Chapter 834 - Capturing The Fortress

While group two was clearing the second tower, group one was not far behind in terms of progress. With Madison and Helion taking the front lines and smashing through everything, they were able to breach the tower's defences with ease.

Even when some of the guards tried to slash towards her, their swords would bounce off of her armour, leaving a gap for her to counter attack.

Shiro didn't have to do much as she looked through the sniper scope. She could see everything clearly as she had used her analysis skill to peer through the walls.

Seeing the entire tower in just lines, she could easily pick out any hidden dangers.

Pulling her trigger, she knocked out a demon that was waiting around the corner with a greatsword. Even if Madison's armour was powerful, Shiro could tell that the sword would have harmed her quite a bit if it landed with the amount of mana that was gathering there.

Thankfully, a single bullet was able to knock him out.

The bullet was made using celestial path as a reference and all that it does is drain all of the enemy's mana at once. It would send them into a mana deficient state for a short period of time, causing their body to react and knock them out.

Of course, how long it knocks them out for depends. If their mana regeneration is high, it would only knock them out for a short period of time. If their mana regeneration is slow, it'll knock them out for longer.

Of course, she can also inject the stolen mana back into them to stop them from dying if things turned dire.

{They're progressing quite nicely aren't they?} Nimue chuckled as she observed rom inside Shiro's mana realm.

'Yup. Both teams have superb offence, it's just that they have different offenses. Madison and Helion are like an unstoppable tide while Lyrica and the others are more meticulous.' Shiro replied while covering for Lyrica's side.

She could see a few of the demons trying to call for reinforcements.

Aiming her sniper at them, Shiro wondered if she should let them.

Thinking about it for a moment, Shiro smiled and stopped aiming at them.

'Why not, we need to eliminate the queen candidate anyway. Bringing her here is actually beneficial for us.' Shiro smirked since she knew that they could defeat the queen candidate.

Watching them call for reinforcements, she waited for a moment before actually shooting.

"And now we wait." Shiro muttered.

###

Balire Vernix was a rather young looking demon who wore reserved clothes. Her demonic wings peeked out of her back as the shirt was designed to have holes for her wings.

She had long red hair that reached her lower back.

Her bangs were swept to the side and her blood red eyes were both charming yet threatening.

Her body stature was on the younger side as it resembled a young girl blossoming into a beautiful woman.

Right now she was biting her nails with frustration since she had finalised an alliance not too long ago. She didn't want to accept the alliance since doing so means that she had given up and let herself become a slave.

However, if she didn't accept it, she would be destroyed by Casia so rejection was not an option.

"Arggg!!!" Crying out in annoyance, she punched her bed in frustration since she was now just a slave with a slightly better name.

Sighing heavily, she planted her face against her pillow and closed her eyes.

But just as she did this, she heard an emergency ring that wouldn't happen unless her territory was being attacked.

Quickly sitting up, she grabbed the phone.

"What is it?" She asked with a serious voice.

"We got intruders! Both towers by the farmland! They're all tier 5 an- *BANG!!!*"

All she heard was a single explosion which sounded like the tower being pierced and the other side fell silent without even a single scream. There was the occasional sound of fighting but that was probably because the other guards were putting up a fight.

Slamming her phone down, her eyes blazed with fury.

"£^%^%^&$%£ I just became a slave today and now my territory is being invaded??? Are you f*cking kidding me!" She cursed while summoning her armour.

Normally, a candidate would have better armour or weapons than this but she was different. The Vernix family never invested in any expensive armour or weapon because they could cultivate their own in the form of a guardian that they could summon by their side.

One that would grow alongside them and it was more powerful than any weapon or armour they could equip at that moment.

Slamming her windows open, she unfurled her wings and shot into the sky.

She was going to teach whoever wanted to invade her land a harsh lesson!

###

[Shiro, we've finished capturing both towers now. We're moving towards the fortress.]

Hearing Madison report back, Shiro quickly grabbed her earpiece.

"Understood. I'll keep an eye out for you. Reinforcements have been called and I'm pretty sure that the candidate is arriving soon. Make it quick and we can focus on the candidate." Shiro replied.

[Got it.]

Cutting off the earpiece, Shiro watched as the two groups reconvened.

Applying a few buffs to Madison, Silvia gave the party another buff before casting one final spell which seemed to have caused their opponents to become disorientated for a moment.

Seeing this, Madison massaged her shoulder for a moment before slamming her foot down.

*BANG!!!!

Dashing forward like a comet, a blazing red aura erupted out around her as she slammed against the fortress walls.

*BOOM!!!!

Seeing the huge cloud of smoke that exploded out in the distance, Shiro widened her eyes in surprise.

'Holy crap I didn't think she'd just ram it down like that.' Shiro thought to herself since Madison's attack was out of her expectations. She had thought that they would jump over the wall or something but no, Madison straight up used her own body as a weapon and destroyed the front gates. Looking at the barely intact wall, Shiro's smile couldn't help but twitch since she knew the materials used were reinforced because of powerful demons or humans.

And yet despite that, with a few buffs from Silvia, Madison was actually able to destroy the gate with ease.

The following combat was as expected. With the party back together, the enemy couldn't harm them at all. And even if by some miracle they could, Silvia would keep everyone healthy with her healing spells and Chen Yu would target the powerful demons that managed to harm them.

In a few moments, all of the guards had been defeated and the fortress was theirs. Unfortunately, during this little conquest, they had completely damaged the front gate and parts of the wall which they would need to fix themselves.

Just as Shiro was about to pack away, she sensed a rapidly approaching mana signal and notified the party.

"Watch out everyone, seems like the candidate is here." Shiro smiled as the party started to gather at the courtyard of the fortress.

Looking into the distance, they could see a faint shadow of a small person flying towards here. While her shadow was faint, they could sense that she was powerful with her mana signal.

However, this wasn't being arrogant, but even Silvia could defeat her since they weren't weak.

"What the hell!!!" Balire shouted out seeing the destroyed fortress.

"Damn it do you know how hard it was for a low rank like me to get materials like that to fortify the fortress!? And yet you destroy it just like that! If you're going to capture it, don't damage it!" Balrie complained as a giant tier 5 magic circle expanded out above her.

But despite this display of power, the party only looked at her awkwardly.

Madison looked towards their 'most normal person, Akog, and opened her mouth.

"Is that magic supposed to be impressive?" She asked. Sure the surge of mana was impressive but compared to what they could do it seemed… meek?

Hearing Madison ask if a tier 5 magic was supposed to be impressive or not, Akog was speechless since tier 5 was the peak of what people could attain at this moment of time. Of course it was impressive!

Hearing this over the earpiece, Shiro couldn't help but shake her head.

'Oh poor Madi. Mn I should probably knock out the queen candidate so that we can talk to her later I guess. She's less of a threat than I thought.' Shiro mused to herself and fired a shot.

Looking at the young girl flying in the sky, she was about to unleash the spell when a bullet hit her neck but no blood was drawn.

Pausing for a moment, her body fell out of the sky like a dead bird and the magic was instantly cancelled.

*BANG!

Crashing against the rubble, they couldn't help but think 'ouch' from the way she fell.

"I'll go heal her a little I guess." Silvia shrugged as the party nodded their heads.

If the enemy was strong, they wouldn't do this but this girl seemed a little… pitiful?

Clearing up the rubble and healing her, the party tied her up to a chair and prepared to interrogate when she woke up.