Things happened fast. By the time the four had made their way out of the museum, things had already changed. Specifically, the city guard had taken action, and their members were quite easy to recognize. After all, they were all wearing the same red and black uniforms and riding large machines that were obviously meant for battle.

Said machines had the basic design of one person tanks with a clear dome through which one could see the rider, but they were adapted to the unique terrain of the city, each of the tanks having a few ‘extendable legs’ that could both deploy extra wheels to increase stability, attach to walls or ceilings via what was likely magnetic force or even fire bursts of propulsion to allow the tanks to ‘jump’.

With all of those features, the tanks were able to move quickly through the complicated terrain of the city and position themselves in the most optimal way. The main body of the tanks could spin around gyroscopically to keep the riders upright even if the tanks were hanging on to the ceiling, and they were circled by a thick metal ring that carried most of the tanks’ weapons, from simple machine guns to cannons that could fire several types of payloads and even a strange device that could fire powerful lightning bolts.

All of that was perceived by Elise after observing the tanks for only a few seconds, so she was sure that they had even more secrets in store. The technology used to defend Danmin was certainly just as advanced as the city itself. However, she was focusing more on the enemies they were fighting. Or rather, the enemy.

It was a strange figure composed of three disconnected parts. At the top was a wooden mask with a design that was reminiscent of a very abstract face, with two large circles for the eyes and a line forming the mouth, but with a lot of additional details that would be akin to facial tattoos, a very artistic addition to the simple features.

The ‘main body’ had a shape that was only somewhat similar to that of a person’s trunk, but without any limbs attached. It was seemingly made of clay, but a far different type from ordinary, as even the advanced weapons that the tanks were bringing to bear against it struggled to do more than tear off small chunks that were soon ‘regenerated’. Finally, the magical guardian also had an equivalent to clothing, in the form of a mantle made of cloth that was sort of draped around the main body, but floating at a distance instant of touching it. The mantle shook violently in the air from the force of the attacks, and sometimes parts of it were torn or burned, but it was just as capable of restoring itself as the main body was.

Notably, the wooden mask itself never seemed to take any damage. It also seemed to be trying to respond to the opposition’s attacks, doing slight movements that manipulated the flow of magic in a way Elise couldn’t quite fully perceive at such a distance, the magic serving to make barrier after barrier to protect the guardian, but it wasn’t fast enough and the protections weren’t strong enough, so the created defenses were quickly overwhelmed and broken through, resulting in the guardian having to keep restoring itself as attacks fell upon its form.

From seeing that scene, one would think that the city guard had things well in hand, but Elise knew better. They seemed to be overwhelming the invader, but it was managing to resist their attacks, keeping things at a standstill. And according to Yura, the city was under siege by magical guardians, plural.

She was proven correct soon after, when an explosion sounded from a different direction than the battle, and turning to look at it revealed a hole had been made on one of the buildings that were connected to the dome around the city. What came next didn’t come as a surprise: Another magical guardian, which looked very similar to the first one (the mantle was yellow instead of white and the ‘face’ design on the mask looked like an angry face instead of a neutral one) floated through that hole, breaching into the city.

The people of the guard noticed that, and after exchanging a quick series of words between themselves, five of the tanks broke off to face the new intruder. However, before they could attack, it preempted them by using magic in the same way as the previous one, but what it cast were a series of fireballs that shot toward the approaching tanks unerringly.

Yet, the city guard’s tanks would not be defeated so easily. The riders triggered special mechanisms and electric barriers manifested around their tanks to block the attacks, thus allowing them to reach closer and begin to bombard that new enemy. The ‘fireball guardian’ didn’t seem capable of creating barriers to protect itself, but it could regenerate like the other one, and that plus not having as many attackers on it meant the guardian could resist the bombardment and counter-attack every once in a while, which put the second battlefront into another deadlock.

And of course, when a third one appeared from the same hole as the second, anyone could see that the battle situation of the guard would only become more and more precarious, so that was when Elise decided it was time to act.

“Let’s attack that one!” She declared, pointing at the new enemy, and the group rushed in its direction, Nalia giving her the old movement boost spell so that she could keep up.

The mask of this new guardian showed a sad expression, and its capabilities were proven to be different when it manifested a huge sword and shield set that floated around it. That enemy was on a somewhat higher level than them, but a ramp close by made an almost direct route to the enemy’s area.

Elise gave Nalia a quick order via mental connection as they got closer, so the fairy cast a small spell to amplify her contractor’s voice and Elise spoke to the guard “We’re on your side. We’ll take care of this third one. Please don’t attack us.” followed by Nalia shooting a heavy stone bullet at their chosen target, forcing it to stop moving and block with its shield.

Following that, Nina performed an instant movement to cross the rest of the distance, ending up right below the main body (which floated about two meters above the ground) before leaping up and delivering a terrifying uppercut that left a large hole on the ‘clay’ form, but given that said body was around the same size as the tanks of the guard, that hole didn’t seem enough to be a major hindrance.

