Chapter 312: Solitär-Flamme
The water was pitch black and bottomless, but Flamme quickly regained her senses. She clutched Carlo tightly, trying to swim upward.
But just then, a terrifying aura exploded from the depths of the lake.
The entire surface of the lake shook violently, and the water began to churn as if boiling.
Flamme looked down. With her magically enhanced vision, she vaguely saw an unimaginably massive shadow slowly emerging from the deep water.
It wasn't a demonic aura, but a more ancient, tyrannical presence.
It seemed to regard Flamme, an intruder radiating powerful mana fluctuations, as a challenger to its authority.
"ROAR!!!"
A muffled roar came from the bottom of the lake, churning up terrifying undercurrents.
In the next moment, a massive tail covered in thick black scales swept toward Flamme with the force of a toppling mountain.
Where it passed, the water was forcibly pushed aside, creating a vacuum.
Flamme's face changed drastically.
She hadn't expected such a terrifying creature to be hiding in the depths of the abyss. In her haste, she could only fully deploy her highest-ranking magical shield while pushing the unconscious Carlo away from the direction of the attack.
BOOM!!!
The massive tail slammed viciously onto the magical shield!
Fine cracks appeared on the shield. Although it didn't shatter, the impact force wasn't completely blocked. Flamme's body was smashed out of the water like a cannonball, crashing into a distant rock wall.
Fortunately, Flamme didn't suffer severe injuries.
Fighting the dizziness caused by the impact, she saw Carlo's body tumbling in the undercurrents before being swept away by a stream of water, disappearing into the darkness on the other side of the lake.
"Carlo..." Flamme's heart went cold.
Under the attack of the underground labyrinth monster and the complex currents, Carlo's chances of survival were negligible.
Did I achieve my goal?
She had no time to think further, because the behemoth underwater clearly had no intention of letting the intruder go.
A massive head broke the surface. It resembled a giant lizard, but it had three pairs of scarlet eyes.
It opened its bloody maw, and a breath of energy carrying the aura of destruction shot toward Flamme.
"Damn it!" Flamme gritted her teeth. Breaking free from the rock wall, she quickly cast defensive magic to block the breath while shouting to the allied soldiers above, who were dumbfounded by the monster's appearance: "Retreat! Get out of here!!!"
She needed to hold this monster back to buy time for the others to escape. Simultaneously, she needed to kill it!
Because she needed to confirm Carlo's life or death, even if it meant finding his corpse.
Magical brilliance and the monster's breath collided fiercely over the underground lake. The massive explosions shook the entire labyrinth.
Unknown how much time passed, Carlo, drifting with the current, did not die.
The wounds on his body burned with pain, and the freezing lake water stimulated his nerves. The instinct to survive made him struggle desperately.
Just as his consciousness was about to fade completely, an undercurrent washed him onto a relatively flat piece of ground.
He coughed violently, spitting out the water he had choked on, and lay weakly on the ground, greedily gulping air.
After a long while, he barely regained some clarity. He struggled to sit up and examine his surroundings.
This seemed to be a hidden cave through which the underground river flowed. The space was small, surrounded by smooth rock walls with no visible exit.
Glowing stones overhead provided weak light. In the center of the cave was a platform covered in moss.
And on that platform sat a... egg?
A dark purple giant egg, about half the height of a person, covered with irregular silver patterns.
Carlo's breathing stopped abruptly.
As a mage researching Life Magic—especially one recently focused on converting demonic life force—he was incredibly sensitive to the aura of demons.
The aura emanating from this egg belonged to a demon.
Although there had never been a concrete conclusion on whether demons were viviparous or oviparous, there was no doubt: the giant egg before Carlo was a demon.
But he sensed something wrong.
Within this demonic aura, there was a trace of extremely weak... holiness?
This was definitely not the product of a pure-blooded demon.
Demonic aura was chaotic and full of destructive power; it would never carry traces of purified holy power.
"What... is this?" Carlo forgot the pain in his body and struggled to crawl toward the egg.
His eyes were filled with the unique fanaticism and disbelief of a researcher.
He could sense the rich demonic life essence contained within the egg. At the same time, because of the mixed holy power, Carlo didn't need to worry about subsequent risks for the time being.
The life essence within it was so dense that he could absorb it even without breaking the shell.
He reached out a trembling hand and gently touched the dark purple shell.
What came from his fingertips wasn't coldness, but a warm touch. Simultaneously, the mixed aura transmitted more clearly into his perception.
A bold idea appeared instantly.
He would absorb the life force of this giant egg to extend his own life.
Carlo knew deeply that he didn't have much life force left.
Even if he luckily escaped from here, he wouldn't live for more than a few months.
He had wanted to join the front lines to find a chance to capture a demon and absorb its life force, but he had underestimated the brutality of this battlefield and overestimated his own strength.
Carlo was a research-oriented mage. Passing the Second-Class Mage exam had involved a bit of luck.
He could barely deal with most demons, but any slightly stronger ones were too much for him.
That was why he had pinned his hopes on the allied soldiers, but he hadn't expected this to happen.
However, now, a blessing in disguise had led him to discover this giant egg.
Although Carlo was extremely curious about how this egg appeared and whether the trace of holy aura was due to some experiment or a mutation...
Carlo couldn't care about that now.
He began casting the spell, absorbing life force from the giant egg to extend his own life.
Soon, black began to appear in Carlo's greying hair, and the pallor on his face diminished significantly.
Correspondingly, the life essence contained in the giant egg decreased slightly.
Moreover, inside the egg, because some life force was absorbed, the conflicting demonic and holy auras stopped clashing, accelerating the hatching process.
Of course, Carlo was unaware of these changes.
Staring at the giant egg that had saved his life, he thought of Ariel and couldn't help but mutter to himself.
"From now on, I shall call you Solitär-Flamme!"
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