Reverse Ambush

The moment the volcano tribe warriors start attacking, Hera and her court try to get close to each other. They were already doing that while Releon was talking, and thanks to that, the Empress was surrounded by her protectors before the first strike hit. That came from her side. One of the volcano tribesmen had shut out an arrow towards her. Beam was the one who managed to stop that projectile by deflecting it with its blade. The follow-up was a spell from other tribesmen that came as a mortar from the skies. Luckily, Core was on top of it, and since it had the same element as the incoming attack, the blade managed to pierce the spell and redirect it to the side. The mortar shots ended up hitting a few of the volcano warriors and exploded with the impact. Hera didn't expect that blast to do anything but to her surprise, some of those affected by it ended up falling to the ground. Maybe that happened just because of the shockwave created by the explosion, or the fire used actually managed to do some damage to the tribesmen. Either way, it was an unexpected benefit from the trade, allowing Hera to be a bit more confident in her chance of survival.

"Everyone, let's try the spell formation. The one that reduces the attributes of anyone inside it that's not us," Hera called to her blades while she activated the elemental fire armor, hoping that it would help her against those attacks.

"But mum, we never managed to get it to work!" Daskka gasped.

"It's the best idea I have. My attributes are reduced, so we might as well try to level the plain field," Hera glanced back at the rest of the troops from Bonpei. Some had already fallen, but the rest seemed to be able to hold their ground somewhat, "Armory, stay close to them. You are taking Lurize's place, and we know you are not suited for combat."

'I can fight Empress!' Armory protested, but she still went towards the location pointed by Hera.

Beam, Ooze, and Core each took another of the 4 spots around Hera. One was in front of the Empress, the other two to the sides, and Armory behind her. The tiara had become some sort of a strategist for the group. Since she was always on top of Hera's head, she would focus on giving commands to the blades when the Empress was busy with an enemy. Because of that, staying in the back was beneficial to Armory, despite her protest. Usually, Hera would agree but say something along the lines of 'I need you commanding the rest of the court. I can't trust the rest like I can trust you.' This time, however, she was too busy to appease the blade's ego. She noticed that the newer blades had more personality to them. According to Daskka, this happened because she was getting more used to the legacy so the legacy could create more realistic traits. If she managed to get a titled blade, then this progress would be much faster. Scythe was one of the last pieces of the puzzle for the spell circle. The twin blade would be set up around Hera, orbiting the explorer. Their job was to control the output of mana to maintain the spell circle.

"Daskka, you are up! Do you remember what you have to draw?"

"I do, but it would be better with someone to guide me from above," Daskka replied as she dashed to the left. She would start to spread her mist from Ooze, then Beam, Core, and Armory, before doing the inscriptions inside. Hera did her best to simplify that formation layout. In theory, there was no need to draw the spell circle inside it. However, using Daskka's mist as a medium would make it easier for the mana to flow through it. Not that she would wait for the spell circle to be created. In fact, Hera was already sending her mana from blade to blade to start the formation.

The main difference between what she was doing now and what she would usually do was the participants. Normally, Armory would be above them, guiding Daskka to make the spell circle work, and then she would come back to rest on top of Hera. Now, the tiara was a part of the formation and would play a more active role in everything.

While Daskka was still drawing the circle around the blades, a couple of the volcano tribesmen were brave enough to intercept this effect that was forming around Hera. They had no idea that, currently, the mist will do nothing to them. Because of that, they were all very wary of getting inside, and after Core's redirection, the ones who could do something from range were all hesitant to continue their attacks. Those who decided to take the gamble didn't have any problems when getting closer to Hera and started swinging their weapons. One had a two-handed axe, while the other used a flame whip. Unfortunately, her court couldn't help her right now. The blades could still use their skills, but until this formation was complete, they couldn't leave their positions. Knowing that, Hera focused on defending against the attackers alone. The first thing she did was to get into her stance to defend, placing one of her hands close to the blade of her glaive while the other was closer to the base of the weapon.

