"Ten seconds, huh… that makes things tricky. This thing is fully awake now."
Letsa spat out the last of the blood in her mouth and muttered under her breath as she stared at the Andares before them, now fully unfurled.
Apart from its lower body, which was no different from an ordinary giant scorpion, four thick auxiliary limbs had extended from its back. They were smaller than its two massive pincers, but judging from the red lines of magic coursing over them, they were clearly more than decoration.
Perhaps wary that its powers had just been abruptly interrupted, Andares no longer charged about recklessly as it had before. Instead, its scarlet single eye swept slowly and eerily over both sides, as if it were thinking.
"Captain, the bombardment spells are ready!"
Just as the two of them were considering how to close the distance, one of the Familia members shouted to Letsa from the rear.
"Got it. Then let's use her, shall we?"
Letsa's eyes lit up, and she jabbed a thumb toward one of their mages.
"I'm ready."
Duncan, having immediately grasped what she meant, nodded.
"Aira! Noel! Fire!"
Seeing Duncan understood, Letsa drew a deep breath. Wind began to coil around the tip of her slender sword, and then she shouted the order.
"Arnoya!"
At their captain's command, the two mages roared out the final line of their chants. Two enormous pillars of fire, each taller than a person, burst from their staffs and shot straight toward Andares. They moved too fast for it to dodge. The resulting explosion kicked up a dense cloud of smoke around the creature, and Duncan and Letsa seized the chance to rush in.
Though mage spells were monstrously powerful, neither of them expected the attack to kill Andares in one blow. But no matter what kind of monster it was, once its magic stone and vital point were destroyed, it should die. At least, neither of them had ever encountered an exception.
Sure enough, after the blast, a shrill scream rang out from inside the smoke. Even with its absurd regeneration, the two spells had inflicted serious damage. Its broken forelimbs and pincers lashed wildly, scattering the dust around it. Its bloodshot eye fixed viciously on the two mages who had attacked it. Just as it was about to retaliate, the two Level 3 adventurers hidden in the smoke had already reached it in silence.
"Silence."
To prevent it from using its powers again, Duncan layered another Silence spell onto it.
Having already built up her momentum, Letsa leapt high, her rapier whistling as it stabbed straight toward that lone crimson eye.
"Spiral!"
Its upper limbs had been shattered by the explosion and had no time to recover. Letsa's blade plunged directly into the eye, drilling through it like a spinning auger and pulverizing the entire upper part of Andares's head-like structure along with it.
But the attack was not over.
The moment Duncan cast Silence, he too sprang onto Andares's torso. Unlike Letsa, who had targeted the eye, Duncan aimed directly for the raised mass of its upper body. Channeling Swift Heaven's Edge into the spear, he drove the tip down with all his strength.
Clang!
The spearpoint rebounded off the shell covering its torso.
"Huh?"
The unexpected resistance blanked Duncan's mind for an instant. In his imagination, one result had been guaranteed, and the fallback plan only existed in case that expected strike failed. But now his proud, seemingly unstoppable spear had been cleanly repelled by a monster for the very first time.
Even the giant bears had never possessed such absurd defensive power. A full-strength thrust from a Level 3 adventurer had only managed to dent the shell. This was not even a slash—it was a thrust, the most powerful kind of spear attack. And yet it still failed to deal Andares a lethal blow.
"Whoa, didn't guess right?! Duncan, don't zone out!"
After landing her hit, Letsa instantly sprang back from Andares. Seeing Duncan hesitate, she shouted sharply.
"Ah?! Right!"
Duncan jolted back to himself and nodded.
"Don't panic. Failure happens. We'll hit it together next time. Looks like the torso really is its vital point."
Naturally, Letsa had seen Duncan's attack from the closest angle. Though she was astonished that Andares's torso was so tough even Duncan's spear could not penetrate it, she had never personally experienced Swift Heaven's Edge, so she could not grasp the full extent of Duncan's shock. It was his strongest skill. If even that could not break through, then he had no means of landing a truly fatal strike on Andares.
With its head blown apart, Andares writhed again in agony, thrashing its enormous body wildly enough to shake the cavern walls and send stones raining down. Its shrieking echoed through the cave, making everyone's scalp prickle.
"While it's still disoriented, keep pressing!"
Seeing Andares flailing in pain and leaving itself completely open, Letsa had no intention of letting the opportunity pass. Wind gathered once more around her rapier. This time, both she and Duncan had exactly the same target—
—the bulging core in Andares's upper torso.
Duncan compressed the power of Swift Heaven's Edge into the spearpoint as hard as he could, to the point that the weapon itself trembled in his hands. Even after all this time, he still could not perfectly condense that power into a single point. But if he did not do so, then he doubted he could break through Andares's outrageous defense at all.
The moment Letsa moved, Duncan moved as well.
Sensing danger, Andares began smashing frantically into the cavern walls while stomping the ground, trying to destroy their footing since it could no longer see clearly with its eye destroyed. But to Duncan, footing was the one thing he lacked least.
Using two air-steps as the final footholds for himself and Letsa, he leapt high above Andares with the determination to kill.
"Spiral!"
"Silence!"
Even at the last second, Duncan did not forget to tack on another Silence spell before gripping the spear with both hands and driving it down with all his might.
The two attacks slammed into the half-man-high shell with a scream of metal scraping metal. At last, they tore open a gap in the black armor, revealing a blue crystal beneath.
Retreat.
Sensing mortal danger, Andares ignored the pain and lashed out with all four limbs and its pincers at once. With the finishing blow right in front of them, the two could do nothing but abandon that golden chance and dodge.
"Damn it! Hurry and recover. Aira! Noel! One more time!"
Letsa cursed through gritted teeth. She pulled out the last two high-grade healing potions, tossing one to Duncan while downing the other herself, then shouted toward the mages behind them.
After releasing his skill, Duncan was left gasping for air. This was the first time he had used Swift Heaven's Edge in sustained combat for so long. The repeated activations, the extended duration, and the effort of controlling the skill had drained both his stamina and his精神力 to the limit. The Silence spell had done the same. While high-grade healing potions could restore stamina and heal wounds, he had already exhausted all his spirit-restoring potions. He needed to replenish them from the second squad immediately.
滴答.
Somewhere in the void, it was as if a faint sound rang out—the signal that time had run out.
The duration of the third Silence ended.
And this time, Andares did not give Duncan even the slightest opening to cast it again.
Then the nightmare began.
"Duncan!"
"Lady Artemis!"
Without the slightest warning—without even waiting for the ground that had only just settled to shift first—the earth erupted into a violent tremor. Countless stone spikes burst outward from Andares like a tidal wave, filling the entire underground pit in an instant.
....
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