Chapter 85
Chapter 85
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 85
Chapter Title: Light of Annihilation
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(85)
Jade was flustered.
"Could it be a demon with a name?"
Even for a high-ranking demon with a name, there should have been at least some reaction. Flames should have erupted, or the spot where he touched should have burned.
If it was completely wrong, there should have been some backlash that spared Jade any pain.
"What are you doing?"
Sage asked urgently.
"Maybe the affinity is just off."
Jade recited the incantation for dispelling hellfire demons and placed his hand on it. But it was just as useless.
The evil spirit dispel incantation didn't work either.
"It's not working..."
Jade muttered.
"What do you mean?"
Sage asked.
"I don't know either..."
Heldra twitched violently once. Jade, standing right in front of it, was just grazed by the motion and sent tumbling backward.
Sage collided with it too but regained her balance in midair and landed properly. Jade, however, hit the ground back-first.
For the first time, the pain from his side—protected by Sage until now—hit him without mercy. Jade nearly blacked out again.
"I was wondering what was taking so long..."
Through his hazy vision, he saw a monster in the shape of a black bull standing atop Heldra's body.
It was Vapalord.
"...So it was that guy from before. A light mage, after all?"
Heldra kept writhing, and each time, the ground shook like an earthquake, dust filling the air around them. It was thrashing to escape the invisible net of bindings.
Vapalord stood atop the shaking Heldra's body as if his soles were glued to it. He raised his chain sickle, and Sage stepped in front of Jade.
Vapalord said with amusement.
"Well, if it isn't... Even the Sage of the Dark Forest graces us."
Monsters began emerging here and there—Komoras, in elven terms—one or two at a time.
He spotted a massive rhinoceros-like Rhinodon too. Its broken horn marked it as the same one Ruby had felled, apparently fully recovered in less than a day.
Seeing several without limbs suggested quite a few Komoras had regenerated that way in the interim.
"Kill them."
At Vapalord's command, the Komoras charged all at once.
Sage gripped her staff with both hands and raised it high. Blue light spread out from her, sending the Komoras flying back en masse.
The area cleared up for a moment.
Sage lowered her staff, took a deep breath, and asked.
"Are you okay, Jade?"
Jade still couldn't speak properly.
The impact from the fall lingered, making it hard to breathe. The blue sky visible through the trees felt dizzyingly distant.
"What a frail body."
Jade pressed his hand to the ground and pushed with all his might.
"If it's too hard, just stay down for now. Forcing yourself will only strain you more."
Sage's voice remained gentle.
"I'm sorry."
Jade gave up trying to stand and lay back down.
"Is something wrong? Your dispel magic seemed to be cast correctly."
Sage asked without any hint of impatience.
The Komoras pushed back by her magic came surging again. She swung the staff in her right hand to shove away the monsters approaching from the right, while extending her left palm—staffless—to repel those on the left.
It was a light, dance-like motion, yet it sent the monsters flying farther than when Ruby swung her chain with full force.
"It's just..."
Jade panted, trying to explain to her, then closed his mouth.
"Instead of excuses, think of a solution."
Seeing that, Sage nodded.
"Right. Think it through. I'll hold them off until you do."
Sage raised her staff again.
Jade lay there staring at the sky before shutting his eyes completely.
Komora screams echoed, debris flew amid the chaos, and he recalled the dim chamber in Zerba Monastery. The phrases he had memorized and studied back then rose calmly in his mind one by one.
"Sage will hold them off. Merald will handle the rest. I'll do my part."
A mutant with five heads. Each head a different attribute.
Fundamentally, no demon possessed two or more attributes.
"Heldra was a created being. So they artificially fused attributes. Meaning, it's not one demon with five attributes—it's five demons, each with one attribute, sharing a single root body."
Dispel incantations always worked one at a time.
Five heads meant five dispel incantations.
"Sage, I got it!"
The moment Jade shouted, Heldra's lion head lunged toward Jade and Sage from above. It was like a house-sized boulder plummeting down.
Jade froze, eyes wide.
Sage immediately pointed her staff that way without hesitation. In that instant, a beam of light struck the lion's cheek.
It wasn't light from Sage's staff.
The lion's head snapped sideways and crashed to the ground. The earth shook violently.
"Is there a problem, Jade?"
Only Merald's voice came from an unseen spot.
This time, the snake head spotted Jade.
Then Merald leaped onto it from above, stabbing a dagger into its forehead.
To compare, it was like a thumb-sized armored beetle jumping down to jab a fishbone. Yet the snake head writhed in agony. Venom sprayed from its mouth in all directions.
Large globs of poison plummeted around Jade. Those hitting trees melted the wood; those on the ground scorched the soil, rising in white toxic fumes.
But not a single drop touched Jade. Sage's translucent blue barrier repelled them all.
"You figured it out? What?"
Sage asked.
Jade looked around to speak to both Sage and Merald, but he still couldn't see the latter.
Assuming Merald would hear on his own, Jade told only Sage.
"The heads are the true bodies. Not the torso."
"Five true bodies, then."
Sage understood instantly from that alone.
"Guide me to the heads."
Sage extended her hand toward the oncoming Komoras. Those in the straight line of her gesture were swept left and right.
It wasn't just an invisible force pushing them. The repelled ones were all engulfed in blue flames, rolling in agony. The same color as the flames that had enveloped the Tyrant.
