MAZE - The Endless Quest

Hera slashed at the human to her right. She spun around, whipping her tail to pull another one's leg, making him fall to the ground. Storm pierced the man's throat in a swift motion, but the Empress was already engaged with another enemy. She dodged a couple of slashes before using the man's chest as a jumping pad so she could tumble backwards and gain some distance. While in the air, the Ophidianite created a simple common venomous dagger and threw to the side, aiming at a woman who was about to kill a dwarf. The dagger had both [Grasshopper Throw] and [Weapon Break] on it. But still, it was simply a common weapon. There was no massive explosion or widespread destruction with the attack. Instead, the blow was enough to shove the woman to the side, making her fall while holding her arm.

Was she dead? Hera wasn't sure. But it wasn't like Hera had a moment to properly check. The man she had just pushed away was rushing back towards her, spear in his hands, trying to impale her. Sun came flying from the left, parrying the strike and giving an opening for Glacia to finish the job.

A couple of arrows flew through the air, aiming at the Ophidianite's head, but they were intercepted by a flurry coming from Robin, almost every projectile being able to meet its match. The ones that passed by were too far away to be a danger to the Empress.

Daskka was to the left, her silver mist form crushing a few humans, while Livy and Vulcan destroyed another group in a few movements. To the right, Lurize was facing yet another clump of humans. He focused on defending and attracting attention, so Viper and Crimson were free to do their thing. They came in and out of sight. Every time a flash of white or red appeared, another human fell to the ground.

The rest of her court continued to attack, Twiggy making sure that no member of the alliance got killed within their range. But of course, her main focus was the Empress. Every time it looked like she was about to get overwhelmed, the blades would appear to force some of the attackers to break off.

Something reached Hera's ear. A voice, but it wasn't angry, scared, or worried, which meant it wasn't important.

The Empress spun around, using her tail to swipe the leg of another two humans as Shadow materialized in her hand. With a [Shadowstep Strike], Hera teleported, appearing behind another group of humans, the scythe carving their backs in a single swing. Shadow was quickly replaced by Eira, who triggered [Permafrost Vortex], taking advantage of the fact that they were a bit deeper into enemy lines.

'Empress!' Twiggy called.

'What?' Hera ducked under two attacks and felt fire spells slamming against the side of her torso. Thankfully, she had a Frozen Rock armor spell covering her body. In addition to Lurize's new [Exoarmor] rank, she didn't take a considerable amount of damage.

'Vash is telling you to retreat,' Twiggy replied as another fireball hurled through the air, landing behind Hera in a large explosion.

'Why?' the Ophidianite barked, not so much because of the order but because the blast caused her to tumble forward. Quickly getting up, she triggered [Toxic Mist], letting a thin layer of her poison cover the area.

'He says it's time. We're working on shifts,' Twiggy explained what Robin heard from the harpy.

Hera groaned as she put both hands together and let out a massive fire spray. For a moment, the Empress became a flamethrower. Large clumps of burning venom spilled out towards the human army. The spell continued to burn even as she pulled back.

The moment she broke free from the battlefront, she noticed the change. Almost everybody who was around her was wearing cleaner clothes without the stains of blood or any marks of recent combat. While the few who she recognized were also retreating.

She called her Court, who quickly followed along, Nimbus turning into his griffon form so they could run away from the battle even faster. In just a few moments, she reached the rest of her team, everybody looking ragged, blood, grime, and sweat covering their bodies.

"What happened?" Hera gasped, already sending Daskka to heal them.

"Our shift is over. We needed to swap with the other teams," Vash explained.

Hera blinked. "What are you talking about? Why are we pulling back? If there are more people, shouldn't we just grab everybody and push?"

Skyler grabbed the Ophidianite's arm and started walking towards the back of the army. "We were trying that, and humans were able to last longer. Those Soldiers of Strength don't get tired. So the top brass decided to go for a different approach. Now we have shifts. If a battle is going on for too long, we swap with someone in the reserve after a few hours. That way, we can rest and continue to fight off the humans."

"If you're doing that, why don't the humans just overwhelm us?" Hera frowned but still let herself be dragged along.

"Because we have bigger numbers. But they don't know that, or at least they don't realize it," Roan replied.

"That doesn't make any sense. If they know we have more numbers, wouldn't they just push harder?" Hera asked.

"That doesn't seem to be the case. I heard some people talking about how one of the Soldiers of Strength burned out from using too much power at once, so they have to pace themselves in order to keep on fighting. Ironically enough, that gives us the opening to make this plan work. And because we have various teams that are always somewhat rested, it's harder for them to push as hard as they were pushing," Neria was already creating a specific kind of water from her staff.

She waved her hand around, and a small stream reached out and wrapped itself around everyone's necks. It wasn't stopping anyone from breathing or anything of the sort, but the effect of the liquid was to relax the muscles and speed up their rest.

"This is also a new plan. We only started doing this yesterday," Flint explained.

