Glass, our opponent, moved with a fluidity and grace that belied her wardrobe. The flowing robes should have gotten in her way, the long sleeves keeping her from moving as well as she did. And yet, they didn't. In fact, they seemed to move with her, like they were less garments, and more extensions of her body, making me wonder if they were illusions of some kind, magical aura shaped to look like clothing and not clothing itself.
Regardless, she took hits almost as well as we'd been told, as Raphtalia slashed at her with her blade, a well crafted thing, and the woman barely seemed to feel it, instead slashing back with her fans, a few strands of the tanuki's hair falling away as she nearly lost an ear to the attack. Welts let loose with bolt after bolt of elemental attacks, and she either blocked them with her fan, or tanked them, allowing her robes to absorb the damage.
Undaunted, we kept the pressure on her. Filo would claw her from one side, while Rishia went into a routine of punches and kicks from the other. That reminded me that the others were still receiving their boosts from their Heroes, which made me hope that Bard was able to give Lucia what she needed to fight Therese alone, given how much difficulty we were having with these two against whole groups outside the barrier.
L'arc was, sadly, quite as skilled as the fan wielding woman, as his scythe seemed to find every attack coming at him and intercept it, allowing not a single blow from the two weapon wielding Heroes to connect, even as Ren used some technique to boost his speed until, even to my eyes, he vanished and reappeared at seeming random, striking out from all sides at one point, or so it appeared.
Motoyasu, with his armor, was able to maintain that same attack, his Spear shifted between half a dozen forms in the blink of an eye, striking out with every element, and then some. And yet, L'arc took every blow with a smile on his face, before slashing out towards the blonde man, who was saved only by Naofumi's intervention, a glowing green shield taking the blow for him, as he was blown away.
This wasn't working, obviously, but there wasn't a lot else we could do either. Pulling out Elsenrail, I charged at her with both blades this time, while Raphtalia, mimicking me, drew out the pommel of her 'illusion sword', wielding it in one hand, while using her more solid blade in the other. Untrained with dual wielding as I was, she wasn't going to be as skilled, but with four weapons striking at once, we were at least able to pin Glass between us for the moment.
That allowed Welts to strike with a thunderbolt from above, the precision strike actually forcing her down, as Rishia dove forward, and with us leaping away, she laid into the woman, going through an entire routine of punches and kicks, before Filo dove down from above, her claws gleaming with their metallic coverings, literally landing with enough force to drive the woman Glass into the ice below, before she too hopped away.
Landing with the rest of us, we took a moment to watch, hoping against hope that this woman would stay down, but she slowly rose up from the ice, small chunks spilling off her. At the very least, we broke her composure, however, as she ground her teeth against each other, and raised her fans up, bringing them together and causing them to shine for a moment, saying something about 'configurations' as she prepared an attack.
One that failed to land, as a massive ice block dropped directly onto her, even as we scattered from the impact. She saw it coming, of course. Her reaction speed was extreme, but she wasn't quite so fast as that speed made her out to be, and more importantly, she'd been in the middle of her attack, so she took a crucial second to pull herself out of that, leaving her vulnerable as the block smashed her once more into the 'ground' beneath her feet.
L'arc, seeing this, actually looked worried for a moment, before she shattered the block and rose up, her outfit torn a bit now, and bruises on her face showing the attack had done some damage, as she whipped her head around, eventually pointing one of her fans towards one of the ships stuck on the ice. Said ship had the Royal Flag of Melromarc flying on its mast, and her king standing at the bow, already charging his next spell.
He didn't get a chance to fire it, his wife diving forward and pulling him off the ship entirely, as a 'slice' from Glass' fans cut the ship clean in two in one swift motion, and she then laid down a blast of wind that scattered the pieces, driving the two halves of the once proud vessel off the ice shelf and into the water beyond. The splash of bodies, wood, and shouts of alarm coming to my ears, as those aboard, exhausted from hammering the boss, found themselves sinking.
Luckily, I recalled that most would have the rings of water breathing, as the Royal Ship had been the first to get them, given their heavier armor. They would be fine, but I doubted that Glass knew that. Worse, she had had no reason for her driving the ship off the ice like that. This woman, despite what L'arc had said, was indeed trying to kill us, and while that made sense, since we were trying to kill her, it made any argument of their 'moral high ground' quite a bit of hypocrisy.