One of the warriors brought down his axe towards her with a jumping attack. His intention was clear to kill her off swiftly, but the movement was slow and telegraphed. With a simple sidestep, Hera evaded the blow completely and swung at the tribesmen with her glaive, aiming at his neck. Before the attack hit, the whip wrapped around the glaive and put it back, stopping the explorer from dealing damage to her attacker. Not wanting to have her weapon hostage, Hera triggered a cold reinforcement in her weapon. She knew that the people of the volcano were all about heat, which was also true to their weapons. Her idea worked flawlessly. The flame whip lost most of its strength, allowing her to pull back her glaive. Doing that gave an opening to the warrior that was with the axe. He made sure to punish her for the mistake by kicking her in her stomach. The kick was much stronger than she expected, or maybe it was because of her reduced attributes, but Hera staggered back, struggling a little to keep standing up.

'Empress!' the blades spoke all at once.

"Stay there!" Hera yelled back, not wanting to start over the spell circle again. They had precious little time for that to work, and if they broke their position now, all the mana she invested in the formation would go to waste, and she could feel that she would need every point of mana she got to survive this.

Hera tried to use a stone wall to separate the volcano warriors and herself, but instead of the slab of stone coming from the ground, a blob of lava came up and sprayed them. That didn't seem to do any damage, but the attack at least was enough to surprise them. Not wanting to give them time to regroup, Hera made a horizontal slash with her glaive, cutting one of the warriors in half. To follow that up, she created a wind blade using her weapon and used a mote of ice to change the element before sending it towards the one with the whip. With the second warrior down, she took a moment to check the formation. Daskka was done with the circle and now was finishing up the internal lines that would connect them all and complete the spell.

At the same time, another four warriors decided to take their chances against the explorer. With a combined attack, the four of them hit her several times. Luckily for her, the attacks were mostly on her armor, and the fire from them was blocked by her elemental armor spell, but she still could feel the heat coming from them. It was clear that the reason her armor was working so well was because those attacks weren't as strong as some of the ones the tribe could do. Hera did her best to fight against them, but she was in a losing battle. But then, she started seeing their movements better. They seemed slower and weaker. Almost as if they were moving through water.

"Mum! It's done, and it's working!" Daskka called before turning into her red mist form and attacking the tribesmen that were facing Hera.

Completing the formation meant that the blades were no longer stuck in those positions, and her entire court collapsed on top of the men attacking the Empress. Seeing that she could move more freely now, Hera clicked her heels and started gliding through the floor while spinning her glaive to use all her combat styles that focused on distraction. At the same time, she tried to use the Whirlwind Path. The combat style focused on broad sweeps allowing her to fight multiple enemies at once. She still didn't have the skill for it, but she remembered the movements and was following them right now.

The volcano tribe was relentless. Each time a group fell to her or her blades, another would take their place. And despite their best efforts, the court was unable to protect the Empress without fail. Each of these tribesmen could land one or two attacks before they were killed. When around 35 of the hundred or so warriors died because of Hera, Releon stepped forward, unwilling to lose more man to this human.

The explorer could feel that the general was still affected by the poison, but since he was made out of flames, Hera had to be very careful not to let the poison be burned. That's why she couldn't deal any damage to him just yet. When Releon stepped inside the formation, all of her court went after him, but he managed to parry every attack. He used his weapons or his own body to defend against the barrage of strikes and did so with unexpected elegance. The moment he got closer to Hera, he clenched his fist and slammed it against her stomach, causing the Empress to gasp for air for a moment. Not letting up, Releon grabbed Hera's hair, burning it with his hand despite her elemental armor, and started to punch her face repeatedly with a blinding rage. She tried to push back, kicking him, cutting his sides with her glaive. Using more ice, poison, and earth spells, she even used the spore field, which shouldn't work against them since the volcano tribe didn't have noses. Her court joined in, attacking with everything they had and using all skills to push the general away but to no avail. They were only able to stall him for a few moments. When Daskka joined in, trying to wrap her mist body around the general, Hera realized that what was hurting her wasn't the flames but the actual force of each impact, Hera changed her elemental armor to stone and used the floodlight spell to blind the general and have a moment to rest.

