“Will, can I kill her?” Quincy asks, bemoaning his current predicament.

“You can if Archer doesn’t do it first,” I respond.

If I were 100% sure that we live through this situation I would otherwise give Nazuko a thumbs up and tell her ‘Good job’, but since the future lies in obscurity I won’t.

“Ah so I see you are the one who must have taken down our barrier, not that it matters so much since I’m here, but still goes to show the incompetent fools still in the castle. And you, I guess you’re not only an idiot for insulting my boss, but a coward as well by pushing the consequences of your actions to others,” Archer claims as he stares at Quincy.

“Oh screw you, if I die I’m dying with dignity,” Quincy fires back as he gets into his boxing stance.

As Quincy prepares to go hand to hand with Archer, I take a moment to assess our situation. His spirit is almost about to dip any second now, Lilith’s in bad shape and needs to recover. I think pretty much all of us have been shot at least once. I guess the good thing is he’s down one of his guns and Nazuko’s here to die along with us.

All of a sudden Archer raises his hands and suddenly the rifle that Nazuko is holding starts to fly back towards Archer with Nazuko still holding on.

“Aaaaaaah his gun has a mind of its own!” Nazuko yells as she flies towards Archer.

“He must be able to pull his guns to him using his magnetic abilities,” I respond.

The rifle flies back towards Archer, but the barrel of the gun is still facing him, so Nazuko quickly pulls the trigger on the rifle that’s still loaded with a ton of magical energy. Surprised, but without a second to spare Archer places up a large coating of aura around his body prepared to take the blow. The force from his own attack is enough to send him flying backwards into several trees, ending with a huge explosion of fire and lightning.

“Woo hoo! I’m the best!” Nazuko boasts as she raises her arms in the air to celebrate.

“You know as a master of hitting people with their own attacks I must say, that was pretty beautiful,” I congratulate.

“That was great, it even ended with an explosion,” Ryder adds.

“Yeah she’s only been here for two minutes and she’s already done more than Adam,” Quincy notes.

“Agreed, Adam stop being useless,” Nerva says teaming up with Quincy.

“H-hey m-my role is not supposed to be doing damage, its support,” Adam refutes.

“And yet I haven’t gotten much of that at all,” Quincy continues.

“Stay alert guys, don’t think that will be enough to finish him,” Azura interjects.

I then feel a shift of power as I see a purple aura flare from where Archer landed.

“You insolent pest! I’ll be sure to make sure your death extra painful,” Archer threatens.

Archer appears to have his trenchcoat ripped and he’s slightly bleeding from the mouth, appearing only slightly injured. He dashes over to Nazuko with almost blinding speed, giving her a hard punch to the side of the head and taking back his rifle. Nazuko is sent tumbling on the ground after recoiling from Archer’s furious attack. A large continuous mass of bullets is rapidly fired at everyone in the vicinity as we all attempt to get behind trees to block streams of gunfire. Archer is using his magnetic abilities to rapidly reload his revolver essentially turning it into an automatic gun. He’s firing so fast that if anyone moves out of cover they’ll be riddled with holes instantly so no one can even attempt to get close.

“Ah why is it whenever Nazuko shows up, everything gets worse!” I complain.

“It’s been like that ever since we met that girl,” Remi tells me.

“I’m sorry, normally I just try to make things worse for Remi,” Nazuko apologizes.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better!” Remi shouts.

“Someone needs to do something about his tracking thing, I can’t blow him up if he keeps shooting endlessly like this,” Ryder chips in.

That does seem to be our current predicament right now, if only we could do something about the magnetic markers he’s placed on all of us. I don’t know if it is possible to remove those markers, but maybe…

“Mythril is there anyway to vastly increase the amount of magnetic force on my body right now? Like so much that it overrides every other marker?”

Yes it is possible by applying a strong electric charge to your body, but why in the world would you wish to do that? You would attract every single shot fired and there’s now way you could dodge every last bullet.

“Yeah I’d be pretty screwed if that we’re the case, but I have you. We’re repurposing that plan we had before and giving everybody the chance to attack.”

This plan is very risky and it will drain a large amount of stamina from you for me to keep protecting you with magic. You won’t be able to maintain this for long.

“I know, but this plan is all I got so here we go.”

“Ok guys I have a stupid plan that mostly involves me risking my life, but once I enage everyone attack with everything you’ve got. Azura I need those buffs, speed, power, defense, anything you’ve got, cast it on me now,” I instruct.

I open my pocket dimension and bring out the Grimoire on electrical magic and cast one of the spells in this book on my person. It's a beginner spell that creates an electrical aura that shocks anyone too close, not really that powerful, but the side effect is what I’m going for.

“Mantle of Electricity!”

A very strong electrical force is now applied to my body as well as several other spells cast by Azura.

