Chương 287: Chapter 270. A New Enemy, A New Stalemate

/CRACK! / 2 more cracks appeared on the other eggs. This wasn't good." Holy Flam-" /CRACK! / PULL!

"!" Swin- PULL! A black vine pulled my arm away from aiming. I glared at the God Of The Blackwoods as I cut the vine with Scarlet. /CRACK! / The 4th egg cracked. I failed to destroy them. I turned to the girls and began to cast a different Spell." Holy Mantle." My mana covered the 3 of them so I had 1 less worry for whatever was coming, the only real question at this point was what the hell was coming to us. / Splash! Pour! / The answer was slowly emerging, with the sound of water pouring out of the eggs.

Each egg had a pair of greenish-brown hands bursting out of the top of them and pushing both sides of the eggs out of the way. The first thing I noticed was the mixed black and green hair raising out of the eggs." Holy Flame!" / Woosh! / I saw enough, I launched another assault of flames their way to try and end the new headaches from sprouting fully. The fact that other plants didn't try to block my flames told me that we were far too late in stopping it. /BOOM! / My 4 flames hit the targets...

It looks like all I did was blow the shells away from their contents." People?" Princess Alice again, said what was on everyone's minds as we stood there observing our new problems." They didn't even flinch from your flames." Sarah spoke in surprise, but to be fair, they were being mostly blocked by the eggs. Even with that, if I can't use my flames, I have other ideas about how to destroy these things. Anna should also be able to do something as well. Regardless, in front of us were 4 Human-like entities.

They all looked like green statues with black and green long flowing hair. It was what looked like 2 men and 2 women all standing in a line, mirroring us and they were getting ready to attack us, just like we were about to do for them." How do we want to handle this?" Anna asked a question that our enemies answered for us, all 4 of these things summoned a sword with mana the same colors as their hair. It was like the flame spear that I made earlier.

I would wonder if those swords they made would even clash with our weapons? /BAM! / Seems like the answer to my question is coming to me for free. All 4 of the enemies came after us." Get ready!" Anna called to everyone to protect themselves, we all raised our swords to prepare for them to attack us. Before long, they swung their swords at us. We all moved our blades into position to clash with their swords, only for a problem to immediately rear its head.

"!" Their blades didn't clash with our weapons! They phased through them like we were swinging our weapons through fire! This isn't good! I can't defend! /CLANG! RUMBLE! / All of a sudden, a loud clanging sound had invaded my ear drums, I looked at the source as rumbling began to shake everything around us. The blade that was swung at me was stopped? It wasn't moving from my chest, no... Not my chest... My mana! My Holy Mana is defending against the literal Mana Sword of my enemy!

I looked to my right where all of the girls were, to see that they were in the same position as me! My worrying paid off! My Holy Mantle is defending them! I could feel a smile forming as the worry of losing the 3 of them dissipated. Now though, it was our turn to attack! And I did so happily! Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Swing! / THUMP! /" Huh?" Or at least, I tried to do so happily.

Scarlet did make contact, but just like with their attack against me, my blade couldn't cut the enemy in front of me. I could swear when I looked at the guy I was fighting, we locked eyes in confusion. We also both turned to my right to see that everyone else was in a staring contest. Our enemies were the first to push back and gain some distance. This has become... Confusing... I didn't think we'd have a stalemate like this. Seems that my Holy Mana does a lot more than I thought it did? But, why is it like this?

Since these guys are presumably using some amount of the God Of Blackwood's mana, shouldn't they be able to bypass my Holy Mana like he did? Something doesn't make sense. Worse than that, my attacks don't seem to do damage? But it still blocked their attacks, which uses the mana from their God... This is starting to cause an even bigger headache for me than I thought possible." My Love, what's going on?"" I don't know? Did any of you damage them?" The girls thought for a moment."

I took a chunk out of my opponent... It was about the size of a rock though... It's vexing."" I did the same as Sarah... I want to try again."" I was able to cut a small bit out of its side, but it wasn't enough to harm it if it was Human-like." Sarah, Anna and Princess Alice all reported what they were able to do." I didn't even chip it. You're right, Sarah, it's vexing. Hang on a minute actually!" Kick! / Woosh! / I jump and rush directly into the 4 opponents.

Something didn't sit well with me and it wasn't the fact that I didn't cut them, it was more of me thinking "why did I not cut them?" And now I needed to know why, the quickest way in my opinion was to do this." No!"" DARLING!"" Matthew!" Despite their concerns, I needed to do this. /BANG! / I landed in front of them and then proceeded to get close as possible to them. This, apparently, surprised them. It almost felt like seeing my reaction when the God Of The Blackwoods first appeared.

But now that I'm here, I can use a sword strike as a feint like this! Swing! /CLANG! / Good thing I didn't put my back into it, now for the real reason I came here!" Excuse me!" I quickly used my right hand to touch the shoulder of the guy I just struck with a sword. /THUMP! / pain... I was punched in the face for my trouble, but it was a small price to pay since I accomplished what I wanted to do, and I found out exactly what I needed to know.

And with that punch, I could escape back to the girls and tell them what I found out." So... You liked that man... Thing's musculature, My Love? Do Anna and I need to start working out more?"" What? No! I just did that to see if I could learn something. He was the closest one... If I had a choice, it would've been the women... But I guess that would be a different kind of problem, wouldn't it? You're killing intent is showing by the way, My Lovely Wives."

Sarah and Anna began to calm down after I soothed them a bit. I'm glad that the both of them are easy to calm down... As long as I promise certain things... Well, at least now Princess Alice finally sees how our Married Relationship actually works. Granted, I think she placed too much attention into her observation of our negotiation for what My Wives wanted in return for them to calm down. In the end, I don't think my battles end after I defeat the evil God in front of us." Well... What did you learn, Darling?"

Sarah and Anna seemed relieved with my "negotiations" and have now moved on to what I learned." I was wondering why they didn't catch fire when I threw my Holy Flames at them and also why we can't cut them so easily."" And groping him gave you an answer, My Love?"" You mean when I placed my hand on his shoulder for a moment, before being punched in the jaw? Yeah, I did get an answer." Sarah was snickering as she said that. I couldn't help but correct her since Princess Alice had begun to look at me strangely. Wait?

Why is she trying to tear her shirt at her shoulders? Huh? Anna is telling her something? Okay, now she's stopped trying to rip her shirt. Tonight has been the weirdest night ever." When I felt his shoulder, I realized his body is made of plant material, but it was also soaking wet, like a rag dipped in a bucket."" But how does that stop our blades from harming them?"" The wetness didn't, the plant tissue is most likely super condensed and layered, like skin mixed with natural steel armor.

Honestly, I'm impressed in a way, these 4 are perfect opponents to Paladins, if not for the fact they can't strike me down. Which if I had to bet, wouldn't be the case if we didn't try to attack them when they were still in their eggs."" You think we forced them to... Come out early?" Princess Alice seemed to understand what I was getting at." I think that forest was meant to buy time more than protect them.

But when I cut the forest of black vines down, it forced that God to accelerate their natural growth and then when we got closer, he decided to just "birth" them rather than let them be destroyed like the one I hit."" So, what's the solution to our situation, Darling?" Now that was an interesting question, but from the 2 interactions I had with them, I had an answer for Anna. I stood up confidently and I turned and began to speak." It's simple..." The girls leaned in closer to hear my words."

We just need to hit them..." They were now almost standing on their toes like ballet dancers." Really hard!" /CRASH! /" Why did you guys fall? Did you lose your balance?" It looks like they lost their balance at the shock of my great plan... I just hope they'll be able to get up before our opponents decide to attack us...