Still, the attack had succeeded in getting the rabbit to be recognized as a major threat, so the guardian responded by moving to the side just enough to no longer be above Nina in an explosive movement that was completely illogical given the lack of visible means of propulsion and slash at her with the same diabolical speed.

That huge sword moving so fast was something that Nina didn’t dare to underestimate. She dodged with a short instant movement to the left and prepared for her next move. By that point enough time had passed for Nalia to get in close and throw a fireball at the mask, which was also blocked, but then it was Yura’s turn.

The elf girl hadn’t let the lack of bare earth hinder her magic, as she had kept a large amount of the substance glued to her body which she could then manipulate. It was far more limited in terms of amount, but she had been continually circulating her magic through that particular earth, so her control over it was top notch.

She had taken on a distinct route as the group approached, which involved her earth platform climbing a vertical wall and moving across another to end up above the magical guardian before dropping down and turning the underside of said platform into a sharp spike as she went down.

The enemy swiped its sword upwards in another super fast slash and attempted to sever the spike, but Yura’s support made the earth too tough to completely cut through and the sword ended up stuck half a meter below the elf’s feet, and she took the chance to spread her earth around to englobe most of the blade part, trying to hold it in place.

The magical guardian then moved its shield, attempting to bash the elf that was hanging on its weapon, but Nina had jumped onto a nearby wall to reposition and proceeded to leap right in the middle of the fray, intercepting the shield with a powerful kick that knocked it backwards as the rabbit landed on top of the earth-covered sword.

By that point there were no more hindrances in her path, so Nalia used a quick wind spell to accelerate herself before bombarding the mask with a series of heavy stone bullets. The enemy did another quick movement to get away, this time ascending a few meters in an instant, but the wooden mask had taken noticeable damage, even showing some cracks at its edges.

Nina and Yura had been brought up along with the sword, and the rabbit decided to follow up by leaping towards the mask, but the magical guardian brought its shield back to block her way, and this time she was the one who was knocked back as it erupted into lightning as Nina punched it, shocking her with a high enough voltage to kill an elephant.

That was the herald of the enemy’s counter-attack, and it followed it up by making its sword burst into flames, forcing Yura to leap away from it just in time to avoid major burns, bringing her special earth along and shaping it into a hexagonal shield as the guardian swung its sword down.

The hasty shield barely slowed down the powerful slash, but it was enough for her to push her earth against the blade itself in order to move her own body away from the attack route. She fell on top of an angled ceiling of a building and rolled down it while moving her earth into a platform once more and using it to grip onto the wall of said building.

Nina crashed into one of the tubes that the elevators moved through, leaving a hole on it and ending up with only her legs outside, but she quickly pulled herself up and jumped on top of the same ceiling Yura had dropped onto. That was due to an order from Elise, who had been moving around to get a good view of the battle.

At that point, Nalia rose up to the same level as the enemy, being on the opposite side of it from the other two and already having five fireballs manifested above her head, which she shot at the magical guardian’s mask via different trajectories. The enemy brought up its shield to defend and manifested a transparent barrier that began reflecting the spells back as it caught them one by one, but Nalia simply flew closer and began regaining control of the fireballs and firing them back again.

At the same time, the guardian had brought its sword up, intending to slash at the other two, but Elise had been waiting for that, giving Nina the order to attack as soon as the movement started. The rabbit jumped with such force that it would have cracked the ceiling she was standing on into pieces had she not reinforced it with her energy via the same principles as instant movement.

She rammed into the sword’s guard in a mighty shoulder check that carried the entire construct weapon almost two hundred meters up in barely a second. At the same time, the guardian’s shield was struggling to hold on as it continued the world’s deadliest game of tennis with Nalia, unable to move away as that would leave the fairy free to wreck the wooden mask.

With the guardian’s two weapons out of the picture, Yura was free to do what she liked. That opportunity was so obvious that Elise didn’t even bother to shout a suggestion at the elf, trusting that she would know what to do.

Sure enough, Yura acted almost immediately. She climbed up the wall with the help of her earth platform and then leapt off of it once she was high enough, giving herself an extra boost with her magic to launch herself directly at the wooden mask. She grabbed onto it with her left arm and legs before gathering a bunch of earth into her right hand to make a gauntlet.

Then she punched. Once, twice, three times, and the cracks on the mask grew and spread to the point where it seemed to be about to fall apart. It shook violently and threw off Yura, before manifesting glowing runes all over itself, runes that also appeared on the clay body and the cloth.

Then the three unceremoniously vanished in a teleport, which was followed by the sword and shield fading away.

‘It must have returned to the base for repairs.’ Elise thought, then turned her gaze to the fights against the other guardians ‘Looks like we don’t need to help them.’

