Translator: CinderTL
Witnessing their chief's desperate counterattack and hearing that heart-stirring roar, the remaining grey dwarf warriors felt all their fear and despair instantly replaced by an even more primal, more savage emotion.
The fury of vengeance.
"For Durag!"
"Kill them all!"
The earth-shaking war cry once again echoed through the cave, this time filled with catharsis and raw power.
No longer passively defending, they became like beasts breaking their chains. Wielding battleaxes and warhammers, they lunged fiercely at the Aboleths, which were still writhing in agony and moving sluggishly.
The tide of battle had completely turned.
Stripped of the protection of that strange force field, the ancient demonic beasts revealed their vulnerability.
The grey dwarf warriors' weapons finally connected solidly with their pale bodies.
Sharp battleaxes easily tore through the slimy skin, while heavy warhammers shattered hard skulls.
Every strike was accompanied by the spray of dark purple blood and the dull thud of tearing flesh.
The Aboleths, which had once glided through the air like ghosts, invincible and arrogant, were now lambs to the slaughter. Under the grey dwarfs' berserk assault, they fell and broke one by one.
But the battle was far from over.
The Aboleths that had been dispatched in an instant were merely a small fraction of the swarm—those that had ventured too close.
The remaining ancient creatures continued to sway in the rear, their cold, compound eyes locked onto the crowd below. More beams of pale, deathly energy began to coalesce, and the shadow of oblivion once again descended.
Seeing this, Roland rubbed his temples, which throbbed with a needle-like pain, and shouted helplessly toward Durga.
"Durga! I told you, I'm Roland!"
Before his words had even faded, he had already focused his mind once more.
This time, it was no longer a small-scale probe.
Psionic energy erupted like an invisible volcano, transforming into a pure, savage shockwave targeting consciousness. From him as the epicenter, it surged forward in a fan-shaped blast, slamming into the swaying swarm of Aboleths in the air.
From Durga's perspective, there was no light, no sound. Yet he felt the surrounding air freeze for a heartbeat, followed by a silent roar that made his scalp prickle.
In the next instant, the dozens of Aboleths preparing their next volley froze mid-sway.
It was as if their conscious cores had been struck simultaneously by countless invisible hammers.
Their massive bodies convulsed and twitched violently and uncontrollably in the same instant.
Their narrow eyes instantly lost all luster, becoming as hollow and gray as shattered glass beads.
Then, like dumplings being dropped into boiling water, they fell from the mid-air they had been floating in, crashing heavily onto the rocky ground with a series of thuds and clatters.
A few of the stronger individuals still writhed their tentacles in futile struggle.
But most had lost all reaction, lying limp on the ground as if their "consciousness" had been forcibly erased in that single instant.
Meanwhile, lines of golden text continuously flashed across Roland's vision.
You have successfully cast Mind Blast, gaining one point of experience.
You have successfully cast Mind Blast...
You have successfully cast...
Indeed, the reason Roland was able to strip these Aboleths of their ability to resist was by employing the spirit energy technique he had previously tortured out of a mind flayer.
Mind Blast
When he encountered the mind flayer in Howling Gorge, it was with this very move that the creature had instantly rendered Galvis and the others incapable of resistance.
"Just as I thought..."
Roland took a deep breath as he watched the Aboleths, now lying limp on the ground like lambs to the slaughter, being massacred by the grey dwarves.
When he had first fought these ancient creatures—beings never recorded in any ancient texts—he had already keenly analyzed their characteristics.
But with that realization came an even deeper confusion.
These creatures possessed near-absolute physical resistance and were completely immune to spells, all while boasting astonishing mobility and lethal power. They were, by all accounts, perfect.
Yet, if the Aboleths were truly this invincible, why would they remain dormant in the depths of these subterranean veins?
With such terrifying strength, they could have secured a place on the surface world even without the slightest tactical planning.
Since that hadn't happened, there could only be one conclusion.
These ancient beings must have a weakness—and a fatal one at that.
Though Roland hadn't been on this continent for long, he had already gained a general understanding of the primary forms of attack.
Beyond the common physical and spell-based methods, there were direct assaults on the spirit.
Thus, when he noticed the release of [Dragon's Might] during the battle, and saw that the [Fire Arrow] enhanced by [Dazzling Charm] had caused the Aboleth's movements to momentarily falter, he combined this with the near-human intelligence gleaming in its long, narrow eyes. In an instant, he reached his conclusion.
A pity the Psionic Lore I obtained from the mind flayer is so vast, Roland thought, rubbing his still-aching temples. Even after all my dedicated study, I've only just scratched the surface.
"Otherwise, if I could master more lethal psionic techniques, I should be able to instantly annihilate these monsters, rather than just temporarily incapacitating them."
As his thoughts raced, Roland forced himself to overcome his fatigue and once again gathered his psionic energy.
In the next instant, another invisible psychic shockwave swept toward the remaining Aboleth.
With his powerful support, the battle turned into a complete rout.
The grey dwarves' morale soared, their war cries deafening as they swept through the struggling, falling Aboleth like a scythe through dry grass.
The Aboleth swarm, which moments ago had menacingly filled the entire underground cavern, was now being annihilated at a visible rate.
The surviving Aboleth clearly realized the impending doom and tried to break free from the entanglement, fleeing deeper into the darkness of the cave.
However, whenever they managed to gather their strength to escape, a precisely timed Mind Blast would arrive, mercilessly shattering their consciousness and plunging them back into the abyss of despair.
Under Roland's psionic suppression, which held the entire battlefield in its grip, the Aboleths couldn't find even the slightest gap to escape through.
Just as the party was about to completely eradicate this ancient threat, and the last few Aboleths were wailing and trembling under the axe blades...
A low sound, utterly different from anything they'd heard—as if formed by the layering of countless ancient echoes—invaded Roland's mind without warning. It carried a non-human chill and oppressive weight.
"Stop."
The moment the words fell, an indescribably vast aura enveloped the entire underground cavern.
Its pressure was so immense that even the air seemed to freeze.
"Durga! Stop! Everyone, fall back!" Roland shouted without hesitation.
Despite being in the heat of battle, Durga didn't hesitate for a second at Roland's command.
He immediately let out a short whistle. All the grey dwarf warriors moved on the signal, quickly disengaging from the fight and retreating in an orderly fashion.
They finally formed a defensive perimeter, their backs against the silent shell ship.
The very next instant, after they had completed their retreat, a faint glimmer of light ignited without warning in the deep darkness nearby.
The light began as a distant star, then rapidly expanded and brightened, like a cold sun hurtling toward them, until it consumed the entire oppressive darkness of their vision.
When Roland finally saw the source of the light, he gasped involuntarily, a flicker of irrepressible horror crossing his eyes.
It was no ordinary light source. It was...
An eye, so unimaginably vast it resembled a still lake.
It floated in the absolute darkness, its pale pupil a cold vortex reflecting the sparse glimmers of crystal clusters in the cave—and the figures of the tiny creatures before it.
This single eye was larger than any Aboleth they had encountered. It was impossible to fathom the true size of the creature it belonged to.
Then, the same voice from before echoed directly in the depths of his mind, tinged with a hint of confusion and cold interrogation.
"Human... Did I not already grant you what you craved?"
"A millennium has passed... Why have you returned to this place?"
(End of the Chapter)
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