Chapter 634: Challenges Daimon & Nethereal sisters, Jazmine’s version (part 23)
[The next restraining spell will have its effect quadrupled]
The explanation of the spell used by Jasmine to activate her last blank golem and create the hunter pawn, could be heard almost at the same time as said pawn reached the battlefield, to then directly charge at the horned horse pawn, which was fighting against the heavy warrior pawn.
Naturally, it wasn't hard for the enemy queen to imagine what was Jasmine's purpose when creating such a pawn.
'Humph, do you think I'll simply let you target the noble ride of my general, dream on', thought Erika as she shouted.
"Warrior pawn, go block that hunter pawn trash!", she ordered, interrupting the exchange of attacks between her dual trident wielding warrior pawn and Jasmine's spearman pawn.
Jasmine tried to get her spearman pawn to keep the warrior pawn trapped in a fight, but a large rock halberd forced the spearman pawn to block.
"Clang!", despite the spearman pawn being skilled in middle range weapon fighting, he wasn't as strong as the general pawn and thus while the halberd's strike was blocked, the spearman pawn was basically sent flying quite a few dozens of meters.
"Light Arrow Barrage", with a few words, the light princess used the ranger pawn to rain suppressive fire on the dual trident wielding pawn from Erika's side, to prevent it from getting in the way of the hunter pawn.
It was for a good reason, the hunter pawn was both the weakest and the strongest in two different aspects, it was the weakest when it came to fighting other humanoid pawns, however it was the strongest when that wasn't the case.
"Damn it, Explosive Thrust!".
"Smokescreen Arrow!".
Seeing her dual trident wielding pawn being blocked by Jasmine's ranger pawn, Erika casted two martial arts through her spearman and archer pawns, since they had already completely recovered thanks to her priest pawn's healing.
"Booom!", like earlier, a thunder-like explosion reverberated through the whole area, as two martial arts collided against the light princess's second barrier at point blank, this time however, the result was less on the damaging side as it only produced one new mark on Jasmine's barrier, and more on the annoying side since the martial art used by the arrow, blocked the ranger's view with a black smoke screen.
That gave an opening for Erika's dual trident wielding warrior pawn to go after the hunter pawn, at least until a light wall blocked the warrior pawn, it was Jasmine's priest which had created a defensive barrier in front of the hunter pawn.
"Crack!", with the rock trident on its right hand, the warrior pawn attacked the light wall, half-breaking it in the process but it was too later, the hunter pawn had arrived with the heavy warrior pawn and now it was time for the horned horse pawn to be in trouble.
"Light Chain Net", light mana gathered in front of the hunter pawn, taking the form of a light chain net thanks to Jasmine.
"Catch it", ordered the light princess, the hunter pawn complied and skillfully rushed at the horned horse pawn which was fending off against the Warhammer of the heavy warrior pawn, taking advantage of its low stature to slide below it, tending the light chain net under its large body, to then throw the handles of the light chain net at the heavy warrior pawn.
"Radiant Step", through the heavy warrior pawn, Jasmine used her movement spell, making the pawn flash at an extremely high speed but for a short distance in exchange.
And this is where the effect of Jasmine's Silver Shackles combined with the impulse gained by the heavy warrior pawn, made their magic.
"Booom!", the light chain net tightened around the horned horse pawn's body and then smacked its on the ground a few meters away from its previous position, since its weight was quite high, which prevented the warrior pawn from travelling too far.
"Roooaaaar!", the horned horse pawn roared as it tried to break away from its current restrained position, just for the heavy warrior pawn to smack its head with the Warhammer.
"Clang!", the sound of metals colliding echoed through the vicinity, the horned horse was a high defense and high mobility type of pawn, so despite its really nice speed it wasn't fragile at all.
"Crack!", still the heavy warrior pawn was created to have high impact blunt attacks, so the previous hit with the Warhammer, made one of the horse's horns to crack.
