As Ais began cutting down worm monsters one after another with her outstanding swordsmanship, the others got tangled up with the worm monsters too.
None of them had a method like Ais's, able to ignore the dissolving fluid, but they had their own ways.
Finn used his nimble movements to slip into the worm monsters' blind spots, severing the short legs beneath their bellies one by one with Ais's Desperate, dodging the small amounts of dissolving fluid that sprayed from the cuts, dismantling the worm monsters' mobility and dropping them to the ground, never to crawl up again.
Bete, for his part, leaped around the worm monsters at astonishing speed. With his astonishing leg strength, he left the incoming dissolving fluid completely behind him, and sometimes he'd land a vicious kick to knock a worm monster over.
Tiona and Tione worked together, drawing aggro with uncanny coordination, sometimes making the worm monsters crash into each other, sometimes darting in front of the worm monsters to lure others into spraying dissolving fluid, then leaping aside so that the fluid landed on the worm monsters behind them.
And so, the five first-class adventurers held those worm monsters firmly in place. Apart from Ais, who had the ability to cut the worm monsters down, the rest, even if they couldn't kill the worm monsters, could throw them into confusion so they couldn't mount an effective offensive anymore.
Even when a few that slipped through the net came over, Gareth, standing in front of Leo, Lefiya, and Raul, could punch them flying with a single blow. The worm monsters' bodily fluids clung to the Dwarf great warrior's fists, corroding them with a sizzling hiss, but with his astonishing Endurance value, the old man endured it through sheer force.
Under these conditions, the monsters emerging from the passage mouth gradually dwindled, while the number of monsters in the chamber grew to a scalp-tingling degree, already starting to affect the movements of Ais and the others.
"About time to hit them with a big one."
Leo had been calculating the timing all along, and seeing that not many monsters were coming in through the passage mouth anymore, he understood at once that the pursuing monsters had reached their end, with nearly all of them now in this chamber.
In other words, as long as they wiped out every monster in this chamber, this crisis could be considered resolved.
So, while mobilizing his Mind, Leo looked over at Lefiya beside him.
"You up for it?"
Without offering any more comfort, Leo just asked the one brief question.
Lefiya's hand gripped her staff so hard it went white, and the tension and dread in her heart didn't ease in the slightest; if anything, they grew worse.
But this time, watching the pillars of the Familia charge into the fray without fear even in a situation like this, fighting with everything they had, a kind of courage welled up in her heart, a sense of mission.
Especially the sight of Ais's back, wreathed in wind, carrying endless flashes of her blade as she sharply cut down worm monster after worm monster, swelled this courage and sense of mission in Lefiya all the more.
That's right, she was a Mage who needed protecting, but the reason Mages needed protecting wasn't because they were weak, wasn't because they were powerless, but because in their hands they held the power that could decide the outcome of a battle.
Because they needed this power, needed them to be able to wield it accurately and without error, their comrades would protect them with all their might.
That being so, she had to live up to her comrades' expectations and bring out this power.
Thinking this, Lefiya inexplicably recalled something the man beside her had once said.
"When you can look at the monsters here and see them as turnips, that's when you should be able to wipe away your past disgrace."
The moment this line surfaced from the bottom of her heart, Lefiya began forcing herself to see those worm monsters as turnips, every one.
This was when the fruits of the Elf girl's ceaseless day-and-night meditation showed themselves.
Because she meditated so often, her mind constantly in an active state, this kind of self-suggestion produced an instant effect.
And so, in the girl's eyes, those worm monsters began to turn into wriggling turnips, one by one.
Just like that, the tension and the dread, miraculously, all vanished.
"...Good."
Lefiya drew a deep breath and raised the Forest's Teardrop in her hand high.
As the Familia's designated successor to Riveria, just as said before, Lefiya's three magic slots were already full.
She had three Magic in all.
The first was a short-chant single-shot Magic. Its power was respectable, and it had an auto-tracking effect too, but its area of effect was small and didn't suit the current situation.
The second was a long-chant wide-area annihilation Magic, fire attribute, astonishing in power and with a terrifyingly large coverage area at the same time.
