Jean hesitated. "But right now, we simply don't have the time to go looking for them…"
"Acting Grand Master Jean, we're here to assist!" The Adventurers' Guild's branch president, Cyrus, charged out from the city gates, leading over a dozen elite adventurers who pierced into the horde of monsters like a spear.
And with that came a storm of fire arrows, lightning fields spreading wildly through the enemy ranks, bursts of floral explosions from the ground, and massive ice lances descending from the sky—the Knights from the reconnaissance squad had finally returned.
"Jean, how's the situation in the city?" Lisa dropped into the protective shield while Albedo, Amber, and Rosaria joined the battle immediately.
"The Stormterror is still rampaging through the skies, and the best we can do is focus on rescue efforts. The biggest threat right now is the endless stream of monsters at the city gates. If they breach the walls, it'll cause massive casualties among the people of Mondstadt," Jean reported concisely. "The Abyss Order is controlling these monsters. If we can locate and eliminate the Abyss Mages behind this, we can turn the tide!"
"Why bother finding them? Let's just blow up all the bad guys!" Klee popped up suddenly, hurling a bomb into the horde. "If we just bring out all the bombs I've hidden away, we can blast them all to pieces!"
Shen Qin noticed Fischl had arrived too. Sharing the vision of her raven Oz flying high above, she aimed with her right eye and loosed bolt after bolt of electro-charged arrows, providing precise support to the warriors below.
Ordinary monsters fell to a single arrow, and even elite ones were clearly affected.
"No! We're too close to the city! Your bombs are too powerful. If they destabilize the terrain beneath Mondstadt, the whole city could collapse into Cider Lake!" Jean swiftly stopped Klee's dangerous suggestion.
"Okay…" Klee pouted, slinging her bag of bombs over her shoulder and, with her bomb-filled Dodoco in tow, transformed once more into a red-clad demoness, bombing monsters as they attempted to cross the frozen lake.
This time, it was legal fish blasting.
"I'll try to locate the Abyss Mages," Lisa said, activating her Elemental Sight. But the chaos of the battlefield had made the elemental signatures a jumbled mess, especially around the Vision bearers whose aura was dazzling and overwhelming.
After just a short while, her eyes began to sting from the Abyssal energy and she had to close them, tearing up in discomfort.
"I've got it! I can find the Abyss Mages!" Shen Qin smacked his forehead. "Can't believe I forgot—my mechanical pets have built-in scanning systems!"
"Adie, activate scan mode and search for the Abyss Mages. Record their locations once found," he instructed, then pointed toward Klee. "And take Dodoco along to help too."
"Understood!" Adie replied, retracting its wings to reveal its jet thrusters before rocketing off in Klee's direction.
"What… is that?" Jean and Lisa looked on in surprise.
"Just a little toy I put together," Shen Qin replied casually.
Fast flight, scanning capability, natural speech—that was just a casual toy?
Jean was all the more amazed, having previously seen this "little toy" unleash a powerful energy blast that one-shot elite monsters.
But this wasn't the time to marvel. Jean got straight to the point. "Once we locate the Abyss Mages, we need to eliminate them as quickly as possible. This time, we cannot let a single one escape."
Lisa nodded, but glanced upward at the Dragon of the East circling over Mondstadt, voice tinged with concern. "Is the city really going to be okay? Ordinary people can't withstand attacks from a creature like that."
Jean placed a hand over her heart, her eyes full of devotion. "Perhaps Lord Barbatos is watching over us. All of Stormterror's Anemo attacks have been greatly weakened once they hit the city. Even ordinary citizens aren't harmed by its breath. Most of the injured are victims of collapsed buildings."
"But if it decides to switch to physical attacks…"
"I don't think we need to worry about that. Once we realized its elemental attacks were ineffective, we shifted tactics. Our goal now is simply to stop it from landing. Noelle and Eula are assigned to keep it at bay."
Shen Qin couldn't help but exclaim internally—Damn. You've got a humanoid Gundam and a nuclear greatsword watching Dvalin. Yeah, that's airtight.
And right now, Stormterror really was struggling. After realizing its elemental breath couldn't do real damage, it had tried to descend and destroy the city physically.
But every time it dropped below fifty meters, two seemingly frail human women would come flying at it, wielding massive greatswords.
The Geo user had formed a four-to-five-meter-long elemental blade from rock, and each swing carved deep, bleeding wounds into its scales.
The Cryo user was even more terrifying. While her attacks didn't seem to hurt as much at first, each slash made her aura increasingly deadly. It could feel it building up.
No matter if it used its fangs, tail, or claws, their thin energy shields repelled every strike.
So why didn't it just use even more powerful elemental attacks? Oh… right. The wind god's protection.
Well, never mind then.
Thus, it had no choice but to keep flying above fifty meters, raining destruction on buildings from the air with its breath.
To do more damage, it would either have to endure those two insane women's attacks and strike physically—or find a way to nullify Barbatos's divine protection.
"Barbatos!" Dvalin roared, turning its flight path directly toward Venti. "You can't stop me!"
Just as Dvalin and Venti were about to collide, Ms. Butterfly and Little Duke returned with the scan results. (T/N: Change the name 'Butterfly' to Ms. Butterfly so it can be elegante)
There were six Abyss Mages involved in the attack on Mondstadt, split into three groups of two, hiding at different positions along the opposite bank of the lake. Points 1 and 3 were 500 and 200 meters from the central position, Point 2.
Jean spoke up, "If we want to hit all three at once, we'll need to split into three teams."
"I'll go with Klee and Rosaria—we'll take Point 1, which has Hydro and Electro Mages. Sucrose, Amber, and Fischl, you'll take Point 2 with the Pyro and Cryo Mages. Lisa, Albedo, and Diluc—you're on Point 3, also Pyro and Electro Mages."
Then she turned to Shen Qin solemnly. "Before we eliminate the Abyss Mages, you'll need to hold the monster horde off with energy shields. Once we succeed, we'll immediately come back to support you."
Sucrose voiced her worry. "All three sites are surrounded by large numbers of monsters. They'll be a serious obstacle."
"Leave that to me," Shen Qin said confidently, gazing at Haro as it returned after taking out the Anemo Hypostasis.