"So the humans didn’t have time to adapt. Okay, I think I understand. But it shouldn’t take long for them to figure out a plan to fight against the strategy," Hera said.

"That’s true. But we need to hope that it takes them a while," Skyler nodded.

"C’mon. It’s the middle of a war. They’re not going to figure this out in just a day," Vash shrugged with a smile.

A large circular blade came flying towards the group. Nimbus and Flint noticed the incoming attack and jumped to intercept, but the weapon changed course at the last moment. It jumped over them, going straight for Skyler. Hera and Roan quickly stepped in, not just ready to block, but expecting the circular blade to move again. Yet it connected with their weapons, letting out an enormous sound of metal hitting metal that made their ears ring. The attacking weapon jumped back and rolled on the ground until it reached its owner.

It was a woman with black thigh-high boots that didn’t have any heels, pants with colorful stripes, a corset around her stomach with a white and yellow shirt underneath it. Covering her arms was a burgundy vest with puffy sleeves that also had a colorful patchwork of tiny squares, each of them with a different imprint. Her blonde hair was tied into buns shaped into points. Her face was painted with white. In contrast, underneath and above each of her eyes was the symbol of a suit of cards—hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades in shades of green and purple. On her neck there was a tattoo glowing red, a mark that only the Soldiers of Strength had.

Beside her were two other humans, but they had a much more mundane look—metal armor and two-handed weapons.

"Fucking hell, Vash, we don’t raise flags!" Hera groaned.

"Don’t blame me! I’m not the one who invited the reject from the circus!" Vash protested.

A small dagger flew towards the harpy, but Nimbus blocked it with a mana shield, even if the impact ended up dealing more damage than he was expecting.

"The only rejects here are you. Monsters who want to be people," the woman spat her words as the ring blade returned to her hands and grew, becoming large enough for her to step inside the ring itself.

Flint rubbed his eyes, "She’s going to start spinning around in that shit, isn’t she?"

Almost as in reply, the woman tilted her body to the side and moved with the circular blade, which now was a massive bladed hula-hoop. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was trying to kill them, it would be a very beautiful circus performance. Before she got to them, Hera tried to get some information.

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Victoria - Human - Level 50 - Illusion Affinity

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"She uses illusions! Watch out!" the Empress called.

The other two humans rushed along with their leader, but before the Harmony Guardians could react, Victoria jumped with her ring blade and landed directly in front of Hera, almost hitting her in the process.

"It’s not nice to spoil things," the human woman said in a sing-songy voice. She then whipped out the ring blade to the side, catching it with the tip of her fingers before spinning, trying to hit the entire group.

The Harmony Guardians jumped away, opening a wide circle to avoid the bladed hoop, but the woman was gone. Hera suddenly felt mana pushing closer to her and attacked the air in reflex, Eira appearing in her hand. But instead of going white, the glaive struck something—the ring blade with Victoria inside it.

"What the fuck?" Hera mumbled.

'Illusions! That was an illusion!' Twiggy called.

Hera pushed the woman away, throwing a few bolts and needles at her but to no avail, as the human continued to spin around the ring blade. The Empress's attacks all missed their mark. 'I couldn’t even tell. Her illusions are that good?'

'I guess so,' Twiggy replied, but quickly changed subjects. The Tiara noticed how the Harmony Guardians ended up splitting. Flint and Vash were fighting one of the other humans on one side. On the other side were Roan and Skyler, with Neria in the middle, taking care of everyone. To make matters worse, the skin of the two humans was turning red. They were also Soldiers of Strength. She quickly sent all that information to Hera through their connection without the need to speak words.

Victoria spun in a wide arc, doing movements you would expect from an acrobat in a Cyr Wheel. After a couple of seconds, she came back towards Hera at blinding speed. Just before she reached the Empress, her form split into three. The two new Victorias went for a pincer maneuver.

The Ophidianite tried using her snake eyes, but even through the infrared side, all three versions looked real. So instead, she sent her court out to help. Livy and Vulcan blocked one on each side, while the blades went for the one in front of her. But all three of them vanished the moment the attacks clashed, the weight behind the blows hitting all of them equally. Crimson and Viper moved to the side, getting ready for a sneak attack as soon as they found an opening. Nimbus and Lurize, however, were given a different task. Each of them went to help against the fight with another of the Soldiers of Strength. Hera didn’t want to leave the rest of the Harmony Guardians without her help, but she trusted enough in her abilities to face this crazy circus lady on her own.

Making sure to send Robin to be the conga line that increased the range of her titled blades, the Empress stepped farther away from the group, enough so that her next move wouldn’t harm her allies. A thin layer of mist with small purple and green particles emerged from her as she activated Shroud of Tartarus, which not only increased her stats, but also would try to poison anyone who was in the area. This should be even more effective against a woman whose head kept getting closer to the ground. And hopefully, it would help her realize which of her versions were illusions and where she could strike to kill her.