Physically, Wanderschloss wasn't a compromise between the massive greatsword and the scythe whose advancements it was combining. As much as Ashtoreth liked the idea of exotic, fancy weaponry, she didn't have time to learn how to use some bizarre fusion of the two weapons' physical forms.

Instead, Wanderschloss took the same form as her greatsword had, but with a few differences. The blade had lost its raw, plain appearance, ceasing to be a grey hunk of steel to adopt a few very unpronounced, organic curves. It was black, with lines of glowing purple running parallel to its contours, and it was slightly thinner and had a second hollow space above where the hilt ran flush with the weapon, another handhold in case she needed to do any prying.

With her stats getting higher and higher, Ashtoreth didn't need as heavy a sword as she once had. Certainly she wanted a massive weight behind her blows, but Luftschloss had been superheavy partly because it needed to greatly exceed her body weight in order to help her perform counterforce maneuvers.

Wanderschloss, the weapon that fused her sword and scythe, was only four fifths the weight of its predecessor, allowing her to fly a little easier while still letting her use [Mighty Strike] to smash enemies with comet-like force.

No bullets, but she had massive stat bonuses and her sword was now counting as a full-power casting focus. What was more, the fact that it counted as her scythe meant that it was regenerating the ammunition in the other fused weapons.

For now, the weapon rested in her hand, unused except as a casting focus. At the moment, her only real purpose was help protect the soldiers below, mostly by providing her massive [Defense] buff via her [Bloodfire Boon] aura.

That, and to make it clear to Morax Tol that she was the individual most responsible for all the racket. And preferably make him angry.

"Your tower defense skills are weak!" Ashtoreth said into a lull in the noise as more missile detonated against the crystal-topped towers that lined the promenade ahead. "You're supposed to wall and funnel—wall and funnel! Not give us a straight shot to your castle!"

She let go of her new sword and let it hang in the air beside her to put her hands on her hips. "I could dismantle your defenses just by casting stones!" she said, snickering. "Not that I would, mind you."

Below her, more humans arrived as the first of them began to advance, some by taking to the air and some by leaping and bounding across the promenade. She was fairly certain everyone could fly—it was sort of a no-brainer of an ability to go after—but that didn't change the fact that most moved faster overland by using the strength in their legs.

On a hunch, Ashtoreth aimed a few of her hellfire javelins at some of the fragments of the crystal towers below her, then smiled with satisfaction as she saw her hellfire ignite the mana that was leaking from the broken fragments.

The humans had a preference for firearms, with most of them now wielding weapons that Ashtoreth had given them the schematics for. There were even a few Almighties like Rammstein taking shape in the hands of the humans below her, and more than a few Legions like the one that Frost wielded.

As she advanced with the vanguard of Alpha Team, shots streaked through the air toward the towers ahead of her, but almost all of them were harmless: the fact of the matter was that Morax Tol's defenses were likely made to detect and trigger when conjured projectiles came toward them. Mana was the easiest thing to detect, magically speaking, and the barriers that the towers conjured to defend themselves seemed to appear without fail when it came to magical attacks.

But as she watched, the barriers began to appear more and more for the missiles, even, until the assault was seemingly deadlocked on a group of towers several kilometers further up the promenade. Dozens of missiles broke against the crystal-topped defenses, but to no effect, until finally the humans stopped sending them through the skybound rift.

Incoming enemies, Gao's voice said coolly. Something heavy.

Moving along what she assumed to be the very edge of the planar boundary, was a formation of three columns of dark objects, large shapes that just barely reflected the light from the spells and weapons fire below them, dozens of them approaching with startling speed.

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Golems, said Gao. Strange metal. Magic resistant. Cold is optimal. Conjured physical bindings, as well.

Ashtoreth blinked with surprise at how quickly she'd assessed that much, but then the human military minds were addicted to information.

The golems drew closer as she ate two hearts from her satchel to bring her up to full [Bloodfire]—almost 800,000.

"Golems," she muttered, mildly annoyed. Highly resistant to almost everything, especially physical, and they didn't even have hearts. A good enemy to employ against Ashtoreth.

But that was hardly surprising. The unfortunate truth of the matter was that as an archfiend, everyone in the inner realms who had any cause to expect a need to defend themselves would naturally be most prepared to fight her kind.

