After it started, the fight between Risaro and the Amara and Hiroka duo did not slow down for even a moment. The wolfkin leapt back to gain some distance while ripping the arrow out of his shoulder, but Amara followed up with a sudden aerial charge, stabbing at his side with a wind lance spell. She also went through the red tendril connected to him, but it was completely immaterial and could not be interacted with.

Risaro twisted his body enough that the charge only took out a chunk from his side instead of one of his organs, then he threw away the arrow he had just removed and ran to the direction from which said arrow had come, intending on dealing with the weaker target first. Both his side as well as his shoulder had already begun healing at a visible pace. That was the reason why he had prioritized removing the arrow. He was unable to heal while something remained lodged into the wound, blocking the way.

Most regenerators were the same way, so arrows were often called the nemesis of such people, as they were very big projectiles that could keep very large wounds open.

Amara came from behind, repeatedly slashing at his back with wind claws, but a powerful backhand broke through them, forcing her to abort her offensive, at the cost of losing one of his fingers, which also began to quickly heal. He had barely needed to slow down for that, so the wolf soon reached his target, leaping straight at the tree that was Hiroka’s hiding spot and breaking it in half with a brutal swing.

‘Wait, where’s-’ Risaro’s thought was interrupted by his flying opponent, who had come right behind him, manifesting another wind blade in an upwards strike aimed at his neck.

Quickly grabbing one of the larger pieces of the tree that were still falling around, he used it to shield himself for a few moments, which was enough time for his leap to reach close to another tree. Risaro kicked off it, completely reversing his momentum and trying to crash into Amara.

The owl-woman reacted fast, however. She threw a quick blast of wind at the wolf, which barely slowed him down but pushed herself back from the pressure, earning enough time for a quick air-dodge that avoided Risaro’s body. Amara also launched a bunch of wind slashes along with it, scoring many small cuts but unable to cause serious injury.

The wolfkin twisted himself in the air and managed to land on his feet, which carved skid marks on the ground from the forced deceleration. Then the effort was rendered meaningless by Risaro suddenly throwing himself to the ground, only barely managing to avoid an arrow fired from the side.

An arrow that had come from a completely different direction, quite a ways away from the tree he had destroyed.

That series of actions happened within only a few moments, but it was enough time for Risaro to process what had happened. After destroying the tree, his surprise was due to not seeing the enemy he had been aiming for, which now finally made sense as he realized that Hiroka had changed her position after firing.

Yet before he could do anything with that information, the wolf-man was once again attacked by Amara, who had taken a slight detour to dive at him from directly above, which meant Risaro only noticed her presence when she was almost upon him, a huge wind blade falling onto his head like a guillotine.

His reaction was instinctive as he tapped onto his bestial nature and jumped backwards on all fours, dodging the falling blade. Risaro then attempted to counter-attack, pouncing at the owl-woman, but Amara had already started her next move upon seeing the previous attack fail, and a flap of her wings launched the woman to side, repositioning in preparation for the next attack in order to avoid making herself an easy target.

Risaro’s pounce whiffed, but he gained enough distance to be able to think for a few moments. He had been completely tricked by Hiroka’s change in position, so the wolf-man decided to track the stealthy enemy via scent instead of rushing in the direction from which the second arrow had come from.

But before turning his decision into action, Risaro had to deal with Amara’s next move: Another spear charge. He stepped to the side at the last moment and tried to counter the linear attack with a punch, but the charge had only been a feint, she stopped herself in the air right after his dodge and turned the lance into a trio of wind blades shaped like a claw, swiping sideways and cutting large gashes on his side and the arm he raised in a block.

At that moment, he had already been completely healed of all his previous injuries despite how little time had passed since the beginning of the fight, so even though those new wounds looked severe the wolf-man’s regeneration would soon erase them as well.

