As the sandstorm that had been scattered by the earlier blast wave gathered again, the dragon's recovery speed shot up at a rate visible to the naked eye.
"Fuck!"
Leon swore, hurriedly wrapping himself in a layer of ice armor. At the same time the patterns of the magic circle under his feet shifted, and one ice statue after another, giving off a bone-deep frost, rose up around him.
Ice clones.
"Scatter!"
The real body waved a hand, sending several ice clones shooting out to shield the five midguard and rearguard members behind them.
"Everyone, defend!"
Leon's shout almost cracked.
"The big one's coming!!!!!!!!"
A terrifying, heart-shaking pulse was building wildly at the core of the converging quicksand, on the Mirage Sand Dragon's ruined body.
Their faces changed, and they shifted formation at the limit of their trained speed.
"Plan C, defensive formation, deploy!"
Figures crossed and flickered as the four in the front and on the flanks pulled back fast, closing in on the team's core.
Jeanne stepped forward and drove the war banner in her hands into the yellow sand. The banner face, embroidered with the Familia emblem, snapped open against the storm of energy.
"O my banner, protect my kin..."
The dragon's roar shook heaven and earth. A transparent Dragon's Breath more than ten meters across came slamming in, carrying the force to annihilate everything.
"Luminosité Eternelle!"
The holy golden light curtain bloomed with the vow.
In the hair's breadth as the barrier took shape, the breath of destruction arrived.
"Aaaaaaaaaah!"
Golden barrier and transparent dragon breath crashed together in a roar that swallowed everything in a torrent of light and energy.
...
...
A grinding screech that set the teeth on edge echoed inside the barrier.
Inside it, Jeanne the weightlifting champion held the great banner up alone, taking the full force of that terrifying Dragon's Breath from a peak Lv.6 with a sandstorm's environmental bonus behind it, by herself. The muscles of both arms stood taut, and the sand beneath her feet was pressed into deep grooves.
"Leon, what on earth is going on here?!"
Someone shouted through the roar of the colliding energy, voice full of disbelief.
"That monster was cut in half, so how is it recovering this fast?! Even the Goliath, specialized for defense, couldn't regenerate at a speed like that!"
Facing his companions' urgent questions, Leon kept his eyes locked on Jeanne's back as she held everything up, and couldn't quite keep a straight face.
"What kind of BOSS can't regenerate at high speed?"
His voice came through the gaps in the roaring, doing its best to hold on to a tone of everything being under control.
"Don't panic. This is all within my expectations."
"Huh?"
They were all lost.
Their faces were blank with doubt.
Persephone reached up and adjusted her glasses, the lenses reflecting the light raging outside the barrier.
"You're sure all of this is within your expectations?"
Leon straightened his back and answered with a perfectly serious face.
"I'm sure."
He seemed to feel more explanation was needed, and added after a pause.
"Relax, that last round of attacks was just probing, to get a read on its abilities and how tough its defense is."
"We've gathered about enough intel now, and next... it's our turn to counterattack!"
A silence laced with the roar of energy spread through the barrier. Every one of them had their private doubts about that explanation.
Rose gave him a long look.
"Would we lose?"
Leon met their eyes, his tone serious.
"Nah, we'd win."
...
While Leon and the others were huddled inside the barrier of Jeanne's Luminosité Eternelle, holding off the dragon's breath head-on with difficulty, the violent shaking and shock from that absurdly powerful explosion on the 36th floor went straight through the rock layers and thoroughly disturbed the "neighbors" downstairs.
"The ritual... we're only a little away from finishing it, aren't we?"
The Evilus leader muttered under his breath, a note of near-release in his voice.
"Heh, this damned job is finally about to..."
At his side, the underling was just about to do his job of playing along, when at that moment...
"Hm?"
A violent tremor like an earthquake came crashing down from overhead. The terrifying shock caught every ritual operator, all of them under intense concentration, completely unprepared, and knocked them sprawling.
"Nani?! What's going on?!"
The leader in black glared, eyes bulging with rage, his face flushing red.
Several chunks of rubble the size of Truck-kun himself, carrying crushing weight, smashed through the ceiling and closed in with a death-shriek toward the suddenly dilated pupils of the men in black.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, nooo!"
Shock and despair twisted their faces, their bloodshot eyes bulging almost out of their sockets.
A deafening collapse and a gray-white shockwave swallowed everything. In moments, the cavern where the secret ritual had been taking place became a field of ruins.
The small-time leader stood frozen. The waterskin clutched in his hand dropped with a slap, soaking his cloak, and he didn't notice at all. His expression was vacant, his eyes empty, his legs weak, his mind washed blank by this sudden destruction.
It took a long time before he raised a trembling hand and pointed at the place, now buried under boulders and rubble, that had been the heart of the ritual. His voice was dry and hoarse, carrying a bewilderment on the edge of collapse.
"That was... our ritual, right?"
"Heh, heh heh heh heh..."
Low laughter leaked out of his throat and gradually went out of control.
"Hahahahahaha!"
"Fine, very fine... it was about to be finished... and fate plays a joke like this on us?! Some damn boulder out of nowhere... wipes out every single person running the ritual... what kind of hellish sick joke is this?!"
"You've got to be kidding me!"