And that made Erika see red, in case you wonder why hasn't the general pawn come the rescue, that's because the assassin pawn had showed some traces of being around it, looking for a chance to behead it, while the spearman pawn which didn't chase after the trident wielding warrior, attacked it from time to time, keeping it busy.
Which forced Erika to keep the general static in alert, but she wasn't going to let those two destroy the horned horse pawn.
"Battleground Breaking Earthquake!", the general pawn smacked the ground with its rock halberd.
"Booom!", the result was a combined wave of ricks and earth battle aura which expanded with the general pawn as its center, that engulfed everything in the vicinity, the heavy warrior pawn and the hunter pawn were forced to retreat in order to not get caught in the explosion.
The horned horse pawn on the other hand, took the chance to break through the light chain net, to then roar celebrating its freedom at it glared at the two that had damaged its horn, a sign of its glory.
Erika's proudful expression after having saved her horned horse pawn, one of the two parts that composed what she used to represent her Lord's presence in the battlefield, while Jasmine was unable to, didn't last long though.
"Silver Dagger", the pretty mellow voice of the light princess, made the enemy queen's pupils contract, the horned horse pawn had approached the general pawn immediately after having broken the light chain net apart, and yet it didn't detect the one that was going to obviously receive the spell that Jasmine just casted, in other words the assassin pawn.
Which meant that the assassin pawn wasn't in the area near the general pawn, and that led her to change her focus to the dual trident wielding warrior, which had been isolated earlier.
But the moment Erika turned to see the trident wielding pawn, she realized that there was nothing going on around it.
'Don't tell me!', the enemy queen changed targets once again, this time she looked at her battering ram, just in time for a light slash to pass through the battering ram from side to side.
"Crack!", a loud shattering sound followed by the explanation of the spell that Jasmine previously used, could be heard the next second.
[The next surprise attack will ignore 30% of the enemy's defense]
"What!", Erika nearly lost it for a second, defense ignoring buffing spells are some of the hardest to learn and come by, naturally as the left hand of her Lord she has one, but hers can only help an ally ignore 15% of the target's defense and that's already something praise-worthy.
However, the spell that Jasmine just used doubled the effect of hers, and the result was as dangerous as Erika expected.
That shattering sound came from the inside of the battering ram, more accurately it came from the tank pawn which had its whole right arm alongside a chunk of one of the walls of the battering ram, destroyed by the assassin pawn's light dagger.
"Damn it, spearman pawn, go support the others", realizing that she couldn't fight Jasmine's five pawns with just three of them, head on, Erika ordered the spearman to leave the battering ram and join her other pawns.
"Brown Restoration Banner!", with dark brown battle aura being radiated by the enemy queen's priest pawn, the breach on the batter ram's wall, was immediately restored, the tank pawn however was still missing its right arm, because it took most of the attack from the assassin pawn so the damage it suffered was bigger.
But the biggest damage was the emotional one that Erika received, as she saw the disdainful smile on Jasmine's pretty face, the light princess baited her into putting all her focus in protecting the horned horse pawn and as a result she nearly lost her battering ram.
Had it not been by the priest pawn which instantly and constantly started healing the tank, that light dagger might have destroyed the tank pawn, still she now had to slow down the process at which the battering ram destroyed the second barrier of the enemy because she was unable to restrain the opponent with just three pawns.
'Damn it, losing that warrior caused me so much problems and that bitch keeps playing tricks like those, in such a way that they are hard to predict, I hadn't had so much trouble when facing anyone… besides the Lord', thought Erika to then shake her head on the spot.
'No, the Lord didn't resort to tricks, he pridefully overwhelmed me head one, that ungrateful brat is just receiving help from the masked bastard!', concluded the enemy queen to then fiercely glare at Jasmine.
"Exploiting my predisposition to protect the mount of the general not bad, however what will you do now that there won't be any need for me to pay any attention to it… Flame Wild Armor!".
the horned horse pawn exploded in fire battle aura which then took the form of a dangerous looking dark orange ethereal armor, but that wasn't all, the now armored horned horse then opened its snout towards the hunter pawn which had previously restrained it.
