Chapter 398 Desynchronized Battle
"It's time for you to sit back and watch what your master is really capable of!"
Levi's voice was brimming with confidence. And honestly speaking, seeing him push all those monsters away just by releasing the seal over his real power actually made me inclined to believe in his claim.
My former master then dropped all the pretense of being anywhere near my level as he went into a sort of god mode.
He leaped forward, reaching out with his hand for the nearest of the monsters that were lucky enough to stand too far for his aura explosion of his to push it back. Yet, what was lucky before now turned into the least favorable situation for it when Levi's spear pierced right into what looked like the monster's ribcage.
Then, Levi pulled his spear along the width of the monster, shearing off nearly a third of its body with a single attack!
'Damn,' I thought, amazed by the sight. 'And here I thought I was the powerful one.'
Even with Levi going in and starting to showcase, I didn't stop my wardens from spitting bolts. What Levi did was enough to temporarily stop the horde from overwhelming us and even allowed us to push back against it a little.
But by no means was it enough for us to just win the fight. Not yet, at the very least.
And soon, his overwhelming power proved to not only be a great asset to our group but also a factor that was hard to balance.
"First one is coming!" Levi shouted once he was done cutting one of the monsters to a size barely any bigger than a normal human. And then, with a single kick, he sent it towards Mia for her to clean the rest of the anti-mana off it.
"On it!" Mia called back, instantly getting to work and punching all the anti-mana off the monster all the way to the point where only its human host remained.
In theory, interacting with anti-mana like that could be dangerous. Yet, instead of using her naked fists, Mia actually coated her entire body in a thin layer of her spiritual energy, not only keeping her flesh safe from the influence of the mana she couldn't consume but also making her task of removing the anti-mana all the easier.
Yet, just as she was about to finish up the clean-up of the first person...
"Second one is coming!" Levi shouted, grabbing the host by its arm before throwing the man Mia's way. And while half of the man's body was already free of the anti-mana... The same couldn't be said about its other half covered in roughly a bull-size amount of the energy from the mirror dimension.
"Shit," I heard Mia cursing under her nose as she rushed to finish up the first person.
In the end, she managed to grab the second target in time, although she barely made it.
"Levi!" I called out when I noticed my former master already getting ready to throw yet another victim Mia's way. "Slow down!"
My shout caused Levi to turn his head. Yet, rather than at Mia, he looked at me. So, rather than sparing any further words, I brought my arm up and pointed at my wife.
"Ah!" Levi uttered a small moan of surprise before a look of enlightenment struck his face. "Sorry for that!" he then apologized before going right back to his job.
This time, however, before he even attempted to throw a loosely cleaned host to the back, he made sure to cast a few glances at Mia to ensure she was ready.
From that point on, the fight started to smoothen out.
Levi would split several of the monsters from the main horde. Then, he would take some time to shear off most of their anti-mana, scattering it all over the plain. Then he would check whether Mia was ready or not before finally throwing the victims my wife's way for her to finish up the task.
And while the two of them continued to work on decreasing the number of the violet shapeshifter monsters, I focused solely on the task of holding up the frontline with my wardens and their barriers while occasionally sending a flurry of bolts right into the horde.
"Arty!" I couldn't tell how long have passed when Mia called out for me, forcing me out of my fighting mindset. "There are too many survivors!"
This was strange. I didn't expect Mia to say something like that anytime soon if at all.
After all, how could there being a huge number of people that we saved a problem?
"If they wake up and start going wild, I won't be able to hold them back!" Mia then shouted, explaining the situation.
'Now, that makes sense...' I finally realized what she was worried about.
She didn't struggle with controlling the survivors for now. A single glance allowed me to confirm that not a single one of them managed to regain consciousness so far.
But that wasn't the problem. Instead, Mia was worried about what would happen once they would start waking up!
Because then, her task of cleaning up the constant flow of the monsters' host from their remaining antimana would take too much of her attention for Mia to be able to afford to stop those humans from acting wild upon waking up.
And acting wild they would, given how they were survivors of a world falling apart suddenly waking up in the middle of a damned battlefield!
And as if to make things worse, before I could even think of a plan, I could see some of the survivors starting to slowly regain their senses!
"Fuck!" I cursed out loud. My anger amplified when the constant attacks of the anti-mana monsters finally broke past the limits of one of my wardens, turning it into a steaming pile of broken formation stones.
On its own, this wasn't a problem. I simply pulled out the spare stones and turned them into another warden.
And at that moment, due to how I didn't really focus on the job, I realized that I fucked up.
However, I fucked up in a good way.
'My warden skill... leveled up?' I thought when I saw that instead of raising a single warden, I managed to bring forth two at once, bringing their number to ten in total instead of the nine that I could keep so far!
'That will work,' I decided, quickly making use of the opportunity and sending the freshly-made warden to the back.
"Don't worry about the people!" I shouted over while putting my attention back on the battle.
In the short moment of only eight wardens keeping up the barriers, the monsters managed to conquer a few inches of land, stepping dangerously close to the sphere of my absolute influence.
But while allowing them inside that zone would give me more means of dealing with them... it would also mean allowing them close enough for their anti-mana flesh to reach my own body!
'Get in!' I urged the other of my freshly made wardens, quickly filling the gap in the barriers and stopping the monsters right as they were about to get too damn close.
"I will take care of the survivors!" I shouted over as soon as I could spare some focus away from the battle. "Just focus on your job for now!"
The number of monsters constantly went down. At this point, I could even see the end of the horde.
But it wasn't over yet. And it wouldn't be before every last one of them would lose their power and turn back into the humans they once were!