"You're like a monster. No, even monsters aren't this ridiculous, are they?", Shiro, lying on top of him, sounded a little envious even as she praised him, "Once I master my own power, will I be able to do something like this too?"
"Probably not with gravity, but you might end up being even more outrageous in other ways. Though somehow that doesn't feel like a compliment anymore. Come on, praise me properly. At least choose your words a little better," Ash wore a somewhat conflicted expression as he made his request.
'This guy... is such a pain! I'm already trying my best... Isn't asking me to do this just making things difficult on purpose? How am I supposed to praise people? I can't even speak properly myself, and you want me to compliment you? I'd rather bite you!', The awe and admiration on Shiro's face vanished, replaced by an unconcealed look of annoyance.
After eliminating the nearby robots and elves that hadn't been caught in the attack, the two girls in front turned back.
Ariel skipped over to him, circling around him like a child. Her beautiful eyes shone with an unusual light.
"Just like I'd expect from you. You're always like this, a monster. And magic... it really is convenient for taking out trash."
"Of course! Mr. Ash has always been the strongest!"
As if she were the one who had created the scene herself, Sophia smiled proudly, walked over with light steps, and happily wrapped herself around Ash's arm.
But halfway through praising him, she couldn't help glancing at Shiro. Leaning close to her ear, she whispered, "You're way too sneaky, aren't you? We've all been working hard, and you took advantage of the opening."
"Huh?"
'Ah... that troublesome girl is staring at me again. Is there really no cure for yanderes?', Shiro said nothing. She just felt a headache coming on and quietly turned her head away to avoid the unsettling gaze.
Ash had no choice but to free one hand, press down on Sophia's head, and force her to look elsewhere, hoping she'd act at least a little more normal.
While this little interruption played out, the group continued forward and soon reached the one corner of the residential district Ash had deliberately left untouched, worried about dragging the two girls into his attack.
Compared to the barren wasteland where the earth itself had been torn up, this area had been turned into a sea of blood by the two girls clearing the way.
Robot and elf remains covered the ground. "Gruesome" was the only word that fit.
From the surface, it looked like the elves had basically been wiped out.
However... deep underground, inside the command center, most of the surveillance screens had gone dark. The few that remained all showed the small asteroid still spinning.
The oppressive atmosphere left every operator drenched in cold sweat, constantly swallowing nervously. Even Potimas frowned, clearly recognizing the asteroid as a serious problem.
"This is getting troublesome. The cannon fodder's all been wiped out, and now there's still that asteroid to deal with... Fine. Looks like I'll have to make some real sacrifices."
Potimas didn't care about the elves, nor did he care about the disposable robots he'd sent out to wear down the enemy.
But even he wore a gloomy expression now, having decided to sacrifice part of his trump card.
———
The ground had been devastated. Gravity had stripped away every building and every plant, leaving vast stretches of exposed yellow earth.
Looking around, the only remarkable sight was the many metal passages leading underground. Most had been torn apart by gravity, their openings gaping like the mouths of giant beasts.
Just how deep Potimas's real base lay was impossible to tell.
On the other hand, simply keeping the small asteroid floating in the air wasn't as costly as it looked. Ash only needed to eliminate gravity in that area, and with Shiro acting as his personal battery pack, it wasn't much of a burden at all.
Yet the massive spaceship everyone had expected still showed no sign of appearing.
Instead, the moment gravity disappeared, more than two hundred enormous figures over ten meters tall burst out of the underground tunnels.
Their towering, imposing forms resembled steel giants from ancient myths. Their entire bodies radiated cold metallic strength. Calling them robots didn't quite feel right, they looked more like giant mechs straight out of a science fiction movie.
"They look kind of familiar," Ariel frowned slightly, resting a hand on her chin as she stared at the newcomers, searching her memory.
Shiro, who had already climbed off Ash's back, suddenly slapped her palm.
"Oh... I think I saw these in the blueprints. Aren't they the Gloria?"
"Oh, right! Those things we saw on the spaceship last time? The ones that got destroyed before they finished transforming?", Ariel immediately understood, "So this is what they look like after transforming? They look pretty strong. The genuine article?"
"Looks like they're equipped with anti-magic barriers too. But instead of projecting out, the barrier covers the surface. That's going to be troublesome."
Using magic detection, Ash had already figured out their basic properties.
The moment his magic touched them, it was blocked.
In other words, they either had to be destroyed with purely physical attacks, or overwhelmed by magical output powerful enough to punch straight through the anti-magic barrier.
Judging by the durability of the unfinished prototype they'd encountered before, their physical defenses were probably just as ridiculous.
Thinking that, Ash turned toward Ariel.
