"Fire, come forth!"
When that clear, ringing voice carried across the whole field, everyone fighting the gaudy multicolored monsters froze.
"A chant?!"
Lefiya's voice came out disbelieving.
"A monster... is going to use magic?!"
How could such a thing be possible?
Among the many monsters of the Dungeon, plenty could certainly use attacks that resembled magic, but for them to chant an incantation like a Human, to use Magic, that was flatly impossible.
A monster was a monster, a savage creature born from the Dungeon. It might have intelligence, but it would never have reason.
Creatures that lived by their own ferocity and destructive instinct, even if they could speak like a Human, could never calm themselves and hold the composure needed to recite an incantation and invoke Magic.
The reason and wisdom Magic required were the domain of Humans, never a domain a monster could set foot in.
Yet now, a monster was beginning to chant Magic in front of the adventurers, and it gave everyone a sense of the absurd.
But their opponent was a defiled Spirit fused with a monster, and even fallen, even stripped of reason, using Magic was still the instinct of this born magic race.
So, as the defiled Spirit chanted, a huge magic circle spread beneath her.
It was a magic circle full of ominous patterns, and the crimson magic-power light rising from within wrapped around the defiled Spirit's whole body, letting out an immense surge of magic power.
"Riveria!"
Watching this, Finn shuddered even as he lost his composure and shouted.
"Get the barrier up!"
Riveria began chanting without hesitation.
But the enemy's speed at invoking Magic was far faster than hers.
"Roar, roar, vortex of flame, crimson-lotus cliffs, roaring hellfire, borrow the strength of the sudden gale to seal the world, burning sky, burning earth, burning ocean, burning springs, burning peaks, burning life, turn everything to scorched earth!"
The incantation came out of the defiled Spirit's mouth like rapid fire, fast and urgent, fierce and vicious, and every face there changed.
"What the hell kind of chant speed is that?!"
Bete's howl came out like a roar. He had clearly lost his calm as well.
The defiled Spirit's chant speed simply exceeded the range of what the adventurers understood.
That was an ultra-high-speed chant no Human could possibly possess, and even Riveria, the city's strongest Mage, shuddered where she stood at the sight.
This method of chanting was something even she, of the High Elf line, had never seen.
An ordinary Mage... no, even a Mage of her own top-tier level, if they dared chant an incantation that way, there was only one outcome. The magic power converted from that mass of Mind would flow back until it blew their brains out, and if they survived they would still be left in pieces.
Not to mention, from the sheer volume of incantation the defiled Spirit was reciting and the scale of the magic circle, this was plainly an ultra-long chant, a wide-area annihilation type of Magic.
The volume of a chant that long was not only unbelievably large, the magic-power reaction it set off formed a visible wave of air that shot straight up to the vault