While that exchange was happening, Risaro was also focusing on Hiroka’s scent, trying to figure out her location. Quite a lot of the scent was coming from the tree he had just smashed, which made sense considering she had definitely been there for long enough to set up and execute a precise shot. The same was true of one of the trees in the direction from which the second arrow had come, which was just as easy to explain. As for the rest of them…

While still thinking of that, the wolf-man tried to counter-attack Amara’s claw strike with a shoulder charge that turned into a quick pounce as soon as the owl woman began to move out of the way. That succeeded in surprising her, but Amara’s reactions were still fast enough that she could flap her wings to accelerate her dodge and avoid his grasping arms by a hair.

And at that point Risaro realized that Hiroka’s scent was coming from literally every other tree in the immediate vicinity, none of them feeling any stronger than the others, apart from those he had already noted. His surprise at that made him freeze momentarily, but he was still aware enough to raise his arms and block when Amara forcefully stopped herself in the air and resumed her attacks by launching a trio of quick wind blades.

After a moment’s thought, the wolf-man realized what that meant: Hiroka was actually constantly moving around the trees, only stopping on particular ones when it was time to set up her shots. Yet she was somehow so stealthy that he couldn’t even catch a glimpse of her movements. He was fairly distracted by the fight against Amara, but that was still an absolutely ridiculous feat.

And then said owl was attacking again, with another frontal charge that he had to be cautious of being a feint, all the while trying to figure out what to do about the-

“Gahhhrgh!” He grunted in pain as an arrow lodged itself into his back, piercing through a lung.

‘What was that?! That was so fast I couldn’t even hear the noise before it hit! It must have come from very close, like…’

Risaro stopped herself from even glancing at the side to try and figure out Hiroka’s position because Amara had used the distraction of the arrow hitting him to change her spell. Her entire body had been clad in a powerful whirlwind-like barrier that felt more dangerous than any of her previous attacks and she was now rushing at him so fast that he was barely able to register such facts before impact.

His arms were already in defense position beforehand, and that was the only thing that saved him from having his neck slit open and his eyes gouged out by the intense cutting power of Amara’s whirlwind cloak that cut open dozens of gashes on his body like he had lost a fight with a blender.

And they kept on cutting as Amara’s rush lifted his body into the air and carried him along, breaking through a tree violently. That also put her within close range of Risaro, but when he tried to punch her wind barrier resisted for just long enough for the owl-woman to dodge to the side as said barrier broke.

The wolf-man crashed to the ground, breaking the arrow still lodged in his back. He grunted at the pain and looked to the side for a moment, realizing that another tree only a few steps away now carried that same telltale deeper scent of the fox, confirming that Hiroka had just fired her last arrow from it.

However, Amara’s attack had undoubtedly given the fox woman enough time to move away from that dangerous position. Risaro got back on his feet and considered just destroying every tree in the area, but the tree he had destroyed at first was already mostly reconstructed. There was no way he could break all the trees fast enough, not while having Amara hounding him the entire time.

He could only keep fighting and try to find an opening to counter-attack. But as soon as he thought that, Amara decided to change the script:

“Why did you do it?” She asked him, hovering just out of reach “Why would you allow those bastards to do what they wanted in this land, and even go against your fellow beasts? Why are you still fighting for them after they’ve literally set fire to the forest?” Amara sounded like she was only barely containing her anger.

Risaro had no obligation to tell her anything, but if he could gain some time to heal by talking he wouldn’t lose such an opportunity. So while remaining wary of arrows shooting at him from nowhere, he began to talk.

“This place is small. That’s the only reason why I can be a top dog here. Out there, in different countries, different continents and different cultures there are tons of people who are much stronger.” He said “I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in this tiny pond. I wanted to reach true strength.”

Amara didn’t seem impressed “If that was the case, you only had to pass down your role as village chief and go out into the world yourself to explore, fight and grow. Others have done that before.”

He had no answer to that. At least none that he wouldn’t be too ashamed to admit even to himself. The conversation died, and both of them decided that it was time to restart the fight.

Amara dove at him, manifesting two more wind blades and slashing with them. Risaro had realized the danger of attacking recklessly, so he simply kept his eye on her and looked for an opportunity to counter, also wary of the possibility of a feint.

