The Dungeon, Floor 50.
The moment Leo and the others reached the entrance leading to this floor, they knew something was wrong.
What connected Floor 50 to Floor 51 was a sloping rock wall.
The rock wall here was smeared all over with yellow-green slime, and faintly they could hear frantic shouting and earth-shaking explosions, enough to tell at a glance that something had gone wrong.
Hearts tightening, the group ran together through the gray forest and back beneath the flat terrace where the camp stood.
Once they got there, they finally saw the massive swarm of worms plastered flat against the rock.
The worms were clinging to the rock terrace and crawling upward, spraying dissolving fluid at the people on top of it.
Riveria and the others appeared one after another on the terrace, some raising shields to block the incoming dissolving fluid, others in the rear unleashing magic or attacking the worm monsters at range with bows, setting off explosion after explosion.
"Mages, rest where you are! Archers, ready! Loose!"
Riveria gave the orders from within the crowd, sending volley after volley of arrows raining down.
Unfortunately, the arrows were far less effective than magic. Even on a direct hit they couldn't kill a worm monster outright, and the moment an arrow touched a worm monster's body fluids it got corroded. All they could do was knock the targeted worm monsters off the rock wall to fall, not reduce the enemy's numbers.
And once the mages launched their magic, the worm monsters would fall into a frenzied state from the magic reaction, frantically piling onto the rock terrace and gradually squeezing the camp's people into less and less living space.
"Riveria!"
"Everyone!"
Seeing their comrades in crisis, Ais, Tiona, and Tione couldn't keep their composure for a second. Without a thought, they charged straight for the camp at top speed.
"Damn it!"
Bete cursed under his breath, but he too rushed forward without slowing, still astonishingly fast.
Faster than any of them, though, was Leo.
The moment he saw the rock wall crawling with worm monsters and his comrades on the terrace in deep trouble, he launched his magic without a second thought.
"Meteor Dance!"
The short chant finished in an instant. Leo whipped out the Emerald Staff at his left hip and lit the jewel at its tip, sending a magic circle blazing with brilliant starlight spinning outward. It turned into a cannon emplacement and fired off thick, heavy meteors one after another.
The meteors slammed one by one into the rock wall, punching through the bodies of the worm monsters and blasting away huge amounts of stone, until the whole terrace shook. Dust and rubble burst from the rock wall and tumbled down under gravity.
"That magic... it's Leo!"
"Leo's back!"
"The captain and the others are back too!"
"Thank god!"
The comrades on the terrace recognized the magic at once and were overjoyed.
"Finally back."
Riveria, whose face had been taut, let out a breath of relief.
By now Ais and the others had bounded all the way up the rock wall, leaping at top speed back onto the terrace. Along the way, whenever they met one of the worm monsters they'd shatter the rock beneath its feet, knocking it down off the cliff without ever touching its body.
"Awaken, Tempest."
Without hesitation Ais launched her own magic once more, wreathing herself in wind and charging the cluster of worm monsters that had crawled up the rock wall onto the terrace.
Lightning-fast slashes flashed through the swarm of worm monsters one after another, cutting them down where they stood. Ais's swordwork was as sharp and cold as ever, every stroke a killing blow, every stroke aimed at splitting the enemy clean in two. Not a single monster she struck came away intact, either cut into two pieces or hacked into chunks, unable even to self-detonate. The dissolving fluid was deflected one drop after another by the wind wrapped around her, never touching her at all.
Compared to Ais, the three who'd come to help her, Bete, Tiona, and Tione, looked far more harried.
Not daring to fight these worm monsters up close, the three could only do as before, either knocking the worm monsters down with the smallest possible movements so they lost mobility without self-detonating, or using bait and other tricks to make the worm monsters turn on each other.
"Tch! Such a pain!"
"What a pain!"
"This is... such a pain!"
Bete, Tiona, and Tione all said it at the same time, their faces full of irritation.
"Ais!"
