Kwaaang-!
Black sparks collided hard with the mother body's breath as it came head-on. The tip of that intense mana narrowly missed the creature's nape.
The high-voltage current that left the caster's hand instead pierced the mother body's left foot as it tried to block the attack. It looked like it would regenerate soon, twitching, but the flesh had been burned so thoroughly that it seemed it would take far longer to recover than when it had merely been torn.
Leonardo instantly moved to the underside of the mother body, avoiding the blooming poison needles flying toward his eyes. Then, gripping fierce sparks in his hand that seemed like they might devour even his own body, he charged at full speed toward the regrown tail.
Perhaps because it had been cut off once before, the area around the creature's tail was covered in a transparent membrane. Seeing this, Leonardo immediately teleported to the rear of the mother body. Eyes flashing like lightning, he seized his resolve and used the momentum of his charge to plunge the tip into the nape.
Pajijijik-
However, the decisive blow missed the vital point again. Poison needles had shot up in haste amid the violently scattering sparks. Leonardo, forced into a stopgap, swung his arm to cut the sharp thorns in two, gaining only a small result before firing lightning once more to open distance.
Leaving the ferocious roar behind, he concealed himself in the scattering ash and smoke. Then, circling rapidly around the mother body, he waited quietly for the next opening.
As the shadow appeared and vanished in a repeated shimmer, the highly sensitized monster raised its protrusions and increased its flight speed. It was trying not to give him time to aim—and also seemed to be hunting for a chance to strike back.
If he kept hiding and pouring out ranged attacks like this, he could damage parts of the body right away, but the creature was now using all sorts of parts to shield only its vital points. In this situation, if he kept attacking with dulled accuracy, the creature's vigilance would only rise, and the openings would gradually disappear—with a high chance he would tire first instead.
Well aware of that, Leonardo watched the queen's movements while holding his breath, staying cautious. He’d set a goal of drawing out maximum mana with minimal attempts, but that resolve didn’t last long. Unfortunately, at that moment, the area under his left eye began to twitch.
Frowning hard on reflex, he widened the distance from the mother body a little more. Then, after completely extinguishing the sparks jumping in his hand, he pressed his palm firmly against his eye where he felt the unpleasant tremor.
'Damn... is the paralysis coming already?'
He tried to stay composed, but in truth, anxiety was creeping in. It had been unstable before, and now the symptoms of poisoning were starting to show.
Leonardo bit his lip hard and rubbed his left shoulder and neck roughly with his right hand. Then he clearly felt the sensation there, undeniably dulled. Worse, even blood circulation seemed to have slowed—his actual response speed was about 0.5 seconds slower than what his head perceived.
As expected, the Degalianif Agrizendro had possessed was far too small in quantity to neutralize the poison poured into his shoulder. Even though he’d applied the crushed herb to the wound, it only slightly slowed the spread, with little effect on detoxification.
Proof was the severe ringing in his left ear and the tingling sensation—like insects crawling under his skin—that had been lingering around the affected area since earlier. And if even the area under his eye was twitching, then the blood feeding his brain might already have been invaded by the poison.
Before coming out, he had hurriedly searched around the collapsing fortress, but whether it had been buried under the fallen stones, he couldn’t find even a single tuft of grass like Degalianif. Ironically, the only fortunate thing—if it could be called that—was that the paralysis symptoms were gradually dulling the pain in his ribs.
"...Shit. What's fortunate about this."
Leonardo, who had been staring into space, let out a tense laugh at his own attempt to find hope in the worst situation.
At this rate, he might be chewed up by that maw before he could take the creature down. The paralysis seemed to have reached his head, scrambling it.
Tok, todok-
At that moment, small droplets suddenly fell from the sky, brushing his eyes and the bridge of his nose. Looking up on instinct, he saw the sky now packed with clouds that, at a ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) glance, held heavy moisture.
