Kenzo rushed forward to help the two girls, his spear clenched in his hand, his breath already a little short from adrenaline. Meanwhile, Lucian, curled up behind a tree, was ordering Madame to intervene and attack the specters. The giant spider obeyed immediately: she leapt forward with astonishing speed, overtaking Kenzo as though she were nothing more than a shadow gliding across the ground, and threw herself straight at the spectral creatures.
– « What the hell is that?! » Ananta shouted when she suddenly saw a gigantic spider appear and attack the specters.
Even Ophelia, though consumed by an almost animal rage, was surprised for a moment and slowed her movement.
– « It's an artifact! It's here to help you! » Kenzo shouted so they would not attack Madame by mistake.
In a second, Ananta understood the situation and regained her composure. She dodged one specter, cracked her whip to repel another, then declared in a loud, rapid voice:
– « To defeat them, we have to destroy all twelve specters at the same time! »
Kenzo stopped abruptly.
– « Whaaat?! » he shouted, completely caught off guard.
– « Come on! That makes three specters each! » Ananta yelled, without the slightest hesitation despite the chaos.
Kenzo panicked for half a second before reacting. He turned toward Lucian, hoping he could hear him despite the distance and the noise of the fight.
– « Lucian!!! Tell Madame to attack three of them and destroy them at the same time as us! »
The blond boy nodded frantically from behind his tree, then shouted something to Madame. The spider understood immediately: she shifted her trajectory, repositioning herself to isolate three specters for herself alone. The floating creatures seemed to hesitate for an instant, as though they sensed the danger of this new opponent.
Kenzo finally reached the fight. Whether it was Ophelia or Ananta, the two girls coordinated almost instantly. They went from fighting six against one each… to three against one. Their precision, speed, and control over the rhythm of the battle were staggering. Kenzo understood immediately that they were fighting at a level completely beyond him.
Even Madame had understood their movements and was positioning herself exactly where she needed to be. That was something far beyond Kenzo: even if he used [Serpent] with all his strength, he would never reach that level of coordination. [Serpent] made his dodges instinctive, almost animal, but absolutely not calculated like the girls' or Madame's. Fighting in a group required lucidity, and he was sorely lacking in that.
As he reached his three specters, Kenzo felt something at the back of his neck. A freezing sensation. Against his will, he looked under the hood of one of the specters. The void he saw there sent a violent shiver through him. It was as if staring too long into that black emptiness could pull him in, stretch him out, erase him into an eternal nothingness.
He shook his head, gritted his teeth, and threw himself into the fight.
Without hesitation, he activated [Serpent]. A strange rush passed through his body, his muscles loosened all at once, his perceptions expanded, and instinct took over. The specters' daggers sliced through the air with a sharp, almost metallic sound, but Kenzo dodged them by contorting himself, bending in ways that would have seemed impossible for a normal human. Their blows were not as heavy as those of the Deviant Young Shoot, but they came from every direction.
He felt one dagger miss his face by a millimeter. Another brushed past his ribs. He pivoted, slipped, ducked, leapt backward, all without thinking. [Serpent] guided his movements as though his body were making its own decisions.
Ananta, who could see perfectly well what was happening, lashed out with her whip to drive back one specter before glancing toward Kenzo.
– « You're doing well! » she called, her tone impressed but serious.
Ophelia, however, did not hold back a far sharper opinion.
– « He's too slow. And too clumsy. »
The remark stung Kenzo's pride, but he absolutely could not afford to turn his head and answer. He was already struggling to hold against three specters while using [Serpent]; losing concentration would be a direct ticket to death. So he simply ignored Ophelia and focused entirely on the specters' movements.
Madame, meanwhile, had no problem at all. The gigantic spider caught specters with her sharpened legs, crushed them, or tore them apart without the slightest apparent difficulty. But even destroyed, the specters re-formed. That complicated everything: to eliminate them permanently, they all had to die at the same instant.
Ophelia managed to destroy two of them, her daggers drawing quick and violent arcs. She clearly could have handled the third in a single strike. But barely had her second specter vanished when a new one was already starting to re-form. She growled in frustration.
Ananta, too, had succeeded in destroying two of her specters, but the third dodged with terrifying speed. She cracked her whip several times, leaving green traces in the air, but every time she prepared to strike the last one, one of the two destroyed specters was already reappearing behind her.
Kenzo, meanwhile, was fighting for his life. He could not attack effectively. Dodging was already a miracle. Striking all three at once? Impossible. He tried several blows, but they only passed partway through the specters, whose bodies seemed fluid, unstable, almost intangible.
Breathless, he thought:
Would they really have been able to get through this without our help?
Rationally, yes. They were far stronger than he or Lucian. But emotionally… he doubted it. Their coordination was perfect, yet he could clearly see that they still had not found a way to make all the specters disappear at once.
Suddenly, Ophelia's voice rang out, powerful, irritated, impatient.
– « Alright! This is getting ridiculous! » she shouted, dodging a double dagger strike. « Everyone start a thirty-second countdown! By the time it ends, I want all of you to have destroyed your specters! »
Ananta nodded without arguing.
Lucian, from behind his tree, shouted a panicked « yes!! »
Even Madame tapped the ground lightly with her legs, as if she were ready to follow the plan.
Kenzo, however, felt his heart skip a beat.
Thirty seconds?! Thirty??? To kill three specters he could not even hit properly???
But Ophelia was not joking.
– « Are you ready? » she shouted.
– « Yes! » Ananta answered.
Madame clicked her legs.
Lucian nodded frantically, even though no one was looking at him.
Kenzo swallowed.
He was not ready. Not at all. But he had to do it.
Ophelia raised her dagger…
And shouted:
– « THIRTY! »