There was a lot of them, which was to be expected since she had passed even more of them on the way here. Judy took a good look at the enemies before her.
They were not getting closer, instead they were waiting at the entrance of the room, as if they were stopped by an invisible wall.
They almost looked like they belonged there as they were standing at the other end of the room in formation while not moving an inch.
Them not moving gave her the chance to form a battle plan.
She now had a demonic blade which made all other weapons that she had ever seen pale in comparison and she had Nick as her familiar. Together they would be fighting against what seemed to be about thirty to forty monsters with unknown magic properties. She was also sure that her demonic counterpart knew the exact abilities of these golems, but she also had the feeling that this was a test. And so she would rely on her own abilities.
The easiest way to attack would be near one of the pillars at the side of the room so that they could only come from two sides at once and not from all four directions.
She would also try to use her speed to outmaneuver them since they had proven to be very slow and powerful.
So if Nick covered her back and she dodged their attacks then it would only be a matter of time until they would win.
"Alright Nick, cover my back we will funnel them between one of the pillars and the wall."
Nick just looked at her with an expression that screamed sorry,"Carrots I would like to, really but this is obviously a test and you should take that on your own."
This caused Judy to blackout a little bit. When her brain finally rewired she looked at Nick in confusion. Had he just told her that she needed to fight without him?
But how was she supposed to do that?
Without him she would have no magic at her disposal except for the little bit of mana that she had now, this meant that she would just have...the sword!
She wanted to beat herself so bad! Why hadn't she thought about this sooner?
The demon had basically told her that if she wanted to test the abilities of the sword, that this was the better option compared to just failing it around and yet it had taken her this long to realize this.
She gave a sigh and nodded,"alright then partner. Wish me luck."
Upon hearing this Nick gave her a warm smile,"that's my bunny, go give them hell."
Judy just rolled her eyes at him while taking off.
She stopped just a few meters short of the enemy, which was still a lot to her as a rabbit, and started casting her spells.
She cast haste to enhance her reflexes, she then cast quickstep to enhance her movement speed and finished by casting a simple strength spell.
She took a deep breath while looking at the guardian statues that had started to form a half circle around her. All of the enemies were bigger and slower than her which meant that her best chance of killing as many of them as possible was to dodge and strike so that she never stopped moving. This would enable her to fend of the sheer number of enemies without getting overwhelmed by them.
The monsters were still closing in on her while she was finishing her mental planning period and one of them had gotten into striking range. Which was just what she had expected and she took a defensive stance while waiting for the first strike.
The first strike was a jab that was aimed right for her chest but Judy was a rabbit. And she was naturally faster even without her magic enhancements. So she easily dodged the strike by dashing to the right and closed the distance between her and her first adversary. Once she was within striking range she used her momentum to jump and strike at the throat of her enemy.
The sword went through the magically enhanced stone like her normal sword would through a piece of cloth and separated the head from the body with one clear cut.
This surprised her, even though she should have expected it. However being surprised in a battle situation was never good. And she was reminded of this by some of her other enemies who used the chance to close in and to start striking her as well.
Thanks to her enhanced reflexes she managed to dodge the strike of the enemy that was right behind her and also strike the wrist of the statue that had tried to attack her from the side at the same time.
She then jumped backwards in an attempt to gain a little bit of breathing room, only to be attacked by the same statue that she had beheaded just moments ago.
Damn it, she was fighting a magic golem of course it would shrug off being beheaded and just carry on. It probably did not even need its head to begin with.
She managed to deflect the hit by angling her sword and pushing against the hit, while its own momentum carried it along the blade straight down into the ground.
This hurt a lot though as the power of the impact spread through her entire body.
Alright, Judy thought, mental note to self. They are as strong as they look. Let's not try that again.
She developed an idea though when she saw that the statue whose wrist she had cut was struggling to pick up the sword with its other stone paw after the wounded paw had broken off.
