Victory

At some point, the flesh mage stopped, but I didn't dare to strike first. He took me away from my allies and led me into a trap, that was to be expected.

But I was well aware of this, and also well aware that I had a strong advantage over his magic, as well as partial control over him, albeit weak.

His traps won't hurt me, and being far from the team, I can unleash my powers without fear of harming them.

"Bend down!" I shouted, pointing at him with my index finger.

The darkness that was in his body obeyed me, trying to pull the rest of his soul with it.

The copy of Father Bill tried to kneel for a moment, but resisted, refusing this action.

That was enough for me to cast another spell, "Ray!"

A spell of the same name came out from the index finger, from which a dark glow emanated. The ray hit the target exactly, and then exploded. The darkness began to devour the corpse.

I used my spiritual vision again, and was surprised to find that it was the original body that I had struck.

Isn't he a powerful mage? It was he who brought Flirt to the brink of destruction, but why couldn't he do anything to counter such a primitive attack? What's wrong?

I refused to go down and collect biological material, waiting for a trap.

I looked at the magician's body again and noticed something. Instead of destroying the enemy's flesh, my darkness clung to his body, turning into a kind of armor.

Can he control my darkness? This may be due to the fact that the energy I gave him at our first meeting was comparable to the energy of my soul, but the one I used now is not and is much weaker than the first option.

Now this darkness, having discovered a close source of my dark soul energy, began to assimilate with the host.

It might be unpleasant if he learns to control the darkness at a more skillful level, so it's in my best interest to get rid of him as soon as possible. Although he can resist my magic, I am the master of his gift.

"Darkospheres!" 10 balls of darkness appeared behind my back and headed towards the enemy.

The man's two arms were first covered with bone growths, which grew more and became larger than the arms themselves, becoming a kind of medium-sized shields.

The darkness that was on him quickly moved onto these bone shields, strengthening them.

When the first collision with the ball occurred, there was an explosion, but a weak one. Most of the energy was absorbed by the dark shield.

Armed with them, the mage began to block my attacks.

At the same time, the onslaught of the Darkospheres only intensified, causing weak but frequent explosions that raise dust into the air.

Under this cover, I left the dark clone in my place, and went on, preparing to attack the enemy from behind.

When the dust settled, Bill looked at the place where my clone was located. Suddenly, tentacles and long arms shot out from the ground beneath him, abruptly rushing up, grabbing my clone.

From this, the clone exploded, producing a strong explosion that destroyed the top of the limbs that reached it.

Bill was lazily scanning the area, at the same time I flew into him at great speed, cutting in half with my scythe of darkness.

At the same moment, new tentacles appeared under me, which grabbed me, but quickly rotted and retreated back underground.

I turned around, canceling the soaring. The opponent's body was cut in two in the stomach area, both parts twitching in agony.

"Ray!" I pointed my entire palm at the upper part of the opponent, which proportionally increased the area of damage.

Under such pressure, the enemy could no longer contain the negative effects of my magic. His flesh began to rot, exposing bones and organs that were also not left out.

The only thing that survived is the soul. My energy didn't attack it because I needed it.

I came closer, but found serious inconsistencies. Firstly, his soul was very small, smaller than that of an ordinary person, as if it consisted of a couple dozen memories at most.

Secondly, the amount of dark soul energy that I gave him was much less than it should be.

I flew closer to the corpse, beckoning the soul to me. It obediently flew up to me, hovering over my palm.

It's more like a small piece of the soul infected with a little bit of darkness.

All this time I've been fighting the decoy, maybe the original is hiding among those who stayed there.

I covered the soul with a small dome, keeping it as a small lump on my chest. At the same time, I soared again and went back.

***

A deafening shot rang out. All eyes focused for a moment on the source of the noise. A soldier in green camouflage fired at Gwanrom.

At the same moment, hundreds of bloody appendages burst out of the ground, some of them dragged Gwan's body deep down, but most focused on the team.

Maximilian once again used the Incineration Aura, burning all living things within a radius of several meters, preventing the appendages from getting close to him.

A multitude of tentacles and arms targeted Veronica, who had no effective defense.

"Activation!" she shouted, after which the area on her thighs lightened, followed by a powerful explosion of fire and ice. She detonated two small quivers of arrows.

An ice sculpture of a strange shape with a height of 4 meters suddenly formed on the battlefield, inside of which Veronica and dozens of appendages were sealed, which made the color of the sculpture bright red, while grass and piles of flesh burned around.

Veronica had lost both her legs, and her intestines peeked out from the lower part of her body, partially frozen into the sculpture. Her head, chest, shoulders and upper abdomen peeked out of the ice floe, but it was clear that she had suffered very badly from frostbite, her body was also covered with burns, and in some places pieces of skin were missing, all her hair had burned off, leaving it completely bald and charred.

Maximilian, seeing this sight, wanted to run towards her and help, but he understood that the Aura of Incineration would only worsen the situation, and if he turned off this spell, he would become very vulnerable to attacks by the flesh magician.

Seracin was able to suppress the appendages around him, taking them under control, since they largely acted autonomously and were almost independent of their creator.

At the same time, he also controlled those appendages that were under Agnes right now.

At the most crucial moment, they grabbed her, and Seracin easily ran towards her, taking control of more and more appendages in his path, after which he pierced the enemy through.

The tentacles and hands that grabbed her began to tear her body apart, merging with them, completely absorbing the corpse, which did not even have a soul. The last traces of the influence of the creator of this clone dissipated, giving place to Seracin.

"Energy Projectile!" Dylan shouted, sending a ball of magical energy towards the three-faced soldier, which exploded when it collided with the enemy, destroying dozens of tentacles.

Due to the influx of these outgrowths, the ground became uneven, as if collapsing due to an earthquake. Their carriage had already collapsed due to the fractures and was swallowed up by the sea of flesh, so the twins picked up the coachman and flew up, observing the situation from here, sometimes sending projectiles to places where there were no allies, but appendages.

"Hold the coachman, I'll help that girl," Dylan said, heading down.

To begin with, he flew up to Seracin, as he noticed that he had already dealt with his opponent, and the appendages around him did not attack and even on the contrary helped in the battle.

He informed the bone mage that something terrible had happened to the archer girl on the opposite side of the battle.

After that, he grabbed the magician by the hand and carried him to the injured, leaving him to work on healing.

Very soon Sam joined the team again. He did not ask any questions and immediately began to destroy the appendages. With the combined efforts of the twins, Samuel and Maximilian, they managed to destroy all the remaining appendages.

At some point, a man flew out of the pit into which Gwanrom was dragged, covered in blood from head to toe, with tentacles and broken arms falling from him.

It was Gwanrom himself, heavily breathing and disoriented. He turned around while in the air and used his strength to angrily crush the bloody mess of flesh into the ground, creating only an even greater mess.

At the same time, he shouted something unintelligible, related to the fact that it was too early for him to die.

Anji was nowhere to be seen.