Chapter 203: The Best Course of Action
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 203: The Best Course of Action
It was a dire situation with no apparent way out.
The Golden Goblin harbored a blind malice toward adventurers, and that hatred, from a source unknown, had summoned a catastrophe.
Monsters erupted from every direction.
These were the monsters of the Ancient Ruins, the most dangerous area on the 6th Floor.
"They're coming!!!"
Freya shouted as she cast a barrier.
In an instant, a barrier manifested to protect me, Helena, and Freya herself.
It was a translucent shield, likely created by Freya pushing her current divine power to its absolute limit.
Immediately after, a tide of monsters crashed against the translucent barrier. Hundreds of indigenous species from the ruins revealed their filthy desires, intent on shattering the shield to feast on human flesh and blood.
The will to kill humans.
I could feel their obsession with devouring our meat.
These crazed monsters showed no intention of giving up. They seemed to know neither fear nor dread.
Blind murderous intent and gluttony were the only things governing them.
"I am preparing a bombardment! You two, buy me some time!"
Helena shouted as she watched the wave of countless monsters.
She said the number of rushing monsters was beyond imagination and that she needed time to prepare the magic to sweep them away.
The mage was going for an area-of-effect spell.
I had to buy her as much time as possible.
"You fucking bastards!"
From inside the barrier, it was possible to attack outward.
The moment the barrier was established, I pulled a weapon from my inventory and swung it at the charging monsters.
A spear was best. If they got too close, they might grab the weapon and pull me out, so I had to thrust the spear while maintaining maximum distance.
"Kieeeeek—!!!"
I drove the spear into the face of a Dungeon Crawler that was pounding on the barrier with both arms.
Dungeon Crawlers were the most common creatures in the ruins. While they were the weakest monsters there, they were dangerous because of their extreme numbers and the low probability of contracting the Curse of Transformation if bitten.
Even more horrific was their trait of Kin Cohesion—a god-awful tendency to keep swarming toward places where their own kind gathered.
Those eyeless bastards would sense the screams of their kin through sound and rush in like madmen.
"Oh no! It's a Watcher!!!"
Freya’s scream was ear-piercing.
A Watcher had finally made its appearance.
They immediately fired beams of light at the barrier, and Freya’s shield began to crack.
The output was different from when she was a Saintess.
Freya had grown weaker, and the barrier that once blocked the attacks of a Demon King was now on the verge of being shattered by the monsters of the 6th Floor.
CRASH—!!!
I had feared it might happen, and it actually did.
To be fair, the fact that she had held off this many enemies alone was impressive enough, but...
Through the gap in the broken barrier, a long arm suddenly snaked inside.
It was the arm of a Detector. The creature made a strange metallic sound as it pried the cracked barrier wider. Through the opening, Dungeon Crawlers and two Corpse Gargoyles crawled in at incredible speed.
"Sion! Block them!"
Freya shouted.
She immediately repaired the barrier, but monsters had already made it inside.
Just blocking the Watcher's attacks and repairing the broken barrier seemed to be pushing her to her limits.
"Kieeeeek!!!"
"Oh, for fuck's sake."
The Dungeon Crawlers lunged at me.
These things had a habit of preying on humans, so they targeted me first.
However, the Corpse Gargoyles were different.
They ignored me and rushed toward Freya and Helena.
Corpse Gargoyles were monsters that crawled out all over the 6th Floor, capable of infinitely repairing themselves using nearby corpses or stones. Usually, they stayed still, but they had a habit of swarming toward any disturbance.
They were incredibly troublesome because they would inevitably resurrect unless their core was destroyed.
The only silver lining was that their bodies were relatively fragile.
"Shit!!!"
I dropped the spear and pulled out a mace.
They were the swift Corpse Frost Leopards of the ruins.
Though they were extremely fast, their bodies were haphazardly put together, making blunt force trauma effective.
"Get off me, you bastards!!"
I used the Hypercube to shake off the Dungeon Crawlers clinging to me, then grabbed the body of a Corpse Gargoyle that was trying to crush Freya and hurled it in the opposite direction.
"Kieeeek!!"
"Get lost!!!"
Dungeon Crawlers that the Hypercube hadn't managed to cover bit into me and hung on, but I didn't have the luxury of dealing with all of them right now.
Helena and Freya couldn't be allowed to fall.
Even if I got bitten, I wouldn't succumb to the Curse of Transformation anyway, so I just had to endure it.
Relying on the Giant's Stomach, I pulled out and chewed on monster corpses endlessly as I ran toward the Corpse Gargoyles.
‘They must not reach Freya and Helena.’
Helena was preparing her magic, and if Freya went down, the barrier would shatter completely, leading to our annihilation.
Therefore, I had to be the one to stop them at all costs.
