Chapter Thirty
"The thick night falls, let the enmity of Lord Zuen smother!"
Night Smother fell on a basilisk. The dark coated her, hiding her from sight and disorienting her. It was chaos. I had to be careful. There was so much craziness going on. If I threw out spells without any care, I would hurt my own women.
I spotted a yuki-onna open.
"Spark of lightning, crackle of electricity, let the wrath of Lord Enlil explode!"
The bolt of lightning slashed down and struck her. She screamed and pitched forward, hitting the ground and then vanishing in a mote of darkness. Will o' wisps fired their attacks down at the enemy. Pandemonium reigned. My monster girls were attacking. Slashing. Biting. Clawing. They were fighting for their lives.
Fighting for me.
"Yeah, get him!" Garnet cheered. "Come on Baaghi! Usiku! Kick his ass!"
Those two were fighting Ziamili. He was blocking Usiku's shadowy sword strikes with his bare arms. That stone flesh he had was powerful. He hardly needed that armor he wore. Baaghi's claws raked uselessly down his back.
But they were pressuring him. Keeping him from using spells.
I searched for my next target. I had to use my magic to eliminate the enemy. Enemy monster girls were vanishing. But so were mine. Would it be enough? Would my plan work? Or had I kicked over the beehive and we were about to be swarmed to death?
* * / *
Lana Fulmine and the will o' wisps opening volley had been effective.
She had personally killed a basilisk. The will o' wisps had fried another basilisk, and unicorn, and an orc. The enemy was being whittled away. But there were still so many of them out there. The movie starlet looked for another open target.
Werebears, arachnes, wildhounds, oozes, satyrs, and quetzalcoatls all fought down there. The chaos was frightening. She didn't want to hit a wildhound by accident. Didn't want to fry a werebear by mistake. Her heart pounded a mile a minute, but she had to keep her cool.
"Pick your targets!" she shouted as she stared at the melee.
A flash of movement to her immediate left turned her attention to Dvasia. The will o' wisp had her attention to the battlefield, so she didn't see the block of ice that had appeared over her head. It slammed down into her body.
The force caved her plasmic head into her shoulders and drove her body to the floor. She hit hard and her body shuddered. Then she vanished in a burst of motes, dead and sent back to the Void Crystal to sleep.
Lana's stomach tightened at the sudden death.
* * / *
A group of monster girls had broken free of the others and rushed up to the balcony where I stood with Garnet and my mother. A pair of unicorns, a basilisk, and a yuki-onna were intent on climbing the walls to reach me.
I ignored them. We were high up. I wanted to kill the monster girls who were hurting
my
girls. My lovers.
I felt Ci die. I spotted her fading away, an orc over her. Hela jumped onto that orc, the wildhound clawing to avenge her slain sister. Not far away, another orc threw a sword up and slammed into Vaivory. The quetzalcoatl screamed in pain, her serpentine half swishing. Her wings faltered. She plummeted for the ground, vanishing into motes a moment later. A unicorn gored Du, slamming hard into the wildhound's back, and kept running. The dying wildhound spasmed, impaled on the horn, and then vanished into motes.
Sreaga bit into her basilisk, the arachne holding the scaled bitch tight. The basilisk fell to the ground, body spasming. However, another basilisk threw Sreaga to the ground. The spider-girl's legs kicked as the basilisk slammed a foot down and crushed her throat.
"Fuck," I muttered, hating my monster girls dying. I stared at the basilisk, open. No one around.
"Spark of lightning, crackle of electricity--"
Suddenly, the two unicorns who had charged the balcony leaped up the fifteen feet and landed amid my mother, Garnet, and me. The shock interrupted my spell. I hadn't realized they could do that. Their horns lowered and they lunged, one at me and one at Garnet.
* * / *
Maya surged through the water, the oozes, mermaids, and the one hippocampus swimming with her. The enemy monster girls were kicking in a froth of bubbles, trying to swim to the surface. But they were in Maya's element.
She went for the red cap, the naked monster girl kicking, releasing her sword that became blood that diffused crimson through the water. The orcs were thrashing, their armor carrying them down towards the bottom of the pool. Basilisks opened their mouths to breathe their petrification breath.
Nothing came out.
The red cap turned in the water and then fresh blood flashed. A trident formed out of the scarlet, tines gleaming in the light. She locked eyes on Maya as the undine swam closer. The weapon stabbed out at Maya.
She surged around it, flowing with ease through the water. She laughed in delight, the red cap moving so slow. She seized the red cap. Maya held the enemy with her arms and legs. She clapped a hand over the red cap's mouth and forced her fingers into the red cap's mouth to drown her faster.
She thrashed in Maya's arms, legs kicking in a panic.
The mermaids went for the unicorns. Mase, Skela, and Pani each surged for one and grabbed the kicking unicorns by the waist. The mermaids' powerful tails swished and dragged the enemy monster girls deeper into the pools.
The yuki-onna who had fallen in began freezing the water around them, forming barriers to protect themselves. They made Maya shiver. She remembered the pain they had caused her. The torment they could inflict.
Ghoda, the hippocampus, shot like a torpedo at one barrier of ice and slammed into it. The crystals shattered around her. With another flex of her seahorse tail, she hurtled into the yuki-onna and propelled the monster girl to the water's depths.
The red cap thrashed. Her trident tried to find Maya's flesh. But she was water. Liquid. She could ripple and undulate and avoid those steel tines.
The oozes struck the basilisks. Cikhala and her sisters engulfed the basilisks in their gelatinous bodies, weighing them down and keeping them from kicking to the surface. It was brutal. Maya knew they weren't just killing these monster girls.
They were drowning them.
It was a terrible way to die, but they had no choice. They had to eliminate them or Leo and the others would have more to fight. So Maya kept her hold on the red cap. She would make sure that as many monster girls drowned as possible.
The more enemies eliminated, the better chance her family had to survive today.
* * / *
Mrs. Zoe Baldwin acted the moment the unicorns landed.
The nearest unicorn to the dryad lowered her horn and rammed it at Leo's guts. The spell he had been casting faltered. He stepped back, struggling to bring his weapon down to block, but it would be too late for him.
However, Mrs. Baldwin was ready for the attack. She had been prepared for this eventuality. She surged out her vines from her toes the moment she saw them jump. Now they reached for the unicorn and wrapped around her legs and torso, yanking her back. The horn came an inch from slamming into her son's breastplate.
Garnet wasn't so lucky.
She screamed in pain. The other unicorn's horn had been buried deep into the succubus's guts. Her wings fluttered. Her head tossed in pain. Mrs. Baldwin stared in horror at her daughter who was badly injured. Leo screamed out something that was lost to the shock that fell on Mrs. Baldwin.
