Transmigrated as a Ghost

Her body broken and battered Lilia could hardly lift her head, let alone offer any resistance as the colossal mantis monster loomed over her.

One attack from it had been all it took to bring her down. Even if she had not been in the best condition.

Now all she could do was stare as the creature brought down its remaining bladed arms to finish the job.

"Lilia!"

Before the fatal attack hit her though, the bit of hope she had been holding out for arrived.

She knew that Alaric and her beast companions would not simply let her die.

With swift movements Aurelia and Zareen began attacking the mantis to disrupt its attack, and in the moment where it was caught off guard Alaric swooped down from above using his flying magic and picked Lilia up.

An instant later there was a loud bang as the mantis brought its bladed arms down on where Lilia had been but a second ago.

Quickly Alaric ascended to the top of the arena's roof, which stood several hundred meters tall.

There he created a platform out of smoke with his magic and laid Lilia down on it.

At first, she trembled when he let go of her, not wanting to leave his comforting embrace. But settled down when she did not simply fall through the smoke.

"You stay up here and recover Lilia. We will handle that thing for a while until you are ready to join us again." Alaric said with a confident smile to cover up how afraid he was.

He then pulled a potion out of his magic bad and jammed it into her mouth.

The liquid within began flooding down her throat and the pain that was assaulting her body began to dissipate.

Sounds of bone cracking and setting back into place resounded from Lilia's body, and she realized that Alaric had given her his lesser elixir.

"I need to get back down there and hold that thing off. Or maybe we can even beat it before you are fully recovered."

After saying this Alaric jumped down from the solid cloud of smoke he had made in the air and rushed back towards the colossal mantis that was fighting Aurelia and Zareen.

Alaric when he made it back down to the battlefield grimaced at what he saw.

Aurelia and Zareen were battered pretty bad, and while they did not have any visible wounds it was clear they had taken quite a bit of damage.

'It cannot pierce their golden fur, but its attacks still have enough force to cause internal damage. At this rate we are going to lose if I do not do something.' Alaric thought as he raised his staff up higher.

A great torrent of wind began forming above him and soon smoke gathered around as he prepared to cast a combination spell.

He had seen Marcus do this once before by combining his light and dark magic spells together and figured that the same could be done with his wind and smoke magic.

'Heavy wind hammer, and smoke spires.'

With the spell formed Alaric brought down his staff and a huge thirty-foot-long hammer of wind with spikes made of smoke sticking out of it came crashing down.

The mantis who was swinging wildly at Aurelia and Zareen did not notice the impending attack until it was too late. It attempted to dodge to the side but only made it so that it was hit hard in the shoulder instead of the torso.

Its body began to lean in the direction of the hammer's impact and the giant mantis that was already injured lost its balance and tumbled over. Its already badly damaged right side was now even more battered.

As tough as this monster was, they had given it quite the beating. And while it lay down on the ground Alaric continued launching spells at it.

He felt now was his chance to finish it off and unloaded everything he had despite his mana rapidly depleting.

But it was not long before it became apparent that his volley of spells was just wasting his energy.

A large spherical barrier had formed around the mantis and blocked all of Alaric's follow up attacks.

Seeing this he began grinding his teeth in frustration.

'Glacial lance.'

In a desperate attempt he tired his tier five ice magic spell again and launched it forward. Hoping to break through the barrier.

Yet as it hit the spell began to crumble, and a cloud of snowy mist covered the mantis.

In that moment the monster seemed to disappear, using the same quick movement it had to get the drop on Lilia even if it had to dissipate its barrier.

When he caught sight of again Alaric saw that its mouth had opened, and a stream of liquid shoot out of its mouth like a beam.

Quickly he moved to the side to avoid it, but some of the stray drops hit him and he watched where they landed start to sizzle and burn.

Pain assaulted his senses as the acid tore through dozens of spots on his body, and he lost concentration for a moment.

Two blades of mana came flying his way to follow up on the spray of acid, and he looked out in surprised to see them

So far, the colossal mantis had only done physical attack, but now that Alaric was assaulting it from the air it had suddenly busted out two surprising ranged attacks.

And unfortunately, Alaric had not been prepared for the sudden assault, and while he managed to avoid the first flying blade of mana the second hit him.

To defend himself he quickly cast a wind wall spell, but the slash of mana cut through it easily and he had to meet it with his staff.

He did his up most to block the attack, but its power was too great for him to physically take, and he was blown back and slammed against the wall of the arena.

Gravity soon caught up with him as his flying magic dispelled when he fell unconscious, and he slid down the wall until he crumpled onto the floor of the arena with a heavy thud.

The mantis seeing its prey now immobilized began skittering towards Alaric's fallen body to deliver the final blow.

Aurelia and Zareen injured and exhausted as they were tried to stop the colossal monster, but it simply batted them away with its legs or blade arms whenever they got within range.

It showed no signed of caring to chase them down right now, wanting to finish off Alaric who could not move right now.

From up above Lilia watched all of this unfold while she was recovering.

Thanks to the lesser elixir Alaric had given her plus he unique skill giving her greater than normal healing abilities, she had almost fully recovered physically.

