297 Price to pay
Seconds ago,
Silvus, who was watching Farnus, who was going to pierce through the black stone and end the monster, suddenly felt a strange mana connection between the two burning flames and the monster become unstable.
It was as if the flames were being attracted towards the monster.
The flow of the mana instantly got reversed, and Silvus immediately looked upwards, all he saw was Farnus holding his spear without moving.
Due to his mana sensitivity, Silvus felt the presence of the Peak SSS Rank Monster disappear seconds ago, as soon as he saw the strange mana connection with the Eye of the Archmage skill.
It disappeared as if it was an illusion the whole time.
It happened so suddenly that Silvus didn't bother to think too hard because, the next moment, the Puppet Monsters suddenly exploded.
And the result wasn't good at all, as Declan and Watson Family's SSS Rank Hunter, being the closest ones, suffered due to the instant explosion.
Both of them tried to step away, but it happened all too quickly for them to move.
But Dexter came in between and used a rune shield; the damage was done as he looked at the half-torn leg of the Watson Family's SSS Rank Hunter.
Blood was coming out, and the bones became visible, and the remnant of blue flame was visible on the wound.
A excruciating pain took over, but they had no time to react as even Declan, who had multiple burns and a wound near the side of his stomach, looked above as they felt a concentrating amount of mana in one place.
The fumes started gathering as they all could guess what was about to happen.
Core explosion was the term given when a being tried to overload its mana core and cause an explosion of the compressed and dense mana.
Only a monster would do it as a last resort if they felt they were about to die.
Doing so wasn't possible for any human because of the way their bodies work.
And the amount of mana that a human and a monster possessed was way too different for it to work the same way it worked for the monsters.
And forcing your mana core ultimately led to excruciating amounts of pain and damaged mana meridians, making the hunter a cripple for life.
The explosion that happened wasn't too big, as most of the energy from the flames was transferred above.
Silvus saw countless dense mana threads wrapping around themselves as he saw the Black Stone, which Farnus broke with his spear, melt.
"Move from there!" Silvus shouted, alerting everyone.
"It's a core explosion," Silvus said as his amber eyes shined.
Hearing him, Osbert grabbed Declan, who was too injured, and Dexter did the same for the Watson Family's SSS Rank Hunter.
Xarax and Silvus were moving away as well when Silvus looked upwards and saw Farnus still standing, still lost in his thoughts.
"FARNUS, MOVE!" Silvus shouted, amplifying his voice with mana.
All of them were running away from the center of the Core Explosion, as stopping the rampant and chaotic energy in that area was impossible.
Your strength needed to be more than double that of the monster to be able to suppress the core explosion altogether.
Hearing Silvus's amplified voice, Farnus came to his senses when he saw a ball of black energy form beneath him.
His eyes widened as he realized what was going to happen.
But it was a little too late as Farnus was the closest one to the center point of the Core explosion.
"Block it," Dexter said out loud as every single one of them turned.
Right now, most of them were exhausted, as they had fought for more than a month, only Dexter was the one here that had the most mana.
And so he used almost all that remained, as all of them blocked it from six different directions.
A mana shield that was wrapped with the aura of 5 SSS Rank Hunters, Silvus's mana that was encasing the auras was keeping the black energy that was about to devour everything in its path from leaking out.
But the problem happened with Farnus, who was too close to the explosion, as he turned, he was the only one who was closest to the sphere of black energy that had blue burning flames flowing all around it.
He stretched his hand forward as his Golden Lightning Aura started getting absorbed by the explosion.
To stop this explosion, they needed to suppress it with their own mana and absorb the explosion right there.
Because even if they lived by escaping, half of Belvoria would get destroyed, and it wasn't an option.
Farnus's Rune started glowing as he felt its power draining quickly, and his eyes became much duller than before.
The Crown of Light started to break as small cracks were appearing all around it.
He was about to run out of energy soon enough, and he needed to hold on till the explosion was taken care of.
CRACK!
Cracks started appearing in the Encasing Shield, and black energy started to seep out, and Farnus, being the closest, became vulnerable to that energy.
His aura was nullifying the black energy, but it wasn't normal energy that could be nullified so easily.
It was pure destructive black energy that started seeping through his aura slowly.
It wasn't much in the beginning, but as all of them held on, Farnus noticed the black energy seeping through his fingertips.
Farnus increased his mana and pushed himself even further as he pushed back the black energy and started strengthening the encasing shield.
"Hold on," Dexter shouted, as they couldn't let this energy explode outside.
They needed to brace the impact themselves and make sure they themselves didn't get hurt, but the amount of power they had left wasn't much.
A few were even thinking of leaving, and one of them was Osbert.
'Should I use it?' Osbert thought as his hair fluttered as he kept using his aura just like the others.
Even if Belvoria was destroyed, the threat to their lives, which were the SSS Rank Monsters, were already dead.
And a few more had similar thoughts, but they were waiting, as they couldn't leave too early. They still had the chance to handle this situation, and that was why Osbert didn't outright leave first.
Because if he did, the consequences of doing so would make him the enemy of other SSS Rank Hunters.
And that is why he was waiting.
Waiting for the situation to get even worse, and he could escape, saying that it was his last resort.
"Push it back," Silvus told them, as he increased his Silver mana, and his hands started to shake.
And it wasn't just him; many of them were holding on as they were pushing themselves to pour out even more mana.
Multiple artifacts appeared on their wrists, fingers, and necks, as they used them to increase their mana slightly.
It wasn't a situation where they could hold off and hide their artifacts.
Crack.....
"Little more," Dexter said as his runes wrapped around the large black sphere.
All of them were safe, but one man was paying the price for his carelessness.
It was none other than Farnus.
Farnus's eyes looked at both of his wrists that had gotten affected by the black energy.
His skin started to turn darker as he could feel the pain running through his body.
His mana was trying to fight the black energy, but he was too busy handling the sphere that he couldn't properly protect himself.
His rune started to shine as lines and symbols appeared on his hands, and it made the growing black energy slower.
Knowing that the damage might be too much, Farnus decided to remove his right hand and use only his left to attract the black energy.
The Black sphere started compressing a little as all Seven SSS Rank Hunters poured their mana and auras to suppress it.
Little by little they were pushing it, but the cracks kept appearing and more energy would be needed to fix them.
'Just a little more,' Silvus thought as he controlled his trembling hands.
His mana right now was healing the encasing shield, and he was making sure that the cracks were getting healed.
And it happened: as they started suppressing the black sphere, the moment of explosion came as it became smaller.
And the black energy became much calmer than before.
Suddenly the rampant energy had calmed down, but it was the silence before the storm.
It became much slower as every single one of them got ready to embrace the impact.
Boom
The small blob of black energy suddenly erupted as a massive mana wave went out, and all of them tried to contain the main explosion, ignoring the mana wave.
The encasing shield started to crack as the black energy shot out and even clashed with some of them, but they ignored it and tried to embrace the impact.
Several wounds appeared on their bodies, but they kept holding on.
And they were successful, but they paid the price as almost all of them had severe injuries, and it was done by the energy of two Mid SSS Rank Hunters' combined cores.
These types of wounds weren't something that could be healed easily either.
A silence fell on the battlefield as all of them descended down, or more clearly, fell to the ground as they didn't have the energy to float in the air anymore.
Only Farnus and Dexter were the ones that somehow managed to land on their feet.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