Clive took a few steps forward just as the Guardian was rearing its head for another bite. Tower shield held firmly before him, Clive stepped into the attack and let its force push him back a metre as the monster's jaws closed around his shield.

It was almost comical to watch, and Mia felt her jaw hanging loose. The Rift Guardian was a gigantic wolf made of dull grey iron, the size of a truck. It was tall enough that it could poke its snout in a window on the first floor.

Clive, in comparison, was a tiny little ant.

Alas, that tiny human had somehow stopped the monster's attack not once, but twice already in this fight. Even now, the monster tried to rear back and swing Clive about like a chew toy, but the man somehow stayed rooted in place despite the enormous beast visibly straining to move him.

The only viable explanation Mia could think up was that Clive had some strange Skill or Ki Technique making excellent use of his darkness affinity's magic syphoning aspect. Maybe his shield was similar to Brent's armour and could steal the kinetic energy of attacks impacting it too. That all combined with an earth elemental skill making him tough and rooted on the spot, could maybe manage what he was doing. Still, even with a possible explanation in mind, it looked impressive and impossible as hell at the same time.

Mia pushed the curiosity and theory-crafting to the back of her mind and focused on pushing mana to power her chained Arcane Blasts as fast as her energy channels could bear without rupturing.

In just a moment, she was in the zone. She wasn't just using one arm to cast spells, but both at once, alternating between which palm she cast the spell from to almost double the casting speed at the cost of her willpower being drained away at an even more taxing pace.

It didn't matter. She had potions, and the quicker the monster shrank to a more manageable size, the less she had to worry about it biting off one of her friends' heads in a moment of inattention.

Mia watched the Guardian, keeping track of its clawed paws and snapping jaws, ready to jump away should any of them head for her or Blast into either to save one of her friends should the monster strike at them.

Even with Multitasking, she was pushing her mental limits, keeping so alert. She felt like she was dancing on a knife's edge and knew that was even truer for the three melee fighters beating on the monster from close up.

Maybe that was why when she felt a sudden force knocking her to the ground, she hadn't the faintest notion of an idea for what could have caused it. A part of her thought it had been Camie knocking her out of the way of an attack, but then her senses caught up with her.

Her Lesser Ward had saved her knees and palms from getting scraped on the asphalt, but the air fled her lungs as she smashed into it. Then, pain blossomed across her back, so intense that she couldn't help but scream in pain as her whole back felt like it was on fire.

Worse, she felt a heavy weight atop her, keeping her pinned. Her Lesser Ward, already strained by whatever the attack that had overwhelmed it, dissipated just as another force smashed the weight off of her.

Suddenly being able to breathe, Mia curled up in a fetal position while wheezing for air. Her enchanted ring burned with mana, and the agonising lines of pain on her back started itching on top of feeling like someone had cut into her flesh with a pair of searing hot scalpels.

Her hands trembling from both pain and fear, she reached for a vial on her belt the moment she could think clearly enough to remember its existence.

Some of them were smashed, but they had apparently been lined with some minor enchantment to strengthen them, so she found an intact one on the second try, which she mostly managed to empty into her mouth with only a little bit splashing across her cheeks.

The potion, mixed with the Healing Ring, worked quickly, and Mia managed to get back to her knees and take in the situation. It wasn't looking good.

Off to the side, Camie was wrestling with an oversized metallic bird the size of a small car. It had feathers of shimmering steel, a dozen of which were poking out of various parts of Carmilla, with dozens more flying through the air to join them.

The bird's talons were also coated in fresh blood, likely Mia's own. The damn thing crashed through Lina's slowing shield and crash-landed right on top of Mia, hadn't it?

The vampire didn't seem at all worried about her wounds, and the dagger-like feathers were pushed out of her flesh one after the other by her regeneration. Camie had a wrathful scowl on her face and sent off Blood Lance after Blood Lance at the bird. She managed to push it back, despite the monster having a good five levels on her and likely having whatever additional boost being a Rift Guardian granted the damned things.

The others were occupied with the gigantic wolf still, which had taken on a much more offensive style of fighting with the team's two main damage dealers down for the count.

Mia gritted her teeth, shuddering as she felt her shirt stick to her wounded back as her own flesh squirmed around to re-knit itself. Itching had now overtaken the pain in intensity, but that just went to show how uncomfortable the healing process was, not that it was doing anything to dampen the pain.

It didn't matter. Her friends were frantically fighting for their lives around her. She couldn't just keep lying down and take a nap while her wounds healed. Not if she wanted them to survive.

Barely taking a moment to make sure her spell circle didn't get messed up, Mia sent a short burst of four Arcane Blasts at the wolf just to make it back off a step as each bore holes into its head.

"Mom! Help Camie!" Mia shouted in a moment of inspiration. Helene's lightning did little damage to the wolf, but the bird was all squishy flesh on the inside despite its size.

Helene nodded quickly, sending a worried glance to Mia, who just shook her head with a grimace and kept firing off spells as she slowly inched closer to Nikki.

