Immediately, as the three of them breached the dome, the shrieks of the banshees outside cut off like someone had pressed the mute button on a remote, and for a brief moment, the only sound that reached their ears was the ragged gasping of the rotund warrior gripping his bloodied thigh that Sam had pierced with a mana dense Wind Arrow.
"What? Who – ?" the mage on the right shouted, eyes wide, staff snapping to ready position. It was the same mage who had coldly launched the arrow into the wounded man. But Deacon didn't give him time to finish the question.
He was already mid-sprint, immediately understanding that right now they supposedly had the advantage of surprise, and that they needed to take advantage of that. As such, his still glowing, blue, right short sword came arcing toward the mage's throat.
Clang!
A hastily conjured Manashield flickered into existence, barely in time to block the slash. Sparks of blue energy crackled out from the impact. Deacon followed with a sharp knee aimed for the mage's gut, but that too skidded off the shuddering barrier.
The hell is his Intelligence stat to be able to tank this with a hastily made Manashield, Sam and Deacon thought at the same time.
Jass had charged the other mage, one with short-cropped silver hair and runes etched across his neck, her glaive already sweeping in a deadly arc, but her strike was halted just a hair's breadth from the man's sternum by another Manashield.
"Do you even know who you're attacking, you cowardice filth!?" the first mage barked, teeth clenched, one eye twitching from the effort of maintaining the hastily formed barrier – the runes tattooed onto his neck were now shining bright blue.
"Consta! Stop crying over your leg and – Aghk!" The second mage's words were choked off mid-command as Jass's eyes narrowed, her lips murmuring a command – and the ground beneath him exploded.
A jagged Earth Wall erupted straight up between the mage's legs, lifting him an inch off the ground. His Manashield shuddered violently as Jass began stabbing her glaive's tip into it with precise, hammering jabs, each one cracking the magical defense further.
He barely had time to regain footing before the Earth Wall collapsed, and Jass slammed her full bodyweight forward, driving the blade of her glaive between his ribs – right beneath the heart. The weapon skewered deep, punching through lung and bone with a wet crunch, pinning him to the ground beneath her.
"Corben!" the first mage screamed, his voice cracking, but he didn't get to scream for long.
Sam's hand holding his staff snapped out, hurling a massive Earth Spear that struck the Manashield protecting the mage just as Deacon drove his left short sword at it in unison. The impact from both Deacon's short sword and Sam's Earth Spear was too much for his hastily cast Manashield to handle, regardless of the fact that it was enhanced by his Artifact and tattoos.
The barrier shattered like glass under pressure, bursting outward in a brief halo of shimmering fragments.
The Earth Spear tore through the mage's right shoulder, twisting his upper body violently. Deacon's left short sword came next, slashing diagonally across the man's abdomen – splitting flesh and cloth in one swift, brutal motion.
"Fu – Fuck! Consta!" the mage staggered back, gasping, blood pouring freely down his front. "Fucking help, you useless fat fuck, instead of crying over your leg!"
"I – I'm sorry, bruder," came the slurred voice of the warrior still on the ground. Consta writhed, one hand clutching at his thigh, eyes glazed from blood loss and the rapidly fading stimulant fumes that had yanked him back into consciousness. "I… I c-can't…"
Before he could say more, five Manabolts struck him in the chest – rapid, precise shots from Sam's outstretched left hand. The last two bolts slammed into his already-wounded thigh, sending a violent twitch through his body before he collapsed onto his side, unconscious once more.
The mage that both Sam and Deacon attacked was bloodied but still upright as he quickly cast Manashields and made them press against his injuries as he let out a primal scream, and with both hands, carved a savage arc through the air.
A crescent of compressed air howled forward – sharp and fast.
"Move!" Jass barked, but it was too late.
The Wind Arc smashed into Sam's and Deacon's midsections, catching them both off guard by how fast the mage was able to cast three spells so quickly, while them being that strong.
The force lifted them off their feet, blasting them bodily backward through the dome's edge.
They tumbled out of the barrier like rag dolls, skidding across the wet grass and cracked stone, and straight into a nest of banshees hovering nearby, previously drawn to the noise and the battle but halted by the dome.
Now? They surged towards them both with their throats beginning to glow.
Deacon spat blood and cursed through grit teeth. "Fuck! Sam, you good?" he grunted, trying to wrench himself upright.
Sam didn't respond immediately because an elite banshee had already reached him, and wasting his breath at the moment would have killed him.
The banshee didn't scream like the others had, not yet. Instead, it hovered silently above him, jaws stretched impossibly wide to reveal its glowing blue teeth before it lunged at his face.
Sam's staff came up, already channeling a Manabolt within it as it collided with the side of the banshee's head, producing a sickening crack that echoed around.
While the blow wouldn't be enough to kill it, it was enough to stagger it mid-air, which allowed him the opportunity to roll back onto his feet, all the while ignoring the burning pain around his ribs from where the dulled Wind Arc had caught him.
"Still alive," Sam hissed, coughing once, spitting out a mouthful of blood. "Not for long if we stay out here."
The banshees were descending in earnest now, drifting low over the ground like smoke with purpose. There were five, no, seven. Fuck. All of them glowing, some brighter than others.
Their shrieks were just about to be let loose.
"Deacon, watch–!"
Deacon, not even letting Sam finish his sentence, swung just behind him, slicing through the necks of them just as they were about to let loose their shrieks.
*[Banshee Lv 9] has been slain – XP has been given.*
…
*[Banshee Lv 9] has been slain – XP has been given.*
However, Deacon was too slow to kill them all in time as four banshees hovering above him let out their own shrieks at him point-blank. He dropped to one knee, the world spinning violently around him as blood slowly began to drip from his left nostril and ear.
