I had just started pulling the umbrella out of the knight's eye when, at that very moment, the other two knights attacked. Maya didn't hesitate and used her magic, Puppet Gloves.
Using the Earth version, she launched a ground attack, manipulating the soil to form a small hill that separated the three knights. Simultaneously, Poison struck one of the knights with a life poison, particularly effective against the life part of the knights — a formula she and Maya had perfected during their journey!
Maya faced the third knight of death and life, chaining together multiple earth spells while Velmira took care of the undead. She continuously summoned monsters, mostly hobgoblins led by their queen, but also other fast-breeding creatures like gnolls.
The monster army emerging from Velmira's gemstones advanced to fight off the hordes of undead of all kinds.
As for me, I continued to battle my knight, all my stats set at 10, granting Mina 5 points in each stat, making her incredibly powerful!
I opened my umbrella to block the knight's deadly sword strike. Normally, with my previous stats, I wouldn't have been able to block it, but now that Mina benefited from the full 50% of my stats, boosted by my fully upgraded umbrella, I was able to stop the attack — though not without difficulty! A small gash even marked my umbrella!
Although I could repair it, it showed just how powerful the knight of death and life truly was!
Should I increase my defense even more? But it'll cost me 10,000 points now that I'm at ten, just for one extra stat point...
Let's see how this fight goes before deciding!
My umbrella transformed into a sword to counter the knight's attacks when suddenly, he burst into black magic, unleashing blade-like tentacles to strike me!
I boosted my agility to dodge and counter with my umbrella. I focused my mana on my body to enhance regeneration when the tentacles hit, while also reinforcing my clothes so they wouldn't become useless too quickly.
The spikes I had attached to my gloves drove into the knight's face with a powerful punch, making him stagger back, his head thrown backward!
I followed up with several umbrella strikes, hitting again and again!
"Haaaaaaaaaa!
"Die! Die! Die!"
But the knight, with his life attribute, regenerated and began resisting thanks to his death attribute.
I kept up the pressure because my attacks were effective, even though he was showing great resilience. I boosted my speed to the max to multiply my umbrella strikes, dodge his attacks, and strike with my free hand and legs.
Despite his attempts to cut off my arms and legs, my maxed regeneration allowed me to regrow them in seconds.
On the other side of the battlefield, Poison, Maya's puppet, was attacking at high speed. Her life poison neutralized the life attribute of the rank 6 knight, preventing him from regenerating. Even though Poison was only rank 5, she held her ground thanks to Floral, the other puppet, who healed her and also attacked the knight with vines and roots erupting from the ground.
The two fought in perfect synchronization, anticipating each other's movements, combining their attacks with remarkable precision!
Poison struck lightning-fast with her daggers while the knight defended with his two swords. But thanks to the rust poison, the enemy blades slowly corroded, losing their edge — even though the knight covered them in death energy to slow the process.
Floral summoned a thick vine adorned with several flowers, managing to entangle the knight. A paralyzing poison was mixed in, though due to the death power, it only worked for half a second — but that was enough for Floral to summon healing flowers for Poison, who took advantage to deliver several quick strikes!
Maya had mainly focused on developing Poison's speed, so she could hit the knight three times in half a second!
Weakened by the life poison that prevented his regeneration, the knight could only focus on attacking, using his dark magic.
He tried to strike Floral, but she dodged or was assisted by Poison. Despite both being rank 5 against a rank 6 opponent, they held their ground valiantly.
Meanwhile, Maya used all available earth power against the rank 7 spike knight, but her magic quickly depleted.
A spike here, an earth hammer there — she slowed the enemy as much as she could, even using the little gravitational magic Earth had taught her to further hinder this powerful foe.
If only she had Earth's bound staff, she could've fought this rank 7 spike!
But where were Earth and Gold?!
At the same time, Velmira was battling the army of skeletons. But, having spent a lot of mana to get here quickly, she was struggling.
Unable to summon more monsters, she fought the undead herself with her whip!
Our battle raged for hours! Only Velmira seemed to be handling herself well against the weak but numerous skeletons.
Thankfully, Floral was there to heal us!
As for me, my regeneration ability meant Floral didn't need to focus on me as much as the others.
I could fight this rank 5 knight only thanks to the combination of my superior non-elemental Heart, which amplified my magic and made my mask 20% stronger, and my unique talent,I love masks, which let me deeply understand masks, especially the rank 2 Doll mask. All of this was boosted by the rank 2 rune circle around my mana heart.
But the most important factor was the 50% of my stats transferred from my main body, Jina, to Mina, giving her five points in each stat!
That only let me fight — not win! I would've died several times if Floral hadn't healed me!
The arrival of Earth and Gold was our salvation! Gold easily blocked the rank 5's attacks with his shield while countering with his sword, and Earth struck with overwhelming power — the knight was quickly defeated!
We then went to help Poison and Floral. Facing our combined strength, the rank 6 knight didn't last long!
As for Maya's opponent, once we were united, we defeated him fairly easily. Earth's attacks pummeled him, the life poison stopped his regeneration, Gold blocked every attack with his gold attribute, Floral healed us with her vines, and I added all my striking power. Despite his death power, the knight was slain!
To ensure our victory, Earth used his staff at full power, reaching peak rank 7, landing multiple blows that finally brought down our enemy!
"Phew! Thank goodness Gold and Earth showed up — now there are only the undead left!" I said with a big smile.
I even laughed as I looked toward the village, despite the many skeletons still roaming around!
But my laughter died quickly when I saw five dark mages still summoning the undead. One of them, level 8, specialized in necromancy!
"Damn it…"