“You’ve got ten minutes worth of strength, speed, and defense enhancements plus a stamina recovering effect, I’m sorry it won’t last longer than that, but I have to save my strength to heal Lilith,” Azura informs me.

“Don’t worry I don’t think my energy will hold out longer than 10 minutes anyway,” I respond.

I walk out from behind my cover to face Archer with my sword drawn, with numerous energies around my body.

Intense Music Go!

“So kind of you to just walk out and be one big fat target first hero. Have you gone insane from the pressure and desire a swift death? Then so be it!” Archer says as he focuses all his fire on me.

“Heh, yeah I’m a big fat target, the biggest fattest target around,” I say with a smug smile on my face.

All the bullets Archer fires at me suddenly vanish as they’re sent into my pocket dimension, forever incapable of locating their target.

“What!? How did you-” Archer says as he pulls out a hunting knife to defend against my incoming sword strike.

“Heh, not gonna answer, figure it out for yourself you bastard,” I say as I force Archer into a close combat fight.

Everyone jumps out from cover and starts pressuring Archer with all of their attacks. Archer backs away and begins shooting with his shotgun, but notices something is wrong. All of the bullets are not going towards their intended targets, but instead they’re all heading towards me.

“I have to say Will I still think you're insane for suggesting a plan like this,” Azura tells me.

“Yeah, but it solves our tracking problem for a few minutes, we better do some damage though or my body won’t last.”

I’m attracting all of Archer’s fire and sending the bullets to my pocket dimension, for the next 10 minutes or so I’ve made it so Archer can only shoot at me.

I see Nerva and Nazuko get behind Archer and give each other a quick nod before unleashing their attack.

“Nerva let’s do that attack Akane theorized about,” Nazuko suggests.

“Ah hell yeah, it's time for some Flash Fire,” Nerva exclaims.

Nerva extends her hands creating a vortex of intense flames trapping Archer within while Nazuko charges herself up with light and zooms through the flames pestering him with quick consecutive attacks. However this attack only serves to annoy Archer as he extends his hands and unleashes a torrent of flame and electricity that disrupts their attack.

“I’ll show you what real fire is like.”

He then shoots out intense flames that are on a magnitude greater than what Nerva’s flames can achieve. The sheer intensity of the flame is enough to turn the color of the flames white as it makes the surrounding air so hot it starts to singe our throats.

“Gah, f*ck me that’s hot!” Nerva comments.

Nerva tries to compete with the intensity of Archer’s flames as two opposing flames start to clash. Both have their hands shooting flames so intense that no one can get close otherwise they risk getting burnt to a crisp. Both fire users yell unleashing their maximum output of flames, but Nerva’s flames struggle to compete against Archer’s as she is shortly overwhelmed in a mass of flames.

“NERVA!” Nazuko yells as an explosion of white flame envelopes the red headed girl.

We are all soon left in the dark of the fate of our strongest fire user, but as the ashes clear we see her body looking like she’s been completely sunburnt.

“Tch, she should have been turned into ashes, why is she still alive!” Archer says as he contemplates the result of his duel with Nerva.

I barely saw what happened before the explosion of flame went off, but for a split second I saw Nerva covered in at least a few dozen force fields protecting her from head to toe. Only one person here commonly uses force fields so due to that person, Nerva manages to survive that blast. I’m sure that the damage done would have been a lot worse if the force fields were not protecting her.

Quickly Adam rushes over, picks up Nerva and begins to apply healing magic as soon as anyone can react. I’m sure she would have beaten him up or called him a pervert right now if she weren’t unconscious.

Quincy still appears speechless, don’t know whether it's because Nerva lost or Adam actually did his job for once.

“Guys we have to keep going we still have a chance to defeat Archer!” I say bringing back everyone’s attention to the fight.

I note that Archer’s spirit is nowhere to be found, I’m guessing all the magic he’s been outputting has taken its toll. His stamina is limited, but so is ours. Question is who will run out first?

“You all are like cockroaches, all so resilient to death,” Archer comments.

“Says the one who survived a bombing I wouldn’t hesitate to say could wipe out a small city. Are you sure you're not the one who’s the real roach here? If it wasn’t for that loud noise maker you have in your hands I would hesitate to call you human,” I sarcastically mock.

Archer’s face quickly turns to a grimace but soon retorts,

“You’re right I’m not human I’m something worse.”

“Oh and what would you call yourself then?” I ask.

“I am Amon and I am a Reaper.”

