Chapter 66: Not As Planned
Due to the need to rapidly get away from the black staff which had been crushing Winstrel's neck, Hannah had needed to put a lot of strength into her push off the horse, and so she had sent herself quite some distance into the air, this distance allowing for her and the red haired sovereign demon to exchange several blows while airborne before they were both brought back down.
Landing back on the ground, without even needing to focus, just from the chaos she could see from the corners of her eyes, Hannah knew that the battle had been transformed into an open field one, the ability of each individual soldier now more important than ever.
With the aura emanating off the two of them, the second their feet touched the ground, the soldiers of both armies rapidly shifted away, giving them a wide battle space of several meters.
Holding her sword in both hands, Hannah began slowly moving to the left, circling the amused demon till it spoke once more.
"Rehabab won't intervene in this battle, he just came here because of a few people's doubts in my abilities and his hunger to battle a worthy opponent." The sovereign demon said with shrug.
"And I'm supposed to believe you" Hannah asked pausing her movements.
"Believe what you want, but if you are itching quite badly to get burnt by Rehabab then you have to kill me first.
I am Baltimore by the way, may I know your name."
"I don't give it to dead men" Hannah replied and with a calm nod Baltimore flipped his staff in the air, catching it while taking a step forward, his feet touching the ground with a powerful tremble and then with a tremendous momentum that he had generated from that one step, he thrusted his staff forward, a powerful torrent of fire blasting out of it and shooting towards Hannah.
Tapping into her mana core, Hannah pulled on her mana and had her sword glowing and with a spin of her blade she swung it and sliced apart the torrent of flames, but Baltimore was far from done as just Hannah was slicing apart his attack, he spun his staff and the waved it at Hannah, a thick long wall of fire instantly appearing and speeding towards the blond woman.
Seeing the approaching wall of fire that definitely took away the option of dodging, using the moment from her earlier swing, with grace Hannah made a slice at the earth, cutting into it and raising her blade towards the approaching fire, her actions resulting in a much thicker wall of earth rising out of the ground and protecting her just in time.
"Boom boom boom" came the sound of the several apparently stacked layers of firewall crashing into the earth wall and being stopped.
Letting out a breath, Hannah remained on alert, the woman quickly taking several multiple steps backwards and entering into the crowd of fighting soldiers when her senses picked up on an approaching danger.
A second later she could only gulp as her earth wall was shattered by several huge spikes of ice that came rapidly shooting out of the ground and speeding towards her.
"Damn it, sovereign demons are truly as monstrous as the books say," Hannah thought, forced to act when she saw the ice spikes skewer several of her men who were in its way or beside it while sparing those of the demonic army.
Another name for sovereign demons was Elemental demons and they were called this because of their extreme natural talent for all elements and with a power like this, one could bet that they had monstrous mana reserves.
Hannah had hoped that she could outrun the ice spike and make Baltimore give up on using his spikes to end her, but if she continued with this tactic, she could see several mere of her soldiers going down, and so in that light, Hannah churned the mana within her and the next instant stopped her retreat and stabbed her sword into the ground.
"quake"
Saying the word with conviction, the ground in front of Hannah split open into a wide gap and like there was a huge sword in the ground slicing it open, this crack continuing forward and smashing apart the ice spikes, killing the wolves and magma golems that had been spared by Baltimore's ice spike and eventually reaching the demon who merely hit his staff on the ground with force, a shockwave spreading out and cancelling out her technique.
"How petty" the demon who was at a distance called out with a chuckle.
"You had better come back to me else I'll find another opponent," Baltimore said and Hannah knowing how bad such an idea was considering she was the only third-order being in her army that could match up to the likes of Baltimore quickly sped towards him, disgust filling her when Baltimore smiled at her approaching figure and called her "Good girl".
Arriving at Baltimore's side, when Hannah swung her sword at him and saw him stay still and proceed to counter her with just his staff, flinging no elemental technique ate her, she smiled within as she knew this was her chance.
"He might be a monster at using skills and calling forth the elements, but when it comes to the real dirty fighting, I'm going to show him who is the true warrior"
"With sovereign demons being masters at using the elements, commanding all natures with excellent affinities, Hannah had figured them to be good long to mid-range fighters but average close ranger fighters due to their size and elemental talent, the commander sure of her assessment, but then several minutes after engaging with Baltimore in clash of sword and staff, she found the direction their fight was headed not making any sense and when about a minute later she was kneed in the gut and then heavily slapped away, she picked up herself wincing as she saw the various burns and dents on her armour and spitting out blood, she began thinking of a new strategy to defeat the 8-foot grinning demon opposite her.