Note: FOAB means (Father of All Bombs), Aric is saying the abbreviation to not let Lilith read his mind.
"HAH...HAH...HAH...HAH..."
30 minutes has passed and my mana is half at this point.
Aric reloads his assault rifle, We have been stuck in this barrier and my wife is still fighting with that demon non-stop while maintaining everyone's protection.
Surely by now she is running out no?
Aric took aim and fired blue lightning rounds at Lilith, each one exploding on contact as Sebastian's body was now engulfed in black flames.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Seraphina dodged instantly, shielding herself with her cocoon. Unlike her battle with Kylien, she wasn't sweating but then again, Lilith wasn't going all out either.
Then came a scream so unhinged and maniac like,
"HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE! HAHAHAH! VERY FUN! LET'S TRY THIS, SHALL WE?!"
Lilith emerged from the smoke, her body visibly knitting itself back together from the blast. Her eyes twitched with delight.
With a single snap, black flames coiled around her arms, accompanied by ancient glyphs that floated and pulsed in the air.
Seraphina's eyes widened while Aric felt confused but also felt something was wrong.
Lilith started to chant,
"By my name, Lilith, I summon the first flame upon this world.
Cinder of the lost, spark of the forgotten.
Heed my call and reduce all in your path to ash."
Seraphina, Aric and Evelyn all attacked at the same time to disallowed Lilith's chant but she protected herself in a forcefield like shield that stopped every bullet and spell from coming through.
Hairline fractures split across her barrier as a massive serpent of black flames erupted from the earth, Lilith standing tall on its head.
"Burn."
The serpent unleashed torrents of black fireballs while Lilith summoned meteors of flame, each one hurtling toward the civilians inside the box. Seraphina knew that if even one hit the barrier, people will die.
Without hesitation, she unleashed her Cocoon of Darkness again but this time, it expanded to a colossal 300 meters in width and length, engulfing everyone within its protective embrace.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"HEHEHEHE! WHAT'S WRONG, MS. DARKNESS?! COME ON! LET'S PLAY!"
"STOP PROTECTING THEM AND FIGHT ME!"
She hurled even more meteors at the cocoon.
"COME ON! STOP HIDING! FIGHT ME! FIGHT ME FOR REAL!"
The impact was so great that the air pressure was felt through the cocoon and Box.
Aric's mind raced. He knew Seraphina couldn't go all out if she had to constantly worry about protecting everyone.
I need to do something. She can't fight freely while wasting mana maintaining this barrier and shielding all of us.
Come on! Think, dammit! Stop letting Vayne's essence cloud your judgment!
What can I do to give Seraphina a clean 1v1…?
Gotta think fast too since this demon can read our minds.
Lilith cackled, "That's right, boy! Think of a way to let your little wife come play with me! Once she's done, I'm coming for you next!"
"God, you're fucking annoying, you know that?!" Aric shouted back.
And then it clicked.
I need to drop the FOAB.
"Seraphina! Come here! I've got a plan!"
She dashed over while making sure the cocoon stayed strong, "You better have something good!"
"It is, but I need you to make the strongest goddamn shield you've ever made. The shockwave alone might knock everyone else unconscious—at least, based on my calculations. I need that shield to hold while you maintain the barrier."
"I'm going to drop the FOAB."
Seraphina tilted her head, her face scrunching in confusion. "A...F...O...A...B? What is that? Some kind of food?"
"No. I can't tell you what it is since that demon can read our minds but I need you to just trust me. I need you to throw the FOAB at that demon."
He scratched the back of his head, "...Only problem is, it weighs about 8000 kilos."
"WHAT?! HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO THROW THAT?!"
"You've been soloing the demon for half an hour without even breaking a sweat. You're the strongest person I know. Use your tendrils. Sling it. Slam it. Yeet it to hell!"
"But it's Eight. FUCKING. Thousand. Kilos." Seraphina repeated, deadpan.
"And also—what the fuck is 'yeet'?"
Aric smirked, "Don't worry about it. Just... fling it like you're mad at it."
"Anyways, this is our shot to let you fight without restraint. Once the FOAB goes off, you should bring that demon away from here and fight all out."
Evelyn then interjected, "Your Grace. Perhaps he's right. You're fighting with one hand tied behind your back. You've been shielding everyone, attacking, and countering that demon all at once."