Fortunately, we didn't let her get away with that, and even as she repositioned her fans to strike at the king once more, as he lay on the ice, his wife supporting him and even throwing out her hand to make a magical barrier, we struck out against the woman. Rishia hit her in the small of her back, showing Glass had been paying absolutely no attention to us as she slid forward.
Before she could recover from that, I struck out with Elsenrail and Glomenthal. She blocked every strike with her fans, but it was costing her, I could see it in her face, especially as the others closed on her. Their powers synced together as Filo and Welts used their combined magical might to create a vortex before them, her flapping wings and his glowing crystal rod making for quite the potent combination.
Diving away, I watched as Glass was knocked about by the sideways funnel cloud, her fans offering no real protection from the attack itself, even as she swept it aside, breaking it, only for Raphtalia and Rishia to come in next, the former casting a spell to boost the latter's power, her fists and feet glowing as she launched into a combination that kept the fan wielder off balance, even as she tried to strike back.
Finally, she found a bit of footing, and slashed out with her weapon, screaming at Rishia to 'Just DIE already!' as she struck. Only it was my turn again, and I smirked at her as I used one of my abilities to get in front of Rishia, blocking the strike with my blades. She stared at me, dumbstruck, before I whipped about, kicking her back again, just in time for Aultcray to hold out the Vassal Staff and hit her with another lightning bolt, slamming her into the corpse of the Whale.
She was furious now, as she rose back up, and while we hadn't done much damage to her, even less than what her own attacks seemed to cost her, it was obvious we were more than able to keep battering her about. Her clothing was torn now, and worse, you could see she was beginning to realize we might just be able to beat her this time, as she simply wasn't fast enough, strong enough, or skilled enough to fight this many powerful opponents at once.
A glance said that L'arc was finding out the same thing, as the Heroes bashed him around, Ren keeping the pressure on, forcing him to block so that Motoyasu could find every gap in his defenses, peppering him with pinpoint strikes. And worst of all, any opening he had to counter attack was stymied by Naofumi, who kept him off balance with his shields, either defending his fellow Heroes, or tripping up his opponent using his various Shields bind him, or simply alter his footing.
I was confident, even if we lost the battle to time, as the timer was only thirty minutes from the start, and we were almost at twenty now, we would win this battle overall. There would be NO retreat for them, and you could tell the moment that occurred to them, as Glass constantly tried to blow us away, tried to make an opening to allow her to flee, only to find another of the Heroes' companions getting in her way, while L'arc dealt with the Heroes doing him much the same.
Then my vision tunneled for a moment, as the HP bar just inside my view, the one for my party, changed. Lucia…she was…her HP had been steadily declining for a while, as she took hits, but suddenly it took a massive drop. That was followed by another, taking her well below half health. Finally, she was empty, her HP bar flashing in the corner of my eye, distracting me just enough that Glass found a moment to strike out, flying into the sky.
The others looked at me, concerned, as I gritted my teeth, trying not to feel…anything. This was a battle, people died. I was the Administrator…former Administrator of a Guild Hall, I knew that. I'd LOST people before, but something hit hard every time, and that moment of distraction was going to cost me, or so I thought, until suddenly everyone was distracted, and all eyes turned towards the vessel surrounded by the barrier.
The first reason was because the barrier vanished with a flash brighter than lightning, causing everyone to flinch away from it, and obviously making us all wonder what was going on. It was impossible to see, however, thanks to how far away the ship was. However, despite the distance, we all heard the shriek, a pain-filled cry that echoed over the ice, and made Therese and L'arc move the moment they heard it.
The pair from the other world shot into the sky, the scythe wielder slashing into the ice to create a blinding fog of steam, while the fan wielder went airborne, leaping up, and then waving her fans to almost blast herself towards the ship in the distance. Reacting slower, we got out of the fog just in time to see another barrier, this one of blade-like winds, cover the ship and seal it off from us.
Not that that stopped us as we charged across the ice towards it. After all, we were the Heroes, their parties, and the King of Melromarc. We were the champions of our world, and we would not abandon the Bow Hero to whatever fate these 'Heroes' of another world had planned for him. Though as we drew close, I had to wonder what was going on, as my ears heard shouts of agonized pain, and they did not sound like they were coming from Bard.