Intense Combat Go

Amon’s declaration of his Reaper title would intimidate a normal person, but knowing Quincy I bet he just found that line incredibly cringe, I on the other hand felt nothing, so I refuse to comment. Amon charges forward with his hunting knife in one hand and his pistol in his right. He attacks ferociously with quick slashes of his knife, forcing me to parry with the dagger in my left hand. In between strikes he would shoot at me with his revolver only for the shots to be sucked into my pocket dimension. I still have about 7 minutes left until my stamina leaves me, but his attacks are relentless and he’s as skilled at close combat as he is with his guns so all I can say is this is incredibly draining. Suddenly Quincy comes in for the assist as he attempts to hit Archer with a right haymaker and Archer fires his revolver at him as an instinctual response, but due to the incredibly strong magnetic field I’m generating the bullet curves towards me and disappears. Quincy takes advantage of this phenomenon by attempting to hit Amon as hard as he can, but Amon counters by using his revolver arm to perform an elbow block. The force of Quincy’s fist crashing into the sharp joint is enough to cause his fist to fracture, but does leave Archer with a wounded elbow. If Quincy were to punch him again with the same amount of force and Archer reacts the same way again, Quincy would possibly break his fist at the cost of disabling Archer’s arm.

The sight of that block makes me wince even if I wasn’t the one suffering the pain.

“Gah!!!” Quincy grunts in pain.

“What a weak strike, it was only strong enough to give me a slight bruise. I fathom to think that such little strength was capable of defeating Lancer,” Amon taunts.

“Shut up, it’ll be more than enough to beat you,” Quincy angrily claims.

Quincy and I tag team up to fight Archer, coming at him with consecutive attacks so Archer has no room to breathe, yet somehow is managing to fend off all of our attacks. A flash of light is accompanied with the sound of metal clashing as Nazuko appears alongside us. Nazuko then employs the same tactic she did against Thief, by accelerating herself with her light abilities then bouncing off nearby objects to hit Archer from different angles. In this case it's trees, as she bounces throughout the forest clashing with Archer adding another layer of pressure to our assault. She’s moving so quickly that even if I weren’t attracting all of Archer’s gunfire, the bullets wouldn’t catch up with her. It's as if there’s multiple Nazuko’s zooming about. Her attacks don’t have much power to them, but they're fast and frequent. One small cut isn’t deadly, but the threat compounds exponentially as more are gained. Essentially it's a death by a thousand cuts, a pretty painful thing to experience. The sheer volume of the attacks are beginning to slightly overwhelm, but mostly annoy Archer. He focuses on her pattern of attack and preemptively strikes at where he believes she’ll attack from. Unfortunately Archer was right with his prediction as I see Archer holding his knife to Nazuko’s abdomen, but something is wrong. There’s no blood, wait… I ‘ve seen this before, with our fight with Thief. I see Nazuko’s image fade away in a flash of light with Archer suddenly gaining several small cuts around his body.

“Tch, an afterimage huh, I didn’t think there were people that could annoy me as much as Thief did, but if he was killed I suppose that’s possible.” Archer claims.

“Oh he was a real bastard for sure, definitely worse than you by a mile, at least personality wise. What the hell were you thinking recruiting a guy like that?” I complain as I continue clashing with Archer.

“Hmph, he had the second highest potential out of all my reapers, it's just that his… unique tendencies held him back quite a bit.” Amon tells me.

“Unique? I think utterly insane and psychotic would be a better term.”

As the man in the grey trench coat is pressured on by all of our attacks, he releases a ton of electricity around his body and disrupts our attack formation by letting out a huge AOE shockwave that propels us all backwards. Me, Quincy and Nazuko are all knocked back as the static electricity courses through our bodies. Archer charges his entire being with electricity and kicks Nazuko in the stomach with blinding speed, sending her flying away from the battlefield.

“Normally I would laugh after seeing Nazuko get sent flying like that, but now I wish she was still here to take the beating for me,” Remi says.

“Don’t worry Remi that’s what we have Adam for,” Quincy assures her.

“W-wait I can’t fight, I have to focus on healing,” Adam refutes.

“Heal the people who aren’t unconscious then! I know this sounds bad, but if they’re not in critical condition, focus on the fight. Leave the healing to Azura since she specializes in that, while you provide the support. Otherwise there won’t be a point in healing cause we’ll all be dead,” I commanded.

“I-I understand, it goes against my principles as a healer to let wounded people be unattended.”

“Why do I doubt that for some reason?”

“Actually you’d be surprised, Adam was being really annoying at the tower, before we left to go fight Lancer,” Quincy tells me.

“I wholeheartedly agree with his attempt to keep you from fighting Lancer while under the influence of drugs. Doing so is just the height of irresponsibility, if I was in charge of your health I would have fed you all medicines that would make you puke your guts out before attempting such a thing,” Azura mentions.

“I still have Post Healing Stress Disorder from all that,” I quickly say.

Reshifting my focus to Amon who still poses the ever present threat; he has all the combined injuries we’ve managed to inflict (half of those belonging to Akane), but he’s still fully capable of finishing us off.

“Damn it, even after all this he’s still full of strength,” I complained.

“We need to hit him hard and fast, how about we try plan: nuclear implosion,” Ryder suggests.

