Grendel Mountains (2)
Grendel Mountains.
It was said to be the place where, long ago, an injured White Dragon came down from the heavens to rest.
A tale from centuries past, and a rather old one at that.
The White Dragons were guardians of the sky, beings blessed with divine power; whenever a rift opened to the demon realm, they personally stepped in to close it, and so they belonged to the order of guardian dragons.
That duty was passed down through the White Dragon bloodline from generation to generation. It was as much their fate as it was their life.
And that fate, too, was inherited by her.
“T-there it is! I can see the mountains!”
Which was why she never came down from the mountains.
Because the rift she was meant to close existed there, and because deep within that place lay the world’s rift—something that could never truly be sealed.
People called her a Heavenly Demon, and since she crushed anyone who dared approach the mountain’s core, they also called her the damned Grendel Mountain Brute.
But the reason she truly became famous was—
-Swoooooooooosh…!
The war between humans and beastfolk that had taken place a hundred years ago.
[“Get out of this mountain, all of you…!”]
The horrific conflict known as the race war, in which millions died and bled for the territory that sustained their lives, had been brought to an end by none other than her alone.
Hundreds of dragons captured by humans.
Powerful beast-type monsters that had allied themselves with the beastfolk.
She had trampled every last one of them by herself, declaring that if this war did not end, she would wipe out both humans and beastfolk alike.
...Here it comes.
I knew that story.
And I also knew that, if you excluded the Great Sages who had moved beyond the concept of mortals, she was strong enough to stand against the Demon King of the demon race, the Swordmaster of the Ailes Empire, and the entire order of Heretic Inquisitors from the Holy Order.
If she was in the form of a child, then words could be made to work.
But that was only if you could get her to talk first.
So then…
I’d have to block the first attack.
Magic barriers won’t work on her. In the end, I’ll have to stop it head-on.
Heavenly Demon Footwork - Shrinking Earth
Attribute: Physical / Range: None / Maximum Targets: 1
Special Trait: A unique footwork technique that folds space; it is the physical equivalent of flash movement.
-Thud!
I got off the train and leapt into the air.
The jump was so powerful it shattered the ground beneath me, and the shockwave alone was enough to devastate everything around the train except the train itself.
With that sheer kinetic force, I could probably carve a crater several kilometers wide.
But that wasn’t enough.
I’ll avoid a head-on clash.
In my current state, I’d lose in a contest of raw power.
I already knew that my efficiency and hers were on completely different levels when it came to technique mastery.
If I could take one unit of force and multiply it by ten, she could take that same unit and multiply it by a hundred.
My body was far weaker than before; in my original state, this wouldn’t have been much of a problem, but right now I was at a disadvantage.
Heavenly Demon Divine Art, Second Form — Ghost Kick
Attribute: Physical / Range: 50m / Maximum Targets: 1~50
Special Trait: Unavoidable
Can only be used while Shrinking Earth is active; unleashes sharp kicks at every enemy within 50 meters ahead.
...But you won’t be able to dodge this.
So I chose to attack from behind.
With speed so absurd it looked like teleportation, I moved behind the “brute” descending from the sky.
“Hah!”
And then I struck.
I didn’t try to subdue her halfheartedly.
I attacked with the resolve to kill her with this one blow, to kill her with every single strike.
-KWAANG…!!!
...Blocked.
I’d been aiming to sever her neck on the first strike, but as if it were only natural, she perfectly blocked my kick with the exact same technique.
The shockwave that exploded in the sky shook the entire area, and only the train continued forward, swaying precariously.
“Ha, so you’re not one to go down easily, huh?”
I glared at the brute who had blocked my attack.
【 Grendel Mountain Brute - ‘Mares’ Lv.500(★★)】
I was already in a boss fight.
This wasn’t just some field boss; she had entered a state like an awakened Demon King or a fallen hero in a story.
“...What is this? How are you using the same technique as me?”
“Who knows. It just ended up becoming usable somehow.”
The brute—no, Mares—said while staring at me.
She seemed a little surprised that I’d used the same technique as her.
Good, so talking does work? Maybe if I drink that age-regression potion like last time, I can get through this safely—
-Pow!
“Ghk…?!”
But only for a moment.
I barely managed to block the fist aimed at my stomach by a hair’s breadth. In Novel Online, if you approached enemies in the form of a child, they wouldn’t become hostile.
...Then why?
There’s a hairline crack in the arm I used to block it…?
The attack just now had been packed with killing intent so intense that a direct hit would have been dangerous.
Thanks to that, the arm I used to block it had cracked, but that was nothing I couldn’t heal in an instant, so it wasn’t really an injury.
“You’re one to talk. Wasn’t it your rule not to attack children?”
“...”
Mares said nothing and just kept staring at me.
“Tch.”
She was still hostile.
Her reaction was different from what I’d expected, and that made things annoying.