Then he did a quick sidestep to the left, dodging an arrow that came from the side. He hadn’t forgotten to look out for more hidden attacks. Risaro did not look to the side, but he remembered enough of how the trees were arranged to be able to tell the likely origin point of that arrow.

Still, he couldn’t afford to do anything about it right away, since now he had to deal with Amara’s attack. She decelerated at the last moment and swung the swords one after the other, one high and one low. Risaro answered that by moving his left arm down to block the low attack and raising his right fist before swinging down with a hammer blow, poised to break through the blade with sheer power and hit his opponent in a single move.

“Gaahkhnn!” He let out a strangled noise as an arrow buried itself on the back of his neck.

Up until that point, there were always large gaps between Hiroka’s shots as she repositioned herself to make sure he couldn’t find her. That lulled Risaro into a false sense of security, so when her next arrow came from extremely close by (meaning it was almost impossible for him to react to it) he was caught completely unprepared.

(She didn’t try to pierce his head and kill him with one shot because his skull was far too tough to get through easily.)

Still, the wolf-man was an experienced and tough warrior. He did not lose focus on what he was doing and managed to finish executing his maneuver, avoiding any serious injury from Amara’s attack and forcing her to dodge desperately to evade his descending fist.

Or at least that was what it seemed for a moment.

The next moment, Amara’s ‘dodge’ turned into an approach towards his right side, twisting and manifesting a much larger wind blade than before, slashing diagonally in his direction. And at that moment, he had a choice to make.

Hiroka’s latest attack was very problematic for the wolf, because the arrow had lodged itself in such a way that it was blocking his airway. However, Amara’s attack was an imminent deadly threat, and using one of his arms to pull the arrow out meant he had one arm less to block. That was a situation where either choice would have heavy consequences.

In the end, Risaro choose to focus on Amara’s slash. He put both his arms together to block and took on the wind slash head on, which damaged his arms severely but not enough to render them unusable even briefly.

And another arrow hit his neck, right below the previous one. This time he was unable to let out even a single sound. His hands went towards his head and grasped onto the arrows before pulling them out in a single move, allowing his to take a desperate breath.

Then Amara pierced his chest with a new wind blade. The distraction of the arrows had done exactly what he feared, giving the owl-woman an opening to hit him with a critical attack. Yet that was not the end. That was the third attack Amara had done in a row, so she could only make a small wind blade, more of a wind dagger than anything else, and while it had been enough to reach his heart, it wasn’t enough to kill him in one shot.

So Risaro swung his hand forwards, hitting Amara on the side and making her let out a grunt of pain as she was knocked away.

That was his final mistake. If Risaro’s mind was clear, he would realize that two arrows in close sequence meant a third one couldn’t be two far behind. And so his neck was once again pierced, before the wounds from the other arrows even had a chance to heal.

Risaro’s vision swam. His earlier breath had taken in more blood than actual air because of his injuries, and now his airways were blocked again, so he was critically lacking in oxygen. He might have been able to power through it under normal circumstances, but in such an intense fight and right after being hit in the heart… He froze for a moment, then another arrow hit his neck.

Risaro lost his balance and fell to the ground, his arms spasmed out of control in a desperate attempt at grasping the arrows, but they came nowhere close. Another arrow hit and his arms were barely moving, one more after that and they stopped completely.

Then came one more arrow, and right after it hit, the red tendril connected to Risaro broke apart into a multitude of red dots that quickly faded away. The once leader of one of the strongest tribes of the forest was now dead.

Amara had just gotten up and was able to see that happen. Then Hiroka dropped down in front of her and spoke:

“It’s done.”

“Good job.” Amara replied.

Anything else they might have wanted to say was interrupted when the two of them heard a horrifying scream.

+0+

Meanwhile, on the other side of the barrier another battle was occurring. That battle was just as intense as the one between the trio of beastkin, but much flashier.

Having her latest dodge intercepted by Nalia, Aura hadn’t managed to gain enough distance from Nina, who leapt toward her once again. The elf girl responded to that more aggressively than before, launching a powerful fireball at the rabbit, who punched it and made it explode, the power of her blow enough to force most of the explosive force into the opposite direction, avoiding injury but losing her momentum.

