"Finally, things started to get interesting." Eric smiled.
So far, these Soulweavers all looked too cute from his evil eyes, to the point that he didn't even want to take action until they had at least some advantage over them.
The large reason why the Soulweavers looked weak to them was because they had weapons that could be lethal to their species; otherwise, it would have been quite troublesome.
A Soulweaver had human-like anatomy, at least in a sense, but their constitution was too poor. It could also be argued to be too strong, as if a person only carried a normal weapon without any required Rune inscribed or they themselves didn't have any 'white' Element, then it might have taken a long time to kill even a single Soulweaver, as they could be fine even when beheaded or sliced into multiple parts.
As long as their essence remained intact somewhere within their bodies, they would still be 'alive' and could also regenerate.
However, with the 'white' Rune-inscribed weapons, the Soulweavers would most likely die in one good stab or at most need a few extra slices.
So, Soulweavers—who were known as horrors to most Apprentice Ranks and Mortals—were not much of a difficulty for them. Another large reason was that they had all knowledge of their abilities, so whatever Soulweavers could pull out was something they had long learned from the Memory Orb.
There was also another reason Soulweavers were difficult to handle: they could float and fly around, though not at too high an altitude or with great speed, but this was troublesome to most Apprentice Ranks.
Yet all these were nothing to humans who had pumped their biceps with raw steroids for months! So, Eric, Lyria, and Livy were very chill even within the current chilling weather inside the cave.
After the area had been completely covered with a snowstorm and visibility was low, the Soulweavers started shooting Ice Manifestation Shards at all three humans nonstop from somewhere.
Eric felt he was playing snowball with cute girls. So, he decided to use just his agility to coolly dodge to impress the spirit girls.
Lyria pulled out a Fire Rune-Inscribed Shield and started blocking the Ice shards from whichever direction they came toward her. She could still see a few meters in front of her, and with her trained senses, blocking these was not difficult even with her eyes closed. They had gone through much worse training in the past, so it was nothing new.
Livy used her 'dancing' movements to dodge all shards in an inconceivable way and reach toward her first target.
It was not difficult to judge the Soulweavers' locations, as the shards weren't just summoned from random places.
As soon as Livy managed to see one of the Soulweavers' silhouettes, she shot forward and decapitated her.
But the Soulweaver's body turned into ice and shattered into pieces.
Livy recalled the skill used by the Soulweaver:
Ice Illusions: Soulweavers have the ability to create realistic, yet ephemeral, illusions of ice structures or creatures to confuse or mislead their prey.
At this moment, Livy swiftly moved her head to the side, and an ice shard from behind passed beside her.
She wondered how long these Soulweavers were planning to play, as they also had a limit on how much Mana they could use.
All Mana Beasts had Mana Cores, but they were not necessarily always in the exact same form—especially for Spirit-type Mana Beasts, whose cores were often just in a gas-like form and hard to collect.
Mana Cores, in essence, were an extremely condensed form of Mana. Their sizes were often very small regardless of a Beast's Rank. These Cores pulsed Mana through a Beast's Mana Veins to let them use Mana according to their inherent capabilities.
Livy kept dodging and intentionally separated from Eric and Lyria.
And, as she expected, the number of attacks on her increased. She continued to either dodge or deflect the attacks with her swords.
After a while, she sensed a sharp weapon stabbing her from behind.
She quickly dodged by twisting her waist and looked behind her.
A Soulweaver appeared—but not in her horrifying form. Instead, she wore beautiful Ice armor with an Ice-manifested spear in her hand.
Livy wanted to laugh.
'Why does a hideous-looking Creature currently look more like a proper knight than me?'
Before Livy could say something, she was stabbed from behind again with another spear, which she smoothly dodged, glancing at her new attacker from the corner of her eye.
Without any surprise, another 'White Knight' had appeared, wearing a full suit of ice armor.
"You Soulweavers should at least try to reduce the heavy killing intent that flows out from your sneak attacks. It's too easy to guess from where your attacks are coming from—not to mention the patterns are too simplistic." Livy shook her head in disappointment over their obvious flaws.
Although the language was different, Soulweavers knew Celestia language, as they had haunted villages that spoke that language in the past, so both understood what the human girl had just said.
Both of their ghastly faces within their Ice helmets couldn't help but blush in shame.
They were Spirit-type Mana Beasts and poor at physical attacks, yet currently, they were forced to use 'Ice Manifestation: Armor' and 'Ice Manifestation: Spear'—which they rarely ever needed to use in the past.
They didn't have unlimited Mana to keep throwing Ice Shards while also constantly covering the place with snowstorms. Thus, they had to fight in close range to quickly deal with one who had separated from the other two humans within the snowstorm—and after dealing with this one, they also needed to go support their other sisters before they all ran out of Mana.
Although they fought and quarreled sometimes among themselves, they equally had great care and comradeship for each other. Their sisterhood was time-tested, as they had stayed together for over a century.
