The first sword tore into the soft tissue of the creature''s right eye spilling purple blood in the air as Ikaris spun intending to blind itpletely, but upon aiming again she was greeted with its mouth opened right over her arm and rapidly closing.


    Just then, a flicker of light came from their peripheral and struck the Minotaur directly into its opened mouth.


    Causing its head to lean and its mouth to snap shut just next to her.


    Ikaris instinctively leapt away, avoiding the Minotaur''s arms when they came mping down intent on crushing her after it had failed to bite her hand off.


    "Explode!" Dina sped her hand and and the [mana spear] she had created evaporated into an explosion that caused the creature to reel in pain and leap to its feet and look around at her, its tongue had been pierced, and her attack had now boiled that tongue I to a swollen pile of burnt flesh.


    "Don''t for a second think I''m letting you go!" Ikaris came from behind it with her de coated in mana stabbing it into its other eye and raising her hands immediately when the minotaur spun in a rage and punched at her, this time it truly hurt, this time she was caught in a direct and unavoidable hit after her momentum had slowed from the stab.


    Blood spilled from her mouth and nose when therge fist connected from the side of her head down to her waist, several bones cracked in an instant, but by far her most affected was her left arm that was broken in several ces as she was sent flying through a ditch of her body''s own making.


    "Ikaris!" Dina haphazardly released several more spears watching them whizz through the air and harmlessly bounce off the durable hide of the Minotaur before exploding and disorienting it as it swung at empty air.


    "Shit!" She flew safely above and the  descended toward Ikaris, but by the time she reached Ikaris she was already standing again, albeit bloodied she was more furious than she had ever been before, her injuries didn''t healpletely, now her face had an ugly scar above her lips and her arm the same. "Are you-"


    "Furious!!" Ikaris erupted with divine mana burning away the blemishes as she altered her physical body and took off toward the minotaur.


    Before she attacked her presence vanishedpletely as her divine mana subsided, and recing it her acquired mana awoke with frightening potency causing the Minotaur to catch her as she stopped by its head with a loud beat of her healed wings.


    It attempted to crush her, but she vanished from its grasp and reappeared at the side of its head with a small rotating sphere of dense mana in her grasp, mming it into the creatures ear with a roar before vanishing again as the mana exploded outward like a mine throwing the demon off its feet when it lost its bnce.


    "So that''s what you decided to do..." Sol''s tension was eased, and he rxed again after seeing Ikaris continuously target the softest parts of the creature.


    "Alright!" Dina waved her hands above her head, summoning clouds as Ikarisnded next to her and shed the blood off her hand. "How much more can you do?"


    "Discarding thatst attack, I''d say I still have enough mana to deliver a fatal blow if we can open its wound, I want to boil it from the inside out, so put everything you can muster into a stun attack!" Ikaris answered, and Dina nodded.


    "Whose the real monster here?" Dina continued waving as the clouds became alive with yellow thunder. "I''ll keep stunning it then, be careful!" She lowered her staff toward the Minotaur and a great bolt of lightning tore through the skies and crashed into it.


    [Tier 9 thunder magic: Hand ofJudgement]


    The size of the bolt of lightning increased as it struck again, and three more times, growing proportionallyrger each time as Dina poured more and more mana into it.


    "Once more!" Dina grit her teeth.


    Her body suddenly had small fissures of electricity escape it and blood dripped from her nose.


    [Hand of Judgement: Unssified tier]


    A dozen giant bolts fell at once around the Minotaur, fusing as they collided into it like a death-ray from the skies.


    The ground around it evaporated, and the air burned as it''s exposed eyes and tongue sizzled and fried while it was electrocuted, and a mere second after thest bolt vanished Ikaris appeared before the staggering creature sticking her hand directly into its bubbling eye socket all the way down to her elbow and locking her legs around the horn.


    "If I continued fighting you stubbornly, I''m sure you could kill me, it is ironic, one such as myself should never have to be afraid of death by the hands of lesser beings like you," Ikarisunched a st of crimson fire from her submerged palm.


