The battle under the black sky

The vanguard protection users all go for the front of our formation:

“Holy Nightmare Protection: Full Primal.”

All of them are ready to go all out. Orcs, ogres, trolls, harpies, nagas, salamanders, wolves, bears, spiders, and many others monster appear.

The blessing users in charge of support stand in the backline of the formation.

“Holy Dream Blessing: Sunrise Vigor:”

And finally, the attacking blessing user stands in between them.

Everyone waiting for my signal.

“Let’s do this everyone. ON MY SIGNAL!” I raise my hands up high “Holy Dream Blessing: Dawn Flame, Fireball!”

Orange fire begins to form on my hands; I condense and form it into a big fireball. I aim at a point where many slumberwalkers are concentrated and fire it. Behind me dozens of other fireballs are created and launched right after.

On the point of impact, they create big, bright explosions that light up the beach and make all of the slumberwalkers turn their attention to us. They roar, shriek and scream at the same time and come towards us.

“NOW!” I scream and dash forward, leading the charge.

All the resting guild members let out a war cry and follow me into combat.

Together with me we have Gora and Lumiere who position themselves in front of me. On my sides I have Juni on right and Lafanda and Mimi on my left providing cover. Ruina is directly behind me offering support to everyone. With myself right in the middle. The point of this formation is to keep me safe until we reach the cave entrance and I can go after Tanaka.

Both sides, guild members and slumberwalkers, finally make contact and the fight begins.

We have the initial advantage; their attacks are basic and driven by instinct so it’s easy to dodge and hit them with counters. The problems will start showing up if the battle continues for too long. They outnumber us by a lot, so I have to make sure to finish this as fast as possible.

Gora and Lumiere clear the way using pure strength to just throw any slumberwalkers we stumble across to the side. Lafanda and Mimi provide good support by using paralyzing venom and Juni uses partial transformation to shoot acid on anyone who comes too close. Ruina is applying defensive buffs on Gora and Lumiere and healing whenever they get an injury. I switch between long ranged attacks and support.

The strategy proves solid, and we are almost reaching the entrance, but we stop as we watch a towering ogre come out from inside the cave.

He’s easily over 3 meters tall, and as soon as we get into its range he tries to stomp us using its feet. We all jump out of the way, landing on the soft sand but I’m not quick enough to get up and he goes to punch me with its massive fists. Gora gets in between us and with her orc form manages to grab his fist. As she holds him in place, Lumiere bites the back of his knee, and he falls to the ground. The ogre shifts his attention to Lumiere and Ruina runs up to him.

“Lumi-Chan!”

Lumiere lets her climb on his back and with her buffs they begin to draw his attention away from the cave.

“We got this! Go kick his ass Aki-Chan!” Ruina screams.

“We’re counting on you!” Lumiere says.

They start doing a series of hit and runs and the ogre leaves the entrance wide open.

The five of us run inside the cave. It keeps descending even further down into the earth, the ground covered in sand turns into sandstone and finally into rocks. The sounds of the battle outside are getting quieter as we head deeper. To avoid using lights we use protections to give ourselves essentially night vision.

The cave is way colder them outside, the only sound we can hear is the water dripping from the ceiling full of stalactites.

“Aki, did Sonala said anything about how to stop the curse?” Juni asks.

“Not really, this region is a blind spot for her. We’re going to have to figure it out when we finally reach that bastard.”

“How strong do you think he is?” Lafanda ask.

“I also have no idea, but he was able to use Umbravar powers, similar to how we can use Sonala’s blessings. At the very least we are going against something completely unknown.”

“Well that not really reassuri…” Juni is interrupted by loud shrieks coming from above us.

Looking up we see big dire bats all hanging from the cave ceiling. They drop down and start to attack us.

Me, Juni and Mimi try to shoot them down before they can reach us but there’s too many of them.

They are slowing us down; we can’t afford that right now.

Lafanda throat begin to glow purple, and she lets out a loud roar that stuns all the dire bats for a moment.

“You and Gora keep going!” Lafanda screams. “We’ll see you when this is over!”

Mimi lets out a loud hiss.

“We’ll hold them off!” Juni adds. “You better come back alive you hear me!”

Me and Gora head even deeper into the cave.

(Almost there.)

We keep going until we see a blocked off passage by what seems to be black smoke. It seems the same as the one inside the crystal in the potential exam and whenever we transform with protections.

“This has to be it” I say.

“Lets ‘go!” Gora says.

I cross the smoke with no issue, but as Gora tries, she screams.

“What happened?!”

I rush back and see her kneeling on the ground. Her hand has transformed into her monster form, but something is wrong. She looks like she’s in immense pain.

“Holy Dream Blessing: Curse Cleanse” My hand begins to shine with a white glow.

(Please work!)

I hold her arm and it slowly returns to normal.

“Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine now.” Gora answers.

“Oh, thank goddess.” I said. “I don’t know what I would have done if I lost you too.”

We both look at each other. I hold her arm tight and she holds mine too.

“I have to go alone.”

“I know.”

“Then you have to let me go, Gora.”

“I don’t want to!” She squeezes my hand even harder.

“Please.” I say.

Gora lets go of me and we stand up.

“I better see you again when this is all over.” She says holding back tears.

“We made a promise to hold hands on a date, didn’t we? I’ll make sure to return no matter what.”

“A d-date... Y-yeah! It’s a promise then!” She blushes a little. “I’ll go help the other hold back any slumberwalker that tries to come down here.”

Gora head off going up the cave.

All alone I take a deep breath and go inside into the black fog.