She only needed to cripple them so that they would not be able to fight back anymore.
So she put her idea right to the test and went for the counter while the headless statue was readying it's next strike. She went for a low strike against its knee and thus managed to cut its leg clean in half. She did not make the same mistake as before though and went right on the offensive again, this time striking at the arm of another statue with the intend to cut it off while also dodging the strike that hit the ground where she had stood just moments ago.
It was quite an effective tactic. She attacked the limbs of her larger opponents and moved on before their attacks could land. This strategy had a very distinct problem though. After fighting off about twenty statues like this, her body demanded a well deserved break. Moving at the speed that she had, with the amount of strength that her enhancement spell offered her was exhausting.
Which brought forth another problem. She had maneuvered herself deep into the enemy without noticing.
Basically, she was in real trouble.
She tried to fight her way back to the middle of the room where she knew that the golems could not follow her, but her movements were starting to slow significantly.
She just managed to cripple another statue by taking off it's leg when she was attacked from two sides at once, again. This time though she was sure that she would take a hit. She knew that she would not be able to dodge both attacks at once. So her plan was to dash under the first attack and then block the second with the sword as much as possible to minimize the damage.
The first part of the plan already failed when she did not manage to evade the swing fast enough. And while she had moved so that the sword was only slicing her back. It was still a magic sword and thus it easily ripped through her mail armor leaving a deep cut right between her shoulder blades that made her yelp in pain.
She felt the stinging burn that radiated from the wound into her entire back. And paired with the exhaustion it was almost enough to make her kneel.
Almost!
What surprised her was the fact that when she saw the second blade coming from above, she had a feeling like if her body was entering a trance all of a sudden.
All of her pain and exhaustion was forgotten and she felt magic energy flow into her body through the blade in her paws, as her body seemed to move on its own accord.
It only lasted for a few seconds, but that was enough for her to sidestep once more and cast a spell. One which she had never cast before with her left paw while also rotating the sword around her right paw so that it struck another enemy behind her that was just about to attack.
The spell that she was casting sent shivers down her spine as she literally felt the temperature around her drop. She instinctively touched the blade that she had just dodged while it was still lodged into the ground, with her left paw, causing it to freeze. The icy spell soon enveloped the entire statue, which lead to its demise as it shattered when it tried to move.
She started feel the pain and exhaustion flooding back into her mind as the high of her trance was wearing off.
She wondered what exactly had just happened and she wished that she could do exactly that once more. But she had no idea how she did it in the first place.
She managed to gain a little ground though after defeating the two statues and was able to use this to move farther towards the middle of the room. Her way was still blocked by a literal horde of enemies.
And then suddenly it happened.
The world around her seemed to come to a complete standstill and so was her body.
Her mind though was completely unaffected by whatever kind of spell this was.
And then she heard the voice.
"That was...how should I word it?" It was the same kind of voice that shadow Judy had been using. A distorted voice that seemed like it was not supposed to belong to a living being. This time though it was a little bit clearer and seemed far more distinctively male.
"That was an interesting approach, little rabbit." The voice remarked mockingly.
Well, she thought, I did my best against these things and if Nick had been by my side I am sure that we would have won!
There was a noise in her mind that sounded almost like a snicker. But it was just as distorted as the voice.
This made Judy angry, how dare you laugh at me! I was trying my best here and I am not a powerful adventurer yet! How am I supposed to defeat creatures like this without any magic?
"Who said that you had to defeat them without magic?" Came the reply that sounded awfully like a loaded question.
Well, Nick was not allowed to help me because this is a test, right?
But without him I am not able to get any new mana, so I was not able to use magic.
"Then why were you able to cast that spell when you almost died?"
That was right, Judy though somewhat confused, how did she do that?
Wait, the magic power had come from the sword! And more importantly she had felt like she was in a trance for a moment there.
YOU! It was you who did that.
Another noise filled her mind that sounded like a chuckle,"true I did that, but you did that."
