“Tch!”
The next closest Enju cut at her.
She caught that on the threads as well and let the force of the slash send her flying. Again, the ground erupted into flames immediately afterwards.
“Gh…gh…such a cheap trick.”
The first one to step on the mine and lose both her legs had gotten up. Smoke was billowing from the stumps of her legs, but they would regenerate soon enough.
Even when they outnumbered their opponent 18-to-1, the Enjus did not grow cocky. They quickly realized what Machina was doing and stopped moving.
By staying on the move, Machina could keep this battle against 18 isolated to 1-on-1 battles. They overpowered her even then, but the landmines prevented them from staying in place for long and their attacks grew much more sporadic. They could not deliver a finishing blow during those short 1-on-1 battles.
She was still slowly losing, but…
“Are you hoping to buy time?”
The 18 laughed.
FeTUS had a maximum of five Witches, so they could work as a team. If today’s goal was to rescue Fujita Mutsuki, it was natural to assume Machina was here to buy time.
“Then it’s too bad.”
“Hee hee hee hee.”
“Hee hee hee hee.”
“Hee hee hee hee.”
“Eh heh heh heh heh heh.”
“Eh heh heh heh heh heh.”
“Eh heh heh heh heh heh.”
“Eh heh heh heh heh heh.”
“Eh heh heh heh heh heh.”
The laughter of Enjus reverberated eerily across the golf course.
It echoed across that vast space.
There were more than just 18. A quick look suggested more than 100 were surrounding Machina.
“Your time has run out! So die!”
They all charged at her at once.
Even if Machina could plant enough mines, she could not detonate them until she was outside of their range. The enemy had used their numbers to eliminate the space she needed for that.
In a way, forcing your way through with pure numbers was the ultimate strategy. Machina had nowhere to run.
“Negative.”
Although she had no intention of running.
“I am not here to buy time.”
The grass rose up below her feet and surrounded her. Each blade rapidly grew white and frozen.
“I intend to eliminate you all.”
“Hah! Let’s see you try it!”
The hundred Enjus continued their charge.
Each blade of frozen grass was made by using Dimensional Transition to burden it with a heat-eliminating nature. Thus, anything that touched it would be frozen.
But it was still no more than grass. Anything that touched it would be frozen, but if that frozen flesh crushed it, only the first five or six needed to be frozen to act as shields for the rest. This could not prevent their human wave attack.
“How are you supposed to eliminate us like this!?”
The lead Enjus prepared to attack. They were starting with 7. More than 10 followed after that, so they were prepared to attack in waves.
They all gathered around Machina.
“I never said I would personally be doing the elimination.”
“What a pain.”
Back on the helicopter, Ange waited for a beeping signal while peering down from the opened cargo door like Machina had earlier.
Even at 100m up, she could clearly see that more than a hundred enemies had gathered below.
It was fortunate she could not see their individual faces. Kagari Enju and Ange were like the shadow and light split from the same person. Their hairstyles and fashion sense were different, but they were otherwise identical and she did not want to see that.
The helicopter exploded.
The golden wings emerging from her back had touched it.
Angel fire was a light meant to destroy their enemies. It would provide no heat to any matter that was not their enemy.
But what she had produced here was different. It was wrapped in the same Joule heating as normal fire.
The fire did not maintain its form. It became a plasma jet with enough heat to instantly liquefy and rupture a mass of metal like a helicopter.
“Prominence.”
She aimed her beloved sword toward the center of the 100.
“Syzygy!!”
A few of the hundred noticed a shrill sound.
But it was no use. The source dropped down at almost the same time.
It was awfully slow for light, but it was a giant glowing pillar. It threatened to squash the hundred from above at the speed of sound.
They detected the attack almost instantly and worked to defend against it, but that worked against them. Their black, skintight suits were equipped with KKs to break down fires of more than 100 thousand degrees, but…
“Bwah!”
“Gweh!”
The pillar of light was far hotter than that. It surpassed the KKs’ limits and the heat made it inside. Their physical bodies were based on demons, so they were all fried.
No demon could oppose the divine light of angel fire.
Just like spraying insecticide on a swarm of ants, the pillar of light burned the remaining ones surrounding it.
Once no grass remained on what had once been a golf course, Ange descended to the scorched earth.
A few Enjus remained, but…
“Grand Cruz.”
She raised her large sword overhead as if to say she did not want to see any of them.
The blue flames burning around the sword glowed golden and spread out to the side near the tip. How many people managed to see it draw out a cross? The golden flames blowing out horizontally proceeded to fly all around her to fry the remaining Enjus.
“All done.”
With that job complete, Ange lowered her sword.
She turned toward the spot where the fire had been most highly concentrated and where the ashes of a hundred Enjus was piled up.
The only part of the scorched golf course remaining was the frozen blades of grass there. After Ange extinguished her flames, the grass instantly came apart and shattered like glass.
Machina appeared from within with flakes of ice all over her.
“That is some impressive heat resistance. What even is it?”
“Dimensional Transition. It has now officially been proven to withstand Metatron’s heat.”
It apparently had some room for improvement because it must have been quite cold inside. There was frost in her hair that soon broke away, although her expression remained unchanged.
FeTUS had created something capable of opposing the greatest fire heaven could manage. Ange could not have trained to use Metatron as a weapon without their help, but this still sounded like trouble.
“I detect multiple lifeforms in a narrow space. Miss D, you handle the rest.”
“Yes, yes. I really wish you hadn’t destroyed the helicopter. It really scared me.”
After Ange, a tall woman in a maid uniform landed using a parachute like a normal person. She had apparently been aboard the helicopter when it exploded and she had scorch marks on her clothing.
The three of them split into groups of two and one. Miss D, Daima Makoto, made her way to the confused main hall.
Machina and Ange moved in the opposite direction. They followed Miss B’s locater to reach the training building where Mutsuki was.
“Kh…”
Keigo was dumbfounded that a hundred Bioroids had been slaughtered so quickly.
The golf course’s cameras had been destroyed, but those three had entered the buildings where there were other cameras. In the confused hall, a giant who had to be 10m tall threatened the fleeing people to herd them into a single space, and then shoved them in simple protection capsules. They were all crying and shouting in fear, but they were being protected by FeTUS’s Miss D who had made herself into a giant.
Miss E and the angel girl entered the training building. The remaining Bioroids and Springloaded had been sent out to intercept them, but the difference in strength was too great. They were all fried by the angel’s explosive golden flames, frozen by the Witch’s chill, and utterly destroyed either way.
“Wh-what is going on?”
Keigo’s voice was shaken and he had completely forgotten about his half-full glass.