What would be the right course of action here? Oppose Heiliger and begin a battle in the middle of the Monster Realms? That wouldn't end well for either side. But obeying and continuing her way to the Monster Lord could be even more disastrous.
Think, lina, what could you do?
Her fists clenched, but Alistair put his hand on her shoulder and whispered. "Whatever you decide, I'm always with you."
His presence was both reassuring and a burden. She didn't want anything bad happening to him. The only way to achieve that was to avoid fighting. But was that even possible in this scenario? She needed to figure sothing out. To sohow incapacitate the System users while keeping the captured soldiers safe.
"We'll continue on," lina said through gritted teeth.
"Excellent, I knew we could co to an understanding," Heiliger smiled victoriously. lina had the urge to throw a fireball in her face just to wipe that smug grin off her face.
However, lina understood that she was helpless in this situation. There was only one person who could make a change. She would have to trust that he would do the right thing.
It didn't take long for Elowen to realize that the Church was leading lina straight into the Monster Lord's grasp. How did they know the way there? Elowen had no clue. Perhaps there was another spy who relayed this information to them, or perhaps they had sent a scout to the Monster Realm ahead of ti. But how didn't matter currently.
What mattered was figuring out how to warn lina about it. Elowen and his small group of elves were following so distance behind the expedition, remaining out of sight. They also made sure to spread out so that, in case any of the System users had a detection skill of so sort, they'd dismiss them as individual monsters skulking about the Monster Realm, rather than a group of organized elves.
Elowen let out a lodious whistle, mimicking the song of whistlewisps, thus signaling to other elves that trouble had arisen. A few monts later, Remi appeared next to him, her expression stern.
"Did sothing happen to lina?" She whispered in a barely audible voice.
"They're heading to the Monster Lord tower," he replied in an equally quiet voice.
Remi's eyes widened in shock. He could see that the girl had a lot she wanted to say, but remained quiet out of caution. "What do we do?"
"We have to warn lina," Elowen said. There was a chance that she had already realized it, but they couldn't take it for granted. They had only walked this path at night, so it was possible for her not to recognize it.
"Should I do it? I'm confident that they won't notice ," Remi said.
Elowen couldn't deny that Remi was by far the sneakiest out of all elves if she wanted to be. Small and nimble, she could effectively sneak up close and remain unnoticed. He would entrust this task to her, and, for the ti being, continue tailing the group from a safe distance.
So ti passed, and Remi soon returned, her expression filled with worry. "So of the Sinclair soldiers have been taken hostage. lina and Lord Sinclair had no choice but to continue forward."
"What?!" Elowen exclaid in shock. Hostages? How did that happen so quickly? "Are they still continuing down the sa path?"
"Yes," Remi confird. "What do we do?"
Elowen thought about it. What could they do? Six elves against sixty System users. There was no way they could safely free all of the soldiers. Not to ntion that Elowen was the only elf with the System. He alone couldn't overpower them, not even if lina and Sinclair joined the fight. Sienna and Knight could do so serious damage, but it would be chaotic.
As powerful as they were, they were by no ans invincible. Not even their mories could give them enough of an advantage to win. But there had to be sothing he could do.
Elowen frowned. He could think of only one scenario where they could get out of this situation without bloodshed. But even then, the chances of them succeeding were slim. But perhaps, the Monster Lord would listen. Elowen had to try. The groundwork had been laid.
"We're going to the Monster Lord. Ahead of the expedition," Elowen said to Remi.
"To the Monster Lord?! Are you crazy? Did you forget what he did to lina?" Remi objected.
"But currently, we are in his domain. He's the only one who has the power in this place. The best we can do is convince him that we are his friends and not foes," Elowen said.
Remi frowned. "Are you sure that's the only way we have?"
"The only one without bloodshed."
"What if he decides to attack lina again?"
"Then we'll do our best to stop him."
Although Elowen had no conviction that this plan would work, he kept his voice strong. lina believed that cooperation with the Monster Lord was the right way forward. He knew that the only way to truly prevent the disaster was for Human and Monster Realm inhabitants to learn how to live together peacefully. This was the first real step towards that.
The expedition proceeded forward, but the atmosphere was completely different from before. lina and Alistair continued forward, but their gait was tense, and it was difficult to keep Knight calm. Nightmare seemingly wanted nothing more than to attack the System users and free the captured soldiers.
But Alistair was able to keep him calm, if only barely. If it were just lina, then the nightmare would have likely gone crazy already. On the other hand, his ability to hide in shadows would be invaluable once the fight did break out.
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lina prayed that it wouldn't be a three-sided battle among the Church, Sunglow forces, and the Monster Lord. That would be the worst possible scenario. First priority would be to free the captured soldiers. Ideally, they save them all, but realistically, lina wasn't sure if she could.
Continuing to engage in the battle would be foolish, so lina would try to teleport as many soldiers away as possible. Her teleportation point was still active, so it wouldn't take as much mana to teleport everyone. However, even then, teleporting fifty soldiers would likely take all of her mana reserves, even with the abundant mana of the Monster Realm renewing her reserves at an alarming rate.
Once all of them were back at the passageway, they called for reinforcent from the Guild. Perhaps even request more soldiers from Duke Sinclair. After that, they'd ideally force the Church forces to surrender, but no matter the outco, the fallout afterwards would likely shake the whole country to its core.
While lina ran these and a hundred other scenarios and possible spells through her mind, she realized that they were coming closer to the Monster Lord's tower. Even at the slow pace that the expedition was travelling it still took them less than a day to get close to it.
