"Great Spirit—"
The staff struck the ground with a heavy thud, and a sky-blue magic circle spread out instantly as if alive, precisely enveloping the four of them.
"Spirits of the trees—grant form to my wish. Garment of the forest—my name is Alf!"
A short chant.
Blue radiance flared outward at once, forming a massive energy shield at a forty-five-degree angle above and in front of them, separating the party from the incoming storm of violence.
It was like being bombarded by a curtain of bullets. The ground around them exploded into clouds of powdered ice.
If an attack like that landed on a human body, there was no question about it—they would be reduced to a sieve on the spot.
The sheer quantity of shattered ice created something like a smoke screen, yet it did absolutely nothing to obscure vision.
As if it already knew Xien and the others were unharmed, the enemy did not even pause.
Before they could react, the next wave came.
Having seen how they defended, it immediately switched tactics.
Accompanied by a shrill cry, countless ice spikes suddenly burst up from the ground in front of them without warning, stabbing toward the group. The attack covered such a vast area that dodging was impossible.
In that case, there was only one possible response—
Jump!
Leap up first, then break the spikes with weapons after they finished forming.
Just before the spikes reached them, the party moved in perfect tacit coordination and sprang into the air.
At that very moment, however, a hint of mockery appeared in the monster's eyes.
The instant Xien caught that look, alarm bells rang in his mind.
That was right. It had done it on purpose.
What it wanted was to force them into midair.
By ordinary logic, and by the rough common sense of combat, a creature that large should not have been especially fast.
But they had miscalculated.
A gigantic body did not necessarily mean sluggish speed.
No one had realized that its true specialty was not its chantless innate magic—
but rather its physical strength and speed.
To the team's utter disbelief, the enemy, which had been more than a hundred meters away one moment earlier, arrived in front of them the next, bringing with it claw strikes that seemed able to shred anything in existence.
"Susanoo!"
Screeeech—!
A shrill, grating sound tore through the cavern.
The impact created by that absolute speed, combined with a mass beyond imagination, was something words could scarcely describe.
A cracking sound followed. Clear fissures spread across the skeletal rib-like energy construct.
If that attack had landed directly on a human body—
The sheer force sent all of them, protected within Susanoo, flying backward. A second later they slammed hard into the distant ground, kicking up a burst of icy mist.
"Nice save, Xien."
Finn did not even turn his head as he tossed out the praise, but his expression was grim.
And not just his.
Everyone looked about the same.
There was no helping it—what had just happened had genuinely frightened them.
Absolute suppression.
In complete contrast to that beautiful form, a fatal sense of danger coiled around all of them.
If not for Xien, they might have been wiped out on first contact.
This monster was far more troublesome than they had imagined.
It could feign weakness. It could use tactics.
Without Xien, that blow alone probably would have killed them outright.
Fortunately, they had blocked it.
"Everyone, be careful. Don't get careless. Do not take your eyes off it. This is the kind of enemy that requires your full concentration at all times. One slip, and it could kill you instantly…"
Finn Deimne, the little hero, still carried out his duty as captain even in this situation. His face was calm as a frozen lake.
By habit, he raised his thumb to his mouth and bit it lightly. The faint stab of pain, like an icy needle, cut through the environmental interference and pushed his mind into overdrive under the support of his abnormal talent.
The situation was extremely unfavorable.
Their lack of information was simply too severe.
Adventurers were a profession that depended on sufficient intelligence, thorough preparation, and striking at the right moment. Entering battle without knowing even the most basic facts about the opponent placed them at an absolute disadvantage.
But even so—
that was no reason to bare their necks and wait to die.
After all, they were adventurers.
In his blue eyes was reflected the enormous bird, and in an instant he ran through countless possible attack patterns and countermeasures.
"Gareth, you handle its dives. Riveria, prepare to attack. Xien, defense is yours. I'll draw its attention and create an opening for you!"
"Understood!" x3
"Let's go—!"
This was where the captain's role showed its worth.
The others' morale rose. The courage in their hearts overcame their fear of the unknown, and they charged straight toward that deadly threat.
The boss fight had officially begun.
Before Finn's words had fully fallen, Livioso's sharp eyes suddenly lit up, sending a chill through everyone who was watching it.