The third was a long-chant summoning Magic, the very reason Lefiya had earned the Thousand Elf alias.
Now, what Lefiya was going to use was her second Magic.
"Proud warriors, archer corps of the forest."
A clear, sweet, lovely voice began to ring out.
"The encroaching raiders draw near, take up your bows."
Beneath the Elf girl's feet, a magic circle spun open, giving off radiance.
"Answer the call of your kin, nock your arrows and kindle the flames, lights of the forest."
Within the radiance, the magic circle began to transform, building up multiple rings and intricate patterns.
"I command you, loose your arrows, elven fire bolts."
As the magic circle took form, a deep golden light flared, illuminating the Elf girl's beautiful face.
"Fall like rain, burn the savages."
On the staff Lefiya held high, the magic treasure stone bloomed with light it had never shown before.
"Light of heaven, sword of stars."
At the same time, Leo, who had been mobilizing his Mind without pause, began his chant without hesitation, making a brilliant magic circle surface beneath his feet.
This magic circle wasn't as complex as the one beneath Lefiya's feet, but it was more dazzling, more resplendent.
Even though it was only an ultra-short chant, in this moment the Magic radiating off Leo was no weaker than Lefiya's, even faintly surpassing it.
Leo, who had poured most of his Mind into this Magic, brought out an ultra-short-chant Magic with all the momentum of an ultra-long-chant wide-area annihilation Magic.
This momentum disturbed not only the worm monsters, which reacted to Magic, but Finn and the others as well.
"Now! Fall back!"
Finn slashed a worm monster down, and heedless of the hair fouled by dissolving fluid, he shouted out.
"Hey! You idiot Amazoness sisters! Stop charging forward! Hurry up and pull back!"
Bete kicked a worm monster over too, shouting as he swiftly retreated, his speed still astonishingly fast.
"Who're you calling an idiot, you dumb wolf?"
"I'm definitely punching you when we get back!"
Tiona was furious, and Tione spat out her words with venom, but neither of them hesitated in the slightest as they swiftly retreated, shaking off the pursuing worm monsters.
"Get the hell out of my way!"
This time it was Gareth under the most pressure instead. The worm monsters drawn by Leo and Lefiya's Magic all came charging this way, making him let out a roar, his two fists swinging into afterimages as he blasted away worm monster after worm monster, leaving his whole body splashed with dissolving fluid and starting to smoke.
Ais rode in on the wind, joining Gareth's defensive line, and with a single swing of her blade she loosed dozens of flashes of her sword, hacking the worm monsters blocking her path to pieces.
"Leo! Lefiya!"
Seeing everyone return to the defensive line one after another, Ais turned her head and called out to the two.
"Loose!"
Finn gave the command, and Leo and Lefiya pulled the triggers in their minds at the same time.
"Meteor Dance!"
A huge magic circle appeared at the top of the chamber, countless meteors flying out from within it, becoming a meteor shower that came crashing down with a roar.
"Fusillade Fallarica!"
The next second, behind the meteor shower, countless fire bolts appeared in turn, pouring down like a rain of fire.
Starlight and firelight flared together, driving the darkness from the entire chamber.
Before long, an earth-shaking roar rang out in the chamber, shaking the whole of Floor 51.
It was a baptism of star-bursts and flame.
Meteors fell in an overwhelming flood, and the blazing fire bolts plunged down too with a huge roar of burning, weaving together with the meteors into this feast.
They struck the enemies, pierced the enemies, set off explosions and great fires, blasting the very ground to pieces one stretch at a time.
Rock beds were torn up, dust and smoke billowed, shockwaves turned into waves of wind mixed in among it all, like the wrath of heaven descending, annihilating everything, destroying everything.
The monsters, numbering in the hundreds and thousands, had even their screams drowned out by the roar of the explosions, either blown into heaps of mangled flesh or simply reduced to ashes, with even most of their magic stones destroyed.
The starlight dazzled, dyeing the chamber blindingly bright, while the sea of fire spread across the plain, burning in every corner of the ground, an extraordinarily spectacular sight.