Great, now he was talking in riddles. She hated it when Nick did that and now there was a second one to do exactly that. Except this time he was in her head, which was even worse.
Damn how annoying was this going to be?
The demonic voice gave a sigh,"fine, I will go easy on you this time. Have you really never tried drawing mana from your environment?"
No, she had not. In fact she did not know that it was possible at all!
Why had Nick never told her about this?
"It is an advanced technique to learn for mortals, so that may be the reason why he never taught you. He probably hoped that I would show you. Fine, this will be the first thing that I teach you. It may take a while, but you will learn over time."
Wait, so I will learn over time? But then what about the situation that I am in right now?
I could use some magic to help me out of this!
Another sigh,"Sure just relax and let me show you. Try to focus on the flow of the magic energy."
She relaxed herself and waited for whatever was to come.
What came was that the time resumed and that she felt the same kind of trance that she had before. It was like she was not really in charge of her body. Which made sense considering that a demon had taken over for her.
And once more that was not the most angelic thing ever, good job Judy.
After the first step she felt the movement of magic through the air around her. She had always been able to feel magic energy in the environment around her. But this time she was not only feeling it. She was redirecting it, siphoning it from her surroundings in little streams and strings before converging them into her paws.
The amount of magical energy in the room was astonishing and the resulting amount of mana that she managed to literally pull out of thin air was mesmerizing to her. She had never felt this powerful before.
She could feel how the magical energy spread through her entire body and she cast one spell after the other in such a quick succession that her mind had trouble keeping up.
She felt her back heal, her exhaustion fade away and her overall body strength increase dramatically.
And then something happened that she had not expected whatsoever. The blade changed it's form.
While it had been a longsword before, it now changed its form into a different kind of sword.
It was a curved blade with a single edge and it felt just as perfect in her paw as the first one had.
She had seen this kind of sword design before and it reminded her of that kind of sword that the mercenaries of the western continent called a Kriegsmesser.
It still retained it's runes which moved up to the top of the blade while the hilt only changed minimally.
The question was prominently in her mind though, why?
"I changed my appearance to suit your fighting style better. Trust me this will be a lot better for cutting than the other one."
As if to demonstrate she felt herself dash forwards and slash at the legs of another statue, cutting through it with ease before striking right at the next one in one controlled motion.
And while she was doing that she also managed, or rather the demon managed, to cast a spell with her left paw which she then used to freeze another statue all while still sucking in more magical energy at the same time.
"See this is easy."
She had a feel that it was definitely not easy. But he was right it felt so easy! Everything she did felt natural like she had always been able to do it.
After fighting for another minuted there were only five statues left and she truly felt the difference in experience between herself and her new demonic partner.
And said demon then, as if to acknowledge this realization and solidify it, focused the entire mana that she had gathered into her sword. It was a weird feeling, she felt every fiber of the sword as if it was an extension of her body. And not just like a real sword felt like an extension of her body, but rather as if it was a real living part of her body. She focused the magic into the back of the blade before swinging it through the air in front of the remaining enemies while pressuring the magical energy out through edge of the blade. This caused a powerful blast which cut through the air and then shattered that last remaining statues.
All enemies were defeated and she started regaining control of her body once more.
Once she had full control Judy immediately felt far less powerful than she had before.
This must have been what Nick had been talking about.
Demonic weapons were indeed really powerful tools.
Powerful enough to loose yourself to them if you were not careful while using them.
But Judy would be an angel and therefore there was not chance that she would loose herself, right?
Authors Note:
So I had a lot to do this week and I updated my main story twice before starting to write this chapter.
So there is the first fight scene that I wrote. I still have to get a lot better but it could be worse, at least I hope.
As always give me your thoughts.
At Reish95: Sorry I did not see your review for the longest time(I do not know why).
As for your question no I did not plan to give Nick back his full powers. However I have been asked to do that so I might by the end of the story. (only time will tell if the idea grows on me or not)