Chapter 110
Chapter 110
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 110
Chapter Title: Wigon Ruins (4)
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The ruins' method of gauging a challenger's strength was surprisingly crude.
It judged whether they were knights or regular soldiers. Among knights, those who had absorbed essence were detected by their distinct potent mana and rated separately—but that was the extent of it.
Mages were treated as nothing more than regular soldiers.
As such, the ruins didn't consider Arsen's unit much of a threat.
At best, twenty-six in number, with four knights among them. And among those four, just one with unusually strong mana.
In response, the ruins added only two regular giants.
It was a stroke of luck for Arsen's group.
"Push them back!"
"Uwaaaaaah!"
The soldiers and mages who had taken awakening agents formed groups of three to take on the regular giants.
Since mages' spells were largely useless against giants, they set aside their staves and fought as soldiers, wielding shields or extra weapons bare-handed.
It was easy to forget amid their usual rear-line support role, but the Star Tail mages were also rigorously trained warriors.
Their individual martial skills were actually superior even to Arsen's soldiers, who hailed from hunter backgrounds.
On top of that, the awakening agents sharpened their reflexes, allowing them to read and evade the giants' movements fairly well.
There was also support from the rear.
"Huu...."
With a slender sigh, vines began to sprout from beneath Eloise's hand.
Her plant magic diminished in power upon clashing with magic resistance, but it never vanished entirely.
A run-of-the-mill mage might fail, but Eloise possessed mana potent enough to be called a grand mage by this world's standards.
The giants' magic resistance was lower than that of knights, so they couldn't fully resist her spells.
"Krhaap!"
A soldier dashed past, slicing lightly into the giant's side.
The blow wasn't fatal in strength or placement.
Naturally, the giant lifted its foot in its standard counterattack pattern—and promptly toppled.
Eloise, who had been watching closely, had twisted its footing by thickening and tangling her vines around the planted foot.
"Now!"
"Sever the arm and fall back!"
The soldiers seized the opening, hacking off one of the fallen giant's arms before retreating.
It would have been ideal to finish it off completely, but closing in to kill risked a counterattack.
Sure enough, the giant swept its remaining arm as if swatting flies, driving the soldiers away, then slowly rose.
Anyone who had approached to kill it would have been caught and crushed by that arm.
Grayish liquid seeped into the stump of the giant's arm as it began to regenerate.
The soldiers sighed in dismay at the sight.
Regardless of the soldiers' laments, the battle was progressing decently.
Rasur had likened one giant to one knight, but giants were larger and stronger at the cost of speed.
Of course, their massive frames moved with human-like fluidity, so they weren't slow by any means—but compared to knights, they were definitely sluggish.
Thus, killing a giant was harder than killing a knight, but surviving one was easier than surviving a knight.
As long as they didn't take reckless risks to kill it.
"Ughk! Whoa! Uhaak!"
In one corner of the plaza, Maroon darted erratically between two giants, letting out bizarre shrieks.
Naturally inept at close quarters, he couldn't dream of facing two at once.
It was the price of stubbornly practicing archery whenever Arsen urged him to train in martial arts.
His glaive looked like mere decoration, but his proficiency with Jin kept him from mortal peril.
"Jeegaah!"
The second knight in the worst spot was Bazkal, whose middling skills in both combat and Jin handling left him vulnerable.
Had he abandoned fighting like Maroon and merely drawn attention, it might have been different—but his belligerent nature led him to engage, courting danger multiple times.
Fortunately, Eloise intervened each time, sparing his life.
Anun was the most skilled of the three, but he faced three giants.
Knowing full well that attacking one would draw a pincer from the others, he circled them, jabbing lightly to hold their focus.
Eloise paid little attention to Anun's side, having observed him.
In truth, her focus was fixed on one spot.
On Arsen, who fought the most precariously on this battlefield.
* * *
"Kuh!"
A ferocious strike hammered down from above. Having already dodged once, Jin's stance had crumbled, leaving evasion impossible.
Arsen raised his axe to deflect the blow sideways.
A thunderous crash and impact followed. Feeling the numbing pain throb in his shoulder, Arsen confirmed Jin had steadied on all fours, then leaped again.
A red leg immediately swept through where he had stood, followed by the sound of it charging anew.
Surprisingly, the two red giants' running speed slightly outpaced Jin's.
Then, with a bang, one giant's head exploded.
Eloise had fired an explosive spell as a deterrent.
Unfortunately, the giants charging undeterred suggested it had little effect.
Most of the impact was shrugged off by magic resistance, and the remainder barely fazed their sturdy metal frames.
To prevent needless mana waste, Arsen signaled via earring.
