82 I will Surely Come Home

Kaboom! Selvig's thoughts were like the shrapnel of the bombs that scattered all over the place once they hit the glass spirit in front of them. The giants were called glass spirits, but they did have a material body made of thick sheets of ice. As they were, the glass spirits were not even caring about the human's puny artillery. They only took the hit head-on as if it was nothing to them.

The archduke had reached the front line and raised his left hand. The black mist converged in his palm, and the dense magic seemed to take the attention of the one before them. There was no face on it, but it was easy to say that it grew intrigued. The flat surface of a face then grew nearer to the humans, only for Larkin to hurl the condensed ball of demon magic against its face.

Bang! A resounding crash of shattering glass echoed all over the place. The other two glass spirits then pinned their attention at Larkin while the first one only held against its broken face. The ball of condensed demon magic didn't break through its head, but the head suffered from cracks. A coordinated howling then deafened the people as the three glass spirits started to attack Larkin.

"Uncle!" Havina wove a staff from the black light that channeled along her hands. She then waved it around and shot a black beam towards the hand that was supposed to slap down at them. Even if her attack was powerful and that she had fully awakened her demon blood, the glass spirit was not something her simple magic couldn't destroy. The hand was only knocked back, and she only attracted the spirit's ire.

Selvig was not on good terms with his wife at the moment, but that didn't mean he was willing to watch her die. When the glass spirit concentrated on Havina, he quickly flew towards the spirit's face to distract it. He wove a sword and swung at the broken face. "Fight me instead!"

Havina's eyes quivered as she retreated, facilitating the escape of the soldiers from the immediate vicinity. The grenadiers continued their assault, hoping not to harm their archduke who kept on attacking from the ground. Larkin, although unhurt, was using up magic like water. His body could only draw so much from the vein.

["As things stand, you will exhaust everything and go out of control."]

"I know, but I have no other course of action at the moment." Larkin made a small exchange with the Black Kodiak before charging his attack again. He had no idea if Artie could cause more damage than he could, but he wasn't planning to push everything to her. He was the favored Archduke because of his power; if he couldn't fight it… then, where will his people find the person who could?

Bang! The spirit fighting Larkin kicked the cliff, causing the ground to break. The Black Kodiak was distracted by the crack in the soil that the spirit managed to swat Larkin off of his back. The archduke had summoned the black armor and didn't sustain unimaginable damage from the chop of the spirit's hand. However, the magic was still dispersed, and his human body rolled roughly on the ground.

["Your Majesty!"] The Black Kodiak tried to run to him, but the spirit slapped down a palm and destroyed a good part of the cliff. The black horse fell down the ravine along with the debris.

"...Kodiak..." Larkin was barely awake from the impact. He only raised his head to call on the horse before the glass spirit eliminated it from the field. The archduke lifted his head and saw how the same glass spirit launched a hand down to do the same to him.

Stop! The three glass spirits seemed to stop, along with the soldiers, and moved their attention to something else up in the sky. The faint rushing sound tingled their ears until a white giant albatross nosedived towards their bodies again. Boom! The explosion from the crash knocked back the three glass spirits, effectively cracking the bellies of one of them. From the smoke, a figure was flung from the rebound of the impact.

A figure in purple was thrown to the ground and bounced like a skipping stone. The body seemed to be wrangled from the landing, but no blood came from her. Like a rising figure in a nightmare, her body started untwisting itself until she looked like she wasn't even hurt… albeit dirty.

"I am very terrified of this zero-mortality spell. Please take it away from me..." Artie mumbled after the system fixed her body just like that. Like a game character, any kind of action only influenced her HP but not her body permanently. She then hugged her arms before focusing on the important matter. "Larkin! Where are you?!"

"...!" Larkin's shock kept him awake. The last time she did nosedive, she wasn't twisted like that. Was it because the sand took all the impact? However, he couldn't even call out properly so he could only wait for her to notice him on the ground. Then again, outside his knowledge, Artie's death anomaly sensor located him first. 

The archduchess came to him and channeled a healing spell on him like before. She then chuckled. "Are you okay? Uhm, I don't think you should stay out here. Unlike me, you can get squished around." She spotted a knight braving his way to them to collect the archduke. Artie then took a deep breath. "Do you have faith in me, Larkin?"

"Be sure to come home." That was all Larkin said before the knight carried him away from the danger zone. However, Artie felt like her entire body froze at those words. Her eyes lifted and watched the two retreat to a distance away from the edge of the ravine where she was.

Havina and Selvig ran to the archduke, and the princess looked in Artie's direction. She could only hold onto her uncle's sleeve. "Uncle, why is she still standing there? What kind of magic can a hybrid have? The mother of the elves would never bless a half-breed, would she?"

"What kind of magic?" Larkin only chuckled. "Perhaps something more powerful than mine."

"How could there be someone be more powerful than you—?!"

Crackle! A loud crackle echoed all over the cliffside as thick black matter swirled around Artie's body. Larkin's eyes widened so badly as he was confused by the display: how could an angel wield this much darkness inside her?! Moreover, from her very body, Artie pulled out what seemed to be a red club-shaped weapon. The black matter merged with it and solidified into an obsidian black club with metal spikes on its body.

Strange howling noises came from the black club, and Artie's body visibly limped after drawing it out. She used the club as a cane to stand up straight again and moved her head towards the direction of the glass spirits. She then chuckled and sighed before her image was shrouded with a rather red glow. 

The red glow then moved around to her back, morphing itself into a pair of huge red-feathered wings that even dripped with blood. Artie turned her head behind her and smiled reassuringly in Larkin's direction. "This time, I will surely come home."