By the laws of physics, a pair of wings was not enough to make a horse fly. Not to mention that it could even fly at high speeds.

But in this different world, it was a reality that the Pegasus could carry humans and move in mid air well enough to battle. This was because in this world the power known as magic exists.

If you were to say that Pegasus flew because of magic, then those wings were the magic, the device that allowed them to fly.

The Pegasus Knights had casted [Speed Boost] on the wings which allowed them to fly at even faster speeds.

“???? ?? ???? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ― Speed Boost”

As Estel and the others in the vanguard used their magic, the Pegasus’s speed increased instantly and reached a level that could not be followed by normal men.

The fact that they had not gotten out of their formation even at such a high speed was the proof that these girls were extremely skilled at riding their Pegasus and had incredible teamwork as a squad.

The girls looked like a swarm of meteors in the sky and Lily who was releasing light looked like a star.

“Purple Lightning Assault – Line Charge!!”

Estel released her martial art against Lily who was inside her Oracle Field.

If that skill had hit a normal human, his whole upper half of the body would have been completely blown away. That was how high levelled martial skill it was.

The giant lance enveloped in lightning was launched with a tremendous force.

Estel’s lightning and Lily’s light clashed. The sound and light of countless sparks flew.

After firing her attack at Lily, Estel decelerated as the speed boost ran out and clicked her tongue while on top of her Pegasus.

“It’s too hard, Damnit!”

Her attack could only graze the outer layer of the Oracle field and had come nowhere near Lily’s white soft skin.

Obviously, the lightning attack had been completely defended against. From behind Estel, another wave of lightning sounds came. The other Pegasus Knights also used the same skill one by one.

Probably only 3 or 4 of them hit including her own attack. Rest all had been evaded. Estel figured that out without even looking back.

A hard defence along with great evading ability was not something that could be easily dealt with. Not just Estel, but every Pegasus knight here was thinking the same thing.

After finishing their attacks, Estel’s group turned in the air and once again set their sights at Lily. They noticed that the part of the Oracle Field that had been scratched and slightly damaged, quickly regenerated and became as good as new.

“So she even has regenerative abilities? Damned monster—“

As if not allowing to even curse her, Lily fired beams of light. Seeing that, Estel quickly pulled the reins and took evasive actions.

She skilfully dodged the beam that held enough heat and power that getting hit by even one of those would not end with just a few burns.

Estel wasn’t the only one who was being targeted; everyone in her group was attacked by the beams without any discrimination. But only Estel could dodge all the beams. The rest of the knights were all shot countless times.

As expected of the armour that had been loaded with defensive magic, they didn’t become unable to fight just by getting hit from one or two beams as long as they guarded in time, but damage was clearly accumulated on their bodies.

(“Shit Shit! This one’s really dangerous. Even though we haven’t dealt any damage to her, our side’s already losing endurance.”)

Estel started to become impatient and flustered.

It’s almost been 30 mins from the start of battle. In that time Nina, who was injured had left the front lines but, there were many among them who had taken lot of damage.

If the battle continued with the same pace, sooner or later they will start to become unable to battle. Some might even die.

“——Kyaaaaa!!”

From below her, a bone chilling scream came suddenly.

As she looked that way, one of the knights and her Pegasus had lost consciousness it seemed and were running unsteadily.

“Damnit! Someone support her!!”

Since the distance from her was too far from her, she quickly gave an order but Lily was faster to aim for the weakened ‘prey’.

Even among the countless of them, Lily could clearly discern which of them was the weakened one.

The attack fired by Lily towards the knight who could neither evade nor defend was not a beam but a ball of light.

Although slower than the beam, the ball of light could accurately track and pursue the target. At full strength, the Pegasus could have run away but now that the knight was on her limit of both willpower and stamina, she couldn’t do so.

The 5 balls of light that were fired slipped through the knights that came to help her as if making fun of them.

The sound and flash of explosion spread all over. This time, no scream was heard. Just one animal fell from the sky towards the earth.

