As the damp air turned cold and his airways opened, Leonardo reflexively lifted his head and looked upward.
Light filtered through the dust filling the deep, rugged ravine, and the massive ice surging from the cliffs on both sides glittered with reflected light. Falling rocks and earth were caught on that vast ice roof, buying them a little time.
The figure floating leisurely in the space between the cliffs, shrouded in ice, was obscured by thick dust and backlight, making it impossible to see his appearance clearly.
"..."
But even without seeing, Leonardo knew at once who it was.
"Commander!"
The 8th Platoon Leader shouted toward the sky in an unusually delighted voice. The figure in the air seemed to turn this way. Spotting him, the 8th Platoon Leader immediately spoke to Leonardo, who was clinging to her feet.
"Blaine, now's the chance."
As she gestured with her chin for him to climb up, Leonardo nodded silently.
The 8th Platoon Leader pushed off the cliff she had been clinging to and leaped first through the dust. Leonardo shifted his feet and twisted his body to follow her.
But when he raised his head to look at her back as he was about to leap, Leonardo’s eyes met the crimson gaze of the man cradled in the 8th Platoon Leader’s arms.
Leonardo instinctively held his breath.
The man, who had clearly been unconscious until just moments ago, was now staring down at him with bulging eyes and veins protruding. As their eyes locked, Leonardo froze, then suddenly shifted his gaze to the man’s glowing hand. The blue mineral he held was faintly shining.
Leonardo’s expression hardened instantly.
He should’ve put everything in the bag—where did he get that from...
The man looked at him and laughed with a grotesque grin.
Leonardo immediately kicked off the wall, pushing himself as far from the cliff as possible. Then, he hurled the man’s bag, which had been slung over his left shoulder, down into the gorge. If the guy threw that thing this way, the other minerals in the bag would detonate together, doubling the blast.
However, contrary to his expectations, the man did not throw the mineral at Leonardo.
Instead, as Leonardo moved away, he grabbed the 8th Platoon Leader’s wrist—the one holding him by the scruff of the neck—and snapped it in an instant. Caught off guard, she released his collar, and in that moment the blue mineral flew straight from his hand toward her.
In that split second, seeing the glowing stone, Leonardo reached out his hand toward the 8th Platoon Leader.
****
A thunderous noise spread through the air, and a fierce gust tore through the ravine. Dust that had been settling rose again in all directions under the force of the massive explosion. Hugo, who had been holding the mountain together by freezing the moisture in the soil from above, leapt into the cliff below without hesitation, blind in the suffocating haze.
Chunks of rock blocked his descent as he dropped faster than gravity, but he swung his greatsword once and split them in two. The fragments crashed into other falling stones with sharp cracks, stirring up even more dust.
As the swirling debris hindered him, Hugo twisted his body and stretched out his arm toward the sky. Two white spheres shot from his fingertips with a thunderous roar, briefly clearing the dust clouding his vision and blowing aside the rocks above.
But the problem was that the soil he had frozen with mana was thawing quickly under the peninsula’s humid heat. Cracks already spread through the ice above, and Hugo hurriedly changed direction, descending again in a rush.
There wasn’t much time.
Leonardo, slammed hard against the cliff by the explosion’s shockwave, still clutched Kenis in his arms as he threw himself to catch the falling 8th Platoon Leader.
She was unconscious, and he was barely holding on, his mind blurred by the explosion’s ringing and roar. Disoriented, he crashed into rocks again and again, realizing he was falling with them while gripping Kenis and the 8th Platoon Leader both.
He no longer had enough mana to bear the weight of three people. Yet, perhaps from the blast’s aftereffects, his thoughts were hazy even as he plummeted.
The surrounding noise buzzed, tinnitus and hallucinations stabbed through his head, and reality dulled. He could only stare blankly at the rocks rushing up to meet him.
Then, when his consciousness was on the verge of breaking, a voice pierced through.
Faint, buried in the chaos, unclear but familiar.
In his haze, Leonardo was drawn to it. The distorted sound sharpened little by little—then split through his ears in a single instant.
“Leonardo—!”
The moment the voice echoed through the ravine, Leonardo’s mind snapped awake.
He twisted his body, narrowly avoiding a boulder rushing at him, and raised his head to the sky to find the one who had called.
The massive rock filling his vision split in two, and through the gap appeared a man with blue eyes, descending straight toward him.
As their gazes met, the rapidly dropping altitude equalized the pressure in his ears, clearing the suffocating ringing. His foggy mind snapped back into reality.
Leonardo immediately grabbed the belts of the two he held with both hands, tightened his grip with one, and with the other reached for the man stretching his hand toward him.
Their arms extended almost at the same time.
Their fingertips inched closer, desperate to connect. But the violent wind tore between them, dragging out the moment unbearably.
Hands brushed past, missing by inches, and eyes locked on each other in regret.
It was an urgent situation, yet everything seemed agonizingly slow.
Then it happened.
A sharp shard, broken off by colliding rocks, sliced past Hugo’s arm.
The gap between their reaching hands widened, and red blood scattered in the air.
As the fresh blood splattered across his face, Leonardo’s golden pupils wavered.
“Hugo!”
He cried out the name without thinking, his face turning pale.
Hugo, though momentarily flung back, dove again at speed, showing no sign of pain. But the cut was deep. Worse, in that brief instant the distance between them had grown absurdly wide. Even accelerating, Hugo could not close the gap quickly—Leonardo was weighed down by two others.
Dust and rocks veiled his sight, making teleportation impossible. So Hugo conjured a thin stream of water from his left hand, shaping it into a long whip, and lashed it toward Leonardo.
As the water whip sliced through the obstacles and reached him, Leonardo instinctively caught the end and wrapped it around his arm.
The moment it tightened, Hugo drove his greatsword into the cliff to slow their descent.
The friction, multiplied by their speed, ripped pain through his arm as if tearing it apart. He only frowned faintly, firmly fixing the water stream around the hilt to keep hold of those clinging to it.
But the impact also tore «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» into Leonardo’s arm gripping the whip’s end. Agony seared through him; eyes squeezed shut, he wished for the pain to vanish with the feeling in his arm.
The greatsword scraped down the cliff before catching on a protruding rock and stopping them at last.
The instant the fall ceased, a slight rebound jolted through them.
Leonardo, hanging at the end of the whip, felt the belts in his left hand suddenly lighten.
An ominous sensation crawled up his arm. He froze, breath caught, and looked down.
“Ah—.”
His pale lips released a sigh of despair.
A figure was slipping into the darkness below.
One of the two belt straps he held had snapped.
Kenis was still falling.