Without warning, a giant pillar of lightning over ten meters wide descended with the force to annihilate everything in its path, tearing through the air as it blasted toward the center of their formation.
Even before it arrived, the violent energy it carried made loose stones on the ground float into the air and crumble into dust.
There was no time to marvel that the enemy could also wield lightning magic.
First priority: block it.
"ROAR—! Bring it on!"
Gareth Landrock, like an ancient mountain rooted into the earth, let out a roar that shook the cavern.
The attack had not caught him off guard.
His muscles swelled all over as he drove the tower shield The Unshakable Rampart—larger than his own body—violently into the ground before him. The runes carved across the shield's surface ignited at once, releasing a heavy, earth-like glow that firmly protected both him and the companions behind him.
At the same time, to ensure their defense would hold, Xien endured the stabbing pain in his eyes and prepared to activate Susanoo support at any moment.
His ocular power consumption was already too high.
As the journey had gone on, his recovery had gradually failed to keep up with the rate of expenditure.
"BOOOOM—!!!"
The instant the lightning pillar slammed into the shield, it was like two meteors colliding head-on. A visible shockwave spread outward in a ring, shattering every crystal pillar within dozens of meters!
The rock beneath Gareth's feet cracked apart inch by inch.
The muscles in his thick arms trembled madly. The armguards protecting them let out pained groans before finally breaking apart.
Blazing arcs of lightning raced up along the shield's edge and across his arms, charring his skin black in an instant. Blood sprayed from split tiger's mouths and the gaps between his fingers, yet his massive body stood like a wedge nailed into the earth itself, and he forcibly endured the world-ending blow without yielding so much as a single step.
"Gareth!" Riveria cried out, worry flashing through her eyes.
"Heh… I'm fine!" the old dwarf squeezed out through clenched teeth, sweat and blood dripping together from his tangled beard.
As if to show how "easy" it had been, he deliberately struck a pose and said,
"This bastard's lightning… packs a punch! But not enough that I can't take it!"
But inside, he was nowhere near as relaxed as he sounded.
That level of attack was already very close to his limit.
And worse, the enemy showed no intention of repeating the same kind of direct collision as before—it seemed to understand that attempting another strike like that would cost it too much as well.
Xien laid a hand on the dwarf, rapidly restoring his condition.
Healing was indeed one of the group's great advantages—
but the overall situation was still far from optimistic.
Just because the enemy would not conveniently walk into their trap did not mean they intended to remain passive forever.
The instant Gareth blocked the main attack, Finn had already moved.
His tiny body turned into a silver meteor, racing along the violently shaking rock wall so fast that afterimages were left in his wake. His target was clear—
one of Livioso's taloned ankles, the point closest to the ground.
His spear, Tyrant, shot forward like a venomous snake leaving its hole, carrying a single, concentrated point of frigid light as it pierced precisely toward the weak point at the joint.
However, just before the spear tip could connect, a dense film of pure lightning energy began flowing on its own between the metallic feathers around the giant bird's ankle.
Clang!
A crisp metallic note rang out.
Finn felt as though his spear tip had struck the hardest alloy in the world. The violent recoil numbed his wrist, and his attack was easily deflected.
More terrifying still, that layer of lightning instantly sent a savage electric current back along the shaft of the spear and toward his arm.
"Tch!"
Finn made the decision instantly, releasing the spear, twisting his body forcefully in midair, then snatching the falling shaft again with his other hand to use the momentum to flip backward, narrowly evading several crackling follow-up arcs of lightning.
The floor boss had every intention of finishing off this overconfident little man with another strike—
but Finn was not alone.
That was never going to happen.
Halfway through its pursuit, a spell from the royal elf appeared directly along its flight path.
That was the key.
Yes, its speed was astonishing, but in the end, it was still moving in a straight line.
What that meant was simple:
all they needed was precise calculation.
And as one of Orario's greatest mages, Riveria excelled at exactly that.
In the best case, the spell would both damage the enemy and help Finn escape.
The good news was that things happened exactly as she had predicted. Going too fast to stop in time, the floor boss crashed headlong into her magic, and its movement was forcibly interrupted.
Thanks to that opportunity, Finn managed to break free from the monster's pursuit.
He landed atop a trembling crystal pillar, his expression unusually grave.
The result of his attack:
Armor lost—zero.Damage dealt—zero.
