"See? I told you something funky was going on."
One of the four humans, a tall, short-haired woman, spoke as the deathly black cover collapsed and revealed the scene of Toz and the cats fighting against the Tribe of Death's undead.
Compared to the desperate appearances of Toz and the cats, the four humans had a surprisingly relaxed appearance.
"Yeah. Great call, Kaler. Saving those guys and capturing those other guys might get us enough contribution to buy that bracelet you were looking at."
"Really?!"
The short-haired woman, Kaler, looked at the green-haired young-looking boy that answered her, with a radiant smile.
"Great! I'll take the lead. Hassandra, back me up, please."
"Like usual?"
"Like usual."
The blue-haired man sprung forth with a light-hearted smile on his face as he brought out a lightning-clad spear. The curly-headed woman he spoke with also started moving. But unlike the blue-haired man, she kept her distance from the two robed figures as she started using her magic. However, it only looked like she was waving her hands around while rousing her mana, so it was impossible to tell what her magic did.
"Piercing-!"
"Shut up, Vatel! I told you last time, didn't I? Shout out the names of your techniques one more time, and I'll leave this party!"
While Hassandra used her magic, Vatel closed the gap between him and the robed figures from the Tribe of Death while light blue lightning covered him and his spear. When he got close enough, Vatel used a technique. Hassandra did stop him from shouting its name out loud, but that didn't stop the technique from activating.
Vatel's lightning concentrated at the tip of his spear before shooting out. The lightning bolt flew forward, leaving a blue streak of light in its path as it struck the robed figure that had been in charge of reanimating the Stone Demon's and the buffalos' corpses.
The only sound resulting from the instantaneous lightning bolt was the sound of the robed figure crashing into the ground.
"Did you get 'em?"
"Nope. Not even close. We stumbled upon quite the tough pair of demons."
Although Vatel's answer to Hassandra's question was slightly ominous, his light-hearted, mischievous smile didn't even tremble.
"Do you need help?"
"Maybe. But check on those guys first. It's only a rescue mission if we rescue someone, Hullie."
The green-haired boy, Hullie, followed Vatel's instructions, and he and Kaler headed toward Toz and the cats while Vatel and Hassandra started fighting against the two robed figures.
Toz had been a little stunned when the four humans appeared and started attacking the robed figures, but when they approached him, he quickly snapped out of it and began thinking.
Now that it had come to this, it would be very unlikely for them to execute their plan successfully.
The blue-haired lightning attribute spear-wilder, Vatel, had made it sound like he didn't even scratch the robed figure. But Toz had sensed the power behind that lightning bolt. If the other three humans possessed similar strength, the robed figures would eventually lose, even if they could reanimate a bunch of corpses as much as they wanted.
While Hullie and Kaler walked toward them, Toz and the cats shared a few glances before quickly agreeing that they had to scrap their plan. It was unfortunate. But they had to make the best of the situation.
Toz and the cats stood up, dusting off themselves. Their transformation from desperately surviving and barely clinging to life against the robed figures' undead to a mage and beasts in near-perfect condition was striking. Kaler and Hullie halted their movements in shock for a moment. They exchanged a glance before they carefully approached Toz and the cats.
However, Toz and the cats weren't interested in them. They were busy looking at the fight between Vatel and Hassandra and the two robed figures.
After getting hit by the lightning bolt, the robed figure hadn't waited until Vatel arrived before summoning a seemingly endless swarm of undead using a dark grey glassy orb that hovered in the air in front of it.
Grey streaks of light, like the ones that appeared when the figure summoned the Stone Demon and the buffalos flew out of the orb, rapidly increasing the number of combatants on the battlefield. Reanimated corpses of all kinds of beings, humans, demons, and beasts, started moving toward Vatel with death mana blanketing their bodies.
Vatel faced the army of undead without faltering while Hassandra began dealing with the other robed figure. Unlike the robed figure that could reanimate and control corpses, Hassandra's opponent seemed to be more specialized in direct combat as it attacked Hassandra with streams of death attribute demonic energy.
However, none of the robed figure's attacks landed on their target. Most of them seemed to encounter something mid-air that sliced them apart and sent them crashing to the ground. The ground that had been hit by the death magic quickly turned grey and died. There weren't any plants or life in the ground, to begin with, due to the war and battle. But after the death magic, it became clear that nothing would grow, even after the war.
Hassandra didn't seem too bothered by the attacks, almost as if she was used to fighting against death magic, and she kept slicing the magic apart without faltering.
Toz was curious about what her magic was since he couldn't sense any elemental fluctuations. But if he wanted to gather enough contributions to accompany Dyra back to the Transcendent Realm, he couldn't just stand around and spectate. He and the cats had to take part in defeating and capturing the robed figures of the Tribe of Death.
It was especially important that they contributed now that the four intruding humans had interrupted and destroyed any chances their plan had of succeeding. Betting on having another opportunity like the one they had gotten was bound to end in failure. And Toz and the cats would rather rely on themselves than chance.