Lily had once again killed another one. Without even getting conceited due to it, she quickly took the next move.

The reason why Lily was able to attack right now was because it was just after Estel’s team had charged too much and given her a gap. After the girls had attacked, to stop Lily from chanting, a rain of attack magic was casted towards her.

Flan’s team and Maty’s team that had the job to obstruct Lily once again restarted their long range attack magics. And Lily, who had expected that, took highly irregular evasive maneuvers that could not be imitated by a Pegasus.

(“What should I do—–if I have to resolve to sacrifice someone, now’s the time.”)

The most troublesome thing was Lily’s overwhelming maneuvering ability. If Pegasus could fly like birds then Lily was like a bee.

If it was a simple battle in a straight line, there wouldn’t be much difference but during the time of evasion, that incredible maneuvering made a lot of difference.

If the attack doesn’t hit, the damage will also remain 0. Although, evading like that requires high levels of concentration, there was still no sign of Lily looking fatigued yet.

(“There’s no other choice to stop her by holding her directly. Shit! It would be the same end as the vice-commander then! But there’s no other choice either—-“)

Her thoughts were all over the place, and she couldn’t get an answer.

“God damn it! Is there no way to stop her! Darting around like that all the time damnit!!”

Although she shouted that through telepathy, none of the answers that came back were good.

“Are you saying that this late?”

“Nobody would think that we would be exhausted so much against one enemy right!?”

“That’s true. It’s frustrating but it’s true that we’ll be the ones at disadvantage if we attack from the front.”

“If there’s something we can still do, then this is the time to do it! Our magic won’t last forever!”

They still couldn’t come up with a decisive plan.

“.......no other choice. I’ll stop that son of bitch fairy’s movements myself.”

“Son of a bitch? That fairy is a woman no matter how you look at it! Not to mention she’s irritatingly beautiful as well!!”

“Do you think I fucking care about something like that!? Don’t pour water on my decisive moment!!”

“Are you serious Estel? You won’t get away if you touch that barrier of light, you know?”

“There’s no other way. Also if we stay blocked here forever, then we won’t be able to provide support to the troops on the ground. That way the whole plan would be destroyed.”

Yes, in the first place, their mission was not to defeat Lily.

Their main objective was to attack and destroy the enemy defence line and allow the infantry to charge in successfully.

“Look, below the demons have finally come out as well. If we could attack from the air right now, their defences would instantly crumble.”

Estel could imagine the acting vice commander hesitate for a bit on the other side of the transmission.

And, after a few seconds, Flan’s reply came.

“I’ll leave it to you Estel. In return, we’ll cast Protect with all our power so come back alive.”

“Of course. Who said I’m going to die?”

“Eh, no way, Estel you’re really gonna do it?!”

“That’s really dangerous!”

“What, you’re worrying about me now?”

“”No such thing!!””

Those sisters, Cami and Cathy, really never change. Estel thought in her mind.

“Listen, I’ll hold that son of a bitch down so you’ll be the ones to finish her off. Don’t fuck up.”

Although they hesitated, the sisters replied back with agreement.

The Pegasus Knights all resolved themselves, and looked towards Lily who was still calmly floating in the sky.

“Alright! Then here I —–“

The moment Estel was about to move, she saw a change in Lily.

Until now, Lily had been firing light beams and ball from inside the barrier but right now, small balls of light were appearing outside the barrier.

“Oi, It’s doing something, be careful!!”

The balls of light slowly started increasing in size and soon became almost double the size of the usual ones.

If they had power as per its looks, they had no idea if they could bear it if they got hit. Especially now that their stamina had almost run out.

(“Why? We didn’t even give it time to chant properly! Anyway, that’s really dangerous!”)

The moment Estel and the others prepared themselves to face Lily’s attack, the balls of light were shot out towards them.

The balls of light fired towards the knights that had scattered in all directions, was definitely slower than any of her previous attacks.