Though for Ashtoreth, that was no longer as much of a problem.

Soon they were close enough that she could tag one.

{Meteor Golem — Level 520 Elite}

The golems broke their formation as they approached the skies above the humans, each of them hurtling downward on a different trajectory as runes along its body began to glow.

Get off the ground, Alpha Team, Gao's voice had the same tone as if he musing over what to put on a grocery list. They'll hit a half-second sooner than you expect. Omega Team, brace for impact.

But as the golems fell and gathered power, Ashtoreth saw the two nearest towers—several kilometers distant from where she now stood—begin to flare white as they gathered power, two thin beams reaching out from their current position to target the midst of the nearest humans.

She hissed, pinging Frost with a rapid-fire mental warning before diving down to her right, falling until she was just next to the gathering light, then launching her sword up the beam's trajectory as the tower flashed and the thin stream of light became a blinding conduit of power.

The sword burst as it was struck by the white pillar of light, and the magic that focused and ordered the beam's mana was disrupted, if not wholly destroyed. The beam scattered, lines of refracting in all directions. A few of them struck the polished surface of the promenade ahead of her, cutting into the metal surface and sending out huge shockwaves of white power despite the fact that they were each mere fractions of the attack that Ashtoreth had diverted.

Her head snapped to one side, and she saw the second beam flare a split-second later. Frost was floating in its trajectory, further up the Promenade than even she was.

The beam struck him much in the same way she assumed that a flying watermelon might break against a steel pole, bursting into a massive, cacophonous explosion that filled the air around him and shook the whole of the promenade even though it had originated mid-air.

She couldn't help but wince a little as Frost floated out of the explosion, totally unharmed, and conjured his minigun.

You have to do it that way? she asked.

It's most efficient.

As the spoke, the meteor golems crashed into the surface of the Promenade, the force of their impacts sending out shockwaves even as wide cracks formed into the wide stretch of roadway.

Ashtoreth dove for the nearest golem, conjuring her sword once more as it ripped itself out of the warped steel beneath it. It was a matte gray construction, six-limbed much like the dragon who had doubtless bought or forged it. There, however, the similarities ended: the golem's form more resembled that of a centaur whose torso was at the center of its body. Four pointed limbs clutched at the ground below it while two gorilla-like metal arms extended from its side, ready to cudgel its enemies.

As she closed the distance with the construct, a light flickered and played across its cylindrical torso before a jagged line of lightning extended from its pointed head toward her, striking her in the shoulder and sending a jolt through her body.

She shrugged the spell off with ease, the [Defense] from her and Frost's buffs, as well as her racial lightning resistance, rendering her almost immune while her absurd [Vitality] let her instantaneously heal the minor damage.

Then she closed with golem, grinning. Golems were intimidating when it came to the realm of sheer power and durability, but Ashtoreth knew their real weakness.

They were tragically bad at fighting.

They had no fearful flesh, no living instincts to give them the intense battle-instincts that a warrior learned to hone. They were predictable, boorish, and dull. If their brute force couldn't win the day, they were useless.

They were a good choice for facing the humans, who didn't have the kind of comprehensive, long-term training that would teach them how to engage and capitalize on the golems' weakness.

Ashtoreth and Frost were a different story.

Using her racial flight, she altered her trajectory at the last moment to avoid both swings of its massive limbs, then dropped her sword and dove beneath its legs and slid behind it as she dodged a stomp from one of its pointed feet.

Then she grabbed the edge of the golem's hips and pulled on her sword, flipping out from under its legs to press her feet against its torso before taking several steps up its body, grabbing her sword as it flew into her hand, kicking off one of its limbs as it came around for the backswing, and lashing out at the golem's head with a [Mighty Blow].

The metal sizzled, violet sparks flying in every direction as Ashtoreth sheared the golem's conical head away from its body, killing it instantly and sending a hunk of now-disenchanted metal flying far away into the night.

{You gain [Meteor Golem Core]; Tier 3}

She spun, continuing the momentum of her strike to turn and take in the battlefield behind her before pushing her sword away from herself and beating her wings to rush backward along the Promenade, letting out a single syllable of laughter as she sped through the air.

It was time to protect the humans.

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