Luc didn’t give up. She charged forward, thrusting the black sword in her right hand at the elf.
And as she launched her attack, Selene gritted her teeth and dodged to the side—completely ignoring the longsword still piercing her chest.
Her entire right chest was gouged away by the blade and the high-speed wind that accompanied it, but she still cleared the path for Luc’s thrust.
The captain tried to dodge the thrust, but found her legs wouldn’t move. She glanced down and saw a layer of frost had crept up her boots without her noticing.
“Tch…!”
She had no choice but to channel her magic power into her sword to meet the attack, deflecting the black blade’s tip to the side as it reached her.
But the black sword still grazed her body, tearing her clothes and slicing her flank.
And that magic-infused strike was not something Luc’s mere arm strength could match at this moment.
She could only follow the direction the black sword was guided, offsetting the tremendous force that nearly sent her weapon flying.
She lost her chance to pursue… and by the time she steadied herself, the elf had already melted the frost from her boots and retreated to the rear under her subordinates’ guard.
“Captain… how are you?”
“…I was careless. Don’t worry about me. This wound isn’t light but it’s not fatal… about the same as that mage demon over there.”
She pressed one hand against the bleeding wound at her waist, the other holding her sword pointed at Selene in the alley.
Luc stood guard beside her, blocking the second volley of arrows.
And though Selene still had enough power to conjure ice shields, their hardness and size were far diminished from before, and arrows kept piercing into her body.
Luc felt several arrows hit her back and shoulders, but she endured the pain and kept swinging her sword.
After fully knocking down that volley, she couldn’t help but lean on her sword and gasp violently.
Selene’s condition was even worse.
After once again sweeping up the fallen crossbow bolts and firing them at the enemy, the wind-summoning formation vanished completely.
Her hand dropped limply, her skin beginning to dissolve all over, black liquid mana dripping incessantly like wax tears from a burning candle.
To escape from being impaled by that sword, the price she paid was her entire left arm and a quarter of her upper body.
Having lost that portion of her body—pure mana imitation—her entire imitation began to collapse.
“Selene, can you still use Shadow Shift? They’re about to fire again.”
“…Don’t ask for the impossible. I don’t have enough power left… to even bend up a mana barrier… anymore.”
Selene’s voice had become broken and halting, because her vocal organs had begun to dissolve as well.
To repair the damage to her body she withdrew the mana she had been using for the imitation covering her, revealing her “base form”—white hair and crimson eyes.
“Turn back to your [initial form]. I’ll carry you and try to escape.”
“Don’t be ridiculous… I don’t want to become a ball you hold in your hand.”
“We’re in this situation and you still care about your pride…!”
Unlike the “initial form”—which at birth was merely a slime-like mass of mana—the “base form” is a form a shadow demon can only choose once in their lifetime.
This form is sacred to shadow demons who have no fixed body, and they even determine their gender based on its appearance.
“I’m not concerned about pride… it’s that you, who can’t use magic, have no chance of escaping from these people.
Rather than being captured and tortured… let’s fight to the last here, then cut our own throats and die together.”
“I don’t want to do that… didn’t you tell me not to die in a place like this! You told me that, and now you want to give up before me!”
Luc roared, still keeping her back pressed against Selene’s.
The arrow wounds on her shoulders and back bled continuously from her violent exertion, soaking Selene’s back with hot blood.
That blood was scalding. And despite losing so much of it, her back remained immovable and reliable.
“Even though you’re of the demon race, your blood is almost the same bright red as humans’… how unusual.”
She caught a few drops of falling hot blood with her remaining right hand and murmured softly.
“Hey… give me that sword.”
“Give you my sword? Then how will I fight…”
“Fool. That sword is made from my mana… absorb it back into my body… and I can activate Shadow Shift again and carry you out.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier… no, why didn’t you use it earlier?”
“Because… I thought these people weren’t such a big deal… maybe we could fight them a bit?”
“You…!”
Luc forcibly restrained the urge to yell at her, then immediately handed her sword back to her:
“Here! Hurry and cast… they’ll fire again any moment!”
The sound of crossbows being loaded rang out again.
With that, Luc wrapped her arms around Selene, trying to shield her with her own body from the arrows about to come.
“…You really are… a fool.”
It was a feeling Selene was familiar with.
On that day, when facing that woman’s sword that froze everything, someone had held her just like this, protecting her.
“He’s a fool too. And I’m… a fool too.”
Selene smiled self-mockingly. The imitation black sword returned to mana once more, gathering in her palm.
“Fire! Whatever they’re trying to do, stop them!”
Luc heard the wounded elf captain’s sharp shout behind her and the sound of crossbow strings… She strained every muscle in her back, trying to withstand the steel arrows with her flesh alone.
I can take it… I can take it… I have to take it! I can’t let Selene get hurt because of me anymore…!
This was a fool’s foolish act. Without mana, she was nothing but a mortal body… she knew that herself.
The result of doing this would only be being shot into a pincushion, then dying in pain.
But what else could she do? What other way was there to protect her companion?
Having tried and failed… and giving up outright are two different things.
They have always been two different things.
Yet the pain she’d steeled herself for did not come for a long time.
Luc heard the dull thud of arrowheads striking something hard, but her vision was rapidly shrinking—
This was because shadow had wound itself around her body.
The dusk lengthened the shadows in the alley, and Luc was slowly sinking into that darkness just like Shadow Shift from before.
Selene had covered her with her own mana to protect her, but in doing so, her body grew smaller and smaller.
Yes—not the slow sinking of Shadow Shift together like before, but gradually shrinking, smaller and smaller.
“Stop shooting! They’re trying to escape! Capture them!”
“Selene, what are you doing—”
The sinking suddenly accelerated, and Luc’s words were cut off.
Before she fully sank into the shadow, she saw Selene’s small body topple backward.
So she had already been at her limit… it was only by leaning on Luc’s back that she had barely managed to stay standing.
Carrying another person through Shadow Shift requires an enormous amount of mana, and having already performed it several times recently, and now being gravely wounded, how could she possibly regain the ability to use it again just from the mana of a small sword returning to her?
The last image Luc saw was Selene reverting to the “initial form”—a spherical mass of shadow—the very form she had so desperately refused a moment ago.
Those people seized Selene, then placed her into a silver box.