She glanced at the dome, still rattling from the meteor impact,
"If we're going to survive this, you need to go all out. Let me handle the civilians. I'll make sure they're safe once you release them from the barrier. Assuming Aric's calculations are right and we all get knocked out... we'll regroup after we recover."
Aric closed his eyes to find the knowledge on the FOAB from his brain.
You memorized the ingredients and blueprint. Find it Aric. You burned into your mind the moment you stumbled across that military archive in the dark net.
Aluminum powder. Polymer-bonded HMX. Fuel-air separator. Composite casing with high thermal yield.
I need to detonate it in mid air, so I will attach another bomb to go along with it.
Lilith who heard all of this was overwhelmed by this otherworldly knowledge and felt her brain being overloaded,
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN THINKING ABOUT!?"
I need it to explode mid-air for maximum overpressure effect. Wait—is she reading my mind right now?
He smirked like Vayne, HAHAHAHAHA. I'M GONNA FRY YOUR BRAIN, BITCH!
Aric decided it would be best recite the theory of Schrödinger cat,
Schrödinger's cat is an experiment in quantum mechanics that illustrates the strange implications of quantum superposition. It imagines a cat in a sealed box with a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter, and a vial of poison. If the atom decays—
Lilith grabbed her head and trying to shut off the mind reading,
"STOP IT YOU FUCKING MONKEY!"
Aric manifested the FOAB with a landing on the ground to make sure it doesn't explode.
A heavy silence settled.
Seraphina. Evelyn. Penelope. Borin and everyone in the cocoon looked at the monstrous device.
They were...dumbfounded to say the least.
"…By me ancestors' beards" Borin muttered, "What in the stinkin' depths o' the Forgefather's arse is that thing?"
He turned to Aric with a grunt, "Ye plannin' to kill the demon or blow a hole clean through the continent?!"
Aric shrugged, "Well... technically, this isn't the strongest one I have."
Penelope's voice cracked as she stepped back, her face pale,
"I—I'm sorry, Lord Vayne, for my language, but... what do you mean that's not the strongest?! This looks like the most terrifying thing I've ever seen and I used to work for Lady Callista!"
Evelyn who was hardened from all the shit in life was also afraid looking at this,
"Yeah...I second that actually..."
Seraphina, who had been fully on board with the plan a moment ago, found herself hesitating,
"…You're telling me that this—this abomination of a weapon, isn't even your worst one?"
"And, you trust me to throw it, while also shielding everyone, maintain my barrier?"
Aric raised both hands in a placating gesture. "Look. It looks scary and is scary. Actually, from where I come from, it's so scary it's banned from warfare entirely."
Seraphina facepalmed. "Not helping."
"Right, okay—thing is, she heals really fast, even with my bullets. I can't go toe-to-toe with her, and to be honest, only you could. Maybe Evelyn, too."
"This is just a reset button. A way to let you fight without restraints."
"Is it dumb? Possibly. Do I have better ideas at the moment? Ehhhhh… I mean, yes, but they involve biological weapons or experimenting with air particle manipulation and neither of those are great when I need to experiment it."
"You're ranting." Seraphina cut in flatly.
"Right. The point is—this is the best option I see where we all survive, possibly kill that bitch, and you don't have to burn through mana protecting us. Well, you would need to burn extra to make sure the dome is the strongest defence you will ever make."
"But my point stands."
Seraphina exhaled slowly and twisted her tendril to wrapped around the FOAB. She lifted it off the ground with some struggle.
"This is really fucking heavy by the way. You owe me a week of chocolate after this."
Aric gave her a thumbs up, "Deal. Now hold it steady."
He crouched near the base of the bomb, putting a C4 on it with a built-in detonation timer. Aric pressed a few buttons and set it to thirty seconds.
"When I tell you to throw it, open a hole in your dome and throw it. Then immediately close the dome back and make sure it is the strongest shield you ever made."
"I'm reminding you again, Seraphina. You cannot hold back."
Seraphina gave a nod, "Okay."
Aric then steady his sniper rifle and used Overdrive on three electric bullets. This bullet is so condensed with mana that it will pierce through most shield.
"20 seconds. Seraphina open the dome to where Lilith is. I will give you the signal to yeet it to her."
