23: Vs. Earth Elemental

"Commence the attack!" - Rhea exclaimed as she ordered the soldiers to fire with their crossbows.

Ren was doing a wonderful job in distracting the monster as the soldiers slowly reduced the creature's total HP.

Elisabeth was prepared to give support, after all, those were her abilities. Despite her personality, Elisabeth had a pretty useful ability for the first few chapters, although after half the game she was practically useless, as for the function of this ability it was simple, it made the offensive value of the soldiers' weapons increase a total value of 20 points, as long as the weapons had a value of less than 50 points, which turned the soldiers' weapons into killing weapons at least in the first two scenarios. As for the downside of this ability, it was simple, Elisabeth was a woman who only looked out for herself, that's why for the player to make her work, he had to use a male avatar and have a high affinity with the noble woman, and even with all that, Elisabeth could only use this ability a maximum of 1 time per mission, although that wasn't the worst part, but the fact that to achieve the affinity needed for Elisabeth to use her ability, the player needed to give her a lot of resources, which would take at least two or three scenarios, which would make this ability useless because by that time, the value of the weapons would be at least 80 to 100 points.

Rhea looked at Elisabeth, who simply smiled in response as the soldiers felt their power increase considerably.

"ROAR!" - Ren let out a mighty roar as he continued to bombard the creature with all the fire spells he had in his repertoire, though this was somewhat counterproductive, after all, the boy's mana though huge, was not infinite - "Feel the wrath of Ifrit, [Ignis Infernalis (Hellfire)]!"

A deep divine aura began to surround Ren's body as his skin began to glow a deep crimson color, only for his body to be covered in a sea of flames after a few seconds - "ROAR!"

"Shit, he's using [Divine Connection]!" - Elisabeth exclaimed with a pale face.

"Impossible, that ability can only be unlocked when Ren fully unlock the ring of the sages!" - Rhea exclaimed as she felt her body begin to release a huge amount of sweat.

The soldiers quickly backed off because the fire was too powerful, not to mention that they didn't understand what the fuck was going on.

"Girls! Tell me what's going on!" - Eric exclaimed, his face pale with fear.

"Ren is using an ability called [Divine Connection], a power that is connected to his hero blood and his unique ability, [Tower of Babel]" - replied Rea while wiping the sweat from her forehead - "This ability manages to create a connection with a divine being and make it take possession of his majesty's body, gaining enormous power, although to activate this ability, the user needs two things, a suitable catalyst (which he doesn't have), and a contract with said entity (which he hasn't done either because Ifrit's altar is in the middle of the desert)"

Rhea was confused, perplexed at the strangeness of the situation, especially since it didn't make sense, unless she was ignoring something.

Slowly, she scanned the surroundings, only to notice how her the ring of the wise had disappeared, in fact, she could notice an intense red glow on one of the prince's fingers, proving that the ring had willingly flown to where its owner was.

"Well, that explains the catalyst, but I still don't understand why the contract or how he managed to create the connection when the ring was just in its first unlocking phase" - thought Rhea with a frown. She again started to look around, only to feel how the situation was starting to get out of hand.

Ren was absorbing all the mana from the great canyon as his body was shapeshifting into a flame demon's, though the worst part was that she, as much the other soldiers, could hear the sound of bones breaking.

"Ren!" - Erika exclaimed in terror as she watched her beloved take a strangely familiar form.

"Relax, don't do something crazy!" - Elisabeth exclaimed as she tried to grab the red-haired girl's hand, though before she could do anything else, she saw Erika run to where the fire demon was - "Erika!"

Rhea tried to run after the red haired girl, only for her to be stopped by a pillar of fire - "Erika, come back, that's dangerous!"

Erika didn't seem to be listening to them, she simply ran to her beloved with tears in her eyes as the strange glyphs on her back began to glow with an intense golden color.

"Awakening!?" - Rhea exclaimed as her pupils constricted - "Wait, don't go!"

[Awakening] was a delicate moment for a hero, because it was basically contacting their ancestors so that they would give them a fraction of their power, in other words, the stronger this ancestor was, the more powerful the hero would be, in Erika's case, well, her clan came directly from the blood of the goddess Belldandy....

"I have to go, if they interrupt her awakening, she may not move again!" - Rhea exclaimed as she looked around in search of some way to resist the hot hellish flames that were surrounding the battlefield, and that's not even counting that the earth elemental seemed to have detected the change in the air and was watching Erika carefully, who was starting to release two white angel wings.

Without a second thought, the elemental dashed at the goddess priestess, only to be stopped by a pillar of fire.

"You... WON'T HURT HER!" - Ren roared as he showed off his new form, a sort of ogre with huge ram horns that had its body covered in flame armor. His dark green body and big, sturdy muscles made him look like a death machine, a relentless warrior that seemed to radiate a hot aura that could burn even the very air.

"R-Ren..." - Erika muttered as she slowly opened her eyes as she felt a warm aura in front of her - "&%!$#"

Ren looked at her before opening his huge jaw full of sharp teeth and replying - "!%&$$$!!!"

Erika smiled slightly before her body glowed brighter and brighter, to the point that the soldiers had to close their eyes.

Elisabeth and Rhea simply looked at each other, confused of this situation because they could notice how Erika's body seemed to be being surrounded by some kind of light egg while her angelic wings stretched for more than two meters.

"Have you ever seen this?" - Rea asked as she looked at her friend.

"No, this is new, I'm confused" - replied Elisabeth while shaking her head - "It's as if the world is telling us in this way that we'd better think carefully because everything is about to change, in other words..."

"Our knowledge is possibly useless in this situation" - muttered Rhea while biting her lip - "This is bad... the only advantage we have is that we knew what would happen in the future, but now..."

Elisabeth simply shook her head as she listened while Ren, who was using Ifrit's form, was fighting hand to hand against the huge earth elemental.

The prince quickly summoned a giant fire hammer as he began to land heavy strikes against the creature, all the while shielding Erika in her light egg form from the earth monster's attacks.

The earth elemental could only roar with fury as he saw that his plan was not going as he thought it would, and the situation was getting worse with each passing second, even as he was beginning to think more clearly. It was a disheartening feeling that the first thing he felt, was the despair of not overcome this barrier when he was about to evolve into a superior creature.

"ROAR!" - the earth elemental roared fiercely as it shook the entire large canyon with its power.

Ren roared back as his muscles began to convulse, only for hundreds of flames to erupt from his pores. The boy's monstrous figure slowly began to change to a more bestial one - [Ignis Monstrum (Fire Monster)].

The prince let out a new roar as he leapt at the earth elemental and gave it a firm bite that took a chunk out of its body.

The elemental let out a roar of pain as he watched in terror as his "flesh" was severed from his body, which was strange because his race consisted of a quantity of elemental mana that was slowly starting to develop consciousness, in other words, he didn't have a physical body to be torn apart, but this... monster was causing him physical harm.