Chapter 73
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 73
Chapter Title: Invasion and Erosion (2)
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"Enemyyyy!!"
He instinctively screamed with all his might.
At the same time, countless red glints of light flashed in the once-dark forest.
"Uwaaaah!"
"Monsters! It's monsters!"
What poured out from the woods, unlike their expectations, were not human.
It was an assault by bizarre and terrifying monsters they could have never imagined.
The shield-bearing soldiers hastily raised their shields and assumed combat stances, but with the strength of ordinary men caught unprepared, it was impossible to even slow the charge.
Like infantry trampled by a full-force heavy cavalry charge, the soldiers who had hurriedly formed a defensive line were crushed by the medium-sized Legion units.
Steel armor was torn apart like paper by their claws, and steel swords couldn't penetrate their carapaces.
'This is insane.'
The Vice Director was so shocked he nearly fainted, but he clung to his senses with the instinctual thought that if he fell now, they would all be annihilated.
"Everyone, to me!"
Channeling his mana, he instantly manifested a spell, slamming his hand on the ground to cast it.
From the point his hand touched, a glowing sigil rapidly spread across the ground, enveloping the people.
"This is!"
"A high-level protection spell!"
The soldiers cheered. An advanced spell used by an executive of the Academy was just that powerful.
Indeed, the claws and poisonous stingers of the Legion units were all blocked by the translucent golden barrier, creating ripples across its surface.
"What in the world are these things...?"
"Is this the time to worry about that? Attack!"
He had to maintain the spell, so he couldn't take any other action.
Fortunately, the Academy mages who had come with him, along with a few elite soldiers including the Guard Captain, attacked the monsters from within the barrier, brandishing their own spells and mana-infused weapons.
However, the monsters, as if commanded, moved with uniform and precise movements, retreating to minimize their damage.
"Forget them, hurry and call for reinforcements!"
"Can you hear me! We need reinforcements immediately! We're under attack!"
In the meantime, they used a communication sphere to connect with the city.
They had barely managed to hold on, but they were still surrounded and couldn't move a single step.
"Everyone, stay calm. Fortunately, those monsters don't seem capable of breaking this barrier."
"Vice Director. We definitely heard reports of an anomaly in the labyrinth."
"...You're right. Perhaps these things came out of the labyrinth."
During the brief standoff, he glared at the creatures, cold sweat trickling down his face.
They were too alien, too strange to be simple monsters.
'Are they even living creatures?'
Having encountered all sorts of now-obsolete magical weapons like golems, he found something familiar in the appearance of these black monsters.
Too quiet and alien for living beings, these creatures felt less like beasts and more like magical weapons moving on command.
"Huh?"
"Is that a person...? A girl?"
And at that moment, a stir broke out among those guarding the rear, not the front where he was focused.
'A girl?'
He didn't even have time to turn and look in his confusion.
A small female figure appeared, parting the monsters, and raised a sword made of crimson ore.
"No way! A sword..."
The Guard Captain who saw it was horrified, but a merciless cleaving strike was unleashed first.
The crimson wave of power crashed into the barrier, causing a massive explosion.
"Kuhuk..."
The barrier he had painstakingly maintained was shattered in a single blow, and the backlash sent the Vice Director collapsing to the ground, coughing up blood.
"They're c-coming!"
"Block them!"
Before he could even regain his senses, the monsters charged at them once more, now that the barrier was gone.
Screams, shouts, the clash of weapons, and the sound of flesh being pierced, sliced, and splattering blood.
These were sounds common to any battlefield.
The only peculiar thing was that all those sounds came only from their side.
The desperate screams and death rattles of their allies, contrasted with the sight of monsters charging toward pointed spears and swords without a hint of hesitation, drastically crushed their fighting spirit and morale.
'I was foolish. So foolish.'
The Vice Director, writhing on the ground like an insect, cursed his own stupidity.
If these were enemies that could be stopped by a single protection spell from someone of his caliber, the Moonlit Fairies would never have pleaded for salvation.
"Vice Director?! Vice Director!"
He crawled on the ground, reaching for a crystal sphere that had fallen.