Elise’s other partner wouldn’t just allow their opponent to focus somewhere else, so Aura was forced to dodge once again when Nalia shot several heavy stone bullets at her.

Nina fell back to the ground and picked up one of the stone bullets, as Elise had ordered Nalia to make one of them last longer than the others, and ran in the direction of the dodging enemy. Nalia also kept up the pressure, intercepting the enemy once more and firing another barrage of bullets, which Aura countered with a powerful fireblast.

That left her open to an attack by Nina, however, and the rabbit girl reached close enough that the sheer heat of the elf’s fire would have knocked her out were Nina still the same as she had been before Elise’s training. As it was, the heat could only make her feel slightly uncomfortable as she threw the bullet at Aura’s back almost as fast as Nalia’s magic had shot it.

The opponent managed to feel the attack coming, and unleashed a stream of fire upwards in order to force herself down and dodge the heavy projectile. But she had barely touched the ground when Nalia used another spell, this time controlling the earth around her feet to rise up and bind the elf.

Aura was also a mage, so she instantly noticed something was going on when magic began to flow beneath her and replied by creating a fireball and shoving it into the ground, creating an explosion that broke the fairy’s spell. But now that she was on the ground, Nina rushed at her with startling speed, unleashing a punch that Aura had to hastily try to block with the fastest fireblast she could muster.

Fire and fist met in a powerful explosion that threw both combatants back, but Nina used both feet to forcefully stop herself and rushed at Aura again before the elf’s feet even hit the ground again. At the same time, Nalia had dived down behind the enemy and cast a spell to create a large stone lance that she stabbed at the enemy.

With huge threats both in front and behind, Aura was forced to dodge to the side by using her flame boost once more, but Nalia used another spell to shatter the lance into fragments and shot them at the elf at high speed, so Aura had to throw a fire blast in a wide spread to destroy them.

That was exactly what Elise’s partners wanted. At the moment where the elf fired her blast, her sight was briefly obscured as Nina turned in her direction and leapt into Aura at maximum speed. The contractor had been the one to plan that maneuver, and her precise instructions were perfectly followed by the duo.

By the time Aura saw the rabbitkin coming, it was already too late. She still tried to defend herself in the same way as before, but there was simply not enough time to focus the necessary amount of energy, so her much weaker fireblast was easily broken through by a punch that went on to hit the elf’s arms, which she had put up at the last moment as a final desperate defense.

There was a sickening crunch as several of Aura’s bones broke at the same time, and her face changed from the blank expression she had maintained ever since the beginning of the fight as the elf visibly struggled not to scream. Despite the defense, Aura’s body still took a heavy blow, the force having been enough to shove her back several paces.

The blow also almost threw Aura to the ground, but she used her flame boost again to shoot herself upwards. And then her sight turned to the center of the area, where the branch manager was still absorbing the Agent’s energy, but he looked back at her and their eyes met.

“Loran…” She spoke so softly that only Nalia and Nina (plus Elise by extension) were able to hear it. They realized that must be the name of that man.

All of that lasted only a few moments, not even enough for the elf to start falling back down, but that short mutual gaze seemed to hold a very deep meaning. Once it was over Aura briefly closed her eyes, and when she opened them again her face set into an expression of pure determination.

‘Careful!’ Elise shouted via the bond, having realized the danger just from seeing that change.

The fairy and the rabbit, who had been advancing to keep up their attack, stopped in their tracks and even moved back a bit.

And then time seemed to stop for a moment as the two felt like a heartbeat had resounded from within Aura. One single heartbeat that seemed to become deeper and louder as its sound traveled through the area, the duo feeling a formless pressure as it passed through them.

After that, the seal of fire on the elf’s chest grew until it covered her entire torso, the flame seeming to become hotter and wilder. Aura finally began falling down, but as she did rampaging flames began to manifest from thin air and gather around her body. As they touched her, the flames began to burn even brighter and hotter until the elf’s shape became unable to be seen through the furious flames.

