[…You'll need to wait for the right moment and land a solid hit if you want to exact any form of vengeance.]
Eleanor nodded and then said to herself, "Yeah, so, I'm just going to sit back here and wait until the perfect opportunity provides itself. They're all so busy trying to kill themselves that they don't even realise I'm this close."
Just as Eleanor finished speaking, the clash she was watching abruptly intensified.
Helga slashed open her wrist, and as her blood spilt, she infused it with magic, causing the crimson liquid to swell and rise like a violent tide.
Within seconds, the blood expanded outward, becoming a massive wave that crashed forward, sending two combatants flying.
She immediately lunged for the strongest among them, her twin swords slicing through the air. He leapt back just in time to narrowly evade her strikes, and another fighter seized the opening and came at her from the left.
Her eyes darted in that direction, and a portion of the blood coating her sword suddenly extended sideways, forming a secondary blade that jutted out like the bottom of an "L."
The newly formed blood-blade moved faster than the attacker could react, stabbing straight into his eye.
"GaRg—!"
His scream died in his throat as Helga's right hand swept across, decapitating him in a single swing. Without pause, she drove her left-hand sword through the same corpse's chest, hoisted it into the air, and hurled it straight at the squad leader, who had been rushing in to exploit her momentary imbalance.
As the lifeless body flew through the air, the axes still clutched in its hands were also flung forward. The squad leader tried to stop his charge, quickly raising his sword to block both the incoming corpse and the airborne weapons.
But in the same instant he braced himself, a sudden, loud boom rang out behind him.
"?!"
Before he could even glance in the direction of the sound, a sword burst through his chest, having been driven straight through his back.
"ARRRgGkk!"
"Tsk... missed his heart," Eleanor muttered flatly, her calm voice a stark contrast to his scream.
Releasing the sword's hilt, she clenched her fist and slammed it into the back of his head, sending his body toppling forward.
Her sudden and brutal intrusion left the others frozen in place.
It wasn't until they saw her pick up the spatial pouch she had been trying to drag off his waist before abruptly choosing to punch him that the Crafiel hunters finally snapped out of their daze.
"What the—?!"
"Eleanor?!!"
"How are you alive?!"
Eleanor calmly responded, "How am I alive? Obviously because I'm so fucking tenacious, I couldn't go to hell without coming back to take at least one of you with me."
As she spoke, she strapped the pouch back onto her waist and poured magic power into it, making her Core Skill recognise the weapons stored inside.
Meanwhile, Helga stared at Eleanor warily.
Eleanor's reappearance had momentarily thrown her off, but after a few moments of observation, she realised that despite the fact that Eleanor's hair was now half white for some reason, she was unmistakably the same Eleanor Crafiel she'd seen before.
Even so, Helga kept her guard up. Eleanor had just attacked Crafiel hunters, one of whom had questioned why she was even still alive, followed by Eleanor openly talking about dragging them to hell.
Her brain quickly pieced together a possible explanation, but the possibility of this all being an elaborate ruse kept her on edge.
But even though Eleanor noticed Helga's wariness, she pretended not to and turned to her with a smile.
"I'm going to need your help handling this lot."
The moment those words left her mouth, Eleanor activated Mach Step once more and charged toward the stunned spear wielder. The man hastily tried to raise his weapon, but it was already too late.
Eleanor had already entered his range, and as she extended her hand, a dagger materialised.
She thrust the dagger straight at his face, forcing the man to bend his upper body backwards in a hurry, barely avoiding the strike as the blade grazed the top of his nose. But Eleanor instantly reversed her grip and drove the dagger down, plunging it straight into his eye.
The sensation of the blade piercing through tissue and ripping into everything behind his eye made Eleanor tremble momentarily, and in that moment, the wounded man, writhing in pain, unleashed a wild burst of magic power that blasted her backwards.
The other two rushed at Eleanor, giving Helga the chance to turn her attention to the now-wounded squad leader.
But before the vampire could launch an attack at the man, who was staggering and reaching for a healing potion, Eleanor's dagger sailed through the air and struck the vial from his grasp just as his fingers brushed the pocket in his uniform.
Activating Mach Step, Eleanor dashed in and kicked the side of his head, sending him tumbling away.
