Chapter 173
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 173
Chapter Title: Prime Venom Serpent (6)
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‘It's all dried up and withered.’
A space that felt tightly sealed, yet forcibly widened by some force.
It was probably the influence of that withered mushroom pillar over there.
And right now, in that space, something shaped like the skeletons they'd encountered so far was dripping purple liquid and glaring at them.
"Ugh, what the hell is that?"
"Prime Venom Serpent."
"Wasn't it supposed to be human? That doesn't even look human."
"It looked human when we saw it."
"Tch, what the hell did it do to end up looking like that?"
It clearly wasn't in good shape at a glance.
But they couldn't let their guard down.
The opponent was a powerhouse at level 6, after all.
"Senior. What should we do?"
"Tricky foe. Treat its entire body as made of poison. Most physical attacks will be useless. Even if you sever an arm or leg, it'll regenerate right away."
"I'll target the heart in the center."
"It knows that too, so move cleverly."
"Got it."
Eleanor wouldn't be able to play a major role in this fight.
She was using End of Lament to neutralize the poison spores filling the space, and maintaining [Shield] on her comrades was already overwhelming her.
Which made Aiden and Maya's roles crucial right now.
Jun, who still had some leeway, cast spells on the two of them.
Conferment: Elemental Armory
Attribute: Lightning
Enhancement: Elemental Body
Attribute: Fire
Conferment: Iron Skin
Only after unveiling even the newly learned conferment spells did Aiden and Maya spring into action.
Aiden charged first.
He blasted mana from his soles, shooting toward the Prime Venom Serpent like a streak of light.
Purple liquid instantly coalesced above its bony, skeletal hands into the form of swords.
Drawing on its original body's dagger mastery, it moved nimbly as well.
Kagagak!
The poison-formed blade clashed with Aiden's sword, wreathed in blazing flames.
In an instant, toxic vapors billowed up, threatening to obscure the party's vision.
Jun whipped up wind to clear their sight, and in that moment, Maya slipped from the shadows behind the Prime Venom Serpent.
The tip of her lightning-wreathed blade aimed straight for its heart.
However.
Puuuuh!
The body of the creature clashing with Aiden crumbled in an instant and exploded.
"What...!"
"...?!"
Poison mist spread everywhere.
The two recoiled, grimacing from the acrid acidic toxin, and moments later, it reemerged from the fog.
"Tch."
Jun clicked his tongue at the troublesome pattern.
He focused mana in his eyes, analyzing the phenomenon he'd just witnessed.
‘Fungal threads spread throughout the area. It can freely shift its body through them?’
Like a lizard shedding its skin, it turned its body into toxic mist, detonated it, and immediately reformed a new one.
Even in the process, its heart was protected by the purple liquid.
‘Can't just leave it entirely to those two.’
Fungal threads permeated the entire space.
To eradicate them all at once, nothing short of wide-area magic would do.
"Hoo, focus. Focus."
In this confined space, ensuring his magic didn't harm his comrades required exquisite control over mana and attributes.
It was tough even for Jun, who was only at the 5th circle.
‘But not impossible.’
If it wasn't an impossible domain, he'd pull it off.
He had to.
He couldn't waste a single second of the precious time his comrades had bought him.
‘The key to mana control is imagery.’
In magic, imagery resided in the unconscious realm.
-The will to incinerate the foe with fire attribute.
-The form to block enemy attacks with formless energy.
-The phenomenon to crumble the earth with persistence.
All were images drawn in the unconscious, and magic manifested by absorbing those images into reality.
‘Magic patterns are like the foundational framework for that.’
Thus, patterns laid the groundwork, and imagery shaped the structure.
‘But for imagery applied to others, even more caution is needed.’
Protecting oneself was easy.
Everyone had an unconscious drive to self-preservation.
But extending that to others wasn't so simple.
Especially protecting not one, but three people...
‘I need to solidify my image of them and implant it firmly within myself.’
It sounded vague, but executing it to create miracles was the essence of magic.
‘The imagery I conjure is...’
A fence.
A sturdy fence built to protect his people.
Aiden, Maya, and Eleanor inside it.
Everything else excluded.
And all the excluded elements shredded to pieces by ferocious winds, the gale destroying everything around.
Volcanic Tornado
Kwaaaa!
A storm of flames was summoned and raged.
But Jun's actions didn't end there.
Conferment Attribute: Wind
The grimoire unfurled with a rustle, followed by a new magic circle drawn behind it.
The original Volcanic Tornado had been sustained merely by the updrafts from the flames.
But Jun's magic went further.