    [Infernal magic unssified tier: Hell''s Kitchen]


    "Retreat, Dina!" Ikaris looked around at Dina as the body of the Minotaur started to rapidly expand with fire gushing from every avable hole on its body.


    Forget bubbling, the creature was being incinerated by damnable mes that it could not protect against, and in a matter of seconds it had swollen to three times its size.


    Dina seeing the inevitable oue raised both her hands and cast a barrier around herself as she took to the skies, and then turned and cast another one around Ikaris leaving only her stuck hand exposed.


    It was not enough, it was far from enough, as soon as the trapped explosion broke out and expanded the barrier around Ikaris shattered and Dina was sent crashing through the air.


    *Snap


    Both of them appeared above the encampment apanied by a st of fire while a great cloud of crimson mes arose in the distance, expanding until it pushed the clouds away and broke the limits of the sky through to the outer vums where it was rapidly sucked away.


    "I told you to retreat!" Ikaris snapped at Dina, spreading her wings and catching the exhausted mage by her cor when she continued plummeting, but the Dina had other concerns as she looked at Ikaris from head to toe.


    "H-how are you still conscious?" Dina asked, righting herself and staring at Ikaris''s arm appalled.


    Her armour barely clung to her shoulder, and her hand had been shredded and burnt beyond recognition, a half of her face was badly burnt as well, and her torso was still steaming.


    "Ikaris,e down," Sol called to her, and she descended immediately and stood before him with her head hung low. "Look at the state you''re in..." He stared at her worriedly.


    "I will do better next time-"


    "Next time?" Sol cut her off, and everyone who heard went pale, the soldiers were ready to protest, the other heroes; Dina included were shocked, and A and her peers held visible apprehension.


    "Sol, you can''t just tell her to not fight-"


    "If that is his wish, I have no protest." Ikaris answered with her gaze still low as she grit her teeth and berated herself. "I do not want to cause master''s heart to be uneasy, if he desires I stay out of the fight I will sit quietly and obey..."


    Sol watched her uninjured hand shake as she spoke, but then she winced when he reached for her face and raised her hair staring at her burns with a soft expression.


    "I don''t think that''s my call to make, Ikaris," Sol sighed as she raised her eyes to meet his.


    "It could have been handled better, but you still did well; both of you, if it was anyone else I''m sure they would have died, but you held your own against a creature that was way out of your experience and current strength, and in the end you beat it." He praised her while his hand coated over with indigo mana.


    "It was an underperformance..." Ikaris closed her eyes as the burns on her face slowly vanished, being reced by unblemished skin.


    "What kind of healing magic is that?" Eris stared at Sol''s hand confused, as did Idria. "It does not abide by the rules of reconstruction... It looks like he''s using his magic itself to heal her, and not speeding up the process of regeneration." She shared a nce with Idria who was too stunned to speak.


    "I could do this myself," Ikaris smiled up at Sol, but he only huffed in amusement as her entire body was engulfed by a bright light when he cast [Divine Heal] on her, it didn''t just fix her injuries, it replenished her lost mana and even repaired her armour again, within an instant she was cured as if she hadn''t been harmed in her fight at all.


    "I didn''t ask if you could," Sol answered.


    "So she can reform and create budyparts out of thin air, and he canpletely undo damage as if it didn''t exist at all?" Sara thought to herself, also shocked since sol had never once seemed like he had the abilities to use healing magic.


    "So... I can keep fighting?" Ikaris asked hestiantly, and Sol smiled and nodded, cing his hand on her head and ruffling her hair a little.


    "You can''t save anyone if you don''t get your hands dirty, especially now that we know that your powers arepletely ineffective."


    "Yes, this is far from enough." Ikaris turned to the others who had watched silently. "I need to get far stronger if I want to fight the invading demon god," She looked at them.


    [Name: Ikaris


    Level: 204 (+26)


    Mana 100k (+10k)


    All other statuses and information have been locked by administration]


    "That''s be blindingly obvious now, I saw the system earlier too," Dina added to Ikaris''s statement. "That thing was still only a high-level demonkin, unnamed and unranked; so basically a footsoldier, we all need to get far stronger than we are now to defeat whatever can control such a terrifying monster, otherwise Arkadia has no hope."