Thanatos System

"Where is Sarathiel?" The Angel opened its mouth and asked about her missing fellow Seraphim. "Where have you taken him?"

Kai Xin's squad and he himself was in awe.

They could not believe that an Angel just spoke.

Her voice was raspy and rough.

"So, the rumors were in fact, real." Kai said with a smirk. "Seraphims really can talk…"

"Did I just hear that Angel speak our language coherently?"

Yin was confused.

Zachary and Cosette nodded.

"Yeah. We heard it too."

"Why are you doing this to us?!"

Yin shouted at the Seraphim.

This made her focus her gaze at Yin Sohaya.

Its pale, snowy, white skin around its arms and legs had turned red.

Seemingly hardening it even more. It was clear that the Seraphim was reinforcing its durability to those areas of her body.

"Why are you here, Thanatos?"

The Seraphim's words startled Yin to the point of him backing up until he fell on the ground.

"H-How-"

Before Yin could react, Kai Xin stepped up and began taunting it.

"If steel, grit, iron, and such other gimmicks will not work against you, then we are going to make you dance with our affinities."

The S Rank Fire Slayer's taunts had sent the Seraphim into a state of berserk.

The Seraphim then flew upwards and began to dive down towards Kai Xin.

Kai blocked her initial attack's impact with his sword enchanted with flames, but he was still sent flying across the area.

"Tch. I guess these things really are built different from the common Angels."

Kai said as he was sent airborne by the Seraphim's attack.

Zachary tried to get some attacks into the Seraphim in hopes of damaging it. Knowing that spells would be the only type of attacks that would work against it, he casted a spell point blank aimed at the Seraphim's face.

"Burn."

Zach said right before letting his whirling fireball projectile hit the Archangel in the face.

He then implored the others to back up and regroup with Kai Xin.

They all followed his orders.

Yin did his best but he was still disturbed by the fact that this was not the first time an Angel had acted weirdly whenever he was present.

He remembered the farm incident and how the Angel had tears pouring down from its eyes with the sight of him.

"Pick yourself up together, Yin!"

Cosette shook Yin back and forth until the white haired Slayer finally regained his senses and stopped letting his nerves get ahold of him.

"S-Sorry, Cosette. I am alright now."

Yin said as he enchanted his fists with black lightning.

The Seraphim stood on the spot where Zachary hit it.

While waiting for the cloud of smoke to subside, they were all hoping that Zachary's attack dealt significant amounts of damage.

After all, that spell was casted right in front of the Seraphim's face, it definitely could have grazed it, right?

That was what they were waiting for.

Indeed, the left part of the Seraphim's face was nothing but charred bones.

She stared at the person responsible for this, in that case, it was Zachary.

"I…am Pugna. One of the Twelve Seraphims. Do you know where they are keeping Sarathiel?"

It calmly asked as if Zachary had not just blown a hole right in its face.

The rookie Fire Slayer did not respond, instead, he just continued on flicking the pages of his grimoire.

Kai's eyes were wide open.

"I see. So, spells and affinities can definitely damage you, just not physical attacks."

He said to himself.

Cosette was charging up a spell, and at the same time, so was June Alcindor.

While they were waiting to see if Zach's attack was a success, they were formulating their own course of attack. And because it was, they were prepared to follow through with it.

"Ready, June?!"

Cosette exclaimed while asking the rookie if he was ready.

"Yes, ma'am!"

Cosette Akim placed her palm on the ground while holding her grimoire with the other.

"Split Earth!"

She shouted as the ground beneath where Pugna the Seraphim stood on top of began to split towards opposite directions.

The Seraphim did not even bother to fly away, as Cosette's plan was reliant on it not being able to adapt as quickly.

After it was sent down to the deep depths below, June threw a concentrated gust of wind to stop it from flapping its wings and flying back towards the surface.

"Kai! Your turn!"

Cosette turned her head at their squad leader.

"With pleasure."

Kai responded with a grin as he opened his grimoire quickly and proceeded to cast fifty fire balls continuously from his palms.

Seconds after they had pulled of the attack, they eased up and tried to catch their breaths.

"Did we get it?"

June asked while heavily panting.

Flaps of its wings were heard from the crack down below.

"It's a Seraphim. I believe it will not go down that easily."

Kai Xin said with a stern expression on his face.

Pugna was already starting to heal up the burns that it had sustained from Kai's array of flame attacks.

As its throat was severely burnt, it still managed to speak out.

"Where have you primates taken Sarathiel?!"

Pugna the Seraphim shouted.

"Everyone but June, enchant your weapons with your affinities! Our blades alone will not be enough to damage her. It seems like this one's specialty is its durability, or at least that is what it currently seems like." Kai drew out his blade from the ground and began coating it with his red flames. "I know you have not done it before, Zach. Enchanting your weapons takes some getting used to, but what better teacher to learn from than the fear of dying, right?"

Kai said as to his pupil as he chuckled slightly.

June was not included in the brawl because he was mostly only a spellcaster.

His physical abilities were not really honed to the point that he could even go toe to toe against a normal Angel, let alone a Seraphim, Kai studied his squad members intensely right before the mission started, it was not like he was just being a carefree klutz all of the time.

Cosette cracked her knuckles and began to hurl giant rocks at Pugna while she was still in the air up above.

This was an attempt to bring her back down to the hungry sharks that were Kai, Yin, and Zach.

Zachary successfully enchanted his scythe with the blue flames he was proudly touting after one attempt. Which was definitely a good thing, this meant that they had four heavy hitters in the squad.

Pugna the Seraphim dodged each boulder hurled at her by Cosette easily while its burns from earlier were now healed as though she was never even hurt before.

"Do Angels really heal that quickly?!"

Yin asked Kai.

"They do have healing factors and regeneration, but not on this level." Kai answered back. "June! I want you to write a message and send it directly to the Emperor. Tell them that as of this minute, we are currently engaged in battle against a Seraphim."

June nodded and got to a safe place where he was going to pen the letter as fast as possible.

Pugna was about to make her move, though.

She set her sights on Kai, which she singled out as the leader of this team, if she were to eliminate him, perhaps his subordinates would lose morale and make it easier for her to kill them as well.

The Seraphim enveloped her own body with flames as well. She flew downwards and began attacking Kai Xin.

The S Rank Fire Slayer was not one to back down from a direct confrontation, sparks of flames went flying after each clang of Kai's sword and the Angel's arms made contact.

Yin attempted to back Kai up after the Seraphim landed a direct blow on his face.

"Kai!"

Zachary shouted as he ran to his aid.

Yin Sohaya burst through to close the gap between him and Pugna.

Yin and The Seraphim exchanged punches.

Pugna's expressionless face leaned towards a haunting smile.

"Thanatos…"

She said the System's name once again.

"Don't call me that!"

Yin exclaimed as he kicked Pugna right in the stomach with a lightning-enchanted blow. 

Cosette followed Yin's steps shortly after and heaved her axe towards the Seraphim, she attempted to slice her head clean off from her shoulder.

Pugna blocked the A Rank Earth Slayer's attack with ease as it was healing from Yin's kick.

"Weaklings…"

The Seraphim said.

All four of them attacked Pugna all at the same time, but this had only ended in them getting more and more exhausted as the Seraphim merely healed her way through all the injuries it sustained.

"Damn! Our best way to deal with this troublesome Archangel is to deal as much damage as we can in the shortest amount of time before it can heal up. It definitely is easier said than done. Shit."

Kai Xin said.

Meanwhile, June Alcindor was finished writing a present report and had his carrier pigeon fly upwards back to Niflheim.