"What do you think?"
"I can deal with them. It'll just take a little time."
Despite their overwhelming numbers, Ariel confidently raised her chin.
"Then save your strength. We still have to dig Potimas out afterward."
After a brief moment of thought, Ash slowly raised both hands.
Then he slammed them down.
At that instant, the artificial asteroid hanging in the sky broke free of its invisible restraint and plummeted toward the earth with unstoppable force.
Its enormous size cast a vast shadow across the ground like dark storm clouds blotting out the sun, filling anyone beneath it with the feeling that the end of the world had arrived.
The Gloria gathered beneath it with astonishing speed that didn't match their massive frames. As if sensing the enormous threat, every weapon mounted on their shoulders, arms, and elsewhere aimed skyward and unleashed a storm of fire.
Countless multicolored energy blasts shot toward the asteroid like rain, carving dazzling but deadly trails through the sky until it seemed almost completely illuminated.
One shell after another exploded against the asteroid's surface, producing deafening booms. The immense impacts distorted the surrounding air, creating visible shockwaves that spread in every direction.
Yet against the asteroid's overwhelming mass...
Those powerful attacks were little more than scratches.
The compressed asteroid remained completely unharmed as it continued plunging toward the ground.
Then—
BOOOOOOM!
With a thunderous crash that seemed capable of splitting the heavens, the asteroid slammed into the earth.
The entire land shook violently, the tremors growing stronger and stronger like a catastrophic earthquake.
From the point of impact, enormous cracks spread rapidly in every direction. Bottomless fissures split open like monstrous jaws, swallowing everything around them.
The once-mighty Gloria became as insignificant as ants before the terrifying impact.
Most were struck directly by the asteroid, their massive steel bodies instantly crushed into twisted piles of scrap.
Others escaped the direct hit, only to be dragged upward by the asteroid. The compressed outer shell, unable to withstand the collision, shattered on impact, and the resulting debris and massive shockwave slammed into them, burying them beneath the earth.
———
Towering clouds of dust blotted out the sky, and the entire continent seemed to tremble.
After the destructive roar faded, all that remained was a tightly compressed giant core where the asteroid had landed, a newly formed impact crater, and cracked, devastated earth.
Nothing capable of movement remained.
The allied forces, who had already been retreating to regroup around the outskirts, had almost all been knocked to the ground by the initial impact.
Fortunately, thanks to their retreat, and because Gulie finally couldn't stand by any longer and raised his Divine Dragon Barrier to block both the shockwave and the tsunami-like wave of earth, most of them survived.
Or rather, most of the soldiers who had entered the elves' territory earlier had already been killed by the bombardment from tens of thousands of robots. There hadn't been many left inside to begin with.
In any case, nobody present cared about the allied army anymore. Like the reincarnators who had been taken away by the Word of God Church's special unit, they simply weren't worth mentioning.
After Ash blocked the shockwave with repulsive force and dispersed the dust cloud around them, the battlefield gradually became visible again.
Sophia looked into the distance. Her gaze soon settled on a damaged entrance leading underground.
"So... are we supposed to just go down there?"
"If we don't, that coward probably isn't coming up," Ariel answered with a frown.
For the past thousand years, Potimas had hidden underground like a frightened rat because he feared Gulie, never once showing himself.
Ash's magic detection couldn't penetrate underground, making him worry there might be spaceships hidden below. Just as he was considering how to blast through the surface, a ripple spread through space.
In the night sky, something enormous emerged from the void as though surfacing from underwater.
More accurately, it was a gigantic metal sphere covered in spikes, roughly ten meters across.
From a distance, it looked exactly like a sea urchin.
Even more surprising, every one of those countless spikes was actually a cannon barrel, gleaming coldly beneath the moonlight.
"Why is everything either an octopus or a sea urchin? Does Potimas just really like seafood?", Ash couldn't help complaining.
The "sea urchin" ignored him.
The instant it appeared, every cannon immediately turned toward them.
The next moment, every barrel, including those on its back, fired crimson beams almost simultaneously.
Before the thunderous explosions even reached them, countless projectiles curved through the air from every direction like a swarm of hornets, converging on the group's position.
In an instant, an airtight curtain of fire completely surrounded them.
There wasn't enough time to use spatial magic, and tanking the barrage while protecting everyone would be far too costly.
Ash made his decision immediately.
He manipulated the earth beneath their feet, causing the ground to collapse like a plummeting elevator.
Overwhelmed by weightlessness, the entire group dropped a hundred meters underground.
At the same time, the bombardment struck the surface, setting off one violent explosion after another.
Deafening blasts echoed overhead. Shockwaves rolled through the earth continuously, making the ground shake as if it might collapse at any moment.