The temperature of the area rose significantly, to the point where even Elise felt the heat, and she was quite a bit away from the combatants.

Then all the flames merged together, revealing Aura’s shape once more, but now her body was completely covered in a layer of orange flames. Her fall stopped just a bit above the ground and she was now floating freely in the air, different from her flame boosts.

‘This doesn’t look good.’ Nalia said through the bond.

‘This girl is risking everything. We’ll need to fight with everything we have if we want to win.’ Elise replied.

‘Looks like it’s gonna take a lot of energy just to approach her now. But that’s not going to discourage me.’ Nina said.

After that brief exchange both Nalia and Nina advanced at the same time, having decided that taking the initiative was the better option. As they moved closer to Aura, the temperature of the surroundings quickly rose beyond their tolerance.

However, the duo wouldn’t let that stop them.

‘Another spell, another layer. I just need to take control of the environment around my body and get rid of the excessive heat there. One part manipulating the wind currents, one part drawing the heat into my fire wing. Adjusting the spells to match the enemy’s current capabilities…’ Nalia thought to herself while casting.

‘I just need to make the energy flow around my body to precisely counter the effects of this heat. I am aware of the condition of every part of me, so I’ll adjust the flow based on it.’ Nina thought to herself while manipulating her inner energy.

Because if the temperature was beyond their tolerance, they just had to use their techniques to deal with it.

As the duo approached the enemy, Nalia took the first shot by casting a stone bullet spell and launching a fairly large and dense projectile toward Aura. The elf pointed a finger and shot a stream of fire from it that wasn’t even as big as the bullet, but its power was so concentrated that felt almost more like lava than simple fire, easily destroying the bullet and forcing Nalia to move to the side in order to dodge it.

Then Nina rushed in and threw a punch at the enemy, who countered with a super-quick fireball that connected with the fist and caused a powerful localized explosion, launching Nina back violently. Nalia attacked again at that point, trying to distract Aura from launching another attack at the rabbit, this time she shot a barrage of smaller stone bullets that were consumed by the enemy’s fiery aura but not without forcing her to focus a bit more on her defense for a few moments.

Nina landed on her feet and rushed forward again while talking through the bond:

‘More powerful than I expected. It’s gonna be difficult to break through if she can use that sort of power so freely.’

‘Her quick attacks can nullify your blows, but she’ll have to use stronger spells if she wants to actually hurt you. Try to hold your ground by force and just keep attacking so she doesn’t get the chance.’ Elise instructed.

Aura took a breath and manifested a fire wall between herself and Nalia before moving through the air with astonishing quickness in Nina’s direction. The rabbit girl kept on running towards the enemy, readying herself for a manor clash as she saw Aura focus her energy into a large fireball.

The clash didn’t happen. At the last moment Aura changed her trajectory, pulling up and to the side and avoiding Nina’s last second leap to try and catch her. Then she unleashed her fireball, creating a huge stream of flames. And her target was Elise.

The fire stream shot toward the contractor…

“No.” Nalia refused.

And the stream broke apart as she flapped her fire wing.

The fairy had refused to let the fire wall slow her down, and simply broken through it. She followed Aura’s flight closely and boosted herself forward when the elf attacked Elise, catching up to the attack in time to intercept it.

Even with her boost in power, Aura was still slower than Nalia current speed. It didn’t increase her speed directly, after all.

Nina landed from her leap and immediately jumped towards Aura again, keeping up the pressure. But then the elf’s gaze sharpened and she extended her right hand in the rabbit’s direction. And the fire around that entire arm suddenly vanished.

And Nina felt the shadow of death pass through her heart.

The next moment time seemed to slow down as Aura attacked, unleashing a terrifying beam of white hot plasma that contained enough power to evaporate an entire lake in an instant.

‘Bring Nina down!’ Elise shouted through the bond.

Nalia flapped her wind arm, launching herself through the air faster than she had ever done, and rushed through the casting of another spell, her magical energy rushing through the air only barely fast enough to reach the rabbit before the attack did, and manifesting a wind vortex that sucked Nina down at the very last moment.

