The streamlined head cut through the dust and charged upward with gleaming eyes. Faced with the hideous demonic form rushing straight at him, Meterion immediately altered the structure of the magic circle he was deploying.
The magic circle briefly shone a deep green, then created a small vortex in the narrowing gap between it and the creature. The vortex rotated at high speed, drawing the vast amount of scattered dust particles to a single point.
The coalescing gas intertwined and gradually increased in density and volume. Soon, the shape formed by the gas, swollen like clouds in the sky, became two giant hands with jaws open toward the mother body.
The two hands of overwhelming size, tinged a grayish color, hardened like rough plaster statues. As soon as the massive body surged within range, the outstretched hands grasped it in one swift motion. The monster, trailing long yellow smoke, was swallowed into the hands in the blink of an eye.
'Did it work?'
Meterion, controlling the giant hands near the magic circle, watched the gap in the grip tighten instantly like a Venus flytrap. As he applied more force to the interlocked hands, pressing the palms together harder, the mother body's frantic movements gradually subsided under the constant pressure.
As the gap closed, the creature's struggles noticeably decreased. Although he hoped to crush it cleanly by constricting its windpipe, the power of an ancient demon a thousand years old was not something to be taken lightly.
Just as he turned his eyes to the commanders to signal them, as if mocking human tricks, the mother body suddenly wedged its claws, raised on end, into the slightly open gap. As if about to tear through flesh, the claws dug in deep and forced the tightly closed hands wide apart.
From within, the bright red maw let out an explosively sharp cry.
Kyaaaak-
The keen ultrasonic waves mixed into the cry finely shredded the thin layer of air maintaining the dust's form. This briefly disrupted the pressure crushing the creature, and the monster, seizing the opportunity, tore apart the grip and succeeded in escaping. The massive body, now free, leaped upward again in one breath.
The terrifyingly charging creature gave no time to think. Its wide-open maw instantly pierced the dark green magic circle and then snapped at the caster beyond it. Meterion's lower body was miserably torn off before his subordinates' eyes.
"Battalion Commander--!"
Someone's cry, overcome with shock, echoed coldly. However, at the same time, Meterion's body—separated into upper and lower halves with blood pouring out—transformed into opaque smoke down to the last drop and gently dispersed into the air.
As the chunk of meat caught between its teeth suddenly became formless and vanished, the mother body, now /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ settled on the wall, snapped at empty air. Then, as if sensing something strange, it began to scan the air currents in all directions, even employing the eyeball it hadn't regenerated.
The rolling eyeballs stared at the holes in the walls one by one. Finally, they fixed on a point in the empty air where the dust was gathering again.
Just then, five mana spheres fired from within the mist streaked straight toward the queen's eyeballs at high speed. Perhaps because it had already taken a big hit once, even though the flesh had regrown, the creature didn't respond to the attack and immediately crawled upward.
At that moment, Meterion, revealing himself from within the smoke screen, grasped his sword and aimed for the creature's side. However, unlike just before, when it had charged as if to devour him, the queen clearly saw him and only howled without engaging.
At the creature's behavior, brushing past as if it didn't even care about a mere fly, Meterion—pushed back by the fierce wind pressure—briefly wore a dumbfounded expression. But the familiar mana energy flying in soon after let him guess the reason.
Kwagwagwagwang-!
The commanders belonging to the 3rd Battalion, who had sprung out from the pale dust, simultaneously unleashed attacks toward the mother body. As numerous concentrations of mana flew in, particularly aiming for the tail area, the mother body leaped upward, increasing its speed like a whipped horse. Meterion followed as well, readjusting his grip on his sword to join in.
However, a shadow suddenly appeared and blocked his path. It was a company commander from the 3rd Battalion.
"Battalion Commander, are you alright?"
The company commander asked worriedly, looking him up and down. Meterion merely nodded lightly and waved his hand as if to say, 'Step aside.' What had been torn off by the creature's teeth was not his real body, but a fake made by mixing dust and smoke.
But despite his superior's reaction, the company commander still blocked the way and continued.
"It seems best to leave the rest to those above like this."
"...What do you mean by that?"
