She fired four shots directly into the sky, using her metallic, compact crossbow to deflect an arrow whilst sidestepping a blade of wind that left a deep gash on the ground, her eyes were glowing brightly, putting the trio on edge as they had no idea what this meant, Milo rushed right up to the invader, her eyes were able to see the trajectory of his movements, but he was simply too fast for her to take advantage of that knowledge, instead hastily firing at the ground in between them whilst backing off, firing shots at Helena.
An arrow grazed the invader's face, drawing blue blood as Milo was already upon her again.
'I am not meant to be out in the open …'
Milo's fist was already heading for her chest, and even with all of the training she had gone through, it seemed clear that this would go right through and turn everything on the way to mush, and the worst part as that Milo wasn't even using any mana to enhance himself, forget the golden mana, there wasn't even a drop of the regular kind, with pure brute force and inherent skill, he had already demonstrated that defeating her was a simple affair.
"Vila Bouclia!" shouting it out without meaning to, a shield of soul energy manifested, taking the brunt of the strike in her stead, though she was still launched up through the air anyways, Loimos had already taken advantage of the ways of power of the soul realm, and even gone as far as develop techniques specifically for living soldiers, although, only the Soror had a good grasp upon them due to enjoying direct guidance from him.
Whilst flying through the air, she fired a powerful shot, pushing herself further and into an area where the steam had not been forcefully blown away, falling and rolling onto the ground disgracefully, but getting back to her feet in less than a second after impact, running as Helena was already casting more spells to clear the area.
But the invader muttered another one of the techniques Loimos had created, and swiftly took off deep into the steamy region, unwilling to get anywhere near them again.
"Did she run away?" asked Toby.
"Tactical retreat, I suppose… I am not sure what her ability is exactly, but she can definitely shoot from far away, so she'll probably hide and find a good spot to fire from without being disturbed" responded Helena.
"From the sound of it, it seems like he has multiple of those invaders who call themselves his daughter, and this one was definitely not the most capable at close range, she only carries that crossbow and nothing else, she didn't even try to fight up-close, I guess that she didn't take into account that Helena could blow away the steam, despite knowing about us in advance?" Milo scratched the back of his head.
"Although she seems to be old enough to be an adult, I could not help but feel like she had a very childish-side, that girl probably just didn't think everything completely through, and was perhaps a bit too focused on trying to do something her 'father' would like" it was likely that that by closing the distance, their opponent had hoped that they would not be able to react to the bullets of soul energy in time too, but as the mother of six children, Helena felt fairly confident that the invader had simply not been quite as grown up on the inside than on the outside.
The trio went to moving immediately, as expected, they had to deal with the occasional bullets fired from a great distance away, but judging by the amount and time in between each of them, it was safe to assume that the sharpshooter's attention was divided in between multiple targets.
They encountered many varieties of different beasts and monsters that had been made to patrol the region, some of them seemed to have been merely tamed, whilst others had clearly been experimented upon to enhance their abilities, a centipede as wide as an elephant with countless blue crystals growing upon its mangled carapace, a small-faced toad whose stomach was cut open, nestling a fire that only went out upon death, or even goblins that would undergo horrific mutations when damaged.
Every step of the way was fraught with danger, but thankfully, none of them was weak in the least, so the living creatures tormented by the dead were no match for them, a single punch, a single arrow, or a single blade of wind was nearly always enough to put them down.
Although, like the knight Hoffnu and Merno had described, many of them would explode upon death, swiftly enough so that they would turn to spirit life before it occurred, or perhaps it was instead because they were not dead when it occurred, and rather than rigged to explode upon death, they did so when they got close to it.
Still, they were not finding any lead on where the portal could have been hidden, they heard and felt the ripples of fights in the distance, fellows facing adversity as well, some seemed to have encountered powerful foes.
Milo deflected a bullet without even looking at it, his gaze focusing on a shadow in the distance, a shape drawn through the steam.
"I think I found something of interest" he told the other two, a bead of sweat travelling from his temple down onto his neck as the heat of this place was starting to get to him.
Without even questioning anything, Helena casted a spell forward, absolutely obliterating the shadow in question and clearing the steam along the way.
"What? They already know that we're here clearly, so we can just forget stealth, right?"
"That's why I love you, Helena"
"Trying to smooth talk me even here? Is the heat reminding you of something?"
"Aherm… If you could stop flirting… I am happy that your marriage is still going strong, but now isn't really the-" Toby spoke up, but stopped as he glanced up, the wind spell had cleared much steam, so the sun's emerald light was pouring in, and the green sky was fully visible.
Allowing him to see the massive figure that was plunging down.
The trio was thrown off the ground as it landed, revealing itself to not be a beast, but a soldier in white with six arms, two clubbed tails, and a mace in each hand.
This fellow was easily at least eight meters tall and with limbs as thick as tree trunks.
"Holy- Is that the same kind as those other big guys?!" the otherworlder knew that it was true already, having appraised so many of them that he could immediately do the same for this guy despite the defences against inspection he possessed.
"I, elite of the Tsarina, you, new paint for ground" he struck his own chest with the maces and stomped the ground, most definitely challenging them to take him on.
"And we can understand him, better be careful…" Helena readied a few spells, whilst Milo finally channeled mana throughout his body, not willing to take this soldier too lightly.
Meanwhile, Toby pulled out arrows different from the ones he had been using before.
'Hopefully his skin isn't too thick…'