The beam passed only centimeters above Nina’s head, so hot that she felt like her lungs were going to burn just from breathing in the air heated up by it. It melted through everything in its path, creating a path of destruction that only ended on the trees that marked the limits of the realm.

Nina reached the ground and stood still for a moment out of sheer shock.

‘We can’t afford to make any mistakes.’ Nalia spoke into the bond, causing the rabbit girl to snap out of it.

And then there was no longer time for talking, as Aura’s arm was once again covered by the fire layer and she turned to look at Nalia instead.

This time the fire vanished from the upper parts of Aura’s body, everything from the shoulders up. And her next attack manifested: A huge orb of fire that was pretty much a mini-sun. But Nalia attacked first, shooting several stone bullets targeting the enemy’s now exposed head and the area around it, making sure she couldn’t dodge by simply moving a bit.

Aura raised both arms and made a fire screen to block, and at the same time she commanded her sun to attack. It began to slowly drift toward Nalia while also shooting beams of fire in her direction continuously. The fairy used her mobility to dodge most of them, blocking the remaining ones with her fire wing and flying to the side, firing more stone bullets on the enemy’s direction to force her to block.

Seeing that her move wasn’t working as planned Aura commanded the sun again, this time making it move in Nina’s direction and attack her. The rabbit girl dodged around as best she could, but a few of the beams still struck her, causing her to grunt as the incredibly hot fire overcame her defenses and left burns on her skin. Thankfully she had managed to move a certain distance away before being hit, otherwise the damage would have been crippling.

As it was, Nina felt pain on the burned areas whenever she moved, but it was more distracting than hampering, and she managed to leap out of the beam’s range soon afterwards.

‘She moved that thing too far from herself. Break it, Nalia!’ Elise ordered her partner at that point.

The fairy understood and acted immediately. The sun spell was powerful, but Aura’s lacking magical control meant that moving it too far from her made the magic unstable. Nalia focused her power and cast a big spell, stacking five layers of fire magic on top of her wing of the same element, making it resemble a thick and heavy tree trunk, she then boosted herself towards the sun and swung said fire wing into it.

Nalia’s move had been far too fast for Aura to react, so she met no resistance as her wing hit the sun spell and caused a massive reaction as its spell structure collapsed inwardly, releasing a ton of power as a shock wave that the fairy easily protected herself from. She knew it was coming and the power was spread across the whole area, so that devastating spell lost most of its effectiveness.

The elf girl winced as the feedback of the spell’s destruction hit her, but rallied and called upon her magic once again, this time having the flame vanish from the entire left side of her body. Nalia shot a large stone bullet at her, but Aura managed to block it with a fire screen formed by a single hand.

Then the spell was finished, and a small flame manifested itself a few paces away from Aura before growing into a fire tornado that dwarfed every single tree in the forest. The tornado began moving slowly at first, but quickly accelerated to running speed, and the elf flew behind it (having clearly learned her lesson about sending her spells too far).

‘Nina, you’ll have to take her down. Go around and then attack with full pressure. Nalia, slow down that tornado and prepare to give Nina a few steps at my command.’ Elise ordered, sending a mental image of what she had in mind.

‘‘Understood.’’ Both of them replied.

Nina began to run at full speed, getting a bit of distance before turning around and going toward Aura from the side away from the tornado. Nalia flapped both her fire and wind wings and unleashed their power to try and interfere with the fire tornado.

At the same time, she was preparing an additional spell.

The fairy’s magic struggled against the elf’s attack, slowing it down noticeably but not enough for Nalia to be able to stay in place. She was forced backwards bit by bit, and even more once Aura began to unleash streams of fire from the tornado to attack her.

And yet, that was okay. Nalia was being forced backwards, but she was still close enough to do her part.

Then Nina got close enough and leapt right at Aura.

‘Now!’ Elise ordered.