By the time the meteors stopped falling and the fire bolts stopped plunging down, there wasn't a single intact patch left on the ground.
As for those worm monsters, not one was left, all of them buried in that earth-shaking Magic bombardment.
With everything settled, Leo and Lefiya, holding up the Emerald Staff and the Forest's Teardrop, let out a breath almost at the same time, weariness surfacing in their eyes.
Ais, Finn, Gareth, Bete, Tiona, and Tione all let out a breath of relief together too, lowering their fighting stances.
"Finally wiped them all out."
"Just as I figured, we still have to rely on Leo and Lefiya's Magic!"
Tione's heart was still pounding with the aftershock, while Tiona laughed happily and threw an arm around each of Leo and Lefiya.
"All right, let go of me already, I'm about to collapse from exhaustion."
Leo said crossly.
"Miss Tiona! Don't do that!"
Lefiya, pressed up tight against Leo because Tiona had grabbed her, got so flustered her ears went red.
"Good work, all of you."
Ais came over through the dissipating wind, her long golden hair swaying.
"Miss Ais!"
Seeing Ais, Lefiya grew even more bashful.
"You okay?"
Leo, having pulled himself free, looked at the approaching Ais and couldn't help asking.
By the look of her, completely unharmed, she shouldn't have been injured, but that didn't mean Ais was fine.
Ariel, as a powerful Magic that could let one bring out cross-Level abilities, was not without its price to use.
Its price was the heavy burden it placed on the user, the strain it inflicted on Ais's body, and if it was attached to a weapon, it would even speed up the rate of the weapon's wear.
Used too much, even superior equipment would shatter, let alone Ais's body.
The reason Ais needed an unbreakable weapon was precisely that ordinary weapons didn't last long in her hands, like consumables; one high-intensity battle and they might break outright.
Under such circumstances, for a mortal body of flesh to endure the load of Ariel for any length of time was nothing but wishful thinking.
So Leo had reason to suspect that Ais's whole body might already be aching now.
"It's fine." Ais naturally knew what Leo was worried about, and shook her head. "I didn't use it long, so the side effects aren't obvious yet."
Ais just felt a little heavy in the body now, her hands and feet a bit numb, not yet to the point of unbearable aching.
"And you? You okay?"
Ais was more concerned about Leo's condition instead.
The Magic just now had definitely been boosted in both power and number of attacks, and boosted by a large margin, to be able to deal with that many monsters all at once.
That would clearly cause a huge drain on Leo's Mind, which worried Ais a great deal, that he'd end up like last time in the fight against the Floor Boss, falling into Mind Down and slipping into unconsciousness.
"I'm fine, I left myself some margin."
Leo gave a sighing laugh.
To avoid falling into Mind Down, he had indeed left a portion of his Mind in reserve, but even so he had a splitting-headache sort of feeling.
"Here, Magic Potions for you two."
Tiona stuffed two Magic Potions into Leo and Lefiya's hands, getting them to quickly pull the stoppers and start drinking.
"Hmph."
Bete, drinking a stamina-restoring potion too, watched the scene, gave a soft snort, and turned his head away.
As for Finn and Gareth, the two had already walked into the ravaged battlefield.
Finn spotted a magic stone and picked it up.
"Why's the color of this magic stone so strange?"
Gareth looked over, then his brows knitted and he said this.
The magic stone in Finn's hand was different from an ordinary magic stone, not the clear, crystalline deep blue, but showing a many-colored sheen.
To be honest, this many-colored sheen wasn't the least bit pleasant to look at; if anything, it gave one a queasy feeling, like it had caught some virus.
Finn stared hard at the magic stone in his hand, and after a moment put it away.
"Now isn't the time to investigate and research." Finn licked his thumb and said this. "My thumb's throbbing faintly, so I'm afraid something bad is about to happen."
"Let's head back to camp first."
"We need to link up with our comrades."
At his words, everyone nodded without any objection.
Right then, Bete shouldered Raul again with his sour face, while the rest swiftly set off, running toward the outside of the chamber.
Their goal: the passage leading to Floor 50.
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