(“They’re slow? Do they have tracking ability? If they are this slow, then it would be better to shoot them down with magic———-“)

The moment everyone else thought the same thing and decided to counter attack, the balls of light burst and released an immense light.

“Kuh—-“

Their eyes were blinded by the white light and they lost their vision.

For a second they thought they were caught in a huge blast but they felt no problem in their bodies.

“—–Shit, it was only a distraction!!”

Recognising the true intent of that move, Estel quickly realized the next move.

“???? ????? ?????? ???? ?????? ?????— Lux Defence.

???? ???????― Laser Heal.”

A defensive magic to protect her and a heal magic to restore her sight were activated consecutively.

When her vision returned, all that entered her eyes was the shield deployed by her and the clear blue sky.

There was no sign of an incoming attack.

“No, wait, where did that son of a bitch go?”

As she looked around, she could not find Lily or her light barrier.

“Can anyone see her?”

She communicated to her comrades.

The enemy in front of them suddenly disappeared. All of them were expecting a surprise attack from a blind spot.

“No, no signs of the enemy.”

“Can’t see her.”

“I see her! She’s falling towards the ground!!”

“Are you sure Maty?”

“Our team was located beneath it. I clearly saw her pass through as she went downwards!”

“I see. Alert the troops on the ground. We don’t know what it’ll do.”

As a result, Lily had gotten out from the encirclement of the Pegasus Knights and landed on the ground.

Since the enemy had disappeared from their sights, the Pegasus Knights quickly returned to their formation.

“—-What’s going on? Nothing’s coming.”

For around 3 minutes, they were alert in the skies but as Estel had said, not a single beam of light came from the forest where Lily should have gone.

“Estel, it could be that some kind of magic of hers might have run out of effective time.”

Flan came beside Estel and said that.

“......That’s not impossible. It could be that she was using an incredible enhancement magic. It could have been the evil god’s divine protection as well.”

“Yes. Especially, we are unclear regarding the divine protection received by demons in the first place. So we can’t guess their abilities either.”

“So basically, it ran away?”

In such a situation, normally anyone would think that.

“So it ran away but what should we do? Pursue it?”

“No, return to our mission. If it ran away then it’s favourable for us. We’ll attack the enemy’s defensive line just as originally planned.”

If it really had run away due to the effect of some magic running out then it really was the best chance to kill Lily.

Even Estel wanted to kill the monster that could face with the whole Pegasus Knights squad alone but it couldn’t be helped that it ran away inside a deep forest.

The Pegasus Knights could not follow there. That was the job for the soldiers on the ground.

As a result, they concluded that pursuing was impossible and then they need to achieve their original objective.

“We were held back for 30 mins. If we become too late then the soldiers on the ground might get scared and start retreating. Let’s hurry up!”

“”Roger””

After giving the order, the Pegasus Knights began to move out.

And when they moved their sights towards the enemy defence line, an irregularity occurred inside that forest.

The trees and leaves in the forest began to dry up.

What that implied was understood by not just magicians but even those that couldn’t use magic as well.

“Is it Life Drain?........”

[Life Drain] was a magic prohibited in the Republic and was labelled as a taboo.

It was a simple magic that could only absorb even the life force along with the magical energy, but its effect was tremendous.

If used carelessly, it could turn this land into a barren wasteland where not even weed would grow for the next 100 years. In the Arc continent, there was an area that had completely lost all living things due to it.

Leaving the effect on surroundings aside, it even had the danger of taking away the life force of allies as well. And not to mention that the user of [Life Drain] would usually start taking pleasure in stealing the life force of others and turn into a madman.

Thus it was a taboo, but this wasn’t the Arc continent but the Pandora continent. A land ruled by demons. It was obvious that the rules of the human society wouldn’t apply here.

Even if it was a taboo for humans, there was no need for demons to avoid using it.

“All units, be on guard! That thing is still coming after us!!”

As tension appeared among the Pegasus Knights once more, they once again realized that the threat of Lily had not yet left them.