The first volley of projectiles hit Seraphine's ice wall with the force of a battering ram. There were cracks all over the frozen surface, and she had to put more mana into keeping it up.

Even though the air was warm, she could see her breath coming out in clouds. "That's maybe three or four more volleys before this breaks!" she yelled, her forehead already sweating.

"Then we don't let it sit for three or four more!" Marina was already on the move, and her frying pan shone as she turned on its flame absorption features. "Let's spread out so that it can pick targets! We're dead if we cluster!"

The Brotherhood broke up into practiced formations, and each member knew what to do without having to be told in detail. They had trained and fought together for months, which had made them almost telepathically in sync.

Greg stood in the middle with his shield, which was the most obvious target. Marina moved to the left with her offensive skills.

Lylia did well with her sword work on the right. Bork stood behind Greg as a second line of defense. Felix, Seraphine, Elwen, and Mira spread out to make a border.

The Calamity's reaction was quick and dominant. Part of its huge body fell off and turned into dozens of smaller weapon constructs that flew at the team like a swarm of metal hornets.

Swords, spears, and axes, all glowing with corrupted magical energy and moving in a way that was very disturbing. The Guardian's Oath shield lit up, catching the first wave.

The hits came so quickly that they all blended together into one long attack. His arm went numb from the vibrations, but he stayed still because moving would have put the people behind him in danger.

"Bork! Strengthen the left side!"

"On it!" Bork's hammer hit a group of attacking swords with enough force to shake the ground, and the shockwave from his weapon changed their flight paths.

Three fell, and four more took their place. "There are too many of them!"

"Then we fight smarter, not harder!" Lylia's sword flashed in the sun as she did a perfect Rising Phoenix move.

The way she swung her sword made an updraft that caught a few weapons in the air and sent them off course. She learned that move from Rosalina years ago, when she still thought she could be a Royal Knight. She was now using it to save a city, and she could see the irony in that.

Instead of using barriers, Seraphine switched to targeted strikes. Ice spears appeared around her in a circle, each one shooting toward a specific weapon construct with the accuracy of a sniper.

She could feel the mana drain like blood loss, but she didn't stop. Her Third Circle magic was being pushed to its limits until it couldn't stop.

"Greg, watch out! It's coming from above! Six o'clock high!"

Greg didn't ask questions after hearing that, he just raised his shield. A huge axe structure hit it from a steep angle, knocking him down to one knee. The Guardian's Oath took in the kinetic energy and stored it for later release, but it could only hold so much.

He yelled, "How long has it been?"

"Ten minutes!" Felix called back, and it seemed that his Infinite Luck System could keep track of time as well as make probability calculations. "Two hours and eighteen minutes left!"

He was using his gardening rake like a staff, and the SSS-rank household item worked surprisingly well at blocking attacks just because it was so silly. "Also, my luck says we have a 17% chance of getting through this without getting hurt badly!"

"Those are some terrible odds!" Mira complained, passing through a spear thrust and grabbing it in midair.

Her spirit form let her touch physical things whenever she wanted to. She threw it back at the Calamity, but it quickly went back into the big structure's body.

"It's better than the three percent we had at first!" Felix fought back, barely missing being beheaded by a sword that flew through the air. "I'll take any improvement!"

Elwen's plant magic was making walls and knots in their defense wherever there were holes. Vines burst through cracks in the street, wrapping around weapons and slowing down the attack.

It didn't stop them, but it gave them a few extra seconds. Hammy had gotten out of her pocket and was bouncing between threats.

The slime's surprisingly heavy mass made it good at knocking smaller things off course. It looked like the hammer inside its body got brighter with each hit, as if it was feeding off the violence.

"I can't keep up this speed!" Elwen gasped, and her hands shook from the effort of using magic. "The plants are dying as fast as I can grow them!"

"Then only pay attention to the most important threats!" Greg ordered, blocking another volley with his shield. "Keep your strength! There's still more than two hours left!"

The Calamity seemed to know what they were doing and changed its strategy. It stopped doing small attacks all the time and started charging bigger ones. A part of its body, at least fifty feet wide, came off completely and turned into a huge club-like structure that swung down at them with the force of a falling building.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Everyone ran in different directions when Marina screamed.

The impact crater where they had been standing was ten feet deep and twenty feet wide. Debris fell like hail, and they had to cover their heads and pray that nothing big enough to kill them landed nearby.

"This is crazy!" Bork coughed through the cloud of dust. "We can't avoid attacks like that for two hours!"

"We have to do it!" Greg got up quickly, and his shield was already forming again to protect him from the next attack. "We keep going, keep fighting, and keep living! We can't do anything else apart from that."

Everyone was getting worn out after thirty minutes. Lylia's sword arm was shaking because she had used it too much.

To save mana, Seraphine had started using simpler ice constructs. Bork's hammer swings were slower and less accurate.

Three of the prongs on Felix's rake had broken. Marina's armor had new dents in it, and it was hard for her to breathe.

Hilda, who had insisted on fighting even though she was sick, finally fell down. The silver marks all over her body shone so brightly that everyone had to look away. She was unconscious, and her pickaxe had fallen from her hand when the light went out.

"Hey, Mira!" Greg yelled. "Get Hilda to safety! Now!"

The spirit didn't say anything. It just picked up the fallen miner and went through the nearest building, leaving the battle zone. That meant they were one defender short, and the Calamity took advantage of that right away.

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