Looking at the battlefield ahead, which had turned into a sea of fire in an instant, Persephone forced a faint smile:
"Thank you, everyone!"
She drank the High Potion, feeling her wounds close quickly and her stamina fill back up. She nodded to the others, then tossed her blonde hair and charged into the monster tide once more.
"Kureha, switch with me!"
"Your turn to recover, we'll cover you."
"Okay!"
The Sword Saint, long since drenched in sweat and panting but with eyes still blazing, didn't argue. She cleanly rotated out with Persephone, withdrew from the front line, caught the potion Aura tossed her, and tipped her head back to drain it.
"Phew..."
The potion surged through every limb at a "magical" speed, and her spirits lifted with a jolt!
"Hehe! The strength is surging back again!"
"Kill!"
Steel rang against steel in a rapid, unbroken clatter.
Kureha and Persephone cut back and forth along the party's flank. One was flushed red as if lost in the thrill of battle, freely venting her hunger for combat; the other wore a cold, aloof expression, and the spraying blood failed to stir even a ripple in her eyes.
Ahead, Rose blew apart a Sandstorm Venom Scorpion with a resounding shield bash and called out without turning her head:
"Iri, can you use your magic to find where Leon is?"
Wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, Iri let out a breath:
"Right!"
"Angel's Poem: Hawk!"
"Go!"
...
...
Leon sped like lightning along the rolling dunes. Ice light cracked and burst beneath his feet, trailing two streaks of frost behind him. He skimmed almost right over the surging monster tide below, leaving only a brilliant, fleeting frost path like some pay-to-win particle effect, and in moments he had vanished at the edge of the yellow sand.
The monsters didn't even have time to react; the chill merely made them stiffen. By the time they sluggishly turned their heads to search for the disturbance, Leon had long since left their range of perception, without a trace of his presence remaining.
The wind howled past his ears.
Leon skated with total focus, while sparing a bit of attention to think:
"Just how many minefields did Jeanne and the others wade through while retreating? They didn't trample over most of the Sand Land, did they?"
Gazing at the dense army stretching into the distance like a "monster Expedition," even he, a Lv.5 Mage, had to admit it was a lot.
"Plus that obviously abnormal God's Assassin, the Greatest Evil, which actually tunneled up from Floor 37 to Floor 36. I'm afraid the final goal of those Evilus who kept pulling stunts on us the whole way is this thing, right?"
"Floor 37's Monster Rex is Udaeus, so... the Greatest Evil is most likely some kind of Irregular summoned through a secret ritual I don't know about."
"Everyone's injured, their energy and stamina are more than half spent, and on top of that there's this terrifyingly huge Monster Party hounding us the whole way. Tch... a bit of a headache."
"But with the supplies we have left, it's not like we can't handle it!"
It was dangerous, but having such a huge wave of high-quality Excelia right in front of him and not being allowed to eat it? There was no way that didn't sting.
Behind his goggles, his eyes glinted with a certain light.
"I'll talk it over with them first, then decide."
A hawk's cry sounded overhead.
Leon looked up abruptly and saw the mithril hawk circling above him in follow mode.
"Iri's hawk... so they're just ahead."
As the thought flashed by, he narrowed his eyes and dropped his body lower, raising his speed another notch. He turned into a streak of light that flickered across the endless dunes and was gone.
...
A few minutes later.
Jeanne, her cloak, armor, and weapon smeared with all kinds of filth and dust, was the first to sense something. The corners of her lips curled into a smile full of charm:
"That Leon, he dawdled so long, but he's finally back!"
Before she'd finished speaking, Laurier, who had rejoined the fight after Iri's healing, held out her hand, palm up.
Feeling the cool snowflakes in her palm, her pointed ears twitched, and she immediately looked in a certain direction.
The next second...
"Yahoo!"
A figure suddenly launched from the highest point of the dunes.
He spread his arms as if to embrace the whole world, a reckless grin on his face, stretching his body out in midair at high speed, so fast that even the Frost Armor coating him was squashed into an oval.
With a thud, Leon landed on one knee in a superhero landing, kicking up a spray of sand.
"Yo, long time no see!"
He stood up and greeted everyone.
Then he dropped into a horse stance, interlaced his fingers, and a magic circle unfolded, with zero windup:
"Blizzard!"
The dusky sky of the Sand Land was once again covered by gray, gloomy clouds!
Frost crackled its way up the monsters' lower limbs from the ground. Snowflakes fell from the sky, and their bodies visibly stiffened. The Blizzard rose without a sound, and everyone locked in combat with the monsters felt the pressure drop sharply.
Aura, Laurier, and Iri sucked in a breath and shivered, hurriedly moving closer to Margaret's Heavenly Maiden to warm themselves up a little.
"Mr. Leon, when is this Blizzard of yours going to stop affecting us!!"
"It's so cold!"
Leon shrugged and spread his hands like a little bear:
"After Lv.5, with Beloved's Blessing and Beloved's Crest linked for reinforcement, apart from being a bit cold, it doesn't have any real effect anymore. Be grateful."
"If it were before..."
At that moment, Jeanne pulled out of the front line and switched with Persephone. While gulping down a potion to restore her stamina and heal her wounds, she quickly discussed the next plan of action with Leon:
"There are too many monsters, and there's a troublesome one behind them."
"Do we keep retreating to the floors above, or..."
Maintaining the Blizzard, Leon narrowed his eyes at the seemingly endless wave of monsters, then glanced at the floor passage not far behind them. He thought for only a moment before deciding:
"In everyone's current state, taking them head-on isn't the best plan. That being the case... let's fight while we retreat."
"Kiting. We pull them along while recovering our stamina, and once we're in good shape, we turn back and clear a wave. As long as we keep our distance from that God's Assassin and control the pace, we can eat all this Excelia!"
Jeanne frowned:
"Those are countless Lv.3 and Lv.4 monsters, and there's a ticking time bomb behind them."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
...
...
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