The explosions kept tolling out one after another like a death knell, and this hellish scene kept spreading along with them.
Watching the black-robed men light themselves without a moment's hesitation, charging over in an attempt to drag everyone down with them, only to be swallowed one by one by the explosive flames until nothing was left but severed limbs and shattered remains or scorched bodies, never mind Asfi and the others, even Leo couldn't keep his expression from changing.
They all knew what Evilus was.
It was a group of radical Familias organized by gods who called themselves "Evil Gods," a faction of deities that had once existed within Orario, openly rejecting order and craving chaos.
The gods' main purpose in descending to the mortal world was to relieve the boredom and tedium that came with eternal life.
They had grown tired of the day-after-day sameness of life in Heaven, tired of the divine existence that eternal life brought them. Over their long ages they had tasted every kind of thrill, and an unchanging daily life had become unbearable. That was why they were willing to seal away their Arcanum and come down with abilities no different from an ordinary person's, treating life in the lower world as a kind of game: seeking entertainment, seeking thrills, and above all seeking the unknown that even they, omniscient and omnipotent, had never experienced.
Among them were gods like Loki, who took joy in raising a family and felt satisfaction watching their family rise in the world, but there were also gods who loved chaos, loved destruction, loved doing evil, and took their pleasure in it.
The latter were what people commonly called Evil Gods, and the Familias they formed weren't for adventuring, still less for doing business, but only to create chaos, wreak havoc at will, and revel in tragedy; calling them radicals was, in truth, giving them too much credit.
In the past, these Evilus had followed the Evil Gods' orders, disrupting order many times over, carrying out destructive operations against Orario and disturbing the city's peace.
Back when the two strongest Familias led by "the God" and "the Goddess" had not yet fallen, they had held themselves somewhat in check. Then, fifteen years ago, those two thousand-year Familias that had held the name of strongest failed the Three Great Quests, the long-cherished wish of the whole world, and fell into decline. Loki Familia and Freya Familia seized the chance to drive their remnants out of Orario. And with that, the evil forces lurking in the city's shadows finally raised their heads, bringing chaos to the Labyrinth City known as the "center of the world."
And so the Dark Age of the Labyrinth City Orario began.
The villains running wild everywhere left the city's order in ruins, reducing it to a city of sin steeped in lawlessness, and the powerless ordinary citizens bled and wept every day, living in constant dread just to survive, yet still unavoidably swept up again and again in vicious incidents, with heavy casualties.
Orario in that era could be called a purgatory, and even many of the exploration-type Familias who actively delved the Dungeon suffered repeated persecution, losing their lives one after another.
So the Guild and the major Familias, pushed past their limit, joined forces directly and fought these Evilus all along, Loki Familia among them.
To wipe out these Evilus, Loki Familia even became the vanguard, taking the lead at the front, uniting with the Guild and numerous Familias, and only five years ago did they finally destroy them all.
Evilus's members were each brought to account, essentially all of them subjugated, and even the Evil Gods were sent back to Heaven, never able to descend and do evil again.
The black-robed men before them now were the remnants left over from those Evilus, their survivors, or those who had inherited their will.
Worshippers of the Evil Gods, they were without exception dangerous elements, wicked and mad men who had sunk into darkness and cast away their own lives.
But no one would have imagined they were mad to such a degree.
For the gods they worshipped, they were willing to sacrifice their lives, and to drag an enemy down to death with them they'd even blow themselves up, nothing short of a pack of fanatics.
Even Leo, who had long known of their madness through the plot of the original work, was still somewhat shaken to witness with his own eyes the sight of them fervently letting out their cries and then charging in to self-destruct.
When it came down to it, not long ago he had only been an ordinary person too, and over these three months the things he'd fought had always been monsters; he had never before witnessed another's death at such close range, and such a mad death at that.
"I can't let them get any closer."
Seeing these Evilus still charging this way, the fire of the explosions drawing ever nearer, Leo finally steeled himself.
He raised a hand, aiming his palm at the black-robed men, Mind surging out as Magic, ready to blast these fanatics away with a spell.
But just as Leo was about to act, the ground beneath his feet abnormally shifted.
With no warning at all, green spears shot up out of the ground one after another, forming a row of bristling lances that closed in rapidly from below and lunged at Leo.
The spears themselves were tentacles.
Violas, one after another, tore open the green flesh of the ground and crawled up from below, swinging their tentacles into a thicket of spears and stabbing at him.
Leo had to cancel the Magic he was preparing, leaping backward again and again to dodge the green spears breaking up through the ground, opening distance from Hermes Familia.
"Don't get in the way, Leo Eligos."
The man in white, standing beneath the quartz pillar, spoke through his swaying mask.