The thickening raindrops slowly subdued the inferno on the burning earth and coldly soaked the heads and faces of countless people.
And in that moment, Leonardo instinctively shifted his gaze to the mother body facing the commanders.
Flames were still rising from the gaps in the creature's hide, constantly evaporating the falling rain. But the moisture didn’t vanish on contact. Small droplets were gathering one by one, slowly soaking the surface of the hide—and as the rain intensified, the wet area actually spread wider.
As Hugo quietly observed the creature, a plan suddenly occurred to him.
'If the mother body's entire body gets soaked in the rain...'
He calmly shaped the thought, then transformed the greatsword in his hand into a thin, long ice spear. He deployed a magic circle high in the sky to double the rainfall only within a certain radius.
Raindrops falling from the clouds met the water generated by the magic circle and merged mid-air, soon becoming a thicker, heavier downpour that quickly soaked the ground.
Feeling something off as the sudden heavy rain poured down, the mother body also looked up. When the blue magic circle that had briefly appeared between the clouds shimmered faintly, the creature sensed danger and immediately flapped its wings wide, trying to escape the circle’s radius.
At that moment, Isabella, receiving Hugo's signal, charged toward the direction the mother body's head was facing. As she clenched her hands and formed a dark, murky poison liquid, the mother body hesitated for a moment before quickly changing direction.
The battalion commanders with swords stepped forward in turn, threatening the creature's vital points and blocking its retreat head-on. From below, members fired reorganized shells to prevent the mother body from dropping to the ground.
Forced to keep circling mid-air, the queen beat its wings continuously and became thoroughly soaked by the fierce rain. Gas and flames were still spewing from gaps in its hide, but perhaps under the downpour’s pressure, their intensity wasn’t as strong as before.
Hugo, who had been deliberately hiding his presence and watching, noticed the water vapor around the creature had subsided. He immediately fired a mana-infused flare above his head, made eye contact with the battalion commanders, and vanished from that spot.
As blue light suddenly flashed in the gloomy sky, the mother body's eyeballs reflexively turned toward it. Then, as if sensing something was about to happen, the creature not only raised its protrusions sharply—it split its skull as well.
Three small, snake-like monsters crawled out of the gap, raising their heads stiffly as if searching for presences. And at that moment, sensing a sharply honed chill, the monsters rolled their eyeballs upward.
A figure gripping an ice spear was closing in fast from not too far away. The writhing monsters sprang up as if they meant to bite off his limbs on the spot.
But Hugo, anticipating this, didn’t dodge the tentacles on their elongating necks. Instead, he waited until they were right in front of his face, then spoke a spell at the last possible moment.
"Freeze."
The mother body's hide, soaked through with rainwater, suddenly hardened as if time had stopped. The creature's eyeballs froze in an instant; they couldn’t roll left or right, only stare straight ahead. In that instant, Meterion and Isabella, who had been silently following on either side of Hugo, revealed themselves.
The three humans raised spear, sword, and sickle without hesitation. Then, just before the mother body was released from the freezing, they sliced off the creature's protrusions in a single stroke.
The three small monsters with their maws wide open were also pierced in a straight line by the flying ice spear. Spewing bizarre fluids, they were split vertically in two and died instantly.
Kyaaaak-!
In that brief moment, with all its protrusions—its eyes and ears—carved away, the mother body let out a pain-filled, monstrous cry and vented heat from its entire body. The ice coating its surface melted, and the creature, now free to move, began to whip its tail and claws frantically, almost crazed.
The battalion commanders who had rushed in retreated, barely avoiding the unleashed blows. Hugo also opened distance quickly by bursting an air sphere in front of him and riding its recoil.
And then, sudden heat washed over his back. Scorching flame energy swept past Hugo’s side before he could even turn.
"Everyone, get out of the way!"
The instant Leonardo's voice cut through, a flashing diagonal line struck down from the sky.
Golden lightning descending along the raindrops slammed directly into the mother body's head.