Still, even with her injures mostly fixed her stamin was scarping the bottom of the barrel, as was her mana.

She had taken potions to restore those as well, but her body had already reached the limit it could take with potions and her recovery was painfully slow.

'I have to get back in there. Or Alaric is going to die. Then Aurelia and Zareen will die. And I will die.'

Picking herself up, Lilia stared down at the Mantis closing in on Alaric and jumped.

Right now she did not have enough mana to slow her fall, but still she dove right back down into the action despite only just having fixed her serious injuries.

Like a meteor she smashed into the back of the mantis, causing it to lurch forward and let out a howl of pain as Lilia caused an indent in its armored carapace

Then before it knew what was going on she had climbed up to where its neck was and wrapped her arms around it.

Her teeth grit and her muscles aching she squeezed with all her might.

The softer armor around the mantis' neck began to give in as she crushed it, and the monster let out a stifled cry.

Lilia's iron grasp was cutting off the blood flow to the mantis' brain and the more she pressed down the worse it got.

Soon the built-up pressure caused the blood vessels to burst, and a spray of green blood began pouring over Lilia.

Even as she became slick with the viscous liquid that was burning her skin due to its slight acidic properties Lilia hung on and kept squeezing tighter.

The colossal mantis monster began flailing around as it felt its life in danger. Trying whatever it could to shake Lilia off.

Soon it had been its two remaining arms around and began swatting at her. Not even caring for the injuries it was inflicting on itself in the process.

Luckily it could not exert its full power from this angle and Lilia took the glancing blows without ever letting up.

Exerting more and more force Lilia pushed herself further and further, bring out all the strength she could muster as she constricted the mantis' neck. Until finally, with one great yell and using the scant amount of mana she had recovered, she pulled up and yanked the mantis' head from its body.

It was a stunning display of pure force of will and body as she lifted above her the head of monster hundreds of times her size.

With its head now gone the body of the mantis flailed about in a few final death throes. Which shook Lilia off now that she was no longer anchored to it.

Then it what seemed like a final act against her its body began to fall over where she had crashed into the ground.

It seemed that she would be buried under its hulking form, but right before it fell Aurelia and Zareen who had not let up on their own attacks and had been assisting Lilia jumped in and pulled her away.

The each grabbed one of her shoulders in their mouths and ran as fast as possible to get away from the body of their gargantuan foe that had finally fallen.

A ringing sound soon echoed throughout the arena, and the mantis' body faded away like all the other monsters they had fought. Then once it was gone, in its place were four treasure chests. Signaling that the floor had been cleared. And along with it a notification that they had all leveled up once again.

However, Lilia who was barely conscious at this point completely disregarded everything. looking towards Alaric who was still unmoving.

"Aurelia, Zareen, take me over to Alaric. He needs our help." Lilia said with a hoarse and exhausted voice.

She really just wanted to collapse right away, but with the shape Alaric was in, she knew if she did not go to help now like he had done for her earlier that he would die.

Quickly the two golden lionesses dragged Lilia over with their equally wanning strength and dropped her off in front of Alaric's broken body, before collapsing themselves. Panting from extreme tiredness and injury.

Pulling herself up Lilia checked to make sure her was still alive. And while they were labored, he was still breathing.

Without hesitation she did the same for him as he had done for her earlier and forced her emergency lesser elixir into his mouth.

A soft glow quickly enveloped his body as the powerful magical medicine began fixing the worst damage he had sustained.

As soon as she was certain his life was no longer in danger, Lilia fell over and was passed out before her head even hit the ground.

When she awoke again, she noticed that she was not sprawled out on the ground like expected but had been placed properly onto her bed roll.

'Ugh, my head still hurts.' Lilia thought as she rubbed the place where her skull had been cracked.

"Ah, you are finally awake!" Alaric said with an elated tone.

Looking up towards him, Lilia saw that he was stirring a pot that was sitting over the magic burner they had to cook with.

"How long was I out for?" Lilia asked as she slowly propped herself up.

"Two days. I only actually woke up a couple hours ago myself, but Zareen and Aurelia told me how long it has been. Though I think that maybe you woke up with perfect timing, since I am nearly finished with this."

After a few more minutes the four of them were eating the stew that Alaric had made for their first meal in the dungeon.

It was filled with more ingredients than they would normally use and especially hardy, but after all they had been through it was quite welcome.

"I cannot believe we ate all that." Alaric said as she looked into the large empty pot.

"Yeah, I guess we were all pretty hungry." Lilia said as she cleaned up.

She then turned her gaze towards the four chests still sitting in the middle of the arena. Waiting for those that earned them to come forward.

"I guess that you have not opened your chest yet."

"No, I wanted to wait until you woke up so we could all do it together." Alaric responded.

"How about we go see what the hardest life and death battle we have ever been through earned us then."

Getting up the four of them made their way over to the chests and stood in front of the ones that had their names on it.

"Three, two, one, go!"

At the end of Lilia's countdown, they all threw off the lids of their chests and peered inside to see what reward they had gotten for winning the hellish battle the special dungeon had put them through.

And what was inside did not disappoint. Surrounded by a dozen high quality natural treasures in each chest was a gleaming golden orb.