Chapter 146

As old as time the stories goes, a devil and a god were wedded to each other. Their union, however, was as ill-received by the divine as the debilish, and thus began one of the very first holy wars. Years passed and so did centuries, and as it came to an end it all, the side of gods murdered the she-god, but the devils?

They had a creed as they fester on abundant corruption, in their unity against threats to both living and the dead, thus killing Asmodia would only cause more trouble than it was worth, as her soul as a devil would land in the infernal regardless.

'So sleep, until a god decrees your awakening.' Those were the words she last heard before her own kind cursed her into an eternal sleep. Or at least it should've been eternal had Athenia not awakened her from her slumber.

"Umbra no ustre'" Moments after Libyan's face was smashed to the wall, Amsodia spoke through Erika's lips in the language of arcane. Following her words, the light devoured by the queen flooded out of her body like her very soul being stripped away.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Screamed the queen, her body bursting into a flaming red.

The light emanating from her body was nearly blinding after the darkness, yet nobody in the party had time to even close their eyelids. Instead, moving in closer to the queen, Raven conjured a chain that wrapped around her arms while Aria moved in with her fist ready to bash in Libyan's face some more.

Restraining her with vines again, as well as summoning a horde of hornets to buzz around the queen's head, Mel added distractions to give room for more openings to appear.

"YOU-UGHHH!" Shattering the chains around her body, Libyan's mouth split in four. Spewing toxic fumes out of her mouth she killed all the hornets in an instant and even forced Aria to retract from the attack.

"Shit! A snake and poison, who could've thought?" She complained, having overlooked the obvious problem.

"Keep her distracted, I'll have a plan…" Erika said to the others before disappearing into crimson fog.

"Mino, we need more fighters in here, come out!" With Erika gone, Raven forced Mino out of the bracelet, and the moment she came out, the spirit mage minotaur summoned a horde of astral minotaurs to rush over to Libyan and potentially hold her back.

"You have mana potion, right?!" Focusing on the horde slamming their heads against Libyan and pinning her to the wall, Mino knew that she wouldn't be able to hold a dozen spirit summons for longer than a minute and a half.

"They're all shattered," turning his attention to Libyan grunting while struggling to force the astral summons away, an idea popped up inside his head. "She can't touch them but they can, right? So can they hold weapons or will they phase through as well?!"

"I never tried!" Mino responded, unsure what he had in mind.

"Then try it! I'll hold her back for a few seconds, you back them away so they have time to grab the weapons!" Stringing back an explosive arrow, Mel closed her eyes for a brief moment and summoned the vines under Libyan once more.

"YOU'RE GONNA DIE! I'LL SLAUGHTER YOU AND FEED ON YOUR GUTS! YOUR POWERS, YOUR SKILLS, EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING! I'LL USURP THEM ALL!" Thrashing her body about in an attempt to free herself from the horde, the queen of Lamia was bringing the very ceiling crumbling down on them all.

"Shut up, you loud-mouthed bitch!" Shooting the exploding arrow right at Libyan's face, Mel managed to stun her for a moment, giving just enough time for the minotaurs to back away.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Raven used every bit of his mana to summon different weapons right into the hands of those minotaurs. To his relief, the minotaurs managed to grab the weapons and charged at Libyan just as her body began to show movement again.

"Don't forget about me!" Giving away her blood once more, Aria jumped sideways off a wall and landed a solid punch against the queen's jaws. And with her face pinned to the wall, instead of flying away, the dark elf managed to shatter her entire jaw.

Unable to curse anymore, Libyan screeched at the top of her lungs, making the party's ears bleed once more, but as the minotaurs began slashing her body with swords, smashing her chest with giant hammers, and even hacking away at her neck with scythes and sickles, her scream began to die down.

"D-damn it…" Feeling lightheaded from controlling so many spirit summons, Mino was on the verge of losing consciousness.

The same was the case for Aria, as she'd spent too much blood, and her body had begun running a fever. Noticing both of them at their limits, Raven glanced around trying to find the mist Erika had fluttered off into.

"ERIKA?! ARE YOU DONE OR NOT?!" He screamed, but in the state that she was in, the priestess couldn't respond.

For a moment, Raven did notice her body phasing into existence before quickly turning back to mist. He knew she was laying down a trap but it was taking much longer than the time they had left before running completely out of mana.

'Speak of the fucking devil…' Disappearing into nothing, the horde of minotaur finally disappeared. And from the looks of things, they'd only managed to scratch the surface of Libyan's skin. If anything Mino and Aria were in a worse state as both of them had fallen to the ground with no more energy left to spare.

Wasting not a second to move closer to the minotaur queen, Raven placed her back into the bracelet before turning toward Mel to urge her to handle the dark elf.

"There goes the last of my mana too…" Knowing full well that she too would be falling into an unconscious state after what she was about to do, Mel took a deep breath and focused her mind on summoning a woodland Treant.

Emerging from the ground in the form of a massive tree with arms and legs as well as a pair of glowing eyes and a creepy smile, the monster in the form of a humanoid giant, rushed towards Libyan and rammed her and his own body against the wall.

"SAHHHHH! AHKKKKK!" Unable to form words, Libyan screamed incoherently while the treant kept ramming into her chest by moving a step or two back to get some momentum.

"That's not what I ask but…" Moving towards Mel who was now lying unconscious on the ground, Raven pulled her over his arm. "That bark-skin bastard should give us enough time to escape this place."

With the entire structure crumbling from the assault of the treant, Raven began picking up everyone and making his way towards the exit. He knew the ceiling wouldn't hold for long, and even if Libyan somehow lived through the cave-in, they had to retreat before they could face someone like her again.

'Erika, you better make your own way back!' He thought, giving one last look to the priestess phasing in and out of existence. 'And when you do, you have a lot to answer about these new powers of yours!'

Wasting not a second more, Raven took Mel and Aria towards the exit on his back.