Looking at the creature again, he saw that even Riveria's magic had only blown off a few of its feathers.
Granted, she had used short-chant magic for the sake of speed—
but even so, that result was far too demoralizing.
"Its physical defense and magic resistance are absurdly high. And… it's too fast!"
The floor boss's attack methods had far exceeded all of their estimates.
And now, it was clearly starting to get angry.
"GRAAAAAAHHHHH—!"
Without giving them time to sink into discouragement, it spread those sky-obscuring wings once more.
But this time, what it created was not wind and ice—
it was a storm of "thunder feathers," thousands upon thousands of highly compressed lightning projectiles launched outward like plumes torn from its body.
And they were not fired blindly.
Instead, they curved through the air as if alive, tracing bizarre arcs and weaving together into a net of death that precisely sealed off every possible route of movement.
Not only did they block Finn from advancing, they also continuously harassed Riveria at the rear while she prepared large-scale magic, pressured Gareth as he held his ground, and firmly pinned Xien in place at the healer's position.
From the very beginning, the rhythm of the battle had been completely controlled by this terrifying monster.
"O omen of the end, O endless white snow, O dusk that shall inevitably descend…"
Riveria forced herself to calm down, her chanting flowing like an ancient elven hymn—ethereal, solemn, and beautiful.
She gripped her staff tightly with both hands. Before her, three complex magic circles unfolded and layered over one another in an instant—ice-blue, emerald-green, and deep violet, representing absolute zero, nature's blessing, and magical penetration.
A vast amount of magic power gathered around her.
Frost flowers began to crystallize in the air.
This was the prelude to one of her strongest wide-area annihilation spells—
High Victory Sword.
The reason this breathtaking magic shone so brilliantly lay in its ultimate transformation: from absolute cold into blazing heat.
In such a terrible environment, they absolutely could not afford to be dragged into a prolonged battle.
That was why Riveria intended to take a risk and create a more favorable battlefield for everyone.
With both Xien and the dwarf supporting her, she should be able to complete the spell.
But the moment Livioso noticed the movements of the royal elf, its eyes flashed again.
This time, however, it did not unleash destructive energy.
Instead—
high-frequency oscillation.
An invisible, intangible electromagnetic wave surged forth, strong enough to tear at the soul itself. Like hundreds of millions of tiny needles, it pierced through physical defense and drove straight into the eardrums of the three men—
with its true focus aimed precisely at Riveria, whose magical fluctuations were the strongest.
Caught completely off guard by the sudden special attack, both Xien and Gareth immediately clapped their hands over their ears.
"Damn—!"
But worse than the damage they themselves suffered—
was what happened next.
"Ugh—!"
Riveria's chanting stopped abruptly, as if an invisible hand had gripped her throat.
Backlash from the interrupted magic burst from within her body like exploding ice crystals, slashing countless tiny cuts across her pale cheeks and arms. Staggering backward, the jewel atop her staff flickered violently, its light wavering erratically as the three gorgeous magic circles shook and teetered on the brink of collapse.
"Riveria!"
Gareth's eyes split wide with fury. Roaring, he swung his battleaxe Giant's Wrath, cleaving apart a blazing white lightning arrow that had come for the elf while she was vulnerable.
But that moment of distraction opened a gap in his defense.
Several chained bolts lashed toward him like venomous whips.
Bang!
The skeletal energy frame appeared once more, bringing with it an almost unbelievable sense of safety.
Gareth barely had time to feel relieved—
before something completely unexpected happened.
Xien stumbled violently, clutching both hands over his eyes, nearly dropping to one knee as two trails of bloody tears ran down from the corners of his eyes.
"Xien!?"
The other two were stunned at the same time.
This was the first time they had ever seen that boy—
injured.
"I'm fine. I just used my ability beyond what my body can handle. I'll recover soon!"
In the end, the side effects of the Mangekyō were simply too severe.
He had held this special power for too short a time and was still not familiar enough with it. With his current understanding, he still could not use the power of Abundance to rapidly heal damage of this sort.
Xien felt awful.
Not just because of the terrible sensation in his eyes—
but because, up until now, they had been trapped in a completely passive beating.
He wiped the bloody tears from his face and placed a hand on the royal elf, beginning to heal her injuries.
....
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