Melee, Part 2: Saiba

(Ceruno)

"Miluno! Come back!"

Even in a melee, the difference in strength between us and the enemy was still enormous. I didn't want to stay here and wait to die, so I was preparing to retreat according to the original plan...

But Miluno hadn't listened to me.

Right now...

The Great Hand, with its vast amount of Dark Energy, attracted her more than I did.

I felt a little unwilling to accept that.

With a sigh, I continued blocking the Magical Girl Soldiers' magic, but I also used a few tricks—I had prepared two layers of bubbles.

The first layer merely marked out a space. It wouldn't prevent anything other than air from entering or leaving, so it couldn't be destroyed. However, it created a high-gravity field, greatly increasing the density of the air. As a result, both bullets and magic blasts lost much of their power when passing through it.

That made the second layer the real defensive bubble.

The high-gravity layer greatly reduced the pressure on the defense and lowered the consumption of magic power. This method was particularly effective against a large number of weak attacks, but it had limited effect against attacks from Fomalhaut and the Great Hand.

"Retreat first. We can't keep dragging this out here."

Achernar had made up her mind and immediately called out to Sirius:

"Sirius!"

She was still disrupting the Great Hand's attacks. Hearing Achernar call her, the wings on her back transformed into photon thrusters and shot her back into our midst.

She rubbed against Zara while holding her, then asked:

"Getting ready to slip away?"

I nodded.

"Xiaoling."

"Yes! Commander!"

The black-haired girl gave me a proper salute, then turned and ran toward the wall to make an opening.

She had just used magic to chip away a section