She turned and locked eyes with Helga as she spoke. "Sorry, could you handle the other three? I've got a personal bone to pick with this guy."
Without waiting for a response, she charged forward again, dashing toward the man.
This time, she opened her right palm and summoned a sword, gripping it tightly before swinging downward with force, unleashing a magic-infused slash that cracked the ground and tore through the air toward him.
He quickly rolled aside, but just as he did, Eleanor's left hand extended, and a spear appeared in her grasp. She immediately hurled it at him, and with a sharp whistle, it cut through the air and buried itself in his shoulder just as he completed the roll, drawing another scream of pain from him.
Eleanor immediately leapt into the air, released the sword mid-jump, and clenched her fist, punching the butt of the spear and driving it deeper into his shoulder.
As she landed, she resummoned the sword and swung it in a fluid motion, unleashing another slash of magic that struck the screaming man square in the face, knocking his upper body backwards.
The man currently outclassed her in strength, which was exactly why Eleanor didn't let up for even a moment, pressing her attacks relentlessly to prevent him from regaining his bearings.
She closed the distance, flipped his body over, and yanked the first sword out of his back, sending blood spurting out and spilling across the floor.
Then, turning him onto his back again, she summoned another dagger and drove it through his right hand, pinning it to the ground. She stomped on the dagger's hilt, forcing it deeper into the earth and anchoring his arm in place.
The man roused his magic power, but before he could properly channel it, Eleanor's right fist came crashing down on his face, smashing his head into the dirt. She followed up with a kick to the side of his skull, aiming to disorient him and scramble the signals his brain was trying to send in order to activate his magic.
His left hand, which had begun to twitch, fell still once more, already rendered nearly useless with her spear still lodged deep in his shoulder, blood steadily seeping from the wound.
Eleanor dropped to her knees, straddling his stomach, and summoned her sword again, this time driving it into the same spot she had pierced from the back during her initial ambush.
She dragged the blade upward, slicing through organs and bone, cutting into the edges of his lungs. Blood erupted from his mouth as his body convulsed in a violent cough, more blood splattering from the gash and spraying across Eleanor's face.
Without hesitation, Eleanor summoned another dagger from her pouch and stabbed it down into his right shoulder, ensuring he couldn't leverage brute strength to rip his pinned hand free.
But as she did so, her body involuntarily shuddered again, and she drew in a deep breath.
A small, deranged smile began to stretch across her face as she pushed the blade deeper into his shoulder, then slowly dragged it down, cutting from his shoulder along the bone, slicing through muscle and between ribs as she carved a path toward his sternum.
The man screamed through gargles as blood filled his mouth, the loud, piercing sound causing the other three locked in combat to flinch.
One of the two women instinctively turned toward Eleanor, an action that proved to be a fatal mistake as it left her exposed just long enough for Helga to rain down blood-forged spears faster than she could defend.
The moment she staggered, Helga charged, swept her legs out with a low kick, rose in one fluid motion, and brought her sword down, cleaving her head clean off.
Without pausing, she hurled her sword at one of the others, the blade spinning through the air. At the same time, she called down one of the hovering blood spears, gripped it in her hand, and reshaped it into a blood sword. With that done, she dashed toward the next target and made short work of them.
Just as Helga disarmed and knocked them to the ground, another scream rang out, and she turned to see the female hunter she had thrown her sword at earlier, now with a long spear jutting from her stomach.
The one responsible, Eleanor, used the spear to hoist the woman into the air, then slammed her down with enough force to form a small crater.
Helga turned toward the squad leader's direction, her gaze landing on the man now riddled with multiple weapons, blood pooling beneath him.
His condition made her frown lightly before she looked back at Eleanor, who had just slammed the female hunter into the earth. Eleanor pinned the woman's arms just as she had done to the man earlier, driving daggers through both palms, then plunging another into her shoulder.
She reached to summon another dagger, but nothing appeared. Blinking once, she muttered, "Oh. I've run out of daggers."
Then, meeting the tear-stained eyes of the woman beneath her, she said flatly, "Well, I have swords."
She promptly summoned her main sword and, without hesitation, drove the entire length of it into the woman's chest, twisting the blade as the woman beneath her screamed.