[Ice Spear]
Ban Ducas.
An ice spear had pierced the abdomen of the named entity who had revealed himself to stop Jun.
“You’re fast.”
For something of that size, it moved incredibly quickly.
It was a grotesque mutant that inhaled large amounts of air with each breath, then expelled it from the bones protruding from its legs to accelerate.
Its speed was hard to track even with the eyes, but Jun quickly discovered its weakness.
Because it expelled air from its legs for movement, it had difficulty changing direction.
It was a flaw similar to [Burning Step].
So Jun immobilized it with [Ice Break] along its charge path and finished it off with [Ice Spear].
“It looked pretty tough, but as expected of a mutant, it’s weak to magic.”
Then, as he focused on the Mind Channel, he noticed the number of named entities had dropped to two.
“No, now just one.”
Another one had just disappeared. Jun’s gaze turned toward the direction where the signal had been cut off.
“Absorption pattern?”
The one entity that appeared to be female among the named ones had pierced her comrade’s chest and inhaled the mana cylinder.
“Sorry, but I’m not gentlemanly enough to wait for you to transform.”
He immediately summoned his magic.
Dark clouds gathered overhead, and in the blink of an eye, lightning struck down.
Boom! Crack! Rumble!
One, two, three strikes.
Without pause, he called lightning down repeatedly upon the last remaining named entity.
Boom! Boom-boom-boom!!!
Even after about a dozen strikes—
Jun’s expression remained grim.
He could still feel the entity’s presence through the Mind Channel.
And it was incomparably stronger than before.
“This just got annoying…”
The presence he felt was anything but weak.
Its presence wasn’t as overwhelming as the Orc Lord’s, but the amount of mana radiating from it was far greater.
A voice emerged from the dispersing dust cloud.
“This is such a hassle. Because of you, I ended up undergoing a union I never even wanted.”
“I could say the same.”
“I don’t really get what you’re saying… but it doesn’t matter anymore. Now that you’ve become aware of our existence, you must die here.”
“So this is what they call a rhetorical question with a predetermined answer.”
The ancient language retained from his past life offered many conveniences, but it was still frustrating when mutual understanding wasn’t possible.
Not that talking with a monster would get me anywhere anyway.
Regardless, Jun stared at the named entity that had survived his magic.
I don’t feel any corrupted mana… Why?
The humanoid form he had seen earlier was gone. In its place was a grotesque, centipede-like creature with a massive, elongated body.
A hard-looking chitinous exoskeleton.
Eight legs supported its lower body, and sprouting awkwardly from its chest area was only the upper torso of a female form which created a truly bizarre appearance.
“I can’t sense any corrupted mana on the surface… So that’s how it blocked my spells.”
Jun instinctively realized that its exoskeleton included anti-magic material.
He had quickly identified the mutant’s weakness and responded immediately.
In that form, it might have reduced capacity to absorb corrupted mana…
But it could perfectly counter Jun’s magic.
A troublesome opponent.
But only troublesome. For the current Jun, it was not a significant threat.
[Rock Hold]
He unleashed powerful mana to restrain the creature’s legs. The parts not protected by the anti-magic exoskeleton.
[Iron Fist]
He gathered the debris from the collapsed buildings nearby, compacted them, and enchanted them with metallic properties.
And that wasn’t all.
[Enchantment: Elemental Armory]
[Attribute Enchantment: Wind]
He added the wind attribute to minimize air resistance during flight.
Eventually, the completed [Iron Fist], with a width exceeding five meters, launched toward the creature with a heavy impact.
Because “metallic” belonged to the physical attribute class, it could deal damage even to an anti-magic exoskeleton like that.
[Where do you think you’re going!]
Boom!
Leblanc blocked the [Iron Fist] with her two hook-shaped legs.
Even so, Jun’s mana didn’t falter. He continued driving the [Iron Fist] forward with relentless force.
In response, Leblanc struck the [Iron Fist] with another pair of her legs.
Those legs were now enveloped in a dark energy.
Creaaaaaaaaak!!!
In an instant, the [Iron Fist] was shredded to pieces.
Immediately afterward, Leblanc launched her counterattack.
All eight of her legs plunged into the ground in the blink of an eye.
Jun quickly activated [Detection] and sensed something rapidly approaching him from underground.
He hastily retreated using [Burning Step].
So fast!
Even while burrowing through the ground like tentacles, Leblanc’s legs moved faster than Jun’s [Burning Step].