Originally, I’d planned to talk my way through the mountain without much of a fight, but for some reason she was still treating me as an enemy even after seeing me in this childlike form.
Why? It definitely worked like this last time.
-♬
Then a small message appeared before my eyes.
“What the—”
I didn’t know whether this kind of status window had even existed before.
But thanks to it, I finally understood why Mares kept treating me as hostile.
Warning: Mares does not recognize you as a child. (Reason: your chest is bigger than hers.)
That’s insane. All because of something like that?
I glanced once at Mares’s upper body.
There was a cliff there.
A cliff so bleak, so tragic, so pitiful that I almost wondered whether it had somehow caved inward instead. It was an absurdly steep drop that made me want to avert my eyes.
No... actually, I guess that’s enough to make sense?
Seeing that, I sort of understood.
In my field of vision, it was honestly at a level where Rain looked bigger.
“Get out of this mountain…!”
“Tch! So I’m not getting through this peacefully, huh!”
In the end, Mares’s fierce attacks rained down on me.
While I blocked each and every one of them, I could tell that if this turned into a pure close-quarters brawl, I’d lose out in firepower.
“You asked for this yourself!”
-Crackle!
“...!”
So, no choice. Plan change.
Dozens of magic circles unfolded behind me.
Silence — Support Magic
Giga Graviton — Area Magic
Dark Erosion — Debuff Magic
Venom Erosion — Debuff Magic
Slow — Debuff Magic
Bind — Debuff Skill
Physical Ability Down — Debuff Magic
Mental Strength Down — Debuff Magic
And dozens more debuff spells beyond that—every weakening effect I knew was unleashed, one after another.
These weren’t simple attack spells, but magic that stripped away the enemy’s abilities. I sent all of them toward Mares.
“Cough!”
Mares coughed up blood.
There. This definitely works.
No matter how strong you were, no matter if you were immune to some status effects, layering them all like this made it hard to endure.
Next comes—
If I had some kind of mana-canceling technique that could dispel magic, maybe things would be different, but as a Heavenly Demon—the ultimate class of a martial artist—I couldn’t simply neutralize everything at once.
-Crizzzzzz…!!!
A massive blue magic circle spread across the sky.
6-Star Magic - Wind Punishment
Attribute: Wind / Range: Unmeasurable / Maximum Targets: Unmeasurable
Special Trait: Unavoidable
A powerful wind spell that blows away everything within range for as long as it lasts.
That created an opening.
A Heavenly Demon could detect and destroy the “formula” that sustained a spell by reading the flow of air or energy.
But if dozens of curses were eating away at her body like this, it would take time to analyze and dispel them.
“You should get lost here too!”
Heavenly Demon Divine Art, First Form — Fist
Attribute: Physical / Range: 100m / Maximum Targets: 1~100
Channeling qi into my fist, I unleashed a powerful shockwave across a certain radius.
And then I followed it up with another strike using a combat skill.
-KWAHAAAAAAAA!
The colossal storm surged toward Mares, and then the devastating shockwave from the Heavenly Demon Divine Art hit at the same time.
With that, Mares was blasted away with incredible force.
Even a Heavenly Demon couldn’t fly.
Using Shrinking Earth to kick off the air made something vaguely like flight possible, but once a storm like that was whipping around, actual flight with Shrinking Earth would be difficult.
On top of that, there was the increased gravity from Giga Graviton.
-Thud!
“Haa... haa...”
I landed back on the train and looked toward where Mares had been blasted off to. She was already out of sight.
It was a powerful storm, easily moving at several hundred meters per second.
And since it was a spell with a long duration, it would probably be hard for her to stop unless she got slammed straight into some mountain or another.
Besides, I’d flung her in a direction where no one lived, so there’d be no real damage either.
“How is it?! Are you all right, Sian-sama?!”
“...I managed to drive her off, more or less. Fighting in this body is a little annoying, though.”
Subduing an opponent was harder than killing them.
If I’d only wanted to kill her, I could’ve done it easily with the kind of magic chain I’d just used.
But that wouldn’t have achieved my real goal.
To enter the portal, she had to stay alive.
After going through all that trouble to get here, I couldn’t ruin everything with a single mistake.
For now, we head to Sabna. First, I need to find Louis and the Turk Merchant Guild employees.
In truth, I’d brought Louis along in case Mares didn’t recognize me as a child, or in case the potion wore off before we reached Grendel Mountains.
Louis satisfied every condition needed to hold a conversation with Mares.
The problem was that Louis was currently missing, along with the Turk Merchant Guild employees.
Still, finding them wasn’t that difficult.
All I had to do was wait for the potion’s effect to end, return to my original form, and teleport to wherever Louis was.
Rest would be a good idea. Six-star magic really burns through mental strength. I should be fine for four or five more uses, but chaining it with other spells like I just did drains too much.
Mares’s presence could no longer be felt.
And the train itself was moving fast enough that I couldn’t dismiss its speed; if it kept going like this, we’d be able to get out of Grendel Mountains’ range just fine.