Lilith, who had just recovered from the mental whiplash of quantum theory and warhead specs, noticed the sudden opening in the dome and grinned.
"Oh? Are you finally coming out to play?"
Aric smirked, "Yeah. Let's play."
BANG!
In 0.1 seconds, Lilith flinched. Her instincts screamed at her to get out.
That bullet—if it hit, would make her feel pain. Real pain. Something she hadn't felt in centuries.
What the fuck? Why am I scared of this?
Even so, she dodged the sniper bullet but this was Aric's within calculations. He activated foresight and saw her future movement.
15 seconds left. The moment I shoot, she will dodge to the right.
Lilith didn't have her mind reading on as she was afraid of being overloaded. She couldn't predict the shot that followed.
BANG!
She dodged the first.
BOOM!
But not the second.
Aric screamed, "NOW!"
Seraphina hurled the FOAB with everything she had.
"HMPH!"
The FOAB cut through the air like a meteor in reverse. Lilith's eyes widened as she just was shot through the chest and her healing had slowed down.
She saw the FOAB coming right at her face, "H—"
BOOM!!
A blinding white-hot blast devoured the sky, blooming into a massive mushroom cloud of pure annihilation. The shockwave didn't come immediately.
A second passed then,
WHOOMMMMMMMM!!!
The air pressure slammed into the dome, flattening Seraphina's barrier. Inside the dome, almost everyone was flung back and knocked unconscious.
Evelyn steadied herself with ice chains to hold her down while Penelope passed out mid-scream.
Borin, Aric and everyone else fell unconscious.
Seraphina steadied herself with her own tendrils while pouring 1/3 of her mana to make sure the dome was her strongest defence and expanding everyone's Box.
Black veins spread from her wrists as she screamed against the shockwave,
"UGHHHH! FUUUUCK!"
Evelyn was struggling to hold on, "YOUR GRACE! YOU'RE PUSHING YOURSELF TOO HARD!"
"SHUTTTT UP!" Seraphina screamed, her voice cracking.
"I HAVE TO PUSH MYSELF! I DIDN'T KNOW THE FOAB WAS THIS STRONG!"
"You're corrupting yourself!"
"I CAN HANDLE IT!!"
And after a couple minutes, the shockwave stopped and Seraphina deactivated her barrier.
"HAH...HAH...HAH..."
"Hey! Are you okay?!" shouted Beth, the old woman who once cheered for Aric when he gave her heating.
"I'm fine...rescue the others!" Seraphina said firmly.
Beth dragged an unconscious boy onto her back and everyone else helped as well.
"Aih, carry them!" barked Adam, Aric's engineer. "Someone look after Miss Penelope! She's out!"
Mira groaned as she tried to lift Aric, "Ughh... come onnnn, why are you heavier now, Lord Vayne? I swear you weren't this swole before!"
But then—A shadow slammed into the earth, cracking the ground in a shockwave that blasted everyone off their feet.
Seraphina reacted instantly, flinging her tendrils outward to catch everyone and putting them down gently.
What came out from the smoke was Sebastian. Or rather, just half of him as his other half had been obliterated from skull to shin.
Yet it was regenerating itself.
Lilith stepped out of the steam, arms spread wide, laughing like a lunatic.
"HAHAHAHAHA! HOW INTERESTING! THAT MAN PUSHED ME TO A PLACE I NEVER THOUGHT I'D FEEL AGAIN!"
Seraphina's voice had anger and confusion, "Are you fucking serious? How are you not dead?!"
Lilith turned to her, grinning with a psychotic glee, "Oh, I was dead. For a good second."
She tapped her forehead, "Whatever the hell that magic was—it was spectacular. You forced me to burn through half of my reserves just to survive it."
Her eyes gleamed with admiration and hatred,
"And let me tell you, sweetheart…if it wasn't for your barrier or you stupid shield, the people, this entire town and maybe everything for miles would've been annihilated.
"Now, do me a favour and wake that bastard up. I want to thank him personally."
Seraphina summoned a dark coffin to restrain her, shadows slamming shut from every angle.
But Lilith wasn't letting it close.
"Ms. Darkness. Let me be clear. From this moment on, you better bring your best."
Her magic amplified a hundredfold and Sebastian's body fully regenerated in seconds as she shattered the coffin from within.
She locked eyes with Seraphina, "Because I'm not taking you lightly anymore."