind him, but he simply shoots his pistol at the large mass of flame dispersing it immediately.

“Don’t run away from a fight you motherf*cker!” Nerva yells as she comes in chasing after Archer.

“Oh I’m not running I’m simply abiding by the contract with my spirit. Not that I needed it to kill all of you though,” he responds.

I see Quincy, Adam and Lilith come in behind Nerva all looking somewhat battered and attacked.

“What happened to you guys, also Adam you had one job!” I say displeased as though he were solely responsible for the lack of time I got.

“We learned that his abilities are pure bs!” Quincy complains.

I take a look at the three of them, Quincy’s monk outfit has several bullet holes in it, some of which are in places which bullets should not be able to reach, the same goes for Adam and Lilith, but with dents in Lilith’s armor instead of holes.

“His bullets are magnetic and can track you if you are shot once,” Lilith informs me.

That’s not good, apparently one of Archer’s abilities is having aimbot.

Archer proceeds to shoot several bullets at me, but I send them away by placing a portal in their path. I open a second portal to send the bullets back at Archer and he dodges them with ease, but the bullets suddenly turn around and start heading in my direction eventually colliding against my armor. The blunt impact of the bullets are enough to bruise or cause internal bleeding if I weren’t protected by aura.

“Yep that ability is definitely bs,” I say agreeing with Quincy.

With Archer’s priority now focused on attacking and defending his spirit, I don’t think that we’ll be able to finish off nor separate it from Archer again. Not now that he knows it’s our target, but the damage it's taken will absolutely limit the aid it can provide Archer. I suppose the only way to get rid of the spirit is to force Archer to use so much magic that it can handle the burden and disappear.

“Guys we have to force Archer to overuse his abilities, his spirit won’t last much longer and we’ll win through a battle of attrition,” I decide.

“That is if we manage to stay alive for that long,” Remi says anxiously.

“Oh you won’t, none of you are capable of lasting that long,” Archer claims as he pulls out his rifle and begins to channel a large amount of magical energy into his next attack.

Archer is definitely aiming to kill with an attack that has that much power, it feels like he’s putting more power than ever before. With little time to evade the next shot, plus his ability to track his targets makes avoiding that next shot extremely difficult. Lilith suddenly rushes in front of everyone and deploys her shield barrier placing a similar amount of magical energy into the shield as Archer is placing into his attack. Adam also assists by placing a multilayered forcefield in front of Lilith’s shield barrier. Archer unleashes the shot, sending a bullet zooming through the air with so much force it devastates the surrounding foliage and even shakes the ground. Upon making contact with the forcefield it slowly cracks away at each forcefield, barely managing to slow down the velocity of the bullet. The bullet manages to make its way through 6 forcefields all with enough durability comparable to that of bullet proof glass. Breaking all of Adam’s force fields the bullet fights a raging battle with Lilith’s shield barrier, shaking the ground and air around us.

“Hrah!!!” Lilith yells as she desperately hangs on to protect us from the bullet’s wrath.

“Hang on Lilith!” Azura says as she uses another spell from the book I gave her.

Lilith is then enveloped in a red light as her strength is increased ten fold. With her newfound strength she is able to push back the bullet slightly as her shield starts to crack. Once the bullet loses its momentum it suddenly explodes becoming the last nail in the coffin to break through Lilith’s shield barrier and sending us all flying backwards ragdolling on the ground. Since I wasn’t at the epicenter of that explosion I didn’t take that much damage, but Lilith was. I get up off the ground and rush to her fallen body. I see a large crack right down the center of her shield and she’s showing signs of heavy injury. I quickly take one of the healing potions I have on me and have her drink it. I help her slowly get to her feet as I hear her ragged breathing.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t able to fully defend against that attack. It was just too strong,” Lilith tells me.

“It’s okay, everyone is still alive because of you, just rest up for now and let everyone else handle him,” I say reassuring her.

Bearing witness to the fact that everyone survived his attack, Archer has this displeased look on his face.

“Hmph, as much as it pains me to say this, but you are one of the few people who has ever taken that attack head on and lived. But whatever will you do about the second shot?” Archer announces as he starts focusing even more magical energy into his next rifle shot.

“Guys I have good news and bad news. Good news is I think Archer can’t use his powerful rifle shots without really exhausting his spirit. It already looks as if it's starting to vanish,” I tell everyone.

The salamander-eel in question appears to be flickering behind Archer, barely managing to stay visible.

“I don’t want to be asking this, but what’s the bad news?” Quincy questions.

“Bad news is I have no idea how we’re going to evade this next shot. I don’t think Adam’s force fields will be enough to stop it by itself.”

“Yeah I can attest to that, Adam’s force fields we’re pretty useless when we were trying to distract Archer. Those failed to stop a single bullet,” Quincy harshly states.

“H-hey it kinda slowed them down,” Adam complains as Quincy gives him a death stare.

Come on think, there’s got to be a way to avoid this attack. Maybe I could send it into my pocket dimension, but I can’t react fast enough to send it away.

You can’t, but I can.

“Really then, it’ll be like before where you casted the magic before me, but using my energy.”

Yes, that last bullet had a muzzle velocity of 4,665 ft per second. I can easily intercept slow moving objects like that.

“Slow! Nothing about that last exchange could be classified as slow.”

Relative to what I can perceive, objects moving less than the speed of light are considered slow.

“You and I have different perceptions of slow then, but nevermind just do it.”

I raise my hand in Archer’s direction prepared for the moment he pulls the trigger, but all of a sudden there’s no sound of the bullet firing but just a flash of light.

“Heh heh heh, it seems like the main heroine has arrived just in the nick of time. Man, I hoped I made Akane proud, showing up to save the day at the last minute after shutting down the barrier,” a rather familiar voice boasts.

I turn to see what caused the flash of light and there holding Archer’s rifle is Nazuko with a smug smile on her face.

“You are not the main heroine, you are more like a side character, like Quincy, but I am glad to see you,” I say, putting down Nazuko’s claims.

“Yeah I’m the main heroine!” Remi yells in the distance.

“That was pretty f*cking cool Nazuko, you definitely made Akane proud!” Nerva yells.

“Screw you Will I go through too much bs to be treated like a side character,” Quincy argues.

“See I’m definitely the main heroine, and Quincy’s not a side character; he's an important person. After all he is the One of Blackness,” Nazuko says.