"You included, not one of you is getting out of here alive."
At that, Leo's eyes went cold, but his feet were far from slow, and in the flicker of his movements, whether it was the green spears stabbing up from the ground, the tentacles lashing in from all directions, or the fangs of the Violas biting head-on with their gaping flower-maws, he dodged them all.
"Meteor Dance!"
In the middle of his leaps, Leo triggered his Magic after all, firing off a thick meteor.
Only, this thick meteor wasn't fired at the black-robed men, but at the man in white.
"The target's me?"
The man in white was a little surprised, but didn't lose his composure, and with a sweep of his large hand a swarm of Violas came crawling over to block in front of him.
The thick meteor struck the Violas forming the protective wall, blossoming into a grand explosion that blew them to pieces, limbs flying.
But the man in white, positioned behind the Viola flesh wall, was completely unharmed.
At that, Leo triggered his Magic again, firing several meteors, and the man in white went on controlling the Violas, forming a flesh wall to block in front of himself.
But this time, just as the meteors were about to strike the Viola flesh wall, they abruptly changed direction, veering around the wall all at once and shooting straight at the man in white behind it.
"What?"
The man in white's composure finally vanished, and as he cried out in shock he was struck by the incoming meteors one after another.
With the roar of impacts, the meteors struck down into the green flesh of the ground, pulverizing the dirt and sending dust and smoke rising up with the shockwave.
The man in white's figure came flying out of it, both hands braced before him, seeming to have taken up a defensive stance at the last possible instant.
The white robe on his body was scorched, cracks had appeared in his mask, and he was clearly not lightly wounded.
"Bastard!"
An enraged voice came from his mouth; clearly he had never once imagined he'd take such a heavy blow.
A whistling of split air came then, making the man in white whip around.
The next second, Leo's figure swelled in his eyes, the black longsword in hand already raised high and slashing down hard, carrying an unmatchable force.
"Don't get carried away!"
The man in white roared, and actually threw a punch at the black longsword cleaving down.
A clashing sound like the collision of metal rang out, and the man in white's fist erupted with astonishing power, actually knocking Leo's descending black longsword aside.
After knocking the sword aside, the man in white pressed his attack on the momentum, launching stabbing palm strikes crisscrossing every which way as if they could gouge flesh and strip bone, aimed at Leo's whole body.
Leo immediately kicked out, slamming his foot hard into the man in white's palm.
In a muffled crash of impact, the man in white's palm went on erupting with astonishing power, knocking Leo flying.
"You Creatures... really are damn tough."
Feeling the numbness running up from his foot, Leo said this with a blank face.
The man in white didn't say a word, only continued to attack Leo with the same fury.
Leo gave no ground either, advancing instead of retreating, closing right in.
In an instant, countless streaks of black sword-light and white fist-shadows scattered through the air, breaking into a fierce collision.
Sword-light slashed like a gale, fist-shadows lashed out like a downpour, the two sides colliding countless times in the span of just a few seconds, sending sparks and shockwaves spreading out.
Leo stepped forward one step at a time, and with each step he swung out countless strikes, sharp and keen, swift and unceasing, cutting the man in white, who met them with raised fists, into retreat after retreat.
"That's not right!"
The man in white roared.
"This is nowhere near the strength a Lv.5 should have!"
The man in white had finally realized it.
By his own reckoning, with his current strength, dealing with an adventurer who had just risen to Lv.5 should have been an absolutely simple matter.
Never mind an adventurer who had just risen to Lv.5, even against a Lv.5 like the Sword Princess who had been promoted for years, he had the confidence to fight and win.
But the strength Leo displayed was nowhere near what an adventurer who had just risen to Lv.5 should have, wasn't even what a Lv.5 adventurer should have.
"Lv.6!"
This had absolutely reached Lv.6 already!
"Impossible!" the man in white cried, alarmed and uncertain. "How could you possibly be Lv.6?!"
To this, Leo only replied calmly.
"That question, once you've fallen to the ground and can't get up again, I'll consider whether to answer it."
As he spoke, the black longsword turned once more into an unbroken stream of sword-light, slashing at the man in white's whole body.
The man in white threw punches to counter, but was still caught by several strokes of sword-light slashing in at high speed, cuts opening all over his body and splashing out blood.
"Violas!"
Feeling the danger, the man in white hurriedly called for help.
Among the countless flower buds on the green flesh ceiling, one after another the buds bloomed open in answer to the man's call, gestating Violas and dropping them down one after another.
Leo flickered aside to dodge a Viola crashing down at him, letting it fall to the ground before him with a thunderous crash.
Broken-gong roars came at once, as the Violas broke up through the dust and raised their bodies, beginning to attack him.
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