31. A Bitter Fight, Part I

A Bitter Fight, Part I

After dropping Cheng Rui outside the shopping mall, I flew back as fast as I could to the place where we had previously turned the park into a disaster zone.

Normally, twenty seconds might not mean much.

In a fierce battle, however, one second was more than enough time to be stabbed or shot several times.

And we had left Chi Li alone in the middle of hundreds of enemies.

Fortunately, the enemy ground forces had not yet recovered from the combination of Cheng Rui’s laser attack, my violent charge, and their own magical artillery exploding directly in front of them.

Even better, enough time had passed for Super Suit to work its little miracle and restore my outfit to pristine condition.

That pristine state would not last long, especially not in the kind of brutal fight ahead.

But the pleasant scent of new leather, the simple comfort of wearing it, and the reassurance that my suit was not about to fail without warning helped take some edge off the enormous pressure of battle.

In a situation like this, every tiny bit helped.

I found Chi Li still holding the two fireballs steady in midair with magic. At the same time, she was wielding a wand and attacking a small group of enemies.

Five other wands lay at her feet, blackened and smoking, their magic clearly spent.

Another six were strapped to her belt, ready to be used at any moment.

“How’s it going?” I asked softly, hovering above her shoulder as she used a searing line of flame to slice the knees out from under another dozen executioners.

“Slow,” she snorted, curt and blunt. Then she tossed away the wand in her hand and drew a fresh one.

“More infantry keeps getting diverted to our position, and we still haven’t seen any sign of the enemy’s main force. Also, those two big demons on top of the towers require my full attention.”

“I didn’t see any main force on the way back.”

Even now, with my enhanced senses, I still could not detect any sign of the enemy’s primary troops.

“Maybe they were sent to deal with another survivor team?” Chi Li huffed.

Yeah.

Even I did not find that very convincing.

Our group had caused the enemy far too much trouble. There was no way they would simply leave us alone.

So what exactly were they planning to use to kill us?

Neither of us knew, though Chi Li did not seem overly worried about it just then. She was busy shooting more enemies with her new wand. This one did not spray continuous flame; instead, it fired an exploding fireball every few seconds.

While she attacked, I focused on defense.

The area was covered with scorch marks and slowly cooling droplets of molten metal. The fact that some attacks had missed their targets at all felt like a miracle.

To keep that miracle from failing us, I raised a domed forcefield around Chi Li.

Any hostile object that tried to cross the field would be struck by several tons of Proximal Manipulation, with the field attempting to stop or deflect it.

So long as too many objects did not cross at the same time, it could block bullets and arrows, or stop stray enemies who tried to rush her. Against artillery shells, or more than a few melee enemies, it would struggle.

The executioners—the enemy’s heavily armored ghosts—had almost reformed their ranks after their futile pursuit of Cheng Rui and me a few minutes earlier.

A formation of black-and-red armored enemies, wielding sinister and probably magical swords and halberds, was crossing the park. They had already formed three ranks, and their numbers were still growing.

For the moment, they did not attack.

They—or at least the one controlling them—understood that with their present strength, they could not overwhelm us.

And if they seemed likely to succeed, we would simply fly away. Still, the enemy’s lack of flying units would not last forever.

We had to reduce their numbers as much as possible before reinforcements arrived.

But if I was maintaining the defensive field, I could not do that myself.

I drew deeply on…