"Do behave, lina. We must show unity in front of our enemy. Do you understand?" Heiliger called from behind, and the System users holding soldiers captivated pressed their knives deeper into their skin to emphasize the point.
"Of course," lina replied chanically, even not able to force a smile out of her.
"Wonderful. Let's keep going, everyone. Today we're going to make history," Heiliger announced, and the Church mbers let out a loud cheer.
There was no way that the Monster Lord's drow hadn't noticed their approach. Most likely, the Monster Lord had already received the report of lina approaching the Church. The only reason they hadn't reacted yet was that they were likely gathering forces and observing the situation.
"Forward," Heiliger commanded.
lina's heart sped up. She was going through spells she could use to protect herself and Alistair, Knight, and Sienna, as well as the Sinclair soldiers. Why would Heiliger just openly approach the Monster Lord this way? Even if she was trying to pin lina and the Monster Lord against each other, what about her own people? Did she have a plan for getting them out to safety? There must be more to her plan than just pure spite.
"Stop!" A loud voice reverberated through the forest, forcing everyone to stop in their tracks.
Initially, lina couldn't see who had said that, but after a mont, she saw a lone drow standing near the top of a rockpine.
Heiliger snickered in response. "In the na of System God, step aside. We are here on a holy mission. Interference with it will be t with appropriate asures."
"This is your only warning, humans! Return to your realm," the drow called.
Heiliger smiled, then glanced at one of the System users. Before lina could blink, they had unleashed a fire-empowered arrow straight at the drow. Before the arrow could hit him, the drow disappeared, reappearing right in front of their group. Right in front of Knight.
"You have been warned, humans!" The drow said, looking straight at lina and then disappearing yet again.
"Be ready, everyone!" Heiliger commanded, and the System users withdrew their weapons. So had swords, so had spears, but the vast majority were either magic users or rogues of so sort.
Once everyone had their weapons drawn, Heiliger turned to Alistair and lina. "Would you do the honors of taking charge? You'd want to show a good example to all the soldiers, wouldn't you?"
The threat beneath her words was clear. If lina took a single wrong step, then the soldiers would be the ones to suffer.
"We'd love nothing more," lina spat, pressing her hand against Alistair's chest and signalling Sienna to move over to her.
The little wyrm sped out of his armor and under the long sleeve of her coat in the blink of an eye. lina then jumped off Knight's back, taking a step forward. "You don't mind if I take the lead, Bishop Heiliger?"
"Of course not," Heiliger smiled.
"Perhaps it'd be worth moving the soldiers closer so they could see better?" She prompted.
Alistair watched the exchange with pursed lips but didn't interfere, instead watching everything calmly. But lina knew that he was ready to jump into action at a mont's notice. All she had to do was give him the word, and he'd act right away. The problem was finding the right mont to act.
"Once the ti is right, I'd allow them to move forward," Heiliger said, indicating that she wouldn't free the soldiers unless lina did exactly what she told her.
"Very well," lina was forced to say. Taking a deep breath, she walked forward, preparing for the Monster Lord and his drow to attack her at any mont.
She didn't have to wait long. Three arrows flew straight at her, forcing lina to erect a protective shield. The arrows bounced off the shield, and then all hell broke loose as a flurry of attacks struck from all sides. Fire, wind, and ice, aid at those positioned at the sides.
Mages sprung into action, erecting protective force fields of their own, protecting others from the Church from getting struck. lina protected the soldiers, although a few of them withdrew their shields, which reflected the magic away from them.
A lightning bolt flew at lina, and she, instead of wasting mana on full block, hijacked the spell, taking hold of its direction and sending it back into the forest. She could see the drow aiming their spells from there, but made sure not to strike any of them. Killing one would ruin any chance of cooperating with the Monster Lord.
Knight and Alistair disappeared sowhere among the chaos, while Heiliger remained in the center completely unbothered by the ongoing chaos. A few arrows flew straight at her, but she rely waved her hand, and they disintegrated.
Oddly enough, despite the mayhem, Sinclair soldiers were still kept in tight captivity. Glancing back, lina saw them unable to move. There was nothing she could do but keep repelling and redirecting the incoming spells.
"So the Archmage has co to kill yet again?" The voice of the Monster Lord reverberated through the forest, and for a mont, the spells stilled.
Inwardly, lina wanted to scream that it wasn't what she wanted to do at all. To sohow telepathically tell him that this was all part of Heiliger's plan. Hadn't Elowen warned him? Perhaps he didn't make it to the Monster Lord in ti because he and the elves kept such a big distance.
"Your tyranny is going to end here, and the hand of the most powerful Archmage," Heiliger announced with unhidden glee.
The Monster Lord's hair flared turning from a calm misty into angry watery whips that crackled as if charged with electricity. "I will not let you bring destruction to our Realm."
He released a powerful burst of mana, which forced everyone to take a step back from the strike. Everyone except lina. She used the mana to replenish the mana she had to protect herself from the magic strikes. But Monster Lord already knew that lina had regained her magic. Why would he deliberately use an attack that would empower her?
lina looked back, worried about Alistair, and then saw drow striking the System users who had held the Sinclair soldiers captive. The strong mana wave had disoriented from for long enough for the drow to strike. Alistair appeared from a shadow atop Knight's back, also unaffected by the mana strike, freeing two of his n at once.
"What is going on?!" Heiliger shouted, clutching onto her chest. The mana pulse must have been overwhelming for her.
"It is simple, Bishop. The enemy of my enemy is my friend," The Monster Lord announced, and the group of elves that had been tasked with tailing the expedition appeared behind him. Elowen was smiling broadly. He had succeeded.
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