Elise thought like that because the other fights seemed to be almost done. One of the guardians had its mask trapped in between a wall and a tank that had rammed into it and was constantly unleashing shockwaves to slowly break it apart. That one was the defensive guardian.

With a single tank having taking its last partner out of combat, the ranged attack guardian found itself under attack by the rest of the tank squadron, and while it had caused a lot of damage to the surroundings, the actual tanks were almost completely intact. Three of them were bombarding it with laser beams, two more were shooting their cannons at it and the remaining two had extended large antennas that seemed to be interfering with its ability to cast spells, as the fireballs, lightning blasts and other such magic it tried to do came out a lot weaker than they should, far from enough to overcome the tanks’ defenses.

Elise had been watching the situation out of the corner of her eye and her biggest impression of those fights was that the city guard truly seemed to be used to fighting those guardians, to the point where she was fairly sure they could have handled the situation by themselves, although they’d likely take some damage in the process. It would also take longer, and she wasn’t sure about possible operating limitations of the tanks, such as a limited fuel supply, so that could have changed the outcome.

The girl’s partners calmly made their way to her, seeing that their role in the fight was over. Yura took a look at the situation of the other fights and came to the same conclusion before joining up with them.

Soon afterwards the two remaining guardians were damaged enough to evacuate as well, and after a short conversation between the guards, the one closest to Elise and the others opened up his tank’s dome and made his way toward them in order to introduce himself.

“My name is Rafael Iridoa, member of Danmin’s Special Weapons unit.” He was a human man with black hair and green eyes “I would like to thank you for your help, but my position also requires me to ask who you are and what is your purpose in this town.”

Elise looked at him and spent a few moments wondering how much she should say, before eventually deciding that being truthful wasn’t likely to cause problems “My name is Elise, and you could say that we are a group of traveling adventurers. We accepted a request to take an archaeologist deep into the Erithos temple, with the aim of stopping the attacks of those magical guardians. We decided to get involved in this conflict for the sake of gaining some experience fighting those things.”

“That…” Rafael had to take a moment to gather his thoughts before replying “That would honestly be a big help. None of the expeditions sent by the city managed to get anything done there, and having to constantly fend off attacks is not good for the city.”

“What can you tell me about the current situation, then?” Elise asked.

“We’ve been managing to hold those threats at bay, but they’re putting a strain on our supplies. Plus most of the time they end up causing a certain level of damage to the city, and with how unsafe things currently are, most traders and other travelers are avoiding the city, which is causing all sorts of issues.” He replied “And since you’re planning to go to the temple, I need to warn you of a few things.”

“I’m listening.”

“I wasn’t part of any of the expeditions, but from what I heard from those who went, the guardians are more powerful while within the temple. There’s also more than what you’ve seen here, and some of them are permanently stationed there. The place is also full of nasty traps, so even though you girls are obviously strong, I’d recommend being careful.”

“Thank you. Then we shall take our leave now. We’re gonna head straight there.”

“Understood. I hope you are successful.”

With that Rafael went back to report and the four headed to the meeting place with Professor Whitmoore under Yura’s lead.

‘Looks like we’re still on time, but we should definitely hurry.’ Elise spoke to her partners as they went.

‘Yeah. I was surprised to hear an official being so chatty about the situation to outsiders. That’s definitely a bad sign.’ Nina replied.

‘Exactly. The actual situation is probably even worse than how he made it sound.’ Elise agreed ‘Rafael probably wasn’t satisfied with the way the higher ups are handling things, and that’s why he gave us so much information.’

‘Well, regardless of that, our plan doesn’t change.’ Nalia spoke ‘We’ll do our best to solve this problem. But I’m also quite a bit interested in the ancient magical methods of the Laguna civilization.’

‘Me too. Like how hard I need to punch one of those guardian things to make it stop working completely.’ Nina spoke in a mock-serious tone.

‘Just try not to lose your hands in the process, I’m still not good enough to help you regenerate lost limbs.’ Elise replied with slight amusement.

The byplay was interrupted when the group saw the professor standing next to a large gate, obviously waiting for them. They got to her a few seconds later, and Yura was the first to speak:

“Everything is fine. No one was injured from what I saw.” To which the woman sighed in relief.

“Is everything ready to go?” Elise asked.

The professor nodded and pointed to the backpack she was wearing, saying “Everything I need is in there.”

“Then let’s go.”

Professor Whitmoore pressed a button on a panel next to the gate and asked for it to open, and after a few seconds an artificial voice came out of it replying “Opening Gate…”.

After that was done, the group took a few steps outside the city before Yura formed a large earth platform and Nina went back to her Room in Elise’s mindscape as the girl joined the elf on it, soon followed by the woman.

And then they went forth, heading into the very center of the crisis gripping the city. Soon enough, the group would be entering a true danger zone.