Grim Reaper in the Apocalypse: Reaping Immortals

There were now 6 Ifrits surrounding the group. Each of them had the capacity to blow up and spawn more clones. It was a losing battle.

One could argue that they were even more dangerous than Destruction Canzers. With them, Saviors was incentivized to kill a Destruction Canzer even if they knew it would regenerate its injuries. This would give them enough time to set up the Operator Construct.

But for Infection Canzers like the Ifrit, the Saviors were forced to stay their hand. If they killed a hundred Ifrits, three hundred more would spawn in their place. It was much better to keep defending rather than attacking.

Is that why there are three tanks and four mages?

Mages didn't have the best destructive power out of all jobs. But they were completely suited to fight Infection Canzers. The Mages could spread out an attack to thousands of enemies, which weakened their damage output just enough to cripple the Canzers without killing them.

Fighting an Infection Canzer is a lot harder than I thought. I would rather fight a Destruction Canzer two levels higher.

"Let's do as we practiced!" commanded Tarish.

The three tanks positioned themselves near the ledges of the roof, making a triangle.

The four mages created a square layer behind that of the tanks, with each one of them facing a different direction.

Atlan stood in the middle of the formation, protected by the tanks and the mages.

"Here it comes!"

The six Ifrits simultaneously attacked the roof. Their chitinous horns were headed straight for the human bodies, hoping to hook into them and self-destruct in point-blank range.

But of course, the tanks weren't going to let that happen. They activated their LifeSkills again, creating protective barriers around their area.

This created a defensive triangle whose three sides had different elements from their various LifeSkills. One was made out of a wall of fire, the other was made out of solid rock, and the other was made out of a slimy liquid.

The Ifrits' horns stuck on the floating triangular barrier surrounding the roof. Even when their lower bodies blasted off like a rocket to give them more penetrating power, they couldn't pierce through the defense. It was airtight.

"We have to weaken them." And with Tarish's instructions, the mages activated their LifeSkills and targeted the Ifrits.

Each of their LifeSkills had weaker power than their combined attack earlier, but that was on purpose. They didn't want to kill the Ifrits, only injure them.

The whole roof lit up in different colors as they manifested different elements into the Remedium. One of them used the water element, the other used ice, the next one used wind, and the last one used light.

These were the elements that had the best effect against fire.

Just like they practiced, their LifeSkills crashed onto the igneous and magma physique of the Ifrits and extinguished the fire in their bodies, sending mist and smoke rising out of their heads.

They made sure not to use too much power.

The Ifrits still had a slight smolder between the cracks. They were still alive.

However, a sizzle resounded in the Remedium.

"No! I used too much!" One of the mages completely drenched the Ifrit's body with water, completely quenching the fire in its body.

The dying Ifrit's body trembled and swelled up in just a fraction of a second until;

BOOM

A fireless explosion spread out from its cold dead body.

Unfortunately, one of the Ifrits was caught in the blast radius and simultaneously exploded right next to it.

And because this Ifrit died with the fire still in its body, it sent out a blazing explosion everywhere.

The tanks braced themselves from the shockwave. They were forced inward, destabilizing their triangular defensive formation. But after a second, their experience kicked in and they immediately repositioned themselves to recover.

The triangular defense came alive just in time as 6 more Ifrits were born from the ashes of the dead. It didn't take them more than 3 seconds to grow igneous rocks from the ashes.

"Sorry!" the water mage apologized.

"It's fine," Tarish assured him. "It was bound to happen."

She knew that they couldn't keep the Ifrits at only 6 clones.

No matter how much they lasted, exhaustion would soon creep up on them. They weren't robots. The Water Mage, specifically, had the hardest job because water was the main weakness of the Ifrit. He had to activate his LifeSkill to the perfect middle zone to weaken the Ifrit just enough not to kill it.

Now that there were 9 Ifrits, the tanks' jobs were much harder than before. But they persevered.

The fight lasted for more than ten minutes until things completely escalated.

It only took one mistake to snowball into a much bigger problem.

One of the tanks got too exhausted, which allowed one of the Ifrits to bypass their defenses.

Tarish made the snap decision to command her team to kill the Ifrit and blow it away from their defensive position.

This saved them from the Canzer's self-destruction, but it led to more Ifrits blowing up and spawning more and more clones.

It didn't help that the mages got too frazzled and ended up killing more Ifrits with their LifeSkills.

It wasn't long until there were hundreds of Ifrits staring down at them.

The more Ifrits pressured the triangular defensive position of the tanks, the harder it was to control. This led to more and more Ifrits bypassing their defenses, which forced the mages to kill the Canzer.

Just a few minutes earlier, there were only 9 Ifrits.

Now, there were 500.

"Haaa…Haaa….."

Everyone was starting to get exhausted.

Unfortunately, just one more self-destruction from the Ifrits caused a chain reaction that escalated into a gigantic explosion that consumed everything around it.

CRASH

The tank's triangular defense cracked under the explosion, leaving their battle suits burned and tattered.

And when they looked up, they were horrified to see that the last explosion killed every single Ifrit in the air.

"Damn! Quick. This may be our only chance."

Tarish looked over at Atlan and commanded him to use the Operator construct. "Put it down!"

Atlan put down the oil lamp in the middle of the roof. And as he did, he saw a light bathe the whole roof with a reddish tint.

He looked up and saw thousands of Ifrits surrounding them from all sides. It colored everything into a hellish red.