It wasn't impossible. Though they moved erratically to catch adventurers off guard, I had the Demon Eye Moira had given me.
‘I can see their movements.’
Their forms were bizarre. With bodies made of everything from dead Dungeon Crawlers to mismatched arms and legs that looked human, it was difficult to discern where or how they would attack. However, the Demon Eye of Insight made me perceive every single one of their strikes.
My head felt like it was going to explode.
The moment the Demon Eye was activated, information from all directions flooded into my mind.
"Uwaaaaah!!!"
Letting out a battle cry, I dodged a flying blade and smashed a mace into what appeared to be a leg, knocking the creature off balance.
As the lead Corpse Gargoyle fell, it fired sharp stone shards at me. Before I could even dodge, a second Corpse Gargoyle swung a double-edged battle axe downward.
I had to take one of the hits.
To minimize the damage, I decided to catch the battle axe and store it in my Subspace Pocket while allowing the stone shards to hit.
"Guh...!"
My body trembled from the stone shards digging into my back, but I caught the battle axe that had been aimed at my skull.
The second Corpse Gargoyle stood there awkwardly, seemingly dazed by the sudden theft of its weapon.
I pulverized it with my mace, then swung the stolen battle axe down on the first Corpse Gargoyle as it tried to stand back up.
CLANG!!!
Inside the bisected torso of the Corpse Gargoyle, I saw a wriggling core.
It was a strangely shaped magic stone.
Or rather, a magic stone with tentacles growing out of it.
Those tentacles must be what pulled in nearby corpses or building debris to form a body.
"Die, you piece of shit!"
I crushed it under my foot before it could resurrect.
I did the same to the second Corpse Gargoyle.
Crazy bastards.
I didn't expect such minor enemies to be this exhausting.
The Dungeon Crawlers constantly clinging to me made the fight even harder.
"Sion, it is done! Fall back now!"
"Wait, what!?"
While I was frantically stabbing the faces of the remaining Dungeon Crawlers with a sword, Helena grabbed the scruff of my neck and yanked me back.
As I was thrown backward, I saw Helena fire lightning from her mouth.
‘Holy shit.’
She had said she’d grown enough to use up to the 6th Circle without any trouble, and now, the 6th Circle electric magic, Lightning Shock, erupted from Helena's mouth.
Right, the trump card used to kill the Bunnyman when we were trapped in the Labyrinth with Lady Leah was a scroll of Lightning Shock.
The magic that had saved my life once before was now erupting again. Endlessly.
"Wow."
She was rapid-firing lightning.
I saw the Watchers that had been flying toward us get hit by the concentrated fire and forced back.
‘So this is why she told me to buy time.’
Helena was firing 6th Circle magic without incantations and without any delay.
She had even anchored her arms and legs into the ground like a turret, bombarding the entire perimeter with 6th Circle spells.
Was this her full power?
I didn't know. But one thing was certain: she had been hiding her true skill back in the Snake Nest.
"Sion! What are you doing? Stop staring and get up!"
"Freya, are you okay?"
"I'm fine! I'm perfectly fine! More importantly, drop your weapon! You can't change the situation with melee attacks! Use your head! That's what you're best at!"
Freya, who was maintaining the Holy Barrier with all her might, shouted while fluttering her wings.
‘The best course of action I can take right now.’
Melee attacks?
They were practically meaningless now.
If this were a battle against a single powerful entity, my close-quarters combat would matter.
But what we had to face now were all the monsters in the ruins.
My martial arts were optimized for boss battles.
In a war of attrition like this, they couldn't produce significant results.
Even if I killed Dungeon Crawlers one by one with a spear, more monsters would replenish the ranks faster than I could cull them.
In times like this, it was most ideal to rely on a mage's area-of-effect spells.
The problem was that Mana Eaters were starting to gather, drawn by the scent of the magical power Helena was scattering.
Once the Mana Eaters converged here, they would start devouring the 6th Circle magic.
After they finished eating that, they would start gnawing on Freya’s Holy Barrier.
If a gap appeared in the barrier, the Dungeon Crawlers would crawl in, and a Detector would surely use its signature hardened hands to tear the opening wide, just like before.
Not to mention the Watchers. If more monsters gathered here, Helena and Freya would eventually run out of strength.
That was the worst-case scenario.
So, what I had to do now was help Helena’s high-output magic target only the high-risk monsters of the ruins.
I had to clear out the trash mobs and buy time for Freya and Helena to rest.
That was the best course of action I could take.
The answer was already decided.
The moment I saw the piles of monster corpses, I realized what I had to do.
"Summon."
I would summon the monsters of the Snake Nest.
If the enemy pushed with numbers, I had no choice but to respond with numbers of my own.