She felt something missing, and only after a few seconds did she realise it was the weight of the Familiar that was missing from her shoulder, along with the temporary Bond she shared with it no longer lingering in the back of her mind.

Somehow, the little pink cat had gotten itself banished. Did it get crushed between Mia and the asphalt? Likely not. More likely, it had reacted before Mia and managed to get itself between the damned avian Rift Guardian and her before its diving attack had struck. It likely dampened the damage somewhat if it did.

Mia shuddered to think what would have happened if those talons pierced into her back deep enough to mangle her heart and lungs. No amount of healing potions or enchanted rings would have saved her from death if that happened.

The Familiar might have just saved her life, again.

All weary musings fled Mia's Mind as the wolf kicked out with its hind leg and caught Brent across the chest, sending him flying as his own Lesser Ward and armour beneath it flashed around him. He'd survive … probably.

No. He will. Mia thought, not daring to glance over to verify and just focusing on casting her spells as she came to a stop a few metres behind Nikki.

"Uhm, Mia?" Nikki asked, her voice tense but hiding a hint of … eagerness? "Can you slow the wolf for a few seconds? Keep it in place? I might have something to finish this fight quickly, or at least expedite it greatly."

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"I don-" Mia started, then reconsidered. Squinting at the monster. Whatever Clive was doing to it was weakening it by a fair bit. It might just be enough. "I'll try."

"Okay, do it," Nikki said, not even waiting a second before a wide spell circle brimming with mana appeared before her palm, quickly followed by a second layer snapping into existence in front of the first. It started to spin slowly, and Mia felt the mana filling it quickly. She had to hurry.

Dropping Arcane Blast's spell circle, Mia assembled Arcane Shackles as quickly as she could manage, hurrying her runic-model along to work swifter than it was comfortable with.

Feeding as much mana to the spell as she felt it could reasonably take without too much risk, Mia activated her spell, and the six opaque pink chains as thick as her wrists shot out. Following her vague instructions, they went not for the wolf itself, but just its legs.

The monster tried to dodge, but Mark was on it and smashed his mace into one of its paws. It didn't do all that much damage, but the weapon broke apart as if it were made of wet mud and locked the paw to the ground for just a brief instance.

That was enough time for Mia's Shackles to entangle its other legs. They zigzagged between them, twisting around ankles, tugging at knees and pulling everything together into a clump.

By some blessed miracle, the monster seemed hesitant to use its ranged attacks. With any luck, sending out those iron spikes would cost it body mass and would make it even less fit to resist Mia's spell if it did. Clive had placed himself between the casters and the Guardian, so she at least didn't have to worry about getting impaled.

The spell strained, and Mia clamped down on it with every bit of mental power she had left. It could not break. The Shackles thickened the slightest bit, though Mia didn't have the luxury to notice as she focused on keeping the spell circle in her mental vice grip.

Arcane Mana Manipulation was working on overdrive to help her, but it too was quickly reaching the limits of its capabilities.

"Ready!" Nikki hissed, then continued in a language Mia couldn't understand but felt resonating through the ambient mana. "Isdrak Myrrist!"

Mia's ears tingled as she felt the frigid magic resonate through mana itself, then everything went still, and the spell collapsed upon itself into a single snowflake the size of a palm.

Nikki collapsed, coughing up a mouthful of blood with a shudder, but the snowflake just hovered midair, unburdened by its maker's suffering. The snowflake slowly floated towards the Rift Guardian, still bound in Mia's Shackles for the moment.

Its advance was dreadfully slow, but Mia tried to hold on. Whatever that thing was, Nikki had poured exorbitant amounts of mana into it and seemingly injured herself too while casting it. Probably some sort of a backlash.

Brent came back just as the wolf started struggling to move with everything it had, snapping two of Mia's Shackles and sending searing nails of pain into her skull. The man wasted no time impaling one of the unbound paws and piercing it into the ground with his sword.

Mark was also busy helping, hunched over a few metres back with his arms melted into the ground as holes opened up under the wolf's feet to swallow them.

All that working together proved to be just enough to keep the monster in place long enough for the snowflake to touch it. Mia held her breath as the snowflake melted into the monster's metallic skin.

The monster flinched back with its whole body, tearing two more shackles and the paw which was pinned by Brent's sword as it did. Mia's heart dropped as nothing visible happened for a second or two, and even her Spirit Sense wasn't much help with how dense the broken mana was inside the monster's body; she couldn't feel a thing other than it.

The wolf let out a shuddering yowl, its movements turning robotic and rigid before it went perfectly still. It acted like a simple iron-wrought statue, which unnerved not only Mia but everyone else as they stood back to ready their weapons.

Mark instead advanced and, with a new mace made of scavenged asphalt held in hand, he swung at it in a wide arc. The spiked ball at the end of the mace connected with the monster's jaw, and that was when Nikki's spell finally showed its true strength.

The wolf's head shattered into a thousand fragments as if it were made of glass, and that wasn't all. Cracks formed all over its body, spreading from its shattered head and webbing all the way over to the tip of its tail.