Had Ash not erected a defensive barrier beforehand, the collapsing layers of earth above would already have buried them alive.
"Potimas really has an endless supply of trump cards. Even I'm starting to admire him a little," Ariel said with a cheerful smile and several approving nods.
When everyone instinctively looked at her, she simply waved, "But don't worry! I'll take care of it! I'll leave everyone else to you~"
Without waiting for Ash's reply, she stomped hard on the ground and shot upward like a bunker-busting missile at astonishing speed.
In the blink of an eye, she pierced through a hundred meters of earth.
Trailing an enormous cloud of dust behind her, she blasted toward the sea urchin like a missile erupting from underground.
———
Deep underground, on a platform where dirt, gravel, and rocks continuously rained from above...
"Not exactly environmentally friendly."
As the ceiling threatened to collapse again, Ash manipulated the surrounding earth to stabilize it while lifting everyone upward, muttering his complaint about Ariel's rough methods.
Sophia, who had instinctively hidden behind Ash when danger appeared, now kicked aside a fallen rock with dissatisfaction.
"I feel like monsters like that should just be left to you guys. Either there are so many of them it's ridiculous, or they look completely bizarre, and they're flying around in the sky... How is anyone supposed to fight that? It's no fun at all."
"This is still a battlefield. Try taking it a little more seriously."
"I want to! But besides killing a few weaklings, we can't do anything!", The more Sophia spoke, the more depressed she became, "You promised when we were kids that if I trained hard enough, I'd become stronger than you!"
"Wait... you actually believed something adults say to little kids?"
Ash was honestly dumbfounded.
He didn't even want to imagine what she'd do if she ever really became stronger than him.
Just thinking about it gave him chills.
Sophia ignored what he was thinking and simply stared at him resentfully.
"It's because there are adults like you and Miss Demon Lord that kids end up feeling distant from grown-ups."
"Don't drag me into this. Ariel said that, not me."
Ash hurriedly waved his hands, trying to distance himself from it.
"But you didn't deny it either!"
"Fine, fine. I'll take part of the blame too... But let's talk about this after we get back."
Faced with the increasingly sulky girl, Ash could only wave helplessly, deciding to deal with the chaotic situation first.
As they chatted, the group broke through the surface once again and returned to the open air.
At that moment, in the sky outside...
The sea urchin could fly, but its speed was nowhere near Ariel's overwhelming mobility.
Before the others even reached the surface, she had already closed the distance and smashed it with a single punch.
The sea urchin possessed two barriers. The outer barrier specialized in defending against magic, while the inner one focused on physical attacks. In theory, its defenses should have been formidable.
But before Ariel's absurd strength... the entire machine twisted out of shape in an instant and was sent flying backward.
Its barriers might as well have been made of paper.
Just as it looked like Ariel would finish it off and leave cleanly—
BOOM!
The battered sea urchin suddenly exploded.
A brilliant fireball shot into the sky, lighting up the night like day while a circular shockwave rapidly spread outward.
Because the sea urchin contained spatial expansion technology to store more ammunition and energy, its destruction also violently distorted the surrounding space.
It looked as though space-time itself had been twisted apart.
And yet... When the small figure landed, she was casually chewing on fragments of one of the cannon barrels.
She wasn't injured in the slightest.
Only her clothes were a little tattered.
The little stamina she'd spent had already been completely restored through Gluttony while eating the cannon.
But before everyone could celebrate, Ariel suddenly put on an expression filled with resolve and apologized to Ash.
"You handle things up here. It's about time I went underground and dragged Potimas out."
"Wait," Ash immediately reached out and grabbed her shoulder.
"Don't worry about me. Besides, I have to settle things with—"
"It's not that I'm worried about you... Well, I am, but that's not the main point. Even if you go down now, you won't find him. He knows better than anyone what kind of relationship you two have. There's no way he hasn't prepared for you. You already said he's a coward. He'd never appear in person, much less face you with his real body, right?"
Looking at the conflicted girl before him, Ash didn't try to forcefully stop her. Instead, he calmly reasoned with her.
"So he won't let you find him. He'll absolutely expect you to come after him. Even if you break through all his defenses, he'll definitely escape before you reach him. He won't just stay there waiting for you to clear the dungeon. If you stay here instead, you'll have a better chance of catching him."
"That... actually makes sense."
Ariel blinked, clearly moved by his reasoning.
She calmed down and seriously considered what he had said.
Indeed, that obvious underground headquarters.
The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a trap Potimas had deliberately prepared to lure them in.
After finally making it into the elf village, the girl hesitated again and again. In the end, she chose to suppress the impulse in her heart for now and follow his plan.