(Rimuru POV)
When Ranga called me with Thought Communication, I immediately used Risa's favorite move, Shadow Motion, to almost instantly get to the battlefield. But when I got there, Risa was already there.
She's not strong enough to take them all on at once right now. As soon as I realized that, the battle started, and Risa was almost immediately cut in half at the waist. Since she was a slime, that wasn't enough to actually take her down, but I very nearly burst out of the underbrush and used Predator on the old ogre who'd hurt her. But…
'Warning. Irregularity detected.' Great Sage went on to advise me to stay put and watch. Apparently, it'd sensed something weird in Risa's magicule flow when she'd healed herself. Realizing that this was her first real battle, ever, I decided to follow the Sage's advice.
It was pretty hard to do.
I'd known forever that Risa's skills were all basically downgraded versions of mine, but I'd never realized the sheer difference in our Hasten Thought. I could see every single movement with crystal clarity, but she was clearly struggling to keep up with the elderly ogre by himself.
And when three of the other five decided to join in at the exact same time, I knew that she needed my help.
'Waiting Recommended.' The Great Sage stopped me, just in time.
Suddenly, time seemed to slow to a crawl… no, that was wrong. Risa was simply moving faster than before. Faster and more efficient. 'Report. Individual Risa has fully assimilated Superior Spirit: Izzy, evolving into Being: Spirit Slime. Individual's Magicule reserves have been increased to roughly 1.5 times their original maximum. It also seems that Individual's skills have partially evolved.'
Instantly, the data that Great Sage could obtain about Risa's evolution barraged my mind. Before, if Risa and I were to fight, even at her strongest, I'd have won ninety percent of the time. Now, according to the Sage, at least, that chance went all the way down to forty.
Then, time started all over again.
From that point on, Risa absolutely dominated.
Clashing her blade with the white haired ogre, Risa unleashed a Coercion on the dude at point blank range. Even I flinched, and it wasn't even directed my way. I had to give the old guy props for not passing out on the spot, but a ball of magicules to the gut while he was staggered was enough to knock him unconscious.
By then, though, Risa had already moved on. A compressed blast of the Centipede's paralysis breath in all directions took the black-haired one out, but the purple, blue, and red-haired ogres were smart, or at least experienced enough to hold their breath, not stalled at all.
Not that it mattered. Their weapons all hit air. Risa had already warped away with Shadow Motion. In the next motion, dozens of threads appeared out of the shadows, catching the purple-haired ogre in their grasp and pinning her to the ground, so tightly that she couldn't move a single muscle, no matter how hard she struggled.
"Do you give up yet?" Risa's voice sounded from behind the blue-haired ogre, but she wasn't actually there.
"HAAH!" 'BOOM!' Yeah. Out of all of the ogres currently still conscious, the redheaded one was definitely the strongest. Appearing from the shadows behind him, Risa fired off a Voice Cannon, but he used some sort of art to create a magic barrier and block it at the last second. The pressure from the blast still knocked him back a few feet, but for an ogre as tough as that guy, a blast like that barely tickled.
"What sort of beast are you?!" The redheaded ogre seemed to ask himself. "It doesn't matter! There aren't many majin nearly powerful enough to rule over monsters like those. You must be the one behind those pigs!OUR COMRADES WILL BE AVENGED!" He was screaming by now, gathering massive amounts of magic for some sort of extra-powerful move. "OGRE FLAME!"
Ooh. Impressive. But fire… against a master flame elementalist? Oh, wait, no. The blue-haired ogre had somehow snuck behind Risa and launched a dozen blades at once at her back. How smart. But…
"I guess you need an overwhelming show of force, huh?" And then Risa brought her hand above her head, and the world around her seemed to change color.
The first part of Risa's attack was a huge release of magicules. Even more than Ifrit had released in his first 'attack,' and all concentrated on a four or five foot space around her. The grass in the space instantly died, the air being pushed out by the sheer concentration of magicules, allowing nothing else through. The moment that the red-haired ogre's flame attack hit against Risa's magicules, it dissipated almost instantly. But the blue-haired ogre's weapons didn't stop.
Then, Risa's magicules all caught fire at once. Flame Transform at its finest. This was far more impressive than anything that Ifrit had done. She was controlling the entire plume of fire without even using a barrier skill or anything. Most of the blue-haired ogre's throwing weapons had been somewhere between Normal and Special grades, but they'd been instantly destroyed without a trace in Risa's terrifying display of power.
"My god…" The pink-haired ogress looked on, abject horror written all across her face as her mind strained to believe what she was seeing.
"I see… Your power, it is in a class far above our own, as much as I hate to admit it. But as the next in line to lead my clan, I take great pride in my race. I refuse to sit idly by without doing everything I can to avenge my fallen comrades! Take the princess and flee!" The redhead shouted in defiance of Risa's clearly overwhelming power.
"I refuse! If we die, we die together!" I wondered if they'd realized yet that nobody on either side had actually died yet. Even the elderly ogre was starting to stir. They were playing the tragic heroes to a T… against the wrong foe.
I guess it was time for me to step in.