Mark didn't give it any second chances, nor did he wait for Nikki's spell to finish its work by itself and swung his mace about three more times. Each time, taking out huge swathes of the monster's body, sending the fragmented metal shards flying through the air.

Whatever was left of the monster after his third swing collapsed upon itself, the cracks were now deep enough to break the whole metallic body apart. All that was left of the Guardian was a chilly pile of metallic fragments, which received another overhead smash from Mark for good measure.

An ear-piercing shriek snapped Mia out of her daze, and she whirled around to see the bird Guardian twitching on the ground with one of its wings torn off wholesale. Even its plumage of shimmering feathers was spotty at best. Mia winced at the implications and glanced over at Camie, who was heaving like a beast, crouched low and with her clothes in tatters. She seemed largely uninjured underneath, but she had blood coating her skin so thickly it was impossible to tell.

Mia dismissed her Arcane Shackles spell, letting the two remaining chains dissipate before recasting the spell and sending a new set of six chains at the twitching bird monster.

Helene sent another bolt of lightning flying, and it zapped at the monster. It was a weak, sad little bolt that only held fragments of the power Helene's titanic magic had at the beginning of the battle.

The chains wrapped around the bird, trying to somehow tangle up its limbs, but it was much harder to do with a wing and two stubby little legs. Worse, the talons on those legs cut through one of the chains, trying to wrap around them with seemingly little effort.

The chains and the paralysing zap kept the bird down at least, so that was something. Mia heard Mark stomping over in his bulky earth armour, and Brent was limping after him too, so they only had to keep the monster from attacking for a bit longer.

Lina dropped hammering blasts of wind on top of it for good measure, and Mia did her best to ignore the grinding of teeth coming from the blonde. Mia just knew Lina was seething inside at how ineffective her magic had been this whole fight.

Aside from saving my life. If she didn't slow the diving bird, I'd be minced meat now. Mia thought, resolving herself to thank the air mage after all this was over. That might mollify her a bit too, as an added benefit.

Mark reached the bird first and wasted no time in letting his scraped-together mace of asphalt fall upon the monster like a meteor. Metal scratched and bent, the bird giving a pained squeak as it writhed around.

Before Mark could pull his mace back for another go, Camie was upon the monster with her deep loathing for it worn clearly on her face. Her legs swung up, then came down on the bird's flailing head with no less power behind it than Mark's mace and smashed it into the asphalt.

Metal cracked and broke, the soft insides of the monster's head splattering around as the vampire stomped it into mush.

The next stomp was probably unnecessary, considering the bird's grey matter was coating Carmilla's foot up to her knee.

"Seems dead enough," Mark mused gruffly, dropping his hacked-together mace, which quickly broke down into its component parts. "Well, that went … well?"

Mia was just about to sigh in relief and nod in agreement when she heard a wet cough and remembered the state that frost spell had left Nikki in.

The blue-haired woman was down on her knees and dry heaving, with a splatter of something bloody before her. Mia's stomach dropped at the sight, but she still rushed over with her fingers already questing for a health potion.

"Can you open your mouth?" Mia asked, holding up the vial, but Nikki just scrunched up her face and shook her head. Mia frowned. "What?"

"She probably used some kind of healing on herself already," Camie said as she slid up next to Mia. "The body can't take too much healing at once. It's straining in the same way casting spells exhausts your spirit."

"Think she'll be fine?" Mia asked worriedly, glancing at the bloody vampire. "Are you fine for that matter? You had more feathers poking out of you than the bird by the end of the fight."

"I'm fine." Camie waved her off. "Vampiric regeneration doesn't share that weakness. Though I'm a bit low on lifeforce now."

"Could you heal her then?" Mia asked, remembering Camie supposedly having a spell called Blood Healing … or something. "I can give you some blood later."

"I'll see," Carmilla said, gently placing a hand on Nikki's shoulder and sending a small tendril of mana into her body before taking her hand away. "Nope. I don't know what she did, but her body is at the very limit. I can't use my regeneration on others, and Blood Healing has the same problem all other sources of healing have."

"Okay," Mia said, that was a whole lot of words for 'No'. Her face scrunched up as she tried to let go of the irritation. Her body was still itching, her clothes were ruined, she had almost died, as did some of her friends. "Okay. I guess then we wait and see whether she picks herself back up."

"Look guys!" Mark shouted with mock excitement from the back, and Mia's carefully suppressed irritation at just how disturbing having her tattered clothes sticking to her itchy back covered in blood was, almost broke. "Our reinforcements have arrived! We are saved!"

Mia finally noticed the noise she'd been subconsciously ignoring. Behind the platoon of soldiers, another three vehicles were rolling down the street.

A snort escaped her, and even Camie had a wry grin on her lips as she watched the approaching cars. What really did put a smile on Mia's face though, was the system window insisting she open it right that moment. Despite everything, the rush of addictive dopamine almost made Mia giddy.

[Arcane Mana Manipulation] -> [Greater Arcane Mana Manipulation]

[Base Control: 8 -> 9]

[Base Manifestation: 9 -> 10](max)

[Main Spirit: 17 -> 18]

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