D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 2073 Cat and Mouse Games

Chapter 2073: Chapter 2073 Cat and Mouse Games

— Lily —

Lily was rapidly finding that her instincts were shifting towards ’playful cat’ rather then ’hunter’ as more and more guards failed to get a hit on her. They were just so slow once she started paying attention to it that her mind was sorting them into the ’not-threat’ category. Lily had no idea how true that actually was. Swords were still sharp… but perhaps her skin was strong enough anyway? The problem was that these Rank 1 soldiers had no visible or obvious Rank 2 leading them and Lily just couldn’t see them as real threats.

It meant that zooming around to destroy ballistae was seen as more of an amusing game to her and Lily wasn’t sure she liked the mental sorting. Kat was theoretically in more danger then her… though Appoline had helped a lot there. They’d managed to break through the first wall and were hiding out there so that the ballistae couldn’t shoot them properly. Appoline had then got her pots to explode, sticking a bunch of guards in place and making it much harder for other guards that could still move to approach and attack.

Regardless, Lily wasn’t sure her mind had ever been quite so directly influenced away from what the human part of it wanted. Though perhaps part of the issue was that human her had been super stressed once the fighting started and cat-her had taken over? It felt wrong to describe things that way, Lily was still Lily at the end of the day… but she was perhaps too used to leaning on her feline instincts for combat. It also hadn’t caused any real problems which was probably making it harder to change that way of thinking as well.

The guards at least, really did have no chance against her. She was fast enough that an attack mere centimetres away could be dodged without issue. Lily was lucky she wasn’t making a game of that part. Though… perhaps it was also her aversion to wanting to kill any of them? Instead of having her shadow claws rip through their armour and flesh she was instead pulling away their weapons and hurling them on top of the greenhouse or pulling off bits of their armour. She’d snatched away more than a few boots, though she had to be careful to break the straps holding them in place before she did that.

The first person Lily tried to steal the boot of had gone flying into a bunch of his friends because it turns out they have straps on them to keep them in place with the rest of the armour. Not addressing that meant that, because the guards weren’t that heavy, she simply through them away along with the boot. Not really what she was trying to do and at least she didn’t accidentally throw him onto the roof with all the weapons. That could’ve been bad from at least two different angles.

Plus, it was fun to destroy the ballistae in different ways. Lily was finding a lot of unique ways to use her shadows even if they were all for destruction. The best was the hammer, because she’d somehow managed to figure out how to make it sound like a squeaky hammer when she smashed the ballista in question. Repeated attempts to replicate the feat had failed so far.

*I’ve nearly got all the ballistae from this first wall down. Do you know if there are any more? It feels like keeping them behind a few walls pointed upwards would be the best way to go about this.*

[I’m not sure. I suppose I could fly up for a moment to check? Appoline has the guards here pretty well locked down I’m just a touch worried about the archers. Also is it no ballistas?]

*Just be ready to drop back down or take her with you I guess? And yes it is ballistae for the plural of ballista. I don’t know why.*

Lily refocused on the nearby guards. It seemed these few had noticed that she didn’t like to hurt people when destroying the ballistae or just moving about. To that end, they’d climbed up into the ballista they were meant to be using when they saw her approach. It was… an interesting idea she hadn’t come across yet. Lily was tempted just to pluck them out from between the wooden supports but that seemed much less fun. Especially when they’d gone to the trouble of having the thing loaded and standing in the way of the string.

*Hmm… how am I going to do this? Two of them are standing on the thing so just throwing it upwards isn’t going to work. I suppose I could slice the string on both sides? Might still whip them but they have metal armour so I’m not worried about deaths. Hmmm… what about just snipping it at the back? Should fly out and away from them instead. Then I can destroy the rest.*

Lily bounced off the first guards face, and then the seconds to keep them both stunned as she swung down with a shadow coated tail to slice through the string. It flung outwards, missing the guards that had been chasing her by a mile, just as planned. As a follow up Lily summoned a large bo staff made of shadow to slam right down the centre, crushing the wood and folding it up a bit. Her bounces earlier having had the added effect of making the guards stumble off the wooden supports.

Lily grinned at her success, stole one of their boots while they were stunned, and then ran away to keep circling the greenhouse for the last ballistae. If Lily had everything correct she should be back with Kat in a moment and there were only one or two left. Sadly for the guards, it didn’t seem like they were doing any better at defending them and the next lot barely tried. The final ballistae looked heavily guarded, with six guards all clustered around it…

But as Lily got closer she realised they were standing so close because Appoline had already glued them to the ballista. Apparently they’d been helping shift its position to target Kat when they’d been hit. Deciding it was better safe then sorry, Lily decided to still destroy the thing… but had to actually be careful. Using the same technique as before, she cut the arrow string down the middle, but held it tightly with her shadow hands, allowing her to gently guide it away from the guards and keep everyone from getting hit…

But it was a waste to leave a perfectly good rope behind. So Lily pulled it off the ballista and then started to use it to slice through bits of the wood, winding it around the parts and then cutting through as if she was slicing tofu. Lily did have to use some of her shadow magic to sharpen the string but that was simple and kept the string in better condition to wrap the guards up with at the end. She pulled them together as awkwardly as possible and then rushed over back to Kat. She did get to pass one of the already destroyed ballista on the way and it didn’t seem like they had any way to repair them.

*So, are we good to go?*

[Not sure. Tried to fly up a bit but they had archers on Appoline immediately so I had to go back down.]

*Fine let me check.*

Lily flared her wings and went upwards, leaving the ground properly for the first time since she’d started playing her little game with the guards. Archers immediately tried to hit her but it was easy to see them coming and dodge. The archers were split between ’so bad dodging was pointless’ and ’good enough to lead their shots’ except that, when you could watch an arrow fly it was easy to just not be where they were thinking you’d be with a slight correction.

Now up in the air, Lily could see that they had a few ballista still around… but they couldn’t hit her anyway. They weren’t designed as ones that could strike above them and the guards were either giving up or had tried to mount it across several shoulders to fire upwards but that was looking like a big mess on its own. It meant it was likely safe for them to leave anyway now, so Lily gave Kat the mental go ahead and stayed roughly where she was. The plan was to stick around Kat and deflect any of the bolts that might hit her with shadows or paper.

The archers tried to hit Kat as she was climbing, and while Kat had a harder time dodging them all as the larger target between the two of them, she was also much sturdier. The arrows just didn’t have enough force and Kat was able to catch or block them with an arm. A distinct lack of mages meant that, they were basically home free. Perhaps if they’d woken up fire guard from before they’d need to be more careful, but it seemed they hadn’t managed to do so. If they were even trying.