Ouch, that could have gone a little better. Let's see some of what has changed for us.
Erdrick Mercant
Lv. 10 Seraphic Lord
Vitality: C++
Mana: A (A+++)
Physical Attack: C (C+)
Physical Defense: B (B++)
Magical Attack: B++
Magical Defense: A (S+)
Agility: B (B+)
Charisma: B
This part is really one of the few things that went well for us. I think we got a halo upgrade of some sort on top of the upgrades we chose, because our mana and definitely our magical defense appear to be better than anticipated and I think the text about the halo mentions those being at moderate upgrades instead of minor ones. We also seem to have jumped clear past a few levels from our little XP-collecting operation, though unfortunately the bulk of those levels seem to have provided not very much meat for actual upgrade of our skill. It kinda makes sense, considering how pitiably the bulk of Yuria's citizens died without being able to oppose us in any meaningful way that we might learn from.
The truly unfortunate thing is that we've cleared into past the S rank for Magical Defense and that seems to have given us practically zilch in terms of defenses that we can apply to the present scenario. I was relying on this (at a high A rating, not clear into S+) to keep us relatively safe while we figured out what in the world we ought to do, but it seems like the only defensive quality we really have capable of preserving us in the face of her overwhelming power is the amusement factor that playing with our innards is providing to distract the angel. Her stats must just be totally off the scale, which I suppose would make sense for an ancient superweapon that only gains power through her favorite past-time of slaughtering cities and gnawing the bones of what survivors remain.
Without hesitation, you rain down destruction upon the angel. The very air burns with your spells. With a sweep of your hand you summon raging storms of fire and ice to flood the entire crater. Innumerable javelins of magic, crackling with the power of the four elements, home in on the center of the giant crater where this kingdom’s capital once stood, and blast even more misshapen holes into the earth.
But even you cannot keep up the volley forever. As you pause for just a second, to recover your breath before chanting the next spell, a loud boom shatters the chaotic din of your magic. The next thing you feel is pain. Again, a sensation that you have not felt for a while. Your sight blackens, and you feel yourself tumbling uncontrollably in the sky. With a yell of effort, you steady yourself, spreading your wings… and then, you look up. The angel hovers above you. Her right hand is covered with red, and she is squeezing something fleshy within it. It spatters within her grip, staining her body with fresh blood that drips down her naked skin. She lets out a blissful sigh, followed by a little giggle.
The pain spreads, a hot, burning sensation in your left flank. Without even looking down, you know that she has gouged out a chunk of your flesh. You are sure you had cast Battle Premonition beforehand; but then again, it works on what you can see, and if you cannot see it…
The angel’s visage blurs.
This time you are prepared and fully forewarned, and manage to throw yourself aside in time as she lunges at you with terrifying speed. And that is all you can manage even with your foreknowledge, a frantic, uncontrolled dodge in mid-air. Her charge tears another wound in your side, and she swoops around almost instantly to keep the pressure on you, howling in glee.
Okay, this makes it clear that a conventional assault is going to be fairly worthless. We filled that crater up with all manner of spellery, she didn't care for a moment. She dispelled all that with a shriek, just like she did with the lava, and proved herself to be not only totally unharmed but capable of outclassing even our predictive powers and punching holes through us at will. This means that one of the options is outright confirmed to be suicidally stupid.
I'm talking, of course, about option 2A. Now, if I recall correctly, Gigadyne Verandert has the Battle Premonition built into it because otherwise we'd end up going far too fast to have any idea of where we're going and splat ourselves somewhere. Our opponent, however, is fast enough that we can't track half of her moves with it. Gigadyne Verandert narrows the gap in speed, but it won't surmount that. She's simply too fast.
What's more, even if we are impervious to most physical strikes that way, that shriek of hers is a devastating area of effect move that's shown no problems in dispelling our prior magic and even extinguishing the molten ruins of the former city as if those were a mere candle. Remember, we are transferred to magic in that Gigadyne Verandert form; if she simply extinguishes us in one fell swoop, that's it. Game over! All it takes is one type of attack and we're simply screwed, and we don't even have the hope of dodging nor blocking it.
Option 2A is basically a continuation of the current fight, and it's doomed to fail. The gulf between us as it is now is too much to surmount by simply trying harder. What we can do is to either sabotage her or flee back home, lick our wounds, and come up with a plan. Either of those routes hold their own advantages and disadvantages.
For the void slash plan, it's promising because it limits the damage she's capable of. There's no way to defend from that attack; when you're cut by it, you're cut, and there's not much else to do about that. There are all manner of applications here; cutting off her wings or other strategic limbs could cripple her mobility and disable many of the effective weapons that she is using, which would go quite a long ways towards allowing for us to prepare ambushes or defenses as she crawls around from place to place while remaining less gravely in danger. That'll prevent her from the easiest means she has of flying about and eliminating cities, which also limits the continued growth of her power. The main problem with it is that this is a fairly dangerous move... we're not entirely informed on the physiology of angels, particularly developed ones, so we could end up thinking we've made ourselves relatively safe in her presence when she still has the capacity to melt hills with halo laser blasts or something. Any moment that we spend attacking is also a moment not spent running away, and so we also place ourselves in immediate grave danger leaving aside any future questions. There's also I guess the chance of accidentally killing her.
Now, teleporting back allows us to be a bit smarter and more prepared. We can recover in those healing chambers, go over what we've seen with Zayan, figure out where the hell Rin is and get some back-up for dealing with this. That'll enable us to plan future strikes where we hopefully can cut out the embarassing and immediate beatdown after wearing ourselves out with launching worthless attacks part and instead at full power can start off on the right foot with ideas of assault more likely to work. As to the problems with this... it's still not exactly safe, if the angel detects that we're leaving and doesn't want us to I think she's probably more than fast enough to grab us before we can go anywhere. Leaving now allows the angel to go where she will effectively unchallenged with the full brunt of her power to bear, and every city that she destroys can only leave her stronger in the end. Maybe she can use that time to determine some bullshit counter to our bullshit void strike, also.
I'm fine with either of those plans. As for what we do for the first vote, I don't know... what I do know is that we need to have the angel distracted. Whether leaving her to her blood parade or trying to engage her in conversation is better than that, I don't know! They apparently understand some form of language, so I'm a bit curious to see what she would say if we responded in that. It may well be curiosity fit to send us to the grave, but it's also quite possible that engaging with another being for the first time in apparent ages would be distracting for her. If we were to survive, it would also be invaluable insight into angels and their, uh... cultural practices... and whether or not they provide the angels with anything useful or if they have particular hang-ups or something. Why is she painting her wings red? Why hasn't she just outright killed us instead of gone around dancing with our intestines and painting her wings? Is it just to make Erd totally miserable before he succumbs, is this how female angels get turned on? What in the world is going on here?
So for the first question I'm leaning towards B, and for the second just not A. I've no real preference for whichever one it is, but something tells me that Barbatos is wanting us to definitely change up our fighting style to something that fits the situation rather than just running off. For that reason, I'm marginally inclined towards B for the second option, though the comforts of home are also looking pretty fine right about now.
BB > BC
Baltika9 Azira, is there any reason that you two bros are voting 2A? I know that lightbane just wants an end to this and doesn't care what way, but my impression is that you two were enjoying this run pretty well. Is there any chance of reconsideration here?