Bete couldn't take it anymore. He sprang to Ais's side and shouted, "However much, just give me some wind!"
As he spoke, Bete stamped down hard, cracking the ground beneath his foot.
Looking closely, Bete had a pair of metal boots equipped on his feet, reaching all the way to the knees. The boots were silver-white all over, with sharp, elegant curves, giving the strong impression of being not only slender and beautiful but sturdy and durable. Set into the center of the shin was a piece of topaz. That design looked less like armor than like a weapon.
And so it was. These metal boots were no piece of armor but a genuine weapon, and tucked into one corner was the same mark as on Leo's Dragon Fang Sword: the crest of Hephaestus Familia, proof that the boots were made by that smithing Familia whose name rang across the lower world.
Their name was Flosvirt, a Second-Class superior equipment made by Hephaestus Familia. Second-Class though they were, they had a special effect that not even First-Class superior equipment possessed. That special effect was the ability to absorb an external magic and temporarily add that magic's property to its attack power. Combined with the boots' own striking force, it could greatly boost the power of an attack.
"Wind."
Ais called softly, sending the wind swaying around her toward Bete.
The topaz on the shin of Bete's boots lit up at once, drinking in all of the wind that blew over. The next second, the boots and Bete's feet together were wreathed in surging air, just like Ais.
"Good."
Now armed with the same magic power as Ais, Bete bared his teeth in a grin. Tremendous force erupted underfoot and his figure vanished outright, hurtling at the worm monsters with terrifying momentum and wind pressure.
"Disappear!!!"
With a roar, the young werewolf turned his whole body into impact itself, flipping over the rock slab beneath him and setting off a blast of air. One spinning kick, and the metal boots on his feet became a flash of light, sending countless worm monsters flying and grinding them all to pieces. With the wind's protection he no longer feared the dissolving fluid either; all of it was deflected by the wind wrapped around the boots, so Bete could finally cut loose and fight to his heart's content.
That matchless momentum, that all-crushing offensive that even outdid Ais, thoroughly provoked the Amazoness twins on the scene.
Amazonesses were a fiercely warlike race to begin with, and Tiona and Tione had been fighting up to now with no outlet for their frustration. Now, watching the werewolf they never got along with go on such a rampage, how could they possibly hold back any longer?
Tione especially. Her steady, cool composure shattered outright, and the violence and rage that had been pressed down deep inside her finally erupted.
"What've you got to be so cocky about?!"
After a roar that completely wrecked her usual image, Tione went berserk.
With a dull thud, Tione swung her fist and slammed it straight into the body of a worm monster. She'd cast aside her beloved kukris and gone to fight with her bare body. And unlike Gareth's touch-and-go method, using only clever force to knock the worm monsters away and keep his hands' contact with the dissolving fluid to a minimum, Tione erupted with her maximum strength outright, driving her fist into the worm monster's body. Her whole arm sank into the worm monster's torso, smashing the magic stone inside it to pieces.
The result, naturally, was killing the worm monster in one blow, but the worm monster self-detonated on the spot all the same, dousing every bit of the dissolving fluid stored inside it over Tione's body.
In an instant, the skin, flesh, and clothes on Tione's body all dissolved with a chorus of sizzling. But Tione paid it no mind, charging the next worm monster with sky-high fury and driving out another punch, ramming her fist into its body once more, shattering the magic stone and killing the worm monster on the spot.
This life-for-life way of fighting frightened the surrounding Loki Familia members.
"...that girl, has she lost control again?"
"That hot-headed brat!"
The belated Finn and Gareth saw the scene, one's face changing slightly, the other cursing out loud.
"Finn! Gareth!"
Spotting the two, Riveria called out at once.
"Leave the command to me, Riveria." Finn pressed down every emotion and put on the captain's mask, beginning to give orders calmly. "Start chanting your magic right now. Gareth, you handle defense."
"Got it." Riveria nodded and grabbed Lefiya, who had come hurrying over out of breath. "Lefiya, you come too."