And Nalia cast the spell. She was putting most of her energy into holding back and defending against the tornado, but that spell didn’t require a lot of it. Her magic simply took a few chunks of earth from the ground, placed them all around their enemy and fixed them in place.

Because Aura had also briefly stopped in response to Nina’s approach. And Nalia had deliberately avoided putting any of the earth chunks in the rabbit’s way.

Nina collided into Aura with a punch, but the elf used her fire blast defense once more, still having enough spare power to knock the rabbit away like before. But that was when things changed.

Nina reached with her right foot and stepped on one of the earth chunks around, which was slightly above and to the left of Aura (the blast had shoved the rabbit upwards), she pushed off from it to launch herself at the elf once again, this time attacking with a kick from her other leg. Aura’s blast threw her away again, but Nina reached for another one of the footholds (for that was what the chunks of earth were) and pushed herself off with both hands, launching a dropkick on the enemy from below.

And so it was repeated. Full pressure. Nina quickly realized that she was getting closer with each attack as the elf’s focus began to waver from having to quickly react to heavy attacks coming from all directions. Punches, kicks, elbow strikes… It was a relentless assault that made it impossible for Aura to muster enough energy to try and do something else.

Finally, a jump from the side followed by a punch was too much. Aura’s blast came once more, but much too late. Nina’s fist broke through the attack while it was still forming and hit the enemy on the side with a titanic blow.

Aura let out a strangled scream as all the air had been driven from her lungs and went flying, breaking through one of the footholds. At the same time her fire tornado lost its strength and was broken apart by Nalia’s magic.

The elf crashed to the ground. Her injuries were critical but she was miraculously still conscious.

And then it happened.

The fire coating around her body vanished completely as the fire seal still burning on her chest quickly warped into random splotches of fire that spread across Aura’s whole body. And they began to burn.

“AAAAHHHHH!!” The elf let out a horrifying scream as her whole body was torched by the uncontrollable flames.

She twisted her body and hit herself on the ground violently, but the flames still burned, torching every single piece.

Mercifully, it ended quickly. Aura’s scream cut out and her movements stopped after only a few seconds. Then her remains were consumed by the fire until there was nothing behind and the flame burned out.

Such was the impact of that scene that Elise and her partners barely noticed when the red tendril that had been connected to her body broke apart and faded away.

And then the red barrier vanished, forcing the trio to refocus as things weren’t done yet.

“Useless.” Loran, the branch manager spoke “They couldn’t even buy me enough time for this?” He sighed.

Then he touched the blue gemstone that was absorbing the Agent’s energy with his feet. A moment later the rate of absorption slowed down noticeably, but then the gemstone glowed and released a black line.

Said line quickly traveled towards the duo of Amara and Hiroka, who had begun approaching once the barrier went down. Sensing danger, they jumped to opposite directions to get away, but the line split in two and perfectly followed their movements, so they were unable to evade.

And as soon as the line connected with them, Amara and Hiroka collapsed to the ground.

“What…!” Hiroka tried to yell, but it came out almost as low as a whisper.

“How can…?” Amara questioned with the same tone.

Both of them tried to push themselves up to their feet, but their bodies seemed to have become as heavy as lead so they couldn’t even lift their bodies more than an inch of the ground before dropping down again.

Satisfied with that, Loran turned and looked at Elise (who had walked over to the others) and her partners and said “Only one of you is a beastkin, but that’s fine.” And he touched the gemstone with his foot again.

Another black line emerged, this time moving much faster, targeting Nina. It touched her body… And broke apart.

“What?! How is this…?” Loran was shocked.

“That’s a restraint spell that uses the Agent as a medium to target the beastkin born in this forest, right? The bond of the land is deep enough to make it a deadly tool indeed, but Nina is my partner. And the bond of the covenant is even deeper. I just took precedence.” Elise explained.

That was another way to make use of the contract bond that the contractors in this continent wouldn’t know about, so it made sense that he wouldn’t have predicted it.

“Tch. No matter.” Loran said “Just one more opponent won’t make a difference.”

“We shall see about that.” Elise replied.

The true final battle was about to begin.