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Chapter 105: Concurrent Chanting
"Ya ika!" A heavy, earth-shattering roar shook the very foundations of the cavern.
The five behemoth-like entities—the Blazing Axe Mitachurls—finally initiated their devastating charge.
They completely ignored Aiden and Tifa, who were slaughtering their way through the lesser fodder. Their glowing crimson eyes locked exclusively onto their singular objective: the Ley Line Monolith, the fragile blue core of the Domain Instance.
The five giants moved in unison, their thunderous footfalls causing the entire cavern to quake violently.
"Listen to the whispers woven at the boundary of dawn and dusk—"
From the absolute rear, Hyacine's rapid incantation rang out, perfectly timed.
"In the fissures of memory, spirits whose gentleness remains unchanged, please, once more for me, for us, call down the cleansing rain, and hold up the clear sky!"
A brilliant pink magic circle flared beneath her feet. From the blinding light, a small, pink Pegasus—Little Ica—leaped out.
Little Ica let out an adorable, yet fierce whinny, instantly beating its wings with violent force.
A howling gale materialized out of thin air, forming an invisible, swirling barricade between the charging Mitachurls and the Monolith.
The massive bodies of the Mitachurls slammed into the wind wall, their brutal momentum forcibly stalled by the localized hurricane.
But this was only a temporary measure.
Hyacine was fundamentally a Level 1 adventurer. Her mana capacity was simply insufficient to permanently bind five elite Level 3 monsters.
Under the relentless, crushing impacts of the giants, the wind wall groaned and shuddered, threatening to shatter at any given second.
"I've got them!"
Tifa noticed the critical danger in the rear and immediately spun on her heel, preparing to sprint back and intercept the behemoths.
Fwoosh.
Ghostly purple flames materialized in thin air. Four figures drifted silently out from the shadows, physically blocking her path.
Pyro Abyss Mages.
Moving with eerie synchronization, they raised their staves. Four chains woven from malevolent, burning fire whipped through the air, screaming as they sealed off every possible avenue of escape for the martial artist.
Tifa gritted her teeth. The mana enveloping her fists flared blindingly bright. Instead of retreating, she surged forward, launching a flurry of blindingly fast, devastating punches directly into the fiery chains.
With a series of deafening cracks, she shattered three of the chains mid-air.
But the fourth slipped through the microscopic gap in her defense, lunging forward, mere inches from wrapping around her body—
"Resonate!"
A piercing, high-frequency sound wave shot out like an invisible arrow, arriving just in time to accurately strike the final fiery chain.
The chain violently shuddered in mid-air before shattering into countless fragments, dissolving into a shower of dying sparks.
Pinion's Aria. Standing far in the rear, supported by Hyacine, Robin had her right hand raised slightly. Her teal eyes were sharp and focused.
Thanks to the Overture of Inebriation, her mana was slowly regenerating. While she couldn't perform another miracle on the scale of Vox Harmonique, Opus Cosmique, she had more than enough reserves to continuously fire off ultra-short chants like Pinion's Aria.
Without a moment of hesitation, her eyes swept across the opposite flank of the battlefield, and she opened her mouth once more.
"Resonate!"
Another invisible sonic arrow tore through the sulfurous air, striking a Samachurl that had quietly flanked Aiden and raised its staff.
The Samachurl let out a blood-curdling shriek as its body was violently blasted backward. The wooden staff flew from its grip, and the cursed fire it had been gathering snuffed out instantly.
Aiden's gaze flicked to the crumbling wind wall, and then to Tifa, currently locked in brutal combat with the Abyss Mages.
He knew instantly that he could hold nothing back.
If the Ley Line Monolith was destroyed, this entire expedition would be classified as a failure.
Taking a deep breath, he continued to swing his blazing sword, viciously reaping the lives of the encroaching Hilichurls while weaving effortlessly through the sporadic fireballs hurled by the surviving Samachurls.
Simultaneously, a rapid, incredibly dark incantation began to spill from his lips.
Concurrent Chanting. This was a highly advanced technique that very few mages in all of Orario could successfully execute—dividing one's mind to recite a magical incantation while simultaneously moving, attacking, and defending in high-speed combat.
It required a caster to possess a will forged of absolute iron and the terrifying processing power to multitask flawlessly under life-and-death pressure.
Ever since awakening his magic, Aiden had practically tortured himself trying to master this specific skill.
But the process was brutal. The sensation of forcibly splitting one's consciousness easily led to severe mental disorientation, especially in the chaotic crucible of a live battlefield.
However, Robin's skill, Family of Harmony, made this seemingly impossible feat profoundly simpler.
Connected to the Mental Network, Aiden felt as though he had unlocked a localized omniscient perspective.
The sensory data of every team member was perfectly shared. Threats approaching from his blind spots were projected directly into his mind with crystal clarity.
Because of Robin's skill, his physical body seemed to operate on an autonomous combat instinct. Dodging, parrying, counter-attacking—these complex maneuvers no longer required his active, conscious thought.
This allowed him to submerge the vast majority of his mental processing power entirely into one singular task: Chanting.
And this time, the magic he was preparing was not Demon Lord Valion, nor was it Silentium Eden.
He was drawing upon the ultimate trump card of "Silence" Alfia—the absolute strongest wide-area annihilation magic in his arsenal.
"Blessing's root of evil, birth of hatred, devouring half my body as original sin..." Though Aiden's chant was murmured low, it acted like a massive boulder thrown into a placid lake. In a cavern deafened by battle cries and monstrous roars, the words generated an incredibly lethal, invisible ripple.
The low-intelligence Hilichurls and Slimes blindly continued their charge toward the Monolith, but the elite monsters in the rear reacted instantly. They all froze.
Whether it was the massive Mitachurls slamming their axes against the wind wall, or the Abyss Mages and Samachurls floating in the air preparing their spells—their glowing red and purple eyes simultaneously snapped away from the Monolith.
Every single elite gaze locked with dead, terrified certainty onto the white-haired youth dancing through the battlefield, muttering his dark litany.
An indescribable, primal terror—a fear rooted deep within their biological coding—seized their rudimentary minds.
They couldn't comprehend what the magic was, but their instincts screamed a singular, overriding command: He must be stopped."Muhe!""Yeye!" Completely abandoning the Ley Line Monolith, every elite monster—the Mitachurls, the Abyss Mages, and the surviving Samachurls—pivoted violently and surged toward Aiden like a tidal wave of pure malice.
"Don't even think about it!"
Tifa shouted, realizing their intent. There was absolutely no way she was going to let them interrupt Aiden's chant.
Facing the Abyss Mages blocking her path, she didn't retreat a single inch. The mana wrapped around her fists burned white-hot. She transformed into a blur of raw kinetic energy, charging head-on to intercept them.
"Resonate!"
Robin's reaction was equally instantaneous. Her clear teal eyes held absolutely no panic.
She fired off sonic arrow after sonic arrow, each Pinion's Aria accurately striking a Samachurl attempting to cast a spell, violently interrupting their cursed flames and clearing the threats converging on Aiden's rear.
And Aiden entrusted his back entirely to his companions.
His flaming sword flashed, every single swing reaping the lives of the lesser monsters around him.
No matter how tricky or devious the angle of the attacks launched at him, his body seamlessly dodged a half-step ahead of the danger.
"...Unable to cleanse, unable to purify, unable to grant salvation..." His chant didn't falter for a fraction of a second. The low, rapid verses continued to echo through the cavern—the undeniable, apocalyptic harbinger of absolute death.
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