In the overturned crystal sphere, an Academy staff member left behind in the city was shouting urgently toward the ground in a panic.
"...You, no, you bitch..."
But the moment he reached for it, the crystal sphere was crushed underfoot.
A monstrous foot with sharp claws. His gaze traveled up from it to see a masked woman in black armor looking down at him, her short black hair swaying.
"Fine. Let's end this."
Sensing defeat and total annihilation, he pushed his aching body up.
At the same time, he channeled his mana to prepare a spell. A technique akin to self-destruction, mobilizing and simultaneously overloading all the mana in his body.
'I have to at least take these things, no, that monster bitch down with me.'
He had already given up on living. There were hardly any people left fighting around him.
Even when some gave up and begged for their lives, these black beasts mercilessly snuffed them out.
"My skills may only be those of a mid-level manager in a minor Academy department, but this strike will be hard to block."
It was an attack into which a mage poured his entire life of magic, his very life included.
The air around him warped from his mana.
'I'll thin their numbers as much as possible here. That's the only way the city can hold out. There are only a few hundred of them; with proper defenses, they can be stopped.'
As blood trickled from his eyes, nose, and mouth, he aimed the completed spell forward.
It was Flame Burst, a high-level spell from the Blakeil Academy, which specialized in fire-based combat magic and was known for its firepower.
Overloaded to more than double its power, a pillar of fire erupted, illuminating the dark forest as if it were day.
'Did it work?'
As the spell incinerated even his own body, he saw his opponent generate a crimson barrier around herself before he was thrown backward.
"What... what are you..."
The forest was silent once more. The only sound was the crackling of burning trees and grass.
With one arm completely burnt away, he lay spread-eagled on the ground, swallowing his pain as he stared blankly at the brightly shining moon and muttered.
'Still, I got rid of a lot of the others...'
The red glint of light from within the mask looking down at him remained unchanged. There wasn't even a scorch mark.
His heart sank at the sight, but most of the other monsters had been vaporized by his spell.
Though he was the one lying on the ground in a wretched state, he grinned, feeling as if he had won.
"You were... planning to attack the city, weren't you? Heh, with just a few dozen... it'll be impossible. You foolish... creatures of an ancient labyrinth..."
He chuckled, mustering his last bit of strength to mock his opponent. Whether she understood or not didn't matter.
"Soon... the reinforcements... will crush you..."
"..."
His opponent raised her sword. He chuckled and nodded as if he had expected it.
Still, his mind was at ease. He felt he had done what he needed to do.
And so, he prepared to meet his end with pride, upholding the honor and dignity of a mage.
"How amusing."
"...It can't be."
"You've accomplished nothing, you vermin."
But his final moments were cruelly trampled.
Just as another masked being mocked him in human language, emerging from the darkness with long, flowing black hair.
And just as he saw hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of monsters burst forth around it, their presence making the air and ground tremble as they streaked across the sky and land, heading straight for the city.
A sword flew at his neck, decapitating him in a single stroke, his world stained with deep emptiness and despair.
*
[The dispatched Legion units are heading to the city. Is your purpose invasion, war, and consumption?]
"No."
The Legion smirked as it watched its soldiers charge forward.
The battle just now wasn't a simple hunt.
It was the first engagement with the natives. The Legion, an invader by nature, had experienced such wars countless times.
And it had grown through them. The recent battle was merely a taste, a test to gauge the natives' level.
"The prisoner worthy of capture self-destructed... but it doesn't matter."
[Did you not intend to learn their advanced magic?]
"There are plenty of mages. And plenty... of time."
The Legion ground its foot into the dirt floor.
In the first place, the true goal of the Legion, having grown this much, was not something as simple as war.
'I will devour everything in this forest, everything I can see right now, everything in this world.'
The Legion's true objective was not invasion, but erosion.
While they were distracted dealing with the Legion units, who were nothing more than teeth and claws.
The Legion planned to devour this world, down to the last ant.
[With that nourishment, more Legion units will be produced, and their resistance will be crushed.]
The first step had already been taken. The soil beneath the Legion's feet gradually began to turn black.
It meant that the erosion that had started in the labyrinth was now beginning to consume its surroundings.