The ten Bandits launched themselves against Asteri and Betty. They parted in half to surround the two. But the two weren't afraid, so they didn't take the defensive side, but faced them face to face.
'We have to deal with these idiots fast, before the wizard becomes a nuisance.' Asteri had these thoughts as he faced the first bandit.
The latter believed that it would be easy to deal with his first victim, but to the detriment of his surprise it was not. The bandit was on par with all the other minnows encountered up to that point, but he had upgrades thrown by the wizard.
'This will make it harder to finish quickly ... but it's still not an impossible feat.' Asteri was joined not only by Betty, but also by her guards, who made her job easier.
"What are these beings ?! they look like summons of some kind, is one of them a wizard?" shouted a bandit, in front of an astral guard, but unfortunately Asteri's soldier was not up to par with the bandit, after all they had too high a difference in power.
Asteri had to hurry to kill the bandit in front of him, and then head towards the others, who were distracted by her guards at the moment.
The boy was in a blade duel against the bandit, he too was equipped with a normal two-handed sword. Unbeknownst to the bandit, Asteri began to channel astral power into his hand, and at the same time he was approaching the fight with two bandits who were facing Betty, obviously the bandit had no idea what the boy was doing. After getting close enough to the duel that was taking place between Betty and the two bandits, Asteri took a few steps away from the bandit and immediately hurled a bolt of lightning towards the bandit, who, standing close to the other two, created a chain of lightning bolts.
All three bandits had been struck by lightning. this didn't kill them, but it did a lot of damage. Betty took advantage of this opportunity, seeing the two bandits momentarily thrilled, she stabbed them one after the other in the throat, ending their lives.
Asteri did the same with the bandit in front of him, cutting off the victim's head. Betty already had in mind what Asteri wanted to do, seeing him approaching her duel. After all, they also trained to organize techniques for eventual fights.
The two looked at each other at the same time, smiling with a smirk on their lips. But suddenly a bandit, armed with an ax, charged behind Asteri, aiming for his neck. But before he could do it, a pink whip wrapped around his foot, knocking him to the ground. Asteri wasted no time and thrust a sword into his back, sticking it into his heart.
Knowing whose whip it was, Asteri looked up, only to meet the gaze of her succubus. She apparently didn't want to be left behind by the two, but knowing what her original assignment was, she returned to Obert's care.
Looking at the current situation, the number of enemies had dropped to six, but it wasn't over yet. Asteri headed for a bandit, who got the better of one of his astral guards. He ran after him with a lightning-fast movement, thrusting his sword into the body of a bandit for the umpteenth time, ending his life.
"Asteri! Concentrate on the magician, we'll take care of the rest." Betty yelled at the boy. At that moment he was facing two bandits, relieving the work of the astral guards.
"Agree." Asteri agreed and headed for the wizard who was managing the magic of fire.
"Too late, boy." The magician said this, putting both hands close to Asteri. From there a magic circle was created and from there a medium-sized flame was born. Asteri reacted quickly and used his * fast step * to disappear and appear behind the wizard.
"You are too slow, fire snail." Asteri said this behind the magician's neck.
"Wh-" the wizard couldn't say anything as a blade protruded from his chest, covered in blood ... his blood.
"The red of your blood is different from that of your fire, don't you think?" he slowly drew the sword from the magician's body, knocking him to his knees.
Meanwhile, all the bandits had been killed by Betty and the astral guards, who had finished their work, had disappeared instantly. Betty was not too exhausted by these arguments, certainly this had exhausted some of her resistance, but nothing excessive.
The same goes for Asteri, the use of magic has kept his astral guards on this material plane for so long, it was certainly not child's play, but it was still handled very well by the boy.
The lair outside the cave had become a bloodbath. More than twenty bandits lay on the ground, definitely dead.
"Something's wrong ... these are definitely little minnows, but with all the problems we're giving them, they're not hinting at coming out yet." Asteri was worried it was just a distraction for them, as if they were buying time to prepare something.
"And if by chance they were waiting for us inside the cave, playing at their house would they no longer have an advantage?" Betty deduced that the strongest bandits would face them inside the cave, which most likely was full of traps and ambushes.
"No, they wouldn't just do it for three individuals. If they wanted to, they would leave the moment we were fighting the first band of bandits. It wouldn't make sense to sacrifice so many members, even if they were weaker than them." Asteri looked at Obert, who had now been treated with basic dressings, by Allatu. "Obert, do you know what's going on here?" he asked with a raised eyebrow at the boy sitting on the ground.
"I don't know! I swear. The chief ordered us all out of the cave, and by that I mean the weakest members of our group. I don't know what they're doing right now." Obert was crushed by Asteri's gaze. He knew his life was in his hands, what's more terrifying than having your life in the hands of others?
"Seems not to lie, what do we do?" Allatu looked at Asteri, who was thinking at that moment.
"Obviously what we've done so far, let's move on!" Asteri had only one thing in mind, to advance to the end of this story.