Chapter 108
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 108
Chapter Title: Return (3)
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[Ice Spear]
Ban Dukus.
An ice spear pierced the abdomen of the named mutant that had revealed itself to block Jun.
"Quick one, aren't you."
For something with such a massive build, it was incredibly fast.
Every time it took a deep breath, it sucked in a huge amount of air, then expelled it from the bony protrusions on its legs to accelerate—a grotesque mutant with that kind of movement.
Its speed was hard to follow with the naked eye, but Jun quickly spotted the mutant's weakness.
Since it used the inhaled air for propulsion from its legs, changing direction was a struggle.
It shared a flaw similar to [Burning Step].
[Ice Break]
Bind the legs along its charge path. Finish with [Ice Spear].
So he bound its feet with [Ice Break] along its charging path and finished it off with [Ice Spear].
"Looked pretty tough, but yeah, mutants are weak to magic after all."
As he tuned into the mind channel, the number of named mutants had already dwindled to two.
"No, make that one."
Another one had just vanished. Jun's gaze turned toward the direction where the signal cut off.
"Absorption pattern?"
The only one among the named mutants that appeared female had pierced her comrade's chest and extracted its mana cylinder, swallowing it down.
"Sorry, but I'm not gentleman enough to wait around for your transformation."
He immediately channeled his mana.
Dark clouds gathered in the sky above, and in the blink of an eye, lightning bolts came crashing down.
Boom! Kwaboom! Rumble!
One bolt, two, three.
He relentlessly dropped lightning strikes on the last remaining named mutant.
Boom! Kaboom!
Dozens of lightning bolts fell, but...
Jun's expression remained grim.
He could still sense its presence through the mind channel.
And not just faintly—it was overwhelmingly stronger than before.
"This is getting annoying..."
The presence he felt was far from weak.
Its aura might fall short of an orc lord's, but the sheer volume of mana it exuded was vastly greater.
A voice echoed from the dispersing cloud of dust.
"You've made things complicated. Thanks to you, we've had to fuse when we didn't want to."
"That's my line."
"I don't quite get what you're saying... but it doesn't matter now. Since you've noticed our existence, you have to die here."
"Is this what they call 'answerer'?"
The ancient tongue from his past life offered all sorts of conveniences, but it was inconvenient when communication failed like this.
'Talking to a monster—what's the point anyway.'
In any case, Jun eyed the named mutant that had survived his magic.
'Can't properly sense the corrupted mana. Why?'
Its humanoid form from before was gone, replaced by a massive, centipede-like elongated body.
A hard-looking chitinous exoskeleton.
Eight legs supported the lower body, with only the female torso protruding from around the chest area—an eerie form.
"No corrupted mana detectable on the surface... So that's how it blocked my magic."
Instinctively, Jun realized it was an exoskeleton infused with anti-mana material.
He'd pinpointed the mutants' weakness and countered it on the spot.
'That means its corrupted mana absorption is weakened, but...'
It could perfectly counter his magic.
A troublesome foe.
But merely troublesome. Not a major obstacle for Jun right now.
[Rock Hold]
Seize its legs—not covered by the anti-mana shell.
[Iron Fist]
Gather rubble from collapsed buildings. Enchant with metallic properties.
[Impart: Elemental Armory]
Attribute: Wind - Nullify air resistance in flight.
The completed [Iron Fist]—over five meters wide—hurtled toward it.
'Metallic' properties counted as physical attributes, allowing it to damage that anti-mana exoskeleton.
[Where do you think you're going!]
Thud-boom!
Levrang blocked the [Iron Fist] with two hook-like legs.
Yet Jun's mana kept pushing it forward relentlessly.
Levrang struck the [Iron Fist] with two more legs, now shrouded in black energy.
Kwaga-gagak!
The [Iron Fist] was shredded in an instant.
Levrang's counterattack followed immediately.
Its eight legs plunged into the ground in a flash.
Jun cast [Scan] right away and sensed something burrowing toward him at high speed from underground.
He urgently dodged with [Burning Step], but...
'Fast!'
Levrang's tentacle-like legs churned through the earth faster than Jun's [Burning Step].
At that speed, he'd need to change direction to evade, but [Burning Step] didn't allow it.
Realizing the terrain disadvantage, Jun switched tactics.
Kwaduk!
Just as the underground tentacle burst out toward him...
Pfboom!
Jun detonated fire-attribute mana beneath his feet.
His body launched into the air.
Not a patterned spell—just pure fire-attribute mana exploded.
'Lucky.'
If he couldn't separate fire attributes from his circles, or if his mutant body wasn't tough enough, he couldn't have used it.
[Detecting Target]
He'd planned to bind its legs underground with [Rock Hold], but her fast-moving limbs evaded his magic easily.
So Jun opted for a more brute-force approach.
[Rock Hold]
Bind the entire area outright.
Levrang's legs thrashed, trying to tear through the spell, but...
[Earth Burst]
Blow up the entire bound area.
Rumble!
Its flexible, tentacle-like legs got caught in the explosion and snapped clean off.
[Pathetic!]
But Levrang didn't care.
The severed legs regenerated in moments.
'Impressive regeneration too.'
Then he'd use fire magic to prevent recovery.
But the anti-mana exoskeleton interfered.
'Tough shell.'
[High-Speed Chant]
[Iron Fist] - Reduce imagery, increase quantity.
Steel fists began multiplying one by one.
Soon their number reached dozens.
[Kyaaah!]
They sliced through the air toward Levrang in unison.
Levrang countered by transforming legs into blades.
Kagagagagak!
Shards from sliced [Iron Fists] piled up around her.
Yet Jun summoned more [Iron Fists] with an impassive face.
However, it wasn't all in Jun's favor.