"Battleground Shockwave Blazing Howl!".
"Roaaaar!", then under Jasmine's surprised eyes and very much to Erika's happiness, contrary to the earth battle aura with which it was created, both fire and earth battle aura gathered on the snout of the horned horse, to then be shot in the form of a brown-orange battle aura wave.
"Light Protection", Jasmine casted a defensive spell through her priest pawn, but it was almost instantly destroyed by the attack of the horned horse, forcing her to cast another spell, this time through the heavy warrior pawn.
"Light Shockwave!".
"Boooom!", only when the Warhammer of the heavy warrior pawn impacted the fire attack of the horned horse pawn, was it stopped, in other words it took Jasmine two spells to counter one martial art from Erika, who was all smiles as of current.
"What, don't tell me you thought the pawns were limited to only use one element of battle aura at the time, well, not that I blame you, since you aren't a dual affinity mage to know about it, not to mention that I saved this for an important moment", she disdainfully said.
In case you wonder why the horned horse using fire battle aura surprised Jasmine, when the general pawn had already received a fire halberd while he was created using earth battle aura, not to mention that the horned horse pawn got a fire elemental armor a second ago, that's because there is a difference.
The queens can cast the martial art or spells they want on the pawns, regardless of the element with which they were created, because it's not the same to receive something than to create something, for example the halberds which counted as "magic weapons", were created by Erika directly and then given to the general, but turns out that the pawns could do the same, at least to a certain extent.
'Of course, it costs way more battle aura to do it through a pawn than doing so directly, but nothing beats seeing the surprise on that ungrateful brat's face', thought Erika to herself.
The idea was to simply intimidate the light princess by showing off the capacity of the pawns to use both of her affinities by themselves, so that she would hesitate to target the horned horse and for visual impact she even added a fire armor to it.
Of course, the fire battle aura armor also had another function, which was increasing the attacking power of the horned horse pawn, turning it into a high movement, high defense and high attack unit.
Speaking of which, earth battle aura gathered in front of the spearman pawn, condensing in a rock spear the next second.
"Light Rock Spear", and now even her spearman had one weapon of each of her elemental affinities, it was like a degraded version of the general pawn, degraded because the general is a stronger pawn and the halberd could be said to be an evolution of a spear as well.
And that wasn't all, a loud explosion came from the area were the battering ram was, it was the result of the archer firing an attack at point blank once again, resulting in a small crack finally appearing on Jasmine's second barrier.
'Tsk, had it not been for the fact that I had to take the spearman pawn out of the battering ram, I could have opened a significant breach into the barrier to the smash it open with the help of the mounted general, also that damn ranger pawn is slowing me down, oh well, let's do it the old way then', thought Erika as she pointed at Jasmine's pawns.
"Crush them!", having given her order, the four pawns from the enemy queen's side charged at the four pawns from Jasmine side, well she had five on the battlefield including the assassin but since it was hidden in the shadows, the priest which had joined earlier to protect the hunter was counted as the fourth one.
As for the ranger, it was suppressing the battering ram, the light mana arrows might not damage the battering ram much but after the assassin pawn destroyed a part of the earth defense wall, the priest had to rebuilt it and the ranger kept shooting at that exact spot, forcing the priest pawn to keep restoring it, they were in a stalemate.
The winged swordsman pawn or more accurately the swordsman pawn since it lost the light wings, was still recovering behind the first barrier, because the damage it received was too high, and Jasmine didn't want to use too much mana on healing it until she needed to use it for something.
"That priest earlier blocked me, so let's get rid of her first', thought Erika to then cast her martial art, through the warrior pawn which is the one that was blocked by the light wall earlier.
"Solid Thrust!".
"Crushing Sweep!".
Using the dual trident wielding warrior pawn, Erika aimed to get rid of Jasmine's priest and so, the trident on its right hand thrusted at the priest's right leg, while the trident on the warrior pawn's left hand was slashed at the priest's side.
