“Let me see your arm…”

I walked closer to her, touching her arm, and checked for damage to her energy circuits. However, I found none.

“…?”

I was confused, but Fatima simply smiled at me, chuckling as she explained.

“I’m now at the 4th stage, so I’m a lot more nimble than before. I can take care of the recoil perfectly now. I wasn’t a god-tamer before just for show!”

“You mean, you can fire those powerful rounds without a drawback now?!”

Rather, when did you reach the fourth stage? I didn’t even notice!

Looking closely, there’s even a weird attachment to her arm, leading to her back. Something like a support or a recoil disperser, perhaps? Anyway, that must be the reason why she suffered little to no damage from the recoil.

I turned to the rest of the girls and noticed that they also spent little effort clearing up the god-level demons from before. Is this proof that we’re getting stronger? Or is it that the enemies were just that weak?

“Anyway, let’s continue at this pace until we catch up to Azrael!”

Even while fighting, our clones were picking up the essence crystals around them, so we were rapidly gaining in on him. We should be able to catch up in about 10 to 20 minutes.

Still, before catching up, we have bigger problems.

“Master, new enemies are coming! Six from the north-northeast and three from the west! Contact in thirty!”

Ember quickly detected the demons approaching and warned. Everyone quickly went back to their battle modes and prepared to intercept.

“That’s a lot more than before. Igni, you take on those five; I’ll handle the last three. Girls, focus on clearing the ones Igni attacks!”

“””Roger!”””

With a quickly devised battle plan, we ran to our respective positions.

The same as before, Igni and Ember took the vanguard, with Fang lurking within the shadows. Fatima’s gun took out one of the demons before they could approach, before reloading her rifle as fast as possible. Fina cast her buffs on the three who were closer to the enemies, making sure that they were fully buffed before contact.

“That side looks fine, now…”

I turned to the three demons that were coming from the west. These guys looked the same; their bodies were made of solid rock and had wings on their backs. From just a glance at their ugly faces, I was pretty sure they were gargoyles.

“So my enemy this time is just blocks of rock?”

I was slightly relieved upon knowing that, but I also felt disappointed. It wasn’t fun fighting three duplicate enemies, after all.

“…!”

While I was lost in thought, an attack flew toward my face. It was fast—almost as fast as a bullet—but I managed to dodge it at the last second. However, the attack didn’t stop at that, as more and more continued pouring down on me like rain.

‘Sh*t! Did they get angry at me looking down on them?’

Either way, even their attacks weren’t that much of a threat. It’s not fast enough to be unavoidable.

“… About time.”

With their attack patterns being so simple, it didn’t take me long to analyze their openings. I whipped out my sword and turned 90 degrees from where I was running, heading straight for the three enemies clumped together.

The gargoyles were visibly irritated after seeing me approach, and they quickly fired more rock bullets to hamper me. But with a sword in hand, what could little rocks do to stop me?

*PING!* *PING!* *PING!*

Each wave of my sword sent the rocks aiming for my body, swerving to the side. For the rest that I couldn’t deflect, I simply dodged them.

The distance between us shrank rapidly. 400 meters, 100, 50, and finally, they were within my sword’s range.

“This is payback!”

A short swing, followed by a grinding sound. One of the gargoyles had its body cut in half!

“I’m not done yet!”

Technically, inorganic beings die from their bodies getting sliced in half. Before the enemy could recover, I quickly turned around and slashed a few more times.

*CRUMBLE!* .

The first of the three gargoyles turned into little cuboid blocks. With it being chopped this much, I doubt it could still be revived.

“Hup!”

Before I could even grab the essence crystal, the two gargoyles quickly came and scratched their sharp, ragged claws toward me. It seems that having their partner killed angered them. Well, I’m not sure if they could even feel anger at this point. .

“Will!”

*BANG!*

Finally, a support fire came from behind. The bullet flew straight, hitting one of the gargoyle’s chests, where their essence crystals were located. As expected of Fatima, she knows where the weaknesses of each demon are.

The third gargoyle looked confused, seeing its other partner get blown away, scattering into pieces. But before it could realize what happened, a red dagger pierced through its chest, cracking the essence crystal within.

“Checkmate.”

I wiped the sweat off my forehead and turned in the other direction. It looked like Igni and Ember were still fighting, but there were only two demons left there. Their battle should end in a jiffy.

With this, I could say that we’re really powerful enough to wipe out groups of god-level demons even without support from god-tamers.

“But still…”

I turned to look at the three gargoyle corpses. Only the one that I minced had its essence crystal preserved. The other two broke from Fatima and Fang’s attacks.

“We’re still not strong enough to afford to go easy on opponents.”

At this rate, farming god-level essence crystals would be hard.

Anyway, we should continue at our current pace. I’m sure that the more god-level demons we fight, the more accustomed the girls will be to preserving their essence crystals.

“Good work, everyone! Now, let’s proceed!”

We’re still far from the main battlefield, but we’re already seeing dozens of god-level demons approaching. Looks like this won’t go as smoothly as planned.

Updated from 𝑖𝘳.𝒸ℴ𝑚