At that speed, dodging would require sharp directional changes, but Jun’s [Burning Step] didn’t allow for that.
Realizing the terrain put him at a disadvantage, Jun changed tactics.
Crack!
Just as the tentacles burst from the ground and lunged at him—
Boooom!
Jun detonated fire-attribute mana beneath his feet.
At the same time, his body shot up into the air.
It wasn’t a spell formed from a pattern. It was just raw fire mana compressed and released in an instant.
That was lucky.
Had he not separated the fire attribute from the circle or if his mutant-enhanced body wasn’t so resilient…he couldn’t have pulled it off.
[Detecting Target]
Next, Jun tried to use [Rock Hold] to bind her legs underground, but her rapidly moving limbs were too quick for his magic to catch.
So Jun thought of a more brute-force solution.
[Rock Hold]
He sealed off the entire surrounding terrain.
Leblanc’s legs thrashed violently, trying to tear through the binding spell.
[Earth Burst]
Creaaaaaaaaaaaaak!
The ground erupted in a massive explosion.
The tentacle-like flexible legs, caught in the blast, were severed completely.
[Pathetic!]
But Leblanc didn’t care in the slightest.
Her severed legs regenerated almost instantly.
Even her regeneration is remarkable.
That meant he had to use fire-attribute magic to prevent her from healing.
But the anti-magic exoskeleton stood in the way.
That exoskeleton is tough…
[Rapid Casting]
[Iron Fist]
This time, he focused less on scale and more on numbers.
One by one, the iron fists began to multiply.
By the time their numbers reached dozens—
[Kyaaaaah!]
They sliced through the air and flew toward Leblanc all at once.
Leblanc responded in kind, parrying them with her legs, which had transformed into blades.
Bang-bang-bang-bang!!!
Shards of [Iron Fist], shattered by the bladed legs, piled up around her.
Even so, Jun continued summoning [Iron Fist] one after another with an indifferent expression.
However, it wasn’t entirely to Jun’s advantage.
‘I’m running out of mana.’
He was consuming more mana than he was absorbing.
On top of that, an excessive amount of corrupted mana had begun to build up.
Sssshwoooooop!
Fortunately, the predator that had been starved for days was savoring this rare delicacy, allowing Jun to draw in corrupted mana once more.
In any case, [Iron Fist] without any emotional intent wouldn’t be enough to land a decisive blow on that monster.
Instead, Jun turned his eyes to the shards of [Iron Fist] that had accumulated around the creature.
Those countless shards still hadn’t vanished and were still connected to Jun through mana.
[Rock Hold]
“What?!”
Leblanc gasped in shock. She hadn’t expected that many shards to be controlled all at once.
Jun completed the spell he’d been preparing beneath the surface.
[Volcanic Tornado]
“Kraaaah!!”
Caught in the massive storm of mana, Leblanc curled her massive body into a ball.
Her anti-magic exoskeleton reduced the damage from the fiery storm—
But the molten [Iron Fist] fragments, swept up in the rising heat, began to cling to Leblanc’s shell.
Soon, the curled-up Leblanc was coated in molten steel.
Like a frog trapped inside a furnace.
“You might be able to ignore the fire attribute itself with that shell…”
But the red-hot metal of [Iron Fist] was a different story.
Being physical in nature, the metallic property could deal actual damage to the anti-magic shell.
The moment she unfurled, the scorching molten metal and the fiery storm would melt her entire body.
However, not everything went according to plan.
Sssssshwoooop…
While maintaining the spell, the predator absorbing the corrupted energy had begun to reach a state of fullness.
“……”
The game of chicken had begun.
Would Jun’s spell end first, or would Leblanc’s patience run out?
Fwooooosh――!!
How much time had passed?
In the end, it was Leblanc who couldn’t hold out any longer.
“Kyaaaaaaaah――!!!”
Leblanc uncurled her previously crouched body.
Jun, catching the timing perfectly, pulled a mana cylinder from his dimensional bracelet.
It was one of the mana cylinders taken from Dru Rudna, whom he had killed in the west.
He opened the lid, absorbed the mana immediately, and poured it into the magic pattern.
Soon, he infused the gathered mana with the fire attribute.
Then, he summoned it directly in front of Leblanc.
[Lightning Call: Transformation – Thundercloud]
A bolt of lightning struck the orb of compressed fire mana.
Shattered by the impact, the orb triggered a massive explosion, wiping out everything in the vicinity.
—But Jun too wasn’t left unscathed by the blast.
If I get caught in this, I’ll die.