[I'm fine, Elli. Focus on the others.]
‘This is tough....’
One crisis after another— even with accelerated reflexes, the dizzying pace made observing surroundings nearly impossible.
Facing these two juggernauts alone had his head spinning.
Had an average knight like Bazkal or Anun been in his place, they'd have been pulverized within ten seconds.
Help was unlikely.
The knights handling two or three giants each were out of the question, and regular soldiers lacked the firepower to reduce their numbers.
These giants' magic resistance surpassed regulars', making Eloise's aid difficult too.
Arsen thus had to produce results in the direst spot, without any assistance.
‘If only I could sever that....’
His helmet's ability to see mana flows revealed the giants drawing power from the ruins, with energy from the floor animating their bodies.
But knowing didn't help him disrupt it.
He had slashed at the mana lines passing nearby, only for them to part like illusions.
In the end, Arsen pulled out an item he had been saving.
To a first-time viewer, it would seem an ugly, twisted blue crystal orb.
Learning its power would make one recoil in horror.
Known as a freezing orb, it was essentially a cold grenade.
Potent enough to briefly immobilize even knights with superior anti-magic, or freeze and kill ten-plus regular soldiers in an instant.
Its exorbitant price—one-time use yet costlier than many ancient relics—had limited him to buying just one.
‘Never thought I'd use it here.’
Activation was simple: infuse moderate mana to prime it, then hurl it for impact.
Arsen lobbed the freezing orb at the giant before him.
‘Hit!’
It flew swiftly, slowed by the barrier, then struck the giant's knee precisely as aimed.
An explosive burst of frigid air followed.
Arsen could see the red giant's legs encased in thick ice, halting even this colossal foe momentarily.
Per the merchant, it immobilized knights for 3-5 seconds.
Accounting for the giant's size, strength, and lower magic resistance, the duration shouldn't differ much.
Arsen had 3-5 seconds to kill one.
A bit more leeway given the distance.
"Charge!"
With a shout for self-hypnosis, Arsen surged toward the remaining giant.
It responded not with words but action—specifically, thrusting its right fist.
A predictable pattern at unpredictable speed.
Climbing its arm like with regulars was unthinkable, as it would be against a real knight.
Twisting his body sharply while raising both arms, Arsen watched the fist graze his chest by a hair.
The fist's sluggish pass drew an involuntary breath from him.
"Huup...."
Crisis breeds opportunity.
Eyes narrowed against the wind pressure's chill, Arsen slammed down his raised axe, severing the arm.
Superior weapon, power, speed, and mana harmony made the red limb detach limply, rolling across the ground.
‘Got it!’
The one-armed giant swung its left as a fallback, but Arsen refused it.
He swiftly circled right on Jin.
Glancing at the iced-leg giant, he saw the freezing orb's effect holding stronger than expected—it hadn't broken free.
A bit more time.
‘Better play it safe.’
Canceling his plan to leap overhead, Arsen swung low at a leg.
Thicker than the arm, he managed only three-quarters severance.
Enough to cripple it regardless.
Then, with a hiss, steam-like vapor jetted from the giant's mouth.
Cooling its heated exertion, perhaps—who knew, and it didn't matter.
Arsen's task was singular.
Strike the giant's weakness and end it.
‘The giant's weak point is....’
As it knelt from the crippled leg, Arsen leaped onto its back, putting his full weight into a mighty overhead axe strike.
Aiming for the stubby, barely exposed neck.
‘Separate head from body to kill!’
"Uwooooh!"
With his shout, the headless body crumpled.
One foe left.
Right on cue, the other shattered its leg ice and charged furiously.
As if enraged by its comrade's death.
‘Come on!’
Two had been overwhelming; one he could handle.
Arsen moved diagonally, timing a slide under the charging kick.
No rush this time—he lightly scored its planted foot with the axe's ethereal blade.
After five or six dodges targeting the right leg relentlessly, the reinforced giant faltered, dragging it as it retreated.
Red liquid welled from below for regeneration.
Seizing the gap, Arsen charged.
The giant couldn't use its leg properly now.
It thrust a long, round fist desperately, but the awkward momentum from its footing played into Arsen's hands.
"Hup!"
Dodging the sluggish attack with a side-slide, Arsen closed on the leg.
He swung at the twitching, regenerating section, severing it cleanly this time.
With a thud, the giant toppled, off-balance.
No need to give it an opening.
Arsen drove Jin forward, cleaving the recovering giant's head.
"Huu...."
Watching the giant collapse and fade, Arsen exhaled profound fatigue.
Stamina, mental strain, and repeated ethereal blade use had depleted his mana too.
No time to rest—he infused mana into Jin anew.
Time to end the fight.