Jade ran along the path she'd cleared. There lay Heldra's lion head, dangling. It had been blasted away by the light beam earlier, and now he saw a watchman's arrow embedded in its cheek.
"My god, a single arrow did that much damage?"
Jade recited the dark demon dispel incantation. The lion's eyes snapped open, pupils spinning to fix on him.
Jade unhesitatingly pressed his palm to the lion's snout.
White light erupted, snapping the lion's head back as Jade's body was flung backward too. He'd braced somewhat, but the shock was greater than expected.
"Again, theory doesn't hold. Even nameless, I thought the backlash would be light since it's huge, but it's way stronger than with Krax!"
That meant the dispel incantation had worked.
Without time to feel the pain of his bruised rear, Jade assessed the situation.
White flames spread from the lion's snout across its entire head. Gray ash scattered as the fire consumed up to the nape, halting at the torso.
The remaining four heads roared in shared agony.
"It's working!"
Jade shouted into the bushes in some random direction.
"Merald! Can you hear me? The heads are the true bodies!"
Thinking that insufficient, he was about to add, "My hand needs to touch Heldra's heads," when the snake head—perched dizzyingly high—smashed into the ground about ten paces from where Jade stood.
The earth heaved massively.
Merald rode atop the snake head. No idea what magic he'd used, but it looked like he'd stomped it down with his foot.
"What kind of magic pulls that off? Sage's seems less bizarre by comparison."
The snake head had lost consciousness entirely, eyes rolled back white.
When Jade applied the light of annihilation to its forehead, another intense backlash hurled him back. He'd braced fully and didn't tumble, but the shock persisted.
White flames caught, burning the snake head and its long neck. The other heads screamed in unison once more.
Merald gazed at the dissolving snake head with a grim expression and asked.
"Same method for the rest?"
Jade nodded curtly.
"Three left?"
Merald nodded and leaped onto a tree. He fired arrows one by one.
Each time, the eagle head and goat head thudded down before Jade in turn.
Jade burned the eagle with the hellfire demon dispel incantation, the goat with the dark demon one, methodically.
Dispelling the eagle shoved him back several forceful steps; the goat sent him flying back-first.
If Sage hadn't caught him, he'd have bashed his skull on a rock and died pointlessly.
"That's some fierce backlash."
Sage remarked.
"Probably just me being weak."
"Using an angel's magic as a human—bound to be. But it's magic worth the price."
Sage checked Jade's side. The leaf-bandage had soaked up blood, turning dark red.
"You'll need treatment again."
"After this, I'll be on porridge for days."
"If it's my porridge, those days will be blissful. Look forward to it."
"After those cookies earlier, I'm not so sure."
"Those were a bit burnt... Porridge won't be."
Jade struggled to his feet, awaiting the final fifth head.
The skull head proved stubborn. Merald seemed fatigued too, his tree-to-tree leaps noticeably slower.
When the skull head spewed purple smoke from its mouth, the Komoras Sage had barely felled all rose back up.
"Some kind of healing magic unique to it. Why not take that out first?"
Sage said reproachfully.
"Merald chose the order."
At least it was a good hint for Jade.
"Confirms the skull head is evil spirit affinity."
For Jade, charging a house-sized head was adventure enough; he wanted to nail it perfectly on the first try.
More Komoras swarmed in the meantime. Sage sighed and raised her staff.
"Are you okay?"
Jade asked worriedly.
"Not really. Not as bad as you, but my magic has backlash too."
"What kind?"
"I'm starving."
Sage repelled about thirty Komoras at once with her magic. Lacking full power, she couldn't ignite them with blue flames like before.
Whatever impossible attack Merald unleashed next, the skull head hit the ground. It felt like the strongest strike of the five.
The impact as it landed vibrated the air like a building collapsing. Cracks spiderwebbed across the skull head.
"Hope this ends it. One more, and my forearm, shoulder, or wrist—something's breaking."
Jade pressed the evil spirit light of annihilation to the skull head. It blazed up, and Jade's body was flung backward.
This time, Merald caught him from behind.
"Good work."
He said in a gruff voice.
Jade wanted nothing more than to collapse exhausted, but first he checked if his part was done.
"Heldra?"
"Dead."
Merald replied.
Through fading vision, Jade saw the massive torso—now headless—burning white.
Ash fell from the sky like snow.
"So it's over?"
Jade asked.
Merald shook his head.
"Strictly speaking, just one of hundreds of Komoras died."
Merald released Jade and nocked another arrow.
"But your job's done. Rest."
Sage approached Merald's side too.
"These Komoras aren't fleeing now that Heldra's dead."
She said, eyeing the encircling Komoras.
"Back to square one. We'll keep culling them for years to come. Meanwhile, they might make another Heldra."
Merald spoke like a worker tallying his quota.
"At least here today, I can lend a hand."
Sage said.
"Mind your age, old lady."
"I'm minding it. That's why I'll stop right here."
Sage raised her staff high and slammed it down. Blue flames erupted from her in a circle, radiating outward.
Jade realized then: all her magic so far had been mere defense. This was her true offensive spell.
Blue flames overflowed everywhere, and Merald stowed his bow without firing a shot.
At least a one-siphon radius turned into an inferno. Grass and trees were unharmed, but the Komoras alone burned and thrashed in agony.
"Haa, starving. At least cooking tonight will be worthwhile."
Sage said, watching the fleeing Komoras.