Their shrieks ripped through the air in concussive bursts that rattled both his brain and bones as they slowly inched their way towards him with their necks glowing bright blue.
He clutched his head, knuckles white around the hilts of his short swords, attempting to force his body to stand up and fight back, but his body refused to respond.
He was paralyzed by the banshees' unrelenting, soul-splitting wail, he could do nothing but endure as the scream drilled deeper, like it was trying to crack him open from the inside.
Sam, far enough away from the shrieks, fired out a barrage of mana-dense Manabolts at the banshees, killing two of them and knocking the other two away before rushing beside Deacon, and stabbing his staff into the cobbled ground and casting Eart Wall beneath, raising the both of them skyward and away from the regular and mutant banshees below.
With a snarl twisting Jass's lips, she yanked her glaive from Corben's right lung, blood pouring out in thick, bubbling streams. His hands twitched as they began to reflexively claw at the puncture in an attempt to close it, as Jass then pivoted and drove the now grease-less glaive straight through his throat. The weapon punched through vertebrae and muscle with a sickening crunch.
Corben died gurgling on his own blood not a bit after she wrenched out her glaive's blade.
But just as she wrenched her glaive free, a flash of orange caught the edge of her vision.
Consta, pale and slick with sweat, roared in a slurred mix of pain, grief, and desperation. With both hands, he wrenched the orange banner from the ground and hurled it like a makeshift spear. The banner cut through the air faster than she expected.
"Shit–!" she shouted as she barely had time to bring up her glaive to block. The haft of her glaive met the banner mid-flight with a jarring clang, but the impact sent her sprawling backward, boots dragging trenches through bloodied stone, dirt, and grass.
Fsssschh!
As the banner left the ground, the orange dome evaporated, peeling back like heat shimmer. A sudden rush of cold air swept through the battlefield as banshee shrieks returned full force. Every single one outside the dome instantly took notice.
Jass landed hard on her back on the bloodied ground, and just as her world flipped once again, she slammed the hilt of her glaive into the ground, skidding to a stop just short of one of the many pillars littered about the courtyard.
Crkk–
The haft of the glaive gave slightly under her hand, too much. She glanced down and saw a spiderweb of cracks crawling through the length of it, from impact to hilt. Her stomach dropped.
"Crap," she let out as she activated the Self-Repair enchantment within her glaive, just as a blur of smoke and claws dove at her from above.
She rolled instinctively, dirt and debris flying up as she dodged a raking claw that tore through where her throat had been a second earlier. She came up on one knee and lashed out with the glaive, slicing clean through the banshee's midsection, and… The blade passed through the creature harmlessly.
The Spectral Grease had worn off.
The banshee turned, shrieking directly at her–
And exploded mid-screech.
A barrage of Manabolts slammed into its body, bursting it apart in a scatter of blue dust.
Jass looked up.
Sam stood high atop the stone pillar he'd conjured, eyes burning, hand and staff extended forward with residual tufts of mana still sparking in the air around. His breathing was ragged.
Just below him, Deacon was a blur, slashing and weaving between banshees with feral precision. Both his short swords gleamed faintly with the telltale sheen of Spectral Grease, which made sense as compared to her 30 attacks of Spectral Grease; he had 60 due to him wielding dual short swords.
He was cutting down the banshees from getting close to the base of the pillar.
Jass, not wanting to waste another second, grabbed her slowly repairing glaive and the now dirtied, burnt orange banner, and pulled herself out of her crouched position and sprinted toward them.
Behind her, the banshees were gathering.
Three of them floated over the corpse of the unnamed mage, their glowing throats humming with unstable energy. Two more coiled around the still barely-living form of Consta, drawn to the last flickers of his soul like moths to a dying ember.
Just as the last banshee near the base of the pillar exploded into dust, Sam stumbled forward slightly, sweat dripping from his chin as he leaned heavily on his staff and made the Earth Wall he cast earlier slowly return back to the earth and bring him to the ground.
As the earth fully returned back into the ground, Deacon quickly moved towards him and placed his arm over his shoulder to keep him upright. Deacon's short swords, still in both hands, were no longer coated in Spectral Grease, chest heaving, a split across his brow leaking blood into one eye.
Thwmp!
The burnt orange banner slammed into the ground beside them.
The moment Jass drove the haft down with a grunt, the dome shimmered back into existence, rising in a slow, spiraling surge of mana that crackled briefly at its edges before sealing shut. The shrieks of the banshees slowly reaching them were cut off mid-wail.
Both Sam and Deacon dropped their heads while standing upright, letting out exhausted gasps, finally allowing themselves a couple of moments of respite.
Jass stood silently beside them both, her glaive planted in the ground, shoulders rising and falling with each labored breath she took. The haft of her weapon still bore faint spiderweb cracks near the hilt, the Self-Repair enchantment pulsing dimly, chewing through mana to fix it inch by inch.
Then, from outside the dome, barely audible through the barrier, but due to their nearby proximity, it could be heard: screaming, wailing, and agony.
Consta's voice was raw and filled with agony while slurring nonsense through cracked teeth.
Then the last remaining mage, the one who had blasted Sam and Deacon back, was in a similar state as Consta as ten banshees had descended on them.
And their shrieking was slowly building up in intensity.
The two noble brothers were on their knees, bodies arching to the dirt, and hands clenched tight over their ears, beside the corpse of their other brother.
Blood streamed from their nostrils, from the corners of their eyes. The mage tried to move to where he'd kept his potions, but his fingers kept spasming and refused to move from covering his ears.
Just as the banshees reached the crescendo of their shrieks, both the mage and his brother Consta slumped to the floor lifelessly.
*[Human Lv 10] has been slain – Partial XP has been given.*
"Ironic," Sam muttered. "They did all that shouting earlier, only to die from someone else's."