As both Soulweavers cursed their current predicament, Livy thought that it was enough. There weren't more abilities these creatures could entertain them with. The only reason these Soulweavers had this many abilities was because they were Spirit-type—but this was also their limit when it came to fighting.
Livy swiftly used her agility to dash toward the first Soulweaver that had attacked her.
Before the Soulweaver could react, Livy—with her High-grade Tier 2 sword while also activating the Thunder Rune—swung it vertically and cleaved the Soulweaver cleanly in half.
Morrigan's two sides trembled while lightning cracked on both her open sides. Without being able to make any more sound, she turned into mist, leaving behind her 'Ethereal Residuum'.
"Morrigan!!!" Aoibheall cried out in horror with her ghastly voice.
All of them paused and looked over.
Eric and Lyria knew that playtime was over—it needed to be, since they were also getting bored by the same pattern of attacks from these ghost girls.
Both charged toward the respective Soulweavers who had previously been attacking them.
Moira and Caoineag panicked with both humans' sudden acceleration and so used their 'Flight' ability to fly high above, out of the humans' reach.
Aoibheall also tried to fly away after realizing she was next. But before she could go far, Livy launched one sword toward Aoibheall while activating its Thunder Rune.
It smoothly pierced the Soulweaver's ice armor.
Aoibheall trembled as her insides were cooked with thunder. She soon turned to gas, leaving behind her Ethereal Residuum.
"Aoibheall!!!" Caoineag cried out with anguish from high above.
With this, she had lost three of her sisters in one single night! No matter how competitive they were among themselves, they had stayed together for nearly a century. It pained her to see all three of her sisters die one by one—helplessly and brutally.
She turned toward Moira, who was silent, and yelled at her, "I am done with this! You can deal with them yourself!"
After saying this, Caoineag tried to fly away toward the cave entrance at her fastest speed—but she forgot her opponent, whom she had been attacking for the last couple of minutes.
"Do you think you can escape?" Lyria dropped her Light Element Rune-inscribed longsword on the ground and raised her freed hand toward the escaping Soulweaver.
Lyria used her 'Absolute Gravity' to pull, and without being able to resist, Caoineag was hauled back helplessly toward Lyria while screaming in panic.
Before Caoineag could do anything, the Fire shield was bashed right on the back of her torso, and she was smashed to the ground.
Lyria sent a small amount of her Mana to activate the Flame Rune on her shield, and fire burst out from it, bathing Caoineag's entire body in flames as she screamed in pain.
Within moments, Caoineag was burnt to charcoal and then turned to mist, leaving behind her Ethereal Residuum.
Moira's expression was grave. She knew this ordeal was a complete failure, and she must escape. So she landed at the far end of the cave near the entrance—within a newly appeared crowd.
She canceled her previous ability, as all three of her sisters had died, and their 'Chilling Scream' and 'Blizzard Form' were also canceled—so the entire cave no longer had the same low visibility as before.
As all the Soulweavers' skills were disabled, Eric, Lyria, and Livy could see clearly—or rather, the cave was already brightly lit at the entrance, as many torches were currently burning there.
They were stunned, looking at the area.
Nearly 100 to 200 humans had appeared at some point, and quite a few of them had lit torches in their raised hands.
Moira landed within this crowd and tried to sneakily escape.
She was furious but also helpless—her trump card had ended up being used as her escape card, which was not her original intention. Yet, even after battling against Thunder Panther for so long, these three humans still remained so strong. What else could she do but save her own life? She also didn't want her sisters to die, but her progress was similarly important. Overall, she had lost too much and felt terrible inside—and also scared.
Orion, who was in front of the group with a torch in his hand and his sister beside him, took a step forward and spoke with a hurtful tone, "B-Big Brother, h-how could you harm our Elders, who have protected and served our village with their lives day and night? How will we survive now that all of them have died? B-Big Brother, S-sisters, how could you... how could you?!"
The children Livy had played with during the same evening stood behind Orion. They all started sobbing while hugging their parents and the adults beside them, who were glaring daggers at Eric, Lyria, and Livy.
Orion continued with a lamenting tone, "I-I was wrong, I was wrong! I brought destruction and extinction to our village, and now our village is doomed and can only become wild animals' food."
Mila hugged Orion from beside while also letting out a soft whimper, "O-Orion, you are not to be blamed. Who would have thought that these foreigners are so cruel and vile? They didn't appreciate our goodwill and wanted us to die slowly and painfully. They are too vicious. You are not in the wrong, Orion... you are not in the wrong..."
Although Lyria and Livy couldn't fully comprehend word for word, more or less, they understood what Mila and Orion were saying—and their faces paled in rage and disbelief.
Livy was enraged by Mila's behavior and wanted to curse, 'Bitch!'—but she held back, as she found the entire situation too strange.
'Can't they see what just happened here? What their Elders truly were? Why support them even after knowing and seeing them?'