In his endless pursuit of growth, he innovated on existing spells.
Hwarururuk—!!
The flame storm, which should have slowly contracted, expanded instead.
"...!"
"...It's warm."
And at the eye of that typhoon, Aiden and Maya marveled as they looked over their bodies.
Even in this savage inferno, not a thread of their clothing had burned; they stood unscathed.
"What are you standing around for?!"
Eleanor's shout—the first among the party to snap to—jolted them back, and they sought out the Prime Venom Serpent.
————!!!
It burned.
No—evaporated was more fitting.
The purple-liquid monster spewed steam like mad, thrashing against the flames.
It endured this long only thanks to its fire-resistant poison.
The finishing blow fell to Aiden and Maya.
Tatat!
They kicked off the ground and melted into the shadow dimension.
The Prime Venom Serpent flailed wildly with its swords, but no fungal threads remained to regenerate its body.
Grurrrrruk—!!
Not long after.
Kwajik!
Aiden and Maya's swords plunged simultaneously into the Prime Venom Serpent's chest.
Windstorm Fury—!
Empowered by Jun's magic, Aiden's Windstorm Fury unleashed even greater force, shattering its chest.
Spectral Rampage
Its innards fully exposed, including the heart.
Maya's twin blades danced.
As if denying even the slightest chance of regeneration, annihilating its soul itself.
Thus, its body finally lost form, vanishing into the flame storm.
"...?"
Confirming that much, Eleanor hurriedly checked her comrades' conditions.
"Urk. Dizzy..."
Aside from Maya, drained from her final Spectral Rampage, thankfully no major injuries.
Another battle resolved without casualties.
But Eleanor's expression remained grim.
"What's wrong?"
"...Captain. I've been feeling it since earlier."
"Yeah?"
"That thing—its soul wasn't intact."
"Not intact?"
The Prime Venom Serpent had met its end without leaving a trace.
Gazing toward where it had last stood, Eleanor continued.
"Like it was torn into several shreds... that kind of form."
"Several shreds?"
"Yeah."
It was hard to say this to comrades who'd staked their lives in battle, but Eleanor warned of potential threats.
"That's why it couldn't fully exert its power and fell."
"You don't mean it split or something?"
Silence followed.
"What does that even mean?"
Only Maya, not grasping it fully, muttered wearily.
A massive greatsword tore through the air.
The Prime Venom Serpent's clone—no, another split Prime Venom Serpent—nimbly dodged by leaping aside.
Unlike the underground one, this version had inherited most of its combat memories, making it swift.
Moreover, its original level-6 prowess had surpassed limits, enhanced by the Fragment of Ruin that amplified the evil spirits.
That was why Tobias, whose single strike should have rent it asunder, was still locked in prolonged combat.
And it wasn't just that.
"Protect your entire bodies with mana!"
"They're coming!"
Clones bursting from the ground were charging toward the two royals' position, so Tobias couldn't focus solely on his foe.
In the end, the remaining knights had to leap beyond the barrier and inhale the toxic mist. Only Jinovan guarded those two royals.
"You!"
Tobias's sword came crashing down over the darting Prime Venom Serpent's head.
Normally, no matter how fast it moved, escape was impossible before Tobias's blade.
His mountain-shattering strength crushed space itself, binding its feet.
But the Prime Venom Serpent toyed with him by swapping positions with summoned clones.
‘Annoying!’
Enemies that shifted through space like this were a poor matchup for Tobias.
He wielded overwhelming destructive power, but if his attacks never landed, it was all for naught.
‘Moving through those fungal threads?’
Clones continuously summoned, bursting spores upon death.
The area had long been steeped in deadly toxin.
If time dragged on, the remaining knights would fall one by one.
The Blackguard Knights' expressions were already dour.
‘I must get those two out before harm befalls their noble persons!’
Unfortunately, their statuses tied his feet.
They could flee if they wished, but these two had come to bring hope to Blackout's survivors.
If they fled first, the imperial name would be dragged through the mud.
Kwaaaaang—!!
An utterly disadvantageous situation.
Yet Tobias pressed the Prime Venom Serpent without hesitation.
‘No word yet from the White Whale Mercenary Corps who went underground!’
They might have perished in the mist, but they'd overcome death's door multiple times and even sealed Dimensional Reverse.
Ridiculous as it was for a level-8 knight to rely on level-5 players.
"...!"
At Tobias's caliber, instincts beyond theory often struck.
And his instinct was spot on.
Buburuk!
The Prime Venom Serpent spewed bubbles in panic.
For some reason, its movements halted, and Tobias seized the opening.