Unless there is an overwhelming difference in power between sides, battles against regenerators tend to take the form of wars of attrition.
Except in cases where one possesses fire abilities, considered the natural enemy of regeneration in any medium, or when the opponent has a clear weakness.
"Grooo... need more offerings..."
"Kyaaaah! Let go! Please let me go! Church Leader! Pleeeease!"
Of course, this fight was none of the three.
The power difference wasn't large, neither I nor Friede were fire users, and Ganagl's only weakness was that he'd die if his head was split.
"Tch, regenerating again...!"
"Stop eating already, you drowned pig!"
Therefore, the battle with Ganagl naturally flowed into a war of attrition where flesh and blood formed rivers.
○
The cultists' screams echoed all around.
After revealing Added Brains and Burnt Offering of Al'Pathan, Ganagl began rampaging openly as if he had nothing left to hide.
A reckless fighting style where he took all attacks with his body while counterattacking simultaneously, as if only protecting his brain mattered.
Thanks to this, every time we drove blades into his body, both Friede and I had to be prepared to take a hit from him in return.
"Groooaar!"
Ganagl thrashed about like a burst octopus, unraveling the tentacles that maintained his legs.
With his limb tentacles combined with magic cast simultaneously from seven brains, he filled all surrounding space with writhing, slimy amorphous flesh masses.
Counting was meaningless. Everywhere was filled with thick and thin tentacles. Like being trapped head-deep in a sensory deprivation tank.
Of course, my senses were sharper than ever. Sharp enough to track the trajectory of each surging tentacle and deflect most of them.
I wielded Mother's sword again and again while moving my feet like dancing.
Silver-gray afterimages swirled hazily, and dark waves were torn apart where they touched those trajectories.
Every time severed flesh flew up, slimy fluid burst forth to coat my armor stickily. That was the only unpleasant part.
Though I desperately avoided the poison, there was no room to dodge normal body fluids so I just took those hits, but as they accumulated I ended up practically bathing in fluid.
"The smell really...!"
Being covered in blood would be better - the tentacle fluid was sticky and slippery with an awful smell that caused unbearable physiological revulsion.
At least it wasn't reproductive fluid. If it was that, I might have given up on the fight and retreated.
Whack!
...Ah, missed one.
"Kuh...!"
A tentacle whip striking squarely on my breastplate. I was pushed back while letting out a short breath from the impact transmitted through the armor.
"Are you alright?!"
Friede shouted as she leapt over my back. Her black steel greatsword, falling like a guillotine blade, cut off Ganagl's arm as he tried to dodge hastily.
"I'm fine!"
I answered while regaining my staggering stance with force in my toes, cutting down tentacles flying toward Friede as I charged forward again.
It wasn't bravado. Though I'd been taking hits here and there since earlier as I couldn't deflect all tentacles, I could still endure well enough.
Thanks to the Valkyrie armor.
Without cloud iron's unique toughness, my arms and legs would have long since been broken and pierced into a terrible state.
"Groooar! Just, die already-!"
Ganagl, having regenerated his arm, writhed his maw's tentacles and roared fiercely as if bursting with rage.
"Your way of asking is all wrong. You should kneel first when making requests. Ah, can't kneel because you don't have any?"
I sneered at him with just the corner of my mouth raised.
Yes, he must be frustrated.
He's unleashing attacks that would have long since killed even royal knights while burning through magical power, yet they're reduced to mere bruises by a single set of armor.
His tentacles contained enough power to crush humans into meat paste with a single hit, but not enough to destroy cloud iron armor.
Meanwhile, my sword could slice through Ganagl's body like clay.
Though he would regenerate anyway, just being able to inflict damage was satisfying enough. His regeneration wasn't infinite after all.
'Keep cutting and cutting until he eventually dies.'
A mage in bare ceremonial robes versus a knight armed with cloud iron armor and a consecrated sword.
The overwhelming equipment gap, embarrassing to even compare, was bridging the skill difference between Ganagl and me.
Thus I handled defense, while Friede took charge of offense.
Her greatsword could carve away flesh in a much wider area than my longsword, and I could withstand with armor even attacks that would have injured Friede.
"Yeah, you die instead!"
Friede landed after cutting off Ganagl's arm and carved into his thigh while spinning once.
"Grk, you little brat...!"
Ganagl staggered, losing balance. The Flesh Seeds he spat in counterattack only shattered the innocent ground.
