“Demonic Fire Sprites!” Sinmosa immediately recognized the two silhouettes from a mere glance and hurriedly yelled out: “Watch out, Nola!”
For the most part, the Demonic Fire Sprites we saw were the same as the Fire Elementals appearance-wise. The biggest difference between the two would be their darker shade of red as compared to the red of a Fire Elemental.
Just as the two of these unwelcome guests flew close to Nola and the fish, each of them threw out a couple of dark red Fireballs at Nola.
It was also about that time that I noticed their presence, having been alerted by Sinmosa’s yell. My first reaction then was to toss out six Darkness Arrows at them.
Darkness Arrow was a spell I automatically picked up upon evolving to One-stars, those many moons ago. Back then, I was still extremely weak so each time I cast one of them, it would end up taking five whole seconds for me to do so. As my strength increased, that time shortened and now I was able to cast them instantly. Had it not been for the lack of scaling in such a spell, this handy spell would have probably been one of my most used skills already.
Like a bunch of homing missiles, the Darkness Arrows immediately split up into equal groups and accurately sought out those two Fireballs. A second later, they collided with a thunderous bang born from an explosion. Thank to the unstable nature of those two elements combining into one Fireball, my Darkness Arrows were able to easily destroy that razor thin elemental balance before they even got close to Nola.
The two sprites immediately turned to look in the direction of the Darkness Arrows and so happened to stumble upon me. They exchanged a brief glance with each other at which point of them broke off towards me while the other continued chucking Fireballs at Nola. Even though I wasn’t sure if those Fireballs were even able to damage Nola, I wasn’t about to find out either.
Because those Fireballs were of the same color as my Nether Flames…
I let forth another three more Darkness Arrows right at the Fireball heading towards Nola. The other sprite, who was still flying towards me, promptly clawed at the offending arrows but just as he was about to make contact with the arrows, they suddenly made an abrupt curve as if they were alive. With that, his attack was easily evaded and the arrows managed to once again foil the efforts of those sprites.
Never in his wildest dreams did that sprite ever expect those arrows to make a sudden turn like that. Thus, when his attack failed to connect, he was briefly surprised but soon recovered a second later. He knew very well that now wasn’t the time for mistakes so he immediately continued flying towards his obvious target, me.
Unfortunately for him, he was doomed to be disappointed as his flight path so happened to coincide with one of the Winged Abyssal Golems who was still at the side of the lake.
Despite having wings, the golem itself wasn’t able to fly, completely unlike the sprites who were able to fly despite their humanoid form. Still, while my golem was able to successfully delay the sprite, it wasn’t actually able to hurt the agile sprite who was basically flying circles around it right now.
To be exact, that sprite wasn’t actually flying. From the way it seemed to swim across the air, it would probably be more apt to call that gliding.
Because of its natural air superiority, the sprite wasn’t restrained in its choices of attack angles like the golem who was stuck fast to the ground. A quick duck to the right and a quick dive to the right was all it took for the sprite to nimbly maneuver around the golem’s attacks.
It was then that the sprite became confident enough to attack the golem, which it did so in fact. However, the Fireball it threw out fizzled in a spectacular but harmless lightshow on the golem’s head. The golem hadn’t even tried to dodge or deflect the attack at all, choosing instead to take it head on.
Soon after, the flames dissipated entirely, revealing a perfectly unharmed golem. As for that sprite, his body seemed to flicker for a second, like those old tube televisions, before returning to normal an instant later.
Whether it was the Flame Element of the sprites or their Darkness Elements, both were destined to be useless against my golems. As long as it was a magical attack, the exoskeleton of my golems could easily handle them. After all, they were made from rocks that contained mana in the first place, and had even undergone repeated refining…though that refining was actually done by those Black Blood Ants…
The fact that the sprite flickered for a second was probably because he used up part of his own elements to fuel that attack. Based on that alone, one could tell how powerful that attack was, at least it would have been if it hadn’t landed on the magic immune exoskeleton of my golems.
By now, it was obvious to the sprite that his attacks weren’t effective against the golem so he immediately thought about abandoning this pointless fight. Back when he was zipping around the golem, he learnt that while the golem had powerful attacks, a magical construct like it had a fatal flaw in that it was extremely slow. It also had no ranged attacks to speak of. And it also couldn’t enter the lava lake…
Although the golem itself was a Seven-stars, it was a poor match against the nimble Demonic Fire Sprite…an extremely poor match to be exact. That sprite was simply too unpredictable for one golem to handle. But at the same time, I couldn’t dispatch the other golems since I had to have them guard Mo Na and Cinderel. To make matters worse, because the sprite was able to fly, he could withdraw whenever he liked. Even if I did dispatch some golems against him, they wouldn’t be able to restrain him.
“Leave that sprite to us.” Realizing how bad the situation actually was, Sinmosa promptly stepped forward with her husband, Sasani. Fully intending to surround that sprite together, she confidently declared: “Those are Five-stars sprites so we should still be able to handle that sprite on the lakeside. While we can’t stop him from escaping, we should at least be able to prevent him from causing trouble.”
It was then that Mo Na landed on one of the Winged Abyssal Golems with a plop, tiny hands waving about as she did so. “Mo Na can help too!”
“Sweetie, what are you planning exactly?”
Worried that my little baby might get hurt, my first thought was to try and stop her. Yet before I could even do so, she firmly thumped her little chest and assured me: “Don’t worry, Mama, Mo Na will just stand here and use ranged spells, she won’t rush into battle.”
“Alright then, remember, no rushing forward, okay?”
Hearing her say that, my fears were put to rest. If she was just trying to provide cover fire with her magic, she shouldn’t be in that much danger. With a Winged Abyssal Golem by side, it was highly unlikely that anything would happen to her.
“Mhm, of course Mo Na understands.” She adorably stuck out her little red tongue at me: “Mo Na isn’t some kind of dummy!”