“You should come back down for now! We’re about to enter a tunnel, and it’ll be dangerous if you stay up there!”
“Got it. I’ll head down right away.”
I went back into the train as Rain told me to.
My child body had overused magic, so I had a bit of a headache, but it wasn’t serious.
This was the kind of thing that would recover with two or three hours of sleep.
Besides, I still had enough energy left to cast six-star magic a few more times, or even a single spell from the Great Sage.
...I guess the immediate fire is out.
The train passed through the tunnel.
It was a long tunnel built by dwarves long ago, back when the brute only guarded the area around the portal and nowhere else.
The tunnel was complete darkness—no ray of sunlight ever reached it, and there wasn’t a single light inside to illuminate the way.
-Clatter! Clatter!
“It’s dark.”
“Bear with it. We’ll be through in about five minutes.”
I took out a small lamp and lit the inside with it.
“Wow, what kind of lamp is that? I’ve never seen one like it.”
“It’s a lamp made by mixing acacia honey and unicorn oil. Just looking at its light has a recovery effect, so it’s pretty precious.”
“Unicorn oil? You mean from an actual unicorn?”
“Yeah. I picked it up last time I raided the black market—no, the orcs’ fortress.”
Aria, Rain, and Thomas had made it through the train ride without a scratch.
The huge shockwave from the sky had rattled the train pretty badly, but fortunately it was well built, and it was still running without derailing.
At this rate, we’d reach Sabna safely.
Then Mares would no longer chase us.
She had a duty to protect her territory, and that meant that even if someone invaded the mountain, once they simply left her immediate range, she would stop pursuing them.
That was the idea, anyway—so long as you could leave.
“Oh, I can see light up ahead.”
“It’s brighter than I expected. Has the sunlight gotten stronger already?”
Before long, a pure white glow began to appear on the far side of the tunnel.
I used the seat as a bed and laid myself down, figuring I should rest while I had the chance. In a child’s body, my recovery was slower too, so I had to manage my mental strength carefully.
I can recover if I die once, but it hurts like hell.
I closed my eyes for a moment.
There was still about a day left before we reached Sabna, so I thought I could spend the remaining time in peace.
...
-Crackle.
“Huh?”
Then, all of a sudden, something like static electricity prickled across my skin.
“...Aria, where the hell are you?”
It was holy power. I opened my eyes, wondering if Aria might be nearby.
“Aria said she liked the light, so she went to the front.”
“Really? Got it. Then I guess it’s just my imagination...”
But Aria wasn’t nearby.
Apparently she’d already moved toward the front car, saying she liked the light that was spilling in from the far side of the tunnel.
Light that a cleric would like, huh.
I lay back down and thought about it.
What kind of light would Aria like? It wasn’t like she’d just be happy because of ordinary sunlight.
A cleric who wielded holy power—if there was any kind of light such a person would love, it would have to be “holy light.”
Holy light.
It was something that poured from a White Dragon’s body, a sort of racial trait.
...No way!
-Thud!
“Damn it…!”
“Huh? What is it, Sian-sama?”
As soon as I remembered that fact, I sprang to my feet and hurried to the very front where Aria was.
No wonder it felt too easy…!
The farther forward I went, the more my body tingled.
It was definitely the numbness caused by holy power, more specifically by something belonging to holy light.
Mares, the Heavenly Demon, was a halfblood dragonfolk descended from a White Dragon and a beastfolk. Normally, dragonfolk couldn’t transform into a dragon’s true form.
Dragonfolk were only hybrids, after all; they could use dragon techniques, but they couldn’t become dragons.
However, the story changed if the beastfolk side was the halfblood.
Don’t tell me she just shaved off more than a third of my stamina with that?!
Beastfolk could temporarily transform into the beast etched into their blood.
In common speech, that was called beastification, and it was a unique ability most beastfolk had, usually taking the form of lions, wolves, and other predators.
At the same time, it was also why players chose beastfolk in Novel Online.
-Thud!
“...This got even more annoying.”
I moved to the very front car and saw with my own eyes the source of that light—or rather, the source of the problem.
“S-Sian-sama... t-that is, could it be...?”
Aria collapsed the moment whatever she saw entered her field of vision.
The train had already escaped the tunnel.
By now, Rain and Thomas in the rear must have seen it too.
“Yeah. It’s exactly what you’re thinking.”
-GROOOOOOAAAR…!!!
A massive roar thundered down from the sky.
The enormous creature blocked out the sunlight, yet the area around it—including the train—was blindingly bright.
It was almost as if there were a second sun right beside us.
This could get a little rough.
【 Grendel Mountain Brute - ‘Mares’ Lv.550(★★)】
Special Trait: Sacred Beastification – White Dragon
There was a dragon on top of the train.
A dragon like Louis, but its size was at least ten times larger than the Louis I’d first seen.