'Mana's running low.'
Mana consumption outpaced absorption.
Corrupted mana was building up too.
Shuwaaaa!
Fortunately, the ravenous predator—starved for days—savored the feast, letting Jun gather more corrupted mana.
Plain [Iron Fists] without imagery couldn't land a decisive blow anyway.
Instead, Jun eyed the piled-up shards around it.
They still hadn't dissipated, linked to him by mana.
[Rock Hold]
"What?!"
Levrang spat in shock, never expecting him to manipulate that much debris at once.
Jun completed the spell he'd prepared in secret.
[Volcanic Tornado]
"Kirrrrk!!"
Caught in the massive mana storm, Levrang curled its huge body into a ball.
The anti-mana shell mitigated the flame storm's damage, but...
Molten [Iron Fist] shards rode the updraft and stuck to its exoskeleton.
Soon, the balled-up Levrang was encased in molten steel.
A frog in a pot.
"It might ignore fire attributes with its shell, but..."
Superheated metal from the [Iron Fists] was different.
Physical metallic properties could damage the anti-mana shell plenty.
The moment it shed the shell, scorching molten metal and flame storm would melt it entirely.
But not everything went according to plan.
Shuwaap...!
The predator absorbing corruption during the spell reached satiety.
"..."
A game of chicken began.
Would Jun's magic give out first, or Levrang's endurance?
Roarrrrr!
How much time passed?
Levrang broke first.
"Kiyaaaaah!!!"
It uncurled its body.
Jun, timing it perfectly, pulled a mana cylinder from his dimensional bracelet.
One from the druid he'd killed in the west.
He popped the lid, absorbed the mana, and poured it into his spell pattern.
Infused the gathered mana with fire attributes.
And summoned it before Levrang.
[Lightning Call: Variant - Thundercloud]
Compressed fire orb shattered by lightning. Massive explosion.
Lightning struck the compressed fire orb.
The impact shattered it, triggering a grand explosion that obliterated everything nearby.
—But Jun wasn't unscathed by the blast.
'Get caught in this, and I'm dead.'
That judgment accelerated his mutation.
Survival instinct forced the mutation to protect him from the explosion.
He barely escaped death amid the blast, but...
"Kirrrk..."
The named entity, Bel Levrang, survived the explosion too.
At the moment of detonation, it reshaped its anti-mana shell to shield its human upper body.
It glared at Jun with venomous eyes, and Jun bit his lip hard.
"Damn it..."
Suppressing the mutation was already at his limit. No mana left for more spells.
Meanwhile, Levrang absorbed corrupted mana, slowly regenerating even now.
If he could just grab another mana cylinder from the bracelet, he could turn it around.
But post-explosion, his right arm wouldn't move.
'Move, damn it...!!'
"Kirrrk...!!"
Levrang dragged its partially regenerated legs toward him slowly.
Its blade leg reared high like an executioner's axe to cleave him—
Blood scent filled the air.
More precisely...
Blood-red mana erupted from behind Levrang.
After bursting from the tower, Aiden sprinted full-tilt without rest and arrived at the explosion site.
His eyes caught Jun—charred red all over, kneeling—and the blade leg poised to decapitate him.
"How dare you!!"
In that split second, Aiden's hair turned red, blood-red mana exploding forth.
[Bash]
His mana-infused longsword cleaved space.
"Ki... rk?!"
Along with the half-melted anti-mana shell.
Levrang's upper body split diagonally with a sticky sound.
And then.
"Cap... tain..."
The ferocious blood-red mana faded like smoke as Aiden collapsed unconscious.
"You..."
Jun dragged himself across the ground with his barely moving arm toward Aiden.
"..."
Fortunately, it was just mana overuse causing him to pass out.
Jun let out a sigh of relief.
"You ran all the way from the tower...?"
He'd given it everything.
Jun glanced at the final named entity.
Its collapsed upper body particleized and vanished.
It was over.
He sprawled on the ground, face to the sky.
Mutants still killed each other nearby, but the sounds had quieted a lot.
Jun gazed at the purple-mist-shrouded sky.
Death had loomed again, but he'd scraped by.
A world where madness could strike anytime.
"Haha..."
But it didn't feel bad.
"You rascal, making me all emotional."
Dropped into this world, surviving alone without a soul he knew.
Now, he wasn't alone. Relief washed over him.
In the distance, Maya and Eleanor's figures appeared.
Confirming that, Jun sighed in relief too.
"Time to rest..."
He absorbed a fluidity mana from the bracelet, purging corrupted mana.
As scales covering his body shed, Jun lost consciousness.
Empire's capital, Emperorshield.
Cloi stared at the massive artificial structure second only to the imperial palace.
Beyond the gate—huge enough to make standing humans look like ants—black energy rippled.
The entrance to the empire's abyss, Blackout.
The 'Abyss Gate.'
Gazing at it anxiously, Cloi glanced at her watch.
It would close soon.
If they'd hit a checkpoint, they should've exited by now. If not out yet, White Whale Mercenary Corps would be officially declared dead.
She couldn't bear imagining that, so she gnawed her nails, staring desperately at the Abyss Gate.
But those who would exit had already done so; only black energy rippled.
No change.
Or rather...
A change came.
The rippling black energy began fading.
"Kuh...!"
Signal the gate was closing soon.
One minute until season end.
"You... idiot!"
Jun's face flashed in her mind.
Last she'd seen him before parting ways!
Tears welled as...
A commotion erupted near the Abyss Gate.
"Whoa! Someone's coming out!"
"They're exiting!"
From the fading Abyss Gate.
Five silhouettes burst forth.
"Crap...!!"
Confirming their faces, tears finally streamed from Cloi's eyes.
Familiar faces among them.