"Huh?" Lefiya nearly didn't catch it, then a moment later hurriedly replied, "R-right!"
"You there!" Gareth was even more direct, shouting at a member beside him, "Give me that shield!"
The member quickly handed over the shield in his hands, and Gareth walked to the very front line, joining the other shield-bearing vanguards to hold back the worm monsters' advance.
By now Tiona had thrown all caution to the wind as well.
"Aah! Forget it! Let's just get through this first!"
She hadn't gone berserk like her sister, but she stopped being so timid as before. The huge double-bladed Urga that she'd kept idle in her hands began to spin and dance once more, like a windmill, slashing at the worm monsters as Tiona charged.
A flurry of the dance cut huge numbers of worm monsters into chunks on the spot, and the dissolving fluid that sprayed out after they self-detonated Tiona dodged with all her might, not getting doused head-on like Tione, so for the moment she hadn't taken any serious wounds.
But the huge double-bladed Urga in Tiona's hands wasn't so lucky. Every time it cut through a worm monster it picked up their body fluids, getting corroded by the dissolving fluid, and over time it began to grow ragged and battered, losing its original sharpness for good.
"Ngh, my Urga...."
Tears welled in Tiona's eyes, her chest aching too much to breathe, but she still didn't stop. If anything, as though to let the weapon about to nobly perish in her hands bloom with one last burst of glory, she danced it even faster, killing no small number of worm monsters in that stretch and greatly easing the worm monsters' assault.
"O harbinger of the end, O pure white snow."
Just then, the voice of the city's strongest Mage and royalty of the Elves chanting her magic finally rang out.
"As twilight falls, raise the raging wind."
The cloak on Riveria's body lifted, and the silvery-white staff in her hand, one of the Five Greatest Staves with nine magic treasure stones set into it, Magna Alfs, was raised high, giving off a blinding glow.
"Sealed light, frozen earth."
A massive magic circle appeared beneath Riveria's feet, sweeping in Lefiya at her side along with several other Elves who were likewise chanting magic.
As the city's strongest Mage, Riveria possessed two Skills that acted directly on magic. The first Skill was called Fairy Anthem; it could amplify a magic's effect and extend its range, and the larger the chant volume of the magic invoked, the greater the boost from the Skill, making it extremely powerful. The second Skill was called Alf Regina; it strengthened her Magic stat and, in sync, strengthened the magic used by fellow Elf mages standing within her magic circle.
Because of Alf Regina, Finn had gone to the trouble of building Riveria a dedicated unit of Elf mages all her own, and now the members of that unit gathered one after another at Riveria's side. Including Lefiya, every Elf mage's magic chanted in this moment was strengthened, its power surging.
"Sky-filling blizzard, three-fold harsh winter, my name is Alf!"
Standing at the center of the magic circle, Riveria finished her chant first, and with that as the cue, the chants of the Elf mages succeeded one after another.
"Wynn Fimbulvetr!"
This was a short-chant wide-area annihilation magic, and Riveria's most-used attack magic, ice attribute. Short-chant though it was, under Riveria's outstanding Magic stat and powerful Skills, then further strengthened by the highest-grade staff that was Magna Alfs, the might of this magic was absurd.
The blizzard appeared without warning, howling as it swept across the entire rock terrace, freezing everything in its path. Even the worm monsters were no exception, turned outright into so many ice sculptures.
"Fusillade Fallarica!"
After her revered royalty, Lefiya launched her own wide-area annihilation magic, and the fellow Elf mages around her sent off their finished magics one after another, creating a true feast of magic. Fierce bombardment covered the entire battlefield in an instant, supernatural magic powers of every kind, ice, fire, lightning, light, falling like hail and sleet, striking the ground, striking the monsters, blasting, burning, piercing, and shattering every last worm monster.
Explosions came one after another, until the whole rock terrace shook violently.
The sight was extraordinarily magnificent.
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