Six Minutes to Victory
The group battle was reaching its climax. Thud! We brought down the Seventh Apostle. With Seron and me holding the front line while Card and Grantoni provided support from the rear, we had fought tooth and nail to finally defeat the Seventh Apostle.
"Huff, puff..." Beside me, Seron gasped for air. The fierce battle with the Apostle had left her battered and bruised. If Grantoni hadn't patched up her wounds with his necromancy, she would have been forced to retire long ago. Still, considering her usual level, she had performed far beyond expectations.
Seron was an upper-middle-tier student. The fact that she had fought all the way to the Seventh Apostle was a testament to her sheer willpower. Even I, with my exceptional stamina, was running out of breath. For Seron, it must have been pure torture.
Tick-tock. The sound of passing time echoed. Before we knew it, the timer floating on the ceiling read twenty-five minutes. It had taken us over twenty-five minutes just to clear up to the Seventh Apostle.
Princess Iris's team had cleared all the Apostles in a mere thirty-one minutes and twenty-one seconds. In other words, if we couldn't defeat the remaining three Apostles in under six minutes, first place was out of the question.
"Seron, can you keep going?"
"Ha... huff... Who are you calling... a weakling?" Seron wheezed, tightening her grip on her double-headed axe. It was a clear declaration that she wasn't done yet.
"We have six minutes left to take first place."
Seron bit her lip. We had struggled desperately to claim the top spot, but the gap between us and Iris's team was simply too wide. It had taken us twenty-five minutes just to defeat the Seventh Apostle. The next one would be stronger, and the one after that even stronger. The final Apostle was a monster that had taken even Iris's team ten whole minutes to defeat.
Yet, Seron didn't loosen her grip on her axe. "Hmph, that's plenty of time!" she snorted, her eyes blazing with determination. A smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth.
"That's the spirit." We had rushed through the earlier Apostles precisely for this moment. Now, it was time to reap the fruits of our labor. "It's more than enough."
Thoom! No sooner had the words left my mouth than a massive coffin plummeted from the sky. Creeeeak. The coffin lid swung open, revealing an Apostle dressed in a formal suit, hands folded neatly over its chest. The Apostle had no face—only a mouth lined with long, sharp fangs. The Eighth Apostle: the Vampire.
A violent aura erupted from the Apostle, washing over Seron and me. It was a pitch-black bloodlust that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. Yet, to me, there was no bloodlust more welcome than this. Our previous struggles had all been for this very moment.
The Vampire opened its mouth wide, preparing to unfurl its wings. If that thing took to the sky, it would become a massive headache. "Sharin," I called out.
"Mmm, finally~" Sharin replied in her usual sleepy, drawn-out tone. She was preparing her ultimate move. The staff held at her fingertips spun in a smooth circle. The mana she had been conserving throughout the entire trial, without casting a single spell, began to swirl with visible intensity.
"Whoa..." Card, a fellow mage, gasped in sheer disbelief. The sheer volume of mana radiating from Sharin was an absurd, terrifying output.
"Let's clean this up~" Sharin murmured. The surrounding area began to dye in a brilliant white. The earrings dangling from her ears shook violently, reacting to the surging mana. Then, she declared, "Erase." Sharin swung her staff downward.
———————! All sound in the vicinity was instantly swallowed. A blinding, incandescent beam of light pierced straight through the Vampire before it could even take flight. The light was so intense that not only our party, but even the spectators watching from the outside, had to shield their eyes.
Ruuuumble! A delayed shockwave swept through the chamber, violently shaking the very fabric of space. I grabbed Seron by the scruff of her neck just as she was about to be blown away, barely holding my ground. When the dust settled, the ground before us was bleached pure white. Naturally, neither the Vampire nor its coffin remained. Not a single trace was left behind.
It was a stark reminder of just how monstrously powerful the magic of Sharin Sazaris, the top student of the Magic Engineering department, truly was. If I were to take that head-on, even I would be sent straight to the afterlife without exception.
"Phew." Sharin lightly blew on the tip of her staff. The Eighth Apostle, the Vampire, had unfortunately perished the very instant he appeared. Including his spawning animation, it had taken a mere fifty seconds to eliminate him.
"I-If you could do that, why didn't you do it from the start?!" Seron, who had been staring blankly, finally found her voice and yelled in frustration.
"No, we wouldn't have been able to get first place that way." I helped Seron back onto her feet and turned to look at Sharin. That single attack had drained a massive portion of her mana. Even for a genius like Sharin, vaporizing an Apostle in one shot required an immense toll.
And that's not all.Sssss. Sharin's staff crumbled into fine dust. Sharin brushed the debris off her hands with a sigh of regret and pulled a fresh staff from her waist. Modern staves simply couldn't withstand the sheer, unbridled output of Sharin's mana. Consequently, she was always forced to hold back, her power bottlenecked by her equipment.
To a mage, a staff is like a launcher. No matter how powerful the bullet, you can't fire it without a gun. Similarly, without a staff, a mage faces severe limitations when trying to project their magical power. Sharin possessed the greatest bullet in the world, but modern staves were simply incapable of firing it at full capacity.
