Chiiiik-
The scorched ground sizzled. Soil and rock melted and rippled red along the path where the beam had passed.
Hot steam from vaporized ice and scattered corpses hung over it. Uprooted trees and half-destroyed structures lay among them.
There was no sign of life in the devastated scene.
The mother body, clinging to the rock wall and hidden in the clouds, quietly observed.
The chunks of flesh glimpsed through the rising smoke were grotesque half-mixed forms of humans and monsters. However, the three humans who had blocked its way were nowhere to be seen, as if they had vanished. The monster slowly rolled its eyeballs, then looked up at the sky.
Frozen ice crystals were melting and disappearing in the air. The same was true of the giant atmospheric vortex it had been growing.
As if the caster had lost control, the artificially created natural weapon gradually dispersed and returned to its original form. The dark red eyeballs assessing the situation rolled back into place.
"How trivial."
Eventually, the mother body spread its wings wide to either side and slowly rose from the thick smoke screen. Even then, it trembled its raised protrusions, sensing the air currents around it. It seemed quite a few things had hidden in this area by now.
At that moment, the mother body's eyeballs suddenly rolled upward as it caught a faint smell of blood. One foolish shadow that had exposed its position hurriedly fled from view.
The massive body's wings immediately turned in that direction. Its red-hot maw was already wide open, snapping savagely as if ready to chew up anything.
A few seconds later, the ferocious head emerged, piercing through the thick clouds. At that moment, Isabella, who had been waiting in the sky, immediately signaled to the commanders surrounding the creature.
"All-out attack-!"
The mother body, instantly recognizing the mana masses pouring in from all directions, once again wrapped its entire body in its hardened wings. The battle uniform it had bitten and pierced with its teeth was only soaked in blood, limp with nothing inside. The enraged monster's cry echoed fiercely throughout Peak 118.
Kwagwagwagwang-!
The creature, which had glided downward to avoid the bombardment and fled between the mountain ranges, frantically jumped atop the sheer cliffs, striking the rocks with its blunt tail.
The weakened ground, where vegetation had been uprooted, split easily, and huge rocks began to roll down one by one, gradually increasing in scale. The swept-up soil and rock fragments soon became a vast landslide, threatening the members below.
"L-landslide! Everyone get to higher ground!"
"No, maintain formation! Protect the barrier stones!"
While the members with differing opinions failed to decide, golems and earth-attribute mages flew in to block the oncoming soil directly. However, under the overwhelming pressure, the mound of earth crossed over the foot of the mountain to the nearby flatlands, even digging up the underground traps crucial to the operation.
Before anyone could shout a warning, the impacted traps detonated in fierce explosions, scattering pale smoke. Worse, it spread rapidly like a lit fuse, creating a chain of blasts that turned the surrounding area into a wasteland.
Bang-bang- Kwaaang-!
The impact on the ground was so severe that soil and rock fragments flew up to a great height. As successive destructive forces and vibrations swept through, the softened ground began to sink into empty underground caves. The barrier stones that had just been activated couldn't have been safe either.
In the midst of this chaos, the mother body spread its wings and charged toward a point where space rippled ahead. The poured soil had been blocked everywhere else, but only in that area had it burst through.
Just as the mother body flew relentlessly toward the defense line's barrier, where a gap had formed, the voice of the annoying human—thought to be dead—echoed from somewhere.
"Meterion, catch it!"
At that moment, savagely rising ice pillars crossed in front of the disrupted barrier like bars. Soon after, dust billowing up from the explosions' aftermath quickly gathered near the ground.
The dust, transformed into a giant hand, instantly swallowed the tail of the flying mother body as if to stop it from reaching the barrier. Then it yanked back hard, spinning it several times in the air before using centrifugal force to hurl it violently into the distant sky.
Kyaaaak-
The massive body, which looked like it «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» would be flung clean away, didn't go as far as expected, perhaps due to its weight. The creature, shrieking sharply, soon flew higher and instantly escaped the hand's range.
But what followed to fill the creature's view was another human, thought to have died to the beam.
As if she had known it would come here, Charlotte activated the magic circle she had deployed in advance, firing transparent threads toward the mother body's back. The spider web covering the queen's body clung to its flapping wings, gradually reducing the range of motion of its skeleton and muscles.
Unable to overcome gravity, the massive body began to sink, and Isabella, who had been waiting for the moment, burst a purple sphere, thoroughly soaking the creature's entire body in deadly poison.
As the toxin dug into the cracks of its split hide, the mother body writhed in pain. With the creature angrily spewing flames and yellow gas in all directions, Liner, who had identified its position even in the clouds, signaled to Hugo standing opposite him.
"Commander."
Hugo met his eyes and nodded lightly.
The other's empty left arm, wrapped in the sleeve of his battle uniform, kept shimmering, but given the situation, Hugo deliberately withheld any worried or sympathetic glances. Both of his arms were completely burned from directly blocking the beam, and the members below had suffered severe casualties as well.
Liner, receiving the signal with a determined look, immediately deployed a wide magic circle in front of the Commander. Then dozens of ice spears floating in the sky passed through the magic circle, which flashed like thunder, and poured down in an instant.
They extended at a terrifying speed toward the mother body, which was finding its normal orbit again after melting the spider web with flames, their hardened tips gleaming.
The queen, unable to regain its senses under the coordinated attack, finally noticed something glittering in the air and hurriedly spread its hardened wings.
However, unable to withstand the power of the 'real' hardening technique and the added acceleration, the sharp ice spears tore through the creature's wings and buried themselves deep in its hide and flesh.
Amid the creature's bodily fluids bursting like fireworks and its monstrous cries, Hugo and Liner, grasping hardened ice greatswords, charged the mother body at almost the speed of light. Then, latching onto the rear of the creature, they tried to sever both wing joints to prevent it from flying any further.
But at that moment, a red ball of flame flickered in the queen's maw.
'...!'
Hugo, who noticed that energy first despite being behind, instinctively shoved Liner away with his body. Then, raising a barrier in front of the following battalion commanders, he urgently warned,
"It's a breath! Get away from it!"
Kyaaaak-
No sooner had the two avoided it than the enraged queen began to vent violently, shooting flames in all directions.
At the Commander's warning and the heat rushing toward them, the nearby battalion commanders retreated as well.
Dark red flames erupted explosively from the creature's maw, as if from a flamethrower.
On a completely different scale from what it had fired at Charlotte inside the fortress, the savage flames mixed with black smoke boiled with immense pressure and destructive power. The heat evaporated the clouds in the sky and burned all the vegetation on the peaks and ground.
As the fire spread to the Council's temporary forward base on the mountainside and across the area, part of the peninsula's southern land instantly became a sea of fire. The mother body continuously spewed breath from within the fiercely burning flames to keep anyone from approaching.
At that moment, a sharp sound of air friction cutting through the void flew in, aiming for the queen's nape.
Kiiiing- Kwang-!
Kyaaaak-
Ambushed from within the flames, where surely no living creature could survive, the mother body sensed the threat and howled fiercely. Blue-glowing lightning of ultra-high temperature followed, persistently bombarding the creature's skull and nape.
The mother body tried to find the attacker, busily rolling its ten eyeballs while shielding its nape with its long tail.
Soon, reflected in the red pupils that felt heat along their spine, was a golden fire demon charging in, aiming for its vital point.