This finally worked, and Releon had to step back while he waited for his sight to return. Hera didn't waste time and pulled the two potions she got from Gorth, the fire resistance and the one for healing. She chugged them both and saw the general rushing towards her again. Not wanting to get in that situation one more time, she created the biggest lava wall she could by using her stone wall spell and started running towards the mouth of the volcano. She had yet to find a good opening to do so, but it was now or never. Some of Bonpei's troops noticed her movement and started running along, hoping to flee and survive this ambush.

Hera's formation also affected the team she brought, allowing them to become scapegoats so that she could run. This wasn't something she became aware of until much later, but it was thanks to that effect that Releon couldn't catch up to her. He had other targets to kill. She barreled through the line of volcano tribesmen blocking the path, using several wind turned ice blades to open a path. Just before she reached the defenders, she turned her elemental armor to wind and used all her strength to jump, focusing the spell on pushing her off the ground. With that, she managed to go over the lava barricade and tumble on the path of igneous rock leading down the mountain. As she got up from the ground, her entire body was hurting, and she could feel each of the cuts and bruises covering her, but at least now, she had a chance to escape. She kept gliding on the grounds for a while, hoping to get far enough away so she could call Nimbus without having to worry about the archers, and when she couldn't see any more arrows or spells falling around her, Hera called her mount and jumped on top of it. Now she was safe. She could return to Bonpei and rally with the rest of the troops. They wouldn't have to worry about Releon and could focus on the fight for a while. All she had to do was go back. Nimbus kept flying towards the mountain's base at full speed while still keeping some altitude to hopefully be harder to hit.

Unfortunately, her happiness was short-lived as a flaming spear impaled Nimbus causing the mount to vanish with her still on top of it. She tumbled down the mountain towards a patch of jagged rocks and hit her back on one of the spikes. It wasn't enough to pierce her armor, but she wasn't sure if that didn't end up making her break some ribs. She looked around and realized she couldn't see the top of the volcano. Right now, she was in an area hidden from prying eyes. Hoping to keep it that way, she used her stone shape to open a hole on the ground and covered it up with a stone wall, leaving only a small opening for air. She wasn't going to stay there anyway. Hera started using her stone shape spell to make a tunnel heading toward Bonpei's direction. Her idea wasn't to dig all the way there but to get far enough away from the igneous rock path to be able to leave the mountain and head to the forest on the side.

About half an hour passed, and during that time, her entire court was right behind her, casting the Luminous Light Litany on the Empress. Her mana was almost tapped out, but she was at least feeling much better. That's when Hera decided to leave her tunnel and make a break for it. She didn't leave in a flashy way, but by opening a small hole on the mountain and using her [Hide] to keep moving. After a few moments, she managed to reach the forest and get a moment to rest properly. That operation was a shit show, and now she had to figure out what to do next. Hera opened her tablet to see how badly injured her face was. Her eyes were black, and a large chunk of her hair was gone.

"Shit, I even lost the earguards," Hera sighed as she touched the missing part of her ear. She took a deep breath and drank another healing potion before turning back to her court, "Is everyone ok?"

'We are. Apologies, Empress, we were not strong enough to protect you properly,' Core replied. Hera could almost see the rapier sulking.

"Don't worry. You guys did your best. The one who messed up was Lurize. I can't believe he missed that attack!" Hera turned back to Daskka, "How long until I can call him?"

"A couple of days for him to be back to normal. But if you really want to talk to him, you can force him out. It's just… that will make him take way longer to recover."

"That's fine. Bring him out. I want to know what the hell happened back there," Hera replied angrily. The court couldn't understand her reaction, but Hera knew that if Lurize didn't mess up, none of this would've happened.