D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad Chapter 2294 Glass Lily

--- Lily ---

Lily transformed, as she did so the shadows she was using to block the elemental monster thing wavered for a moment but she was ready for that. Soon they were as strong as she could make them... which was using more mana then she liked, and still wavering a bit every time its fist slammed into her shadows. There had to be a better way to do this but she wasn’t in position to really test it. "How close are you to finishing that potion?" asked Lily.

"Um..." Appoline glanced at the cauldron. "I want to say three minutes but I might need more glass to do so. Why do you ask? I can likely force things to be complete sooner."

"Well, I’ve got two crazy ideas. The first, is just finishing the potion and then throwing it at the... elemental? Is it an elemental?" Lily paused to ask. She was on a time limit sure but not one measured in seconds. Her mana would last three minutes... probably. Not much more than that though.

"Depends who you ask but practically yes it does seem to be one. The true answer isn’t something I know nor care to think about. Leave that to the monster experts," explained Appoline.

"Right well, what would happen if you finished the potion and threw it at the thing?" asked Lily.

Appoline shrugged, then remembered Lily needed to be watching the wall and likely hadn’t seen that. "I’m not sure... the big issue is that it has a coating of glass. I’m not sure it would transform the wind inside of it... I designed this for breaking down solid rock remember, not for fighting clouds. Still... I might be able to make some last minute tweaks? Maybe? It would likely mean we couldn’t use it on the wall though."

"Alright, well, second idea... what if you use the golem as an ingredient?" asked Lily.

Appoline paused, just for a second, and the liquid in the cauldron started to ’freeze’ by turning to glass. Appoline got herself moving quickly, not allowing for that state of things to continue long but Lily’s question had genuinely shocked her. "I... hmmm... no that normally wouldn’t work... but it’s an elemental so maybe? But there’s still will infused there... but also not really. Do elementals have souls?"

Lily wanted to enjoy the silence, but another fist slammed into her shadows, shaking the wall a bit as it did so. Lily winced at the impact and checked on Kat who was... more bored than anything else.

"Why does it matter if elementals have souls?" asked Lily after the silence had stretched for too long.

"Souls are, from my understanding, what prevents you from using things that are alive as ingredients, might also be why eggs are weird when it comes to storing things? They don’t have proper souls yet? Anyway, my question is because I don’t know if elementals count as having souls. You’d think so, but also maybe not because they are elements personified... but this thing does want to kill us. But also golems do NOT have souls... most of the time. They’re valid alchemical ingredients."

"What, so you want to know if this counts as a golem?" asked Lily.

"Exactly!" insisted Appoline.

"Well... it’s not scared of the fact it’s on fire currently, despite it being demonic fire... and it doesn’t seem to be dying either. Which is really weird. You’d think the flames would eat away at its mana reserves or something," pondered Lily. "Then again, it clearly isn’t smart. It’s still trying to break my shadows when I think... well best not to say it out loud just in case but you get the hint."

Appoline chewed on the idea for a bit. "That does seem more like golem behaviour... and you thought the squirrels were also controlled by an outside force. It’s also somewhat odd that it managed to come here AND attack us directly... that doesn’t guarantee it’s a golem, but it makes it more likely. Though where exactly is the core? Can Kat see anything?"

Lily relayed this back to Appoline who grimaced. "I think I’ll need a sample... hmmm... but I can’t end this brew... do I have anything that can detach an arm from it? But would that help... Lily can you cut part of it off?"

"Um..." Lily glanced at her shadow as it bulged inward slightly after the impact. She couldn’t change the wall too much, but Lily had managed to work in some elastic properties. It meant less mana per hit, even if it was a bit more complicated to hold the image in her head.

Which... was perhaps an issue now. How was she meant to slice a piece off? It was mostly made out of wind. *Lily waited until the golem was going to punch again, relying on Kat’s perspective to time things correctly. As it extended its arm out in a punch, Lily opened a gap right where the hand was and readied herself.

Just as the arm slipped through the gap Lily readied her own hand, wreathed in shadow and sliced it down, cutting through the glass and dropping it to the floor. Lily swiftly closed up the hole and chucked the hand to Appoline who shifted her cauldron to catch the hand. Liquid spilled out at its inclusion, but soon it was disappearing into the cauldron. "Is that good?" asked Lily.

"Hmmm... it’s just normal glass," offered Appoline.

"What?" asked Lily.

"Well it’s the same glass that’s laying around. There’s nothing special about it. This is not a glass elemental, or a wind elemental infused with glass. It just happens to be covered in glass... and maybe the glass casing is the core? Or once again, it’s being operated at a distance and the core isn’t here," explained Appoline.

"Well how are we meant to deal with it?!" hissed Lily.

Lily groaned and looked at her mana pool. It was lower than she’d like. Something close to forty percent, and the plan had been to use that to stall... but could she just slice the glass into sections and then send those off to Appoline to be rendered down? Would that even ’kill’ it? If she tried this... it was probably going to take all of her mana, and even if she’d be fine... Appoline might not be.

Lily swiftly outlined the plan to Appoline, who at least confirmed it was possible. With the glass just being ’normal’ it wasn’t too hard to manage. Some adjusting would be needed, but nothing she couldn’t do on the fly. Appoline had far less hope it would destroy the thing more permanently but... also didn’t have a better idea.

Still, Lily was ready. She didn’t transform, for once, needing the extra height to ensure she got everything... and then, Lily moved. The wall of shadow came down, as she slid next to it. Both hands covered in black shadows she slashed it to pieces while blocking the exit. The arms went first, and were thrown to Appoline. The wind picked up but soon the chest orb was brutalised as well. Sliced to pieces. Kat broke free and started to pick off the parts as well, each tossed to Appoline. It seemed to be working... would it hold up?