Chapter 246: The Great Raid (8)
Chapter 246: The Great Raid (8)
Skreeeee!
As Sitri pulled on her whip sword, the segments dug deeper into Terotos’s left arm. The sound of the armor protecting his arm grinding and buckling under the pressure echoed through the air.
“Gaaah...!”
He tried to suppress the scream, but as the blades of the whip sword binding his arm bit further into his flesh, a cry of agony escaped his lips.
“Aaaaaagh!”
As Sitri applied more strength, the whip sword tightened until it completely carved through his limb, shredding his left arm into chunks of meat. Black blood sprayed in every direction, and shards of bone clattered onto the floor.
Screaming in pain and staggering, Terotos gnashed his teeth, desperate to launch a counterattack. His right hand still gripped his massive sword, and he could still use dark magic.
Terotos targeted Sitri, the one who had maimed him, intending to cast a curse that would rot her body from the inside out. Even if he were to die, he would take at least one of them with him. He channeled his magic with pure malice.
Or rather, he tried to.
Just as Terotos began to arrange his dark mana to cast the spell, the nearly completed sequence was shattered in an instant.
In a duel between mages, a vastly superior magic user could interfere with and dismantle the spells of a lower-level caster. This was a tactic Terotos himself had used to toy with other sapient beings in the past. He had never imagined he would be the one on the receiving end of it.
“Cough!”
Terotos coughed up blood as his dark mana backflowed.
Seeing Terotos suddenly vomit blood, Sitri realized his dark magic had been interrupted.
Irene.
The image of the only mage among them immediately came to mind. Knowing that Irene, their newest recruit, had assisted her, Sitri moved her hand to deliver the finishing blow.
The whip sword coiled around Terotos’s head as he continued to spew black blood. Following her will, the blade tightened around his bull-like head, crushing it just as it had pulverized his left arm.
With its head destroyed, Terotos’s body slumped lifelessly to the ground.
Thud!
The demons, already thrown into disarray by Irene’s magic, witnessed Terotos and Maldicus—the leaders who had ordered them to rally—die without being able to put up a fight. They completely lost their will to battle. There was no way to escape this dead end, and the overwhelming gap in power was terrifyingly clear.
The option of overloading the dungeon core for a self-destructive explosion was unthinkable; watching their kin die in real-time made it obvious they would be killed long before they could even reach the core.
Cleaning up the remaining demons was a quick task, but they intentionally took their time. If every demon possessing dark mana vanished from the dungeon, it would immediately trigger a self-destruct sequence.
They had come to this dungeon specifically at Irene’s request to investigate a demon-made dungeon firsthand.
As the battlefield began to settle, Irene hurried to grasp the dungeon’s structure. She immediately headed toward the dungeon core with Laysia, moving with remarkable agility for a mage.
Her nimbleness was due to her being an elf; being a mage did not necessarily mean one was physically frail. Furthermore, Irene was no ordinary elf. Her status as a special existence among her kind was evident from her appearance alone.
Typically, elves possessed blonde or brown hair. However, she had snow-white hair and crimson eyes. While she might have appeared like an albino, she suffered from no health issues—no sensitivity to sunlight or vision problems. On the contrary, she was healthier and possessed far greater talent than any other elf.
She was a High Elf, a special existence even among her kin.
The title of High Elf was not determined by lineage. It didn't necessarily emerge from royalty or the nobility. They appeared like mutations, completely unexpected—and Irene was exactly that.
Her parents were perfectly ordinary elves, yet she was born with white hair and red eyes, a brilliant child who was aware of her surroundings from the moment of her birth. As soon as the elves saw her, they instinctively felt that she was a High Elf, a being on a different level from themselves.
She received the highest level of education and eventually became their Queen. Though she hadn't had the chance to tell Han Shin yet, she was currently the Queen of the Elves.
Upon reaching the dungeon core, Irene channeled her mana into it. She quickly completed her analysis, gaining a perfect understanding of the mana structure of this demon-made dungeon. Now that she knew how the dungeon was constructed, she also knew its weaknesses.
This was exactly what she had wanted.
“Let’s go back now.”
“Yes.”
Laysia nodded at Irene’s words. It had been less than a minute since they arrived, yet Irene spoke as if she had finished everything she needed to do. Though they hadn't known each other long, Laysia knew Irene was the greatest mage she had ever seen among mortals. Even in Bürg, the city she once protected, she had never seen a mage as powerful as her.
Earlier, while Han Shin and Grace were blocking the demons' onslaught, the spell Irene had cast was Arcane Ray. It was a spell that incinerated enemies with lasers made of concentrated mana—a spell Laysia was familiar with.
However, Arcane Ray was a top-tier arcane spell. Laysia had never seen a mage who could cast it so quickly on their own without showing any signs of exhaustion.
Laysia was a priest who handled holy magic, but she knew enough to recognize that Irene was a phenomenal archmage. Nothing builds trust in a comrade like a clear display of competence. At this moment, Laysia did not doubt Irene’s abilities for a second.
Irene and Laysia returned in an instant. Han Shin, Grace, and Sitri, who had been finishing off the remaining demons, were surprised by how quickly they had returned.
Stab!
“Gurgle...”
Grace finished off the last remaining demon, which was floundering on the floor after losing both its legs, by driving her sword through its neck.
Han Shin approached Irene.
“Done already?”
“Yes, Lord. I will explain everything once we return.”
Seeing Irene’s composed expression, Han Shin felt certain she had found a solution.
After finishing the raid on the third dungeon in record time, Han Shin’s group stepped outside. Unlike other nations, Korea was in the best possible position, having cleared three demon dungeons without suffering any casualties. This was partly because the large clans had preserved their strength, but primarily because Han Shin’s party was there.
Park Min-woo immediately approached Wolyeong, asking if she was alright and if she needed anything.
However, it wasn't just Association officials present. Representatives from the large clans were also there. These groups had been at each other's throats recently, fighting over the territories left behind by the vanished Goryeo and Geumwa clans.
But they didn't have the luxury to bicker now.
The fact that the Moon Shadow Party was clearing dungeons so rapidly was the biggest factor. They had heard the demons were powerful, but seeing the Moon Shadow Party handle them so easily left them unsure of how to react.
Of course, they recognized the danger, given that Awakeners in various countries were suffering significant losses. But there was a massive difference between fighting the demons yourself and just hearing about them.
“Shouldn't we be fighting too?”
“If the Moon Shadow Party clears every dungeon like this, it’ll look like we didn't do anything...”
“Ahem...”
The people gathered here were high-ranking executives from each clan. While they were happy to preserve their strength, they were worried about the worst-case scenario: the Moon Shadow Party clearing every purple portal in Korea, leaving the clans with zero contribution to the crisis.
This was a concern shared by the leaders of the large clans as they received reports. They began to seriously consider entering one of the remaining purple portals to face the demons.
Lee Jeong-jin, the leader of the Yuseong Clan, deliberated deeply and concluded that they had to fight the demons at least once.
We can't just stand by. We have to fight at least once.
Thus, he hurriedly contacted the other large clans, proposing a joint alliance to enter a purple portal and join the fight.