STALL

".....Um, master? Did we just—?"

"Umu, I'd rather not be encircled by those bastards when it took a lot out of me to just kill one. Sure, things are different compared to back then but I'd like total ensurity. For that reason… we are going home!"

Teleporting from where they were back to the manor was of course an impossibility, even with Ivan's prowess with spatial magic. But teleporting several hundred meters away, over and over until they were a safe distance away, was a viable option.

And that's precisely what he did.

Barries, droids, anti-air weapons, traps, the base back at home was the safest place for them to hide. And if need be, there was also the option to flee toward Oscar's lair, the dungeons were made to hide from Ehit and his apostles after all.

"The problem is what lows those bastards are willing to sink, since they appeared in front of us instead of blasting us out of the air, odds are they're up to something nefarious."

Outputting his detection to the max, Ivan caught the presence of a crowd of apostles swiftly approaching their location.

Ivan paused for a moment, plopping out his aircraft before herding the others in it with great haste. "No matter what we gotta get home first, I'm confident in my defenses but whether it could stand up to several hundred apostles, I have zero idea!"

Noint possessed the ability to shoot rays that disintegrated anything they touched, there was no reason to believe the other apostles didn't possess the same ability.

"Even if Noint seemed a little up there in the hierarchy… Not to mention with how robotic these guys act they're probably a hive mind. How else would they be able to identify each other despite having the same faces, body structure, and attire?"

Yes, the standard thing to do when battling an opposing force is to eliminate the possibility of information from being spread to them, in the case of a hivemind scenario, information of the eliminated would likely be automatically transmitted either real-time or upon death.

"The core…!" Ivan's eyes snapped wide open before he remembered the core he had stripped from Noint's corpse. She had thrown large scale magical attacks dozens of times at him during their battle, her mana never waning. The core was the core of it all, it was the part that made the machine invincible.

It was a weakness and simultaneously the strongest thing about the apostles. "If I can just shatter their cores… and with Ars Magna, if I could open up their bodies with a single thought… the core will provide me with the mana necessary to keep the spell running… it's perfect!"

"Master, a word from home, the droids have reported several apostle-like figures attacking the barrier!"

Tio rushed into the cabin with a device in hand, below it a strip of paper dotted with some symbols resembling morse code.

"Well… I made transportation through spatial magic impossible in there just in case… though that may be to our detriment now."

Deviating to another location would only put them at more harm, who knew where more apostles could be awaiting them. Just the ones circling the base meant the likelihood of them blending into cities and towns were high.

Their numbers seemed practically infinite, but the others were ready. Felis and Canis nodded to each other before leaving the cabin, sliding a pole down to the lowest level of the aircraft. They each went their separate ways afterward, occupying bubble shaped rooms and strapping themselves into leather chairs.

"Deus, Activate—!"

An utterance of those words illuminated the room in blue coursing veins, and from the ground right in front of them, arose a single controller with goggles slung dangling from the ceiling.

It only took the girls several seconds to equip the visors and hold onto the controllers, by then the veins completely made up the entire room. And with a flash of white light the outside world was completely visible to them.

"Enhance—!" Their vision was aided by the goggles, showing clear images of the Apostles that were following closely behind.

"Fire—!" Felis' voice was heard by Canis, who nodded her head before sending an affirmative through the telepathy system. And thus they pulled the triggers of their controllers.

Their new favorite game created by Ivan himself, World Invaders. A hud-like green reticle appeared on their visors as well as a green numbered score in the top left corner.

Green plasma fired from their pods into the snowy storm, the folk firing being the only ones to know where they were headed.

Back in the cockpit.

"We should arrive in twenty-five minutes. I'll deactivate the barrier temporarily, we won't have time to land safely. I'll try to crash somewhere clear but expect our home to be in a little bit of disarray…"

Ivan was also hoping he'd hit some apostles on the way down. At the very least he needed to be conscious enough to reactivate the barrier once they passed through.

"Tio, watch out for any more messages from the droids, order them to not aggravate the apostles and await indoors until further instructions. Oh yeah… have them input '6672' into the numpad east of their pods… it's a little early but they're welcome to use their gifts now! Make sure each of them are properly armed!"

"Yes, master!"

Tio left without a moment to waste, coordinating about two hundred droids in a twenty-five minutes span would be certainly difficult, but nothing a princess like her couldn't handle.

"Ari, Claire, you two are joining me and Yue to eliminate any apostles that might make it through the barrier while it's down. For that reason, strap yourselves in tightly, we eject the moment we hit the ground!"

""Yes, master!"" The two nodded before strapping themselves in, devising a plan between the two so that they may eliminate apostles in what they felt like might be the most effective way.

"Um, from Master's data I suppose the easiest way would be to rip out their cores… If we don't focus on that we,ll have to deal with a barrage of magical attacks that could melt us in an instant if we're not careful…"

"Mhm, I'm just hopin' a handful of them make it in, any more and we might have some trouble. Hehehe, at least that's if Master's droids aren't ready in time! I have faith in those lads!"

"It's their first time having to defend the base from something not of bandit level… I hope most of them make it out alive…"

While Ari and Claire were taking bets on how many droids would live, Ivan had a few of his personal droids ready up the operation table so that they could begin operation as soon as he landed.

"Are you sure you don't want me down there… just in case…?" Yue spoke demurely, while she had faith in Ivan's capabilities implanting what was the heart of a robotic enemy into your own body may have adverse effects to his psychology, at least that's what she feared.

"Sorry Yue, but you're gonna have to wait in the manor with the others. If the apostles break in it'll be you and Tio who are going to have to hold them off long enough for me to complete the operation.

"Very well… I'll protect your body no matter what…" Yue steeled herself for the impending battle, the ship was starting to take some damage from the random rays shot by the apostles in the storm.

And with bated breath, everyone aboard the ship prepared for the crash landing.

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