"Look over there."
When Meterion questioned him, the company commander extended his hand toward the direction the mother body was crawling, pointing at something.
Meterion narrowed his eyes and scanned the area, assessing the situation. He saw a light ball flickering irregularly inside a narrow cave between pillars that had not yet collapsed.
"It's Deputy Commander Hastings."
No sooner had the company commander finished speaking than the 9th Battalion's deputy commander, who had been waiting above, stepped out from the narrow entrance. At her appearance, as if she were the main character emerging last, Meterion furrowed his brow and spoke with displeasure.
"You're late, very late."
It was she who had asked him to buy time, then disappeared while he was busy gathering the commanders. Despite being responsible for an important part of the operation, she only showed up belatedly now.
Meterion shook his head, feeling something like what Hugo must have felt when looking at him earlier. But he soon changed direction and moved downward at once to carry out the rest of the operation.
The company commander, who had briefly nodded at the gesture to follow, also headed straight down after Meterion. The two figures moving swiftly vanished into the dust in an instant.
Meanwhile, the queen's front paws, ascending endlessly, grasped the upper part of the fortress they had never touched before.
When the distance between the point where the light ball was flickering and the creature was barely twenty meters, the queen, climbing relentlessly, suddenly stopped at an ambiguous spot. Then, stretching out its neck, it looked down toward its hind legs.
From above, the action looked as if it had noticed something and hesitated, so Charlotte, who had been watching and waiting for the right moment, extended her arm downward earlier than expected. The heightened mana at her fingertips deployed about twenty small magic circles, densely surrounding the mother body at regular intervals as if to encircle it.
Soon, her low voice chanted a spell.
"Spider Web."
At that moment, transparent threads generated from the magic circles began to stretch out in straight lines, tightly wrapping around the mother body.
As the strange thing flew in and clung to its entire body, the queen, seemingly flustered, reflexively raised its claws and swung them. But the threads, stretching long like sticky mucus, covered the sharp edges instead, rendering the claws useless.
Moreover, as tension built in the interconnected transparent threads, they dug into the gaps in the hide like tough steel wires, painfully compressing the flesh underneath. Because of this, the queen let out a monstrous cry and writhed violently. With the 3rd Battalion members' attacks following suit, the creature forced itself off the rock wall it had been gripping and charged toward the opposite wall.
Charlotte, not missing the moment, shouted loudly.
"All 9th Battalion members, activate the trap!"
As soon as the order was given, more transparent threads were fired relentlessly from all directions. However, these were slightly different in form from the threads Charlotte had just created.
Not only were they thicker and longer, but they also had metal arrowheads attached to their tips, minimizing air resistance.
The arrowheads cutting through the air seemed at first glance to be aimed at the mother body, but instead they grazed past it and stretched out to embed firmly in the rock wall on the opposite side. The fixed ends of the threads were pulled tight by the waiting 9th Battalion members to keep tension so they wouldn't sag.
When another wave of these mysterious attacks swept through, a large, sticky giant spider web filled the vast sky. And in the middle of it all, at the center of the web where all the threads intersected, the mother body was caught like helpless prey, unable to move an inch.
Kyaaaak-
The transparent threads dug more cruelly into the gaps in the hide, wrapping around the body each time it struggled. The creature raised its head again and roared toward the sky, but even the subsequent gust of wind failed to make much impact on the net, its center of gravity dispersed.
Seeming to have restrained the creature for the moment, Charlotte looked down at the lower area filled with hazy floating particles and shouted loudly once again.
"Mother body restraint complete, prepare to attack!"
The swirling dust and debris parted like the miracle of Moses, splitting to both sides. Through that gap, beyond the faintly glowing dark green magic circle, the fog cleared all the way down, opening up the view. Thanks to this, the destructive energy slowly emerging and the killing intent seething toward the creature could be fully felt.
The queen's eyeballs, also sensing the air currents, rolled down to assess the situation. Soon, the red pupils that had discovered something contracted fully, as if about to vanish.
Two lights were glowing in the thick darkness below.
At the intense energy of a completely different dimension from before, the queen's nape instinctively hardened.