That judgment accelerated his mutation.
His survival instinct forcibly pushed the mutant transformation forward in order to survive the explosion.
Thanks to that, he barely managed to avoid death within the blast—
“Kirrrrrrk……”
The named entity, Ba Leblanc, had also survived the explosion.
At the moment of detonation, it had altered its anti-magic shell to protect only the upper torso.
The creature glared at Jun with a venomous, hate-filled expression, and Jun bit down hard on his lip.
“Damn it……”
He was already at his limit just trying to suppress the mutant transformation; there was no way he had any strength left to cast another spell.
Meanwhile, Leblanc was still absorbing the corrupted mana, slowly regenerating her body bit by bit even now.
If Jun could just retrieve another mana cylinder through his dimensional bracelet, he might have been able to overcome the crisis—
But perhaps due to the explosion, his right arm wouldn’t move.
Move, move…!!
“Kirrrrrrk……!!”
Leblanc, who had been glaring at Jun, dragged her partially regenerated leg and slowly approached him.
Just as her bladed leg, raised high like an executioner’s axe, was about to come down on him—
The scent of blood filled the air.
No—more precisely…
Blood-red mana was exploding behind Leblanc.
***
When Aiden, who had been sprinting nonstop after bursting out of the tower, finally arrived at the explosion site—
He saw Jun, scorched head to toe, kneeling on the ground, with a bladed leg poised to sever his head.
“How dare you!!”
In a flash, Aiden’s hair flared red, and a wave of blood-red mana exploded outward.
[Bash]
The Meteorite Sword, infused with crimson mana, tore through the air.
“Ki… rrk?!”
Along with the half-melted anti-magic shell,
Leblanc’s upper body split diagonally with a sticky wet sound.
And then—
“S-Senior…”
The crimson mana, which had surged forth with terrifying force, vanished like smoke, and Aiden collapsed, unconscious.
“You…”
Jun dragged himself across the ground with an arm that barely moved, inching toward Aiden.
“……”
Thankfully, he had only passed out from mana exhaustion.
Jun let out a sigh of relief.
“You ran… all the way here from the tower…”
He must have given everything he had, running with everything on the line.
Jun looked toward the final named entity that had fallen.
Its upper body, completely destroyed, was now dissolving into particles.
It was over.
Jun collapsed flat on his back with his face turned toward the sky.
Mutants could still be heard slaughtering each other nearby—
But the noise was far quieter than before.
Jun stared up at the sky, swallowed in purple mist.
He had nearly died again, but somehow, he’d survived.
In a world where going insane wouldn’t be strange—
“…Ha…”
It didn’t feel all that bad.
“You damn fool… got me all emotional.”
The time he had to survive alone in this world, without a single familiar face.
Now, a sense of relief washed over him. He was no longer alone.
In the distance, he saw Maya and Eleanor.
Having confirmed that, Jun let out a sigh, as if finally at ease.
“…Let’s rest now…”
After absorbing the mana fluid that he had only just managed to retrieve from the dimensional bracelet, he expelled the corrupted mana from his body.
Feeling the sensation of the scales that had covered his entire body falling away, Jun lost consciousness.
***
The imperial capital.
Chloe stood staring at the massive man-made structure second only to the imperial castle.
Beyond the colossal gate that was so large that a person in front of it looked like an ant, dark energy churned.
It was the entrance to Blackout, the Empire’s Abyss.
The “Gate of the Abyss”.
Chloe who was gazing at it glanced nervously at her watch.
That gate would close any moment now.
If they were at a [Checkpoint], they should have come out long ago. If they didn’t appear now, the White Whale Mercenaries would be officially declared dead.
She didn’t even want to imagine such a future. Chloe bit her nails as she stared desperately at the Gate of the Abyss.
But those who were meant to come out had long done so, and the gate continued to churn with dark energy—
No sign of change.
No—
Change had come.
The swirling dark energy was slowly starting to fade.
“Tch…!”
It was a sign the gate was about to close.
Within one minute, this season would be over.
“You… idiot!”
A flash of Jun’s face crossed her mind.
The last time she saw him was before entering Silent City!
Just as her eyes began to well up with tears—
A commotion erupted near the Gate of the Abyss.
“Hey, someone’s coming out!”
“They’re coming out!”
From the now-fading gate—
Five silhouettes burst forth.
“Shh—!!”
And when Chloe saw the faces of those who had emerged, she finally broke into tears.
Among them, she spotted a familiar face.
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