But then contrary to what Erika expected, not only was there no sign of worry on the enemy's face, but she had a familiarly confident light shinning in her eyes, one that the enemy queen had seen not too long ago and that it ended causing her way more troubles than what would she want to admit.
'Don't tell me…', the bad premonition in Erika's mind became true the next second when the light princess rolled her staff, making light mana gather on the right hand of her priest pawn.
"Heavenly Spear", the result was a light ethereal spear with an intricate design that the priest pawn was now wielding.
Not too far from the light princess who was proudly smiling at the sight of her creation, Daimon couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.
'If it was a javelin then I might have believed she created that one for me as well, but I don't use anything with the name "spear" on it, so this one is… for her', concluded Daimon.
The reason of it is simple, as a last resort kind of thing, the light princes has learned some staff techniques and her magic staff even had a crystal tip decoration which could function as a spear's head shall the need for it arise.
In fact, Jasmine had already shown her mastery in middle range weapons, when she stabbed Adam with that trident on the lower abdomen, it was also one of the rare moments in which the kind and meek light princess became quite fierce, since one of the prongs pierced Adam's soft parts.
'Damn Sarah, this for sure was her idea…', thought Daimon and he was probably right considering the giggles coming from the crazy girl as she saw the white mana spear being held by the priest pawn.
Back to Jasmine, she casted the spells she had been preparing to use couple with the heavenly spear, this time she did so through the priest pawn though.
"Silver Spear!".
[The next piercing attack will have its effect quadrupled]
"Light Piercing Thrust!", fiercely exclaimed the light princess, making the priest thrust the heavenly spear frontwards at the incoming attack type martial arts used by the enemy queen.
"Crack!", there was no resistance, the earth tridents were immediately destroyed by the blinding while light stream that was shot by the heavenly spear, an attack that quite reminded Daimon of his "White Heavenly Javelin", meaning that at least partially the light princess must have taken inspiration from it, though she achieved this by combining a buff spell and an attack type spell as well as a weapon enhancing one.
It was normal, after all, Jasmine isn't a combatant, so achieving the offensive power that one of Daimon's attacks from the White Universe of his Cosmic Weaponry fighting style, has, through combining spells was already amazing.
Especially because with that attack, not only did Jasmine destroy the earth tridents of the warrior pawn, but also destroyed the warrior pawn piercing its chest with the blinding light stream shot by the heavenly spear.
"Booom!", only after travelling quite the distance did the spell ended and before disappearing, it impacted Erika's second barrier, opening a small crack on it, such was the strength of her three spells combined into one.
"You bitch!", the enemy queen saw red on the spot, not only did she lose another pawn, but her second barrier was noticeably damaged, something that only her Lord had managed to do so far, as even the captain of the special corps only left shallow marks on it before losing, the times that their games ended in her victory of course.
"Blazing Glorious Victory!!!", shouted the enemy queen, making the tank pawn come out of the battle ram, while the general pawn which was fighting against the spearman pawn as well as the assassin pawn, suddenly jumped, perfectly landing on the back of the horned horse pawn which was being attacked by the heavy warrior pawn and the hunter pawn.
Erika knew that those two will be surrounded and destroyed by all the pawns on the enemy's side, so instead she decided to go all out at once.
And the first step was to make the tank pawn… self-destroy, similar to what the water affinity bishop did to that guy who used a shield and a short sword, but this time through the priest pawn.
So, while the archer and the priest pawns, were hidden inside the battering ram, the tank pawn exploded.
"Boooom!".
"Crack!".
Jasmine's second barrier which had been weakened, crumbled apart, not instantly but a huge hole was blasted through it and what was left started shattering the next second.
"Inferno Charge!", and then the mounted general, whose horned horse had a new improved attack power, charged into the first barrier's territory in the form of a brown-orange stream.
Almost instantly reaching the first barrier, while also aiming to destroy the ranger and swordsman pawns which were stationed there, and now it was the time for the swordsman pawn to fulfill its last act in Jasmine's plan.
"Retribution Fortress!".