“Yeah sounds like a good plan to try. Adam when we get him to jump in the air surround him with as many force fields as you can.”

We send off Remi’s spirit animals to try and corner Archer as Ryder starts shooting off dozens of explosions in his vicinity. Ryder starts his chant in the background for his most powerful explosion spell. The spirit animals attempt to bite down on Amon’s limbs but as soon as they do they are met with several thousand volts of electricity, incapacitating both spirits. However, using this brief moment where both spirits immobilized Archer I opened a portal from beneath him in an attempt to stab his groin. He immediately notices the portal opening beneath him and anticipates an attack as he jumps into the air, just as planned.

“Now Adam!” I order.

Adam creates at least 3 dozen force fields to trap Archer as I open up a black hole portal inside. Ryder finishes his chant and a large bomb appears that is then sent into my second portal before blowing up. The plan is to hit Archer with the full force of Ryder’s explosion as he is slowly sucked towards the epicenter of the blast. Adam’s shields are just a countermeasure to prevent Archer from escaping as well as concentrating and containing the energy of Ryder’s blast. Right before the bomb goes off I see Archer surround himself in a heavy concentration of aura.

“Do you think it was enough?” Adam asks.

“Don’t know whether it was enough or not, but it definitely would have done some damage,” Ryder comments from the ground.

“If we take Akane’s previous statement at face value, then no it's not enough, but I’m still hopeful,” Azura chimes in.

Three Minutes. That’s all I have left until my strength fully leaves me, if Archer is still moving about after this attack I’ll put everything I have into one last attack. The electricity spell I used earlier has worn off and I’m no longer capable of drawing Archer’s gunfire to myself.

We feel a sudden concentration of energy as something is released from inside Adam’s force fields. In one brief moment I witness a rifle shot come out from Adam’s barrier and I instinctively tackle the closest person, Quincy, into one of my portals to get away. The bullet hits the ground between Remi, Azura, and Adam right before exploding. As Quincy and I fall from the sky due to my hasty portal making, we witness the aftermath of Archer’s attack. The size of the explosion was somewhat akin to Ryder’s blasts which worries me. We then notice the three of them are still alive but unconscious. Adam must have saved them from certain death with a quick force field but it wasn’t enough.

“Damn it he got them!” I yelled seeing Archer devastate our parties.

Archer himself appears to have definitely taken damage from our combination attack as his apparel is tattered and his breathing is ragged. That attack must have infuriated him as I notice he’s seething with rage.

“Quincy I’m sorry for pinning this all on you now, but I’m going to do one last stupid thing and if it doesn’t work you are going to have to save us all,” I say as we land back on the ground.

“What are you going to do?” he asks.

“Attempt to finish the fight. Emphasis on the attempt.”

Attempt

I place my hand on my right sword and channel all the remaining aura in my body into it.

“Strength Enhancement: Eight Fold”

Using the power of my sword I can enhance my body’s strength at the cost of destroying my body. I can handle 3 times my own strength, 4 times rips away at my muscle fibers and 5 times causes my bones to fracture. I don’t even want to begin to think about what eight times will do.

With my newfound strength I rush forward at such speed that the ground I was standing on is blown away. Amon responds to my suicidal charge by firing another deadly rifle shot using his electricity to accelerate the bullet similar to a railgun. It’s too late to dodge or open a portal, but my body moves on its own, I’m completely 100% focused right now.

“Strike of Non-Thought”

With one clean motion, I vertically strike cutting the bullet in half so perfectly the two halves of the bullet continue their rampage of destruction behind me.

And with that the distance between me and Archer has been closed in an instant.

“Amon prepare yourself this is everything I have!” I roared.

I bring down my sword with ungodly force with speeds that Archer doesn’t even have enough time to reach for his knife. I make a diagonal slice that cleaves right through his hunting rifle, creating a deep cut from his right shoulder all the way to the left part of his hip. The force of my strike is enough to send him flying into half a dozen trees.

“Rrkh!”

With that last attack I feel all the energy in my body leave me, I’ve used every last bit. I notice that our fight essentially happened as a large circle around the castle as I’m back to where Akane is lying. My knees buckle and give out as I fall to the ground unable to even grip my sword. I think I must have at least broken my arms with that attack and the rest of my body is left reeling as well.

Quincy walks over to me as he says,

“Will I think your stupid idea worked, if that didn’t kill him nothing will,” Quincy claims.

“Don’t… Be… So… Sure.” an ominous voice announces.

The man with black grey tipped hair and yellow eyes slowly walks towards us. His body bloody and beaten, but he still carries himself as if he was invincible.

“Fuck.”

That was everything I had, that was everything everyone had. Now there’s only Quincy.

“Welp I guess we’re going with Plan Quincy Saves Us All. Good Luck Quincy! You got this!”