"Well done, keep it up! Leave the defense to me!"
"Yes!"
I charged forward as if switching places with the retreating Friede, cutting down black tentacles sprouting from the ground.
"Hyaaaah!"
Bursting poison fluid.
Friede darted forward again, swinging her greatsword's flat like a fan to deflect the poison, while my swung Edelmut cut through tentacle masses targeting Friede.
Coordinated attacks meshing like gears.
"Grrrgh...! Still, much to offer-!"
As Friede and I carved countless sword wounds into Ganagl's body, whenever his accumulated injuries approached fatal levels, he would offer believers as sacrifices to restore his body.
"Whew... seriously tough as hell."
Our strength being depleted versus the cultists being annihilated. Which would come first? The battle's outcome hung on that.
"Well, not much left of that either."
In my opinion, probably the latter.
While the Deep Sea Church cultists were dying one by one to the assassins' hands, Ganagl's attacks weren't reaching the level needed to crush us.
"Receive-!"
"Oh Elianelle!"
Even Call of the Abyss, the only technique we had to strictly guard against, could be blocked by Edelmut's Holy Barrier.
Of course, we couldn't block anymore after using it once... but that was a fact only Friede and I knew.
"Blocked again...!"
"Of course I'll block it, you think I'm crazy enough to take it directly?"
Ganagl fought while being overly cautious of Holy Barrier, which couldn't be used more than three times, trying to conserve Call of the Abyss as much as possible.
Right. He had to conserve it. Abyss Priests had no limit on the number of spells, but their magical power itself wasn't infinite.
"Octopus pig, running low on magic power? Well, weighing three times as much doesn't mean you have three times the magic power!"
"You've been, so noisy!"
"Look who's talking. You're even noisier?"
He would hesitate unless certain of a kill, since spamming high-level magic like Call of the Abyss would drain his internal magic power instantly.
"Guhk!"
"Oh God, please save me...!"
While he hesitated like that, the Deep Sea Church cultists who should have become his healing potions were becoming corpses instead of potions.
...We might win this without drawing the holy sword.
I had been saving the holy sword out of concern enemies might flee upon seeing it, until all cultists were eliminated... but maybe there was no need.
Since the assassins were fighting better than expected, the only way for the Deep Sea Church cultists to escape was for their souls to flee after death.
○
"This, this is madness! I can't do this anymore!"
"You'd betray the church?! Filthy unbeliever!"
A cultist lowering his weapon and surrendering as if having lost will to fight, and a bishop-level cultist glaring and hurling insults at him.
"If you want to die then die yourself! How is this ascension?!"
"You dare...!"
Just as they were about to shower each other with sharp curses, assassins rushed in brandishing their blood-stained weapons.
"W-wait! I surrendered―"
How stupid.
Even surrender needs to consider the opponent - did he think assassins would accept it?
Thunk!
A dagger embedded in the cultist's brow as his eyes widened in shock, and the bishop's head spun and dropped off as he desperately tried to turn and cast magic.
Instant death without room for doubt. Beyond the two corpses collapsing and convulsing, the desperate struggles of the cultists with their prospects darkening turned to blood.
They had no chance of victory anymore. When they needed desperate cooperation just to have a chance, they were thinking of fleeing or fighting each other.
The cultists began diminishing rapidly.
At some point, the scales of victory began tilting irreversibly.
Our losses were just seven assassins. Meanwhile, all but two of the Deep Sea Church cultists were annihilated, and even Ganagl's momentum was breaking.
On the other hand, though somewhat tired, Friede and I were still going strong.
The blood and sweat shed in training never betrays its owner. The special training at the mansion had greatly raised our baseline.
We still had energy to spare even in a situation where we would have been gasping for breath in exhaustion before.
"Gyaaak! Lord Ganagl―!"
Soon after, Aiden's crossbow bolt embedded in the head of a surviving cultist, and Veinum's sword pierced the last remaining bishop's heart.
That's how Svinaland's cultists were completely annihilated.
"Now only you remain. How does it feel?"
Leaving only their bishop Ganagl Peytan, who had no means left to restore his body, and fourteen enemies surrounding him.
"If you have any last words, say them now. You won't be able to speak soon."
On the lake of fluid and flesh, the church leader left alone after losing his believers groaned as if mumbling while sweating cold sweat.
A groan like a terrified beast. It didn't take long for that to change into screams like a pig.