And those staves she's using are supposed to be top-of-the-line, too. Yet, they still shattered, unable to handle her magical output. Because of this equipment bottleneck, there was a strict limit to how many times Sharin could cast her maximum-output spells. While she could technically cast magic without a staff, doing so would impose too many restrictions, making it impossible to clear the remaining Apostles within the time limit.
"Grantoni." That was precisely why I had put this party together. At my call, the eerie light in Grantoni's skeletal eye sockets flared. "You're up."
A moment later, the sky split open. Descending from the rift was an Apostle draped in fluttering, translucent cloth. Dozens of long arms protruded from the folds, each brandishing a ruthless weapon. Beneath the shroud, multiple eyes blinked ominously. The Ninth Apostle: the Underworld Jailer. An entity manifested solely to reap the lives of the living.
The Underworld Jailer existed simultaneously in both the physical world and the Flip Side. Because of this, it was virtually immune to physical attacks and highly resistant to magic. To defeat it, a party typically required someone versed in Theology; only divine blessings could inflict meaningful damage upon the Jailer.
Princess Iris's team had managed to defeat the Underworld Jailer thanks to the runner-up of the Theology department. Even so, they had wasted a considerable amount of time doing so. So, what about us?
"Ah..." Seron gasped, finally realizing why I had recruited Grantoni. Just as she suspected, it was all for this exact moment. A small ossuary. A soul summoner. To Grantoni, who could freely traverse the Flip Side, an Apostle straddling the boundary between reality and the spectral realm was the easiest prey in the world.
Clack, clack! Grantoni rattled his teeth in pure ecstasy. Instantly, a colorless, grey-scaled world rippled outward from beneath his feet. Everything in our surroundings lost its vitality, the vibrant colors fading into monochrome. This grey domain expanded rapidly, swallowing the newly emerged Underworld Jailer.
The Flip Side. Having dragged the Underworld Jailer into his own backyard, Grantoni clapped his hands together. Clang-clang-clang-clang! Dozens of iron chains materialized from thin air, wrapping tightly around the Jailer. Despite its immunity to physical attacks, the Apostle could not phase through the spectral chains and was pinned instantly.
Thud! Thud! The Underworld Jailer thrashed in sheer panic, never expecting to be bound by mere chains. But it was far too early to be surprised. Hummmmm! The chains suddenly erupted with a brilliant blue light. In response, the Jailer's translucent, ghostly form began to solidify.
"Hehehehe..." Grantoni let out his signature rattling chuckle. "This is my world." Within the Flip Side, Grantoni's authority far exceeded that of the Underworld Jailer.
The Underworld Jailer struggled desperately, but the chains only tightened their grip, constricting its very soul. Escape was impossible. Grantoni flicked his finger, which peeked out from his sleeve. "Get out."
Shatter! Grey fragments peeled away from the Underworld Jailer's body. The Apostle, which had been straddling the boundary, was forcibly ejected from the Flip Side. As a result, the Jailer was dragged entirely into the physical world, fully materialized. And waiting to greet the newly solidified Apostle... was Sharin's magic.
Once again, a blinding white light erupted across the sky. The Underworld Jailer had previously boasted high magic resistance due to its spectral state. But now that its ghost-like form had been stripped away, its magic resistance had plummeted back to a normal, vulnerable level.
Craaaaaash! Sacrificing yet another top-grade staff, Sharin's magic swept through the chamber. Caught in the blast, the Underworld Jailer was blown to smithereens. But Sharin didn't stop there. Drawing a fresh staff, she immediately followed up with a rapid succession of devastating blasts.
Crunch! Shatter! Amidst the shredded remnants of the shroud, a small child-like entity—the Jailer's true core—was caught in the incandescent light and vaporized. She had cleanly snuffed out the Underworld Jailer's second life.
"Phew..." Sharin let out a soft breath, letting the dust of her shattered staff slip through her fingers. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead. Unleashing the absolute maximum output of a top-grade staff three times in a row was exhausting, even for a genius of her caliber.
"W-We're already at the tenth..." Seron, who had been watching in a daze, hurriedly checked the timer. It had taken us exactly two minutes to defeat the Underworld Jailer. The clock now read twenty-eight minutes and ten seconds. We had a mere three minutes and two seconds left. If we couldn't defeat the Tenth Apostle within this window, first place would slip through our fingers.
"We've got this in the bag! We still have Sharin's magic."
"No, Sharin's magic alone won't cut it anymore." Seron looked triumphant, but unfortunately, I couldn't share her optimism.
Crack! The ground beneath us shook violently and began to split open. Card quickly deployed his shadow magic, lifting us into the air to prevent us from falling into the widening chasms. In that very instant, an entity emerged from the depths of the earth.
It had an elongated body, but instead of a head, it sported a crest of vibrant feathers. It was a tiny, palm-sized creature that radiated a brilliant, fluorescent glow. This was the monster that Princess Iris—the undisputed strongest in martial arts—had taken ten whole minutes to defeat, even after receiving a divine blessing from the Theology runner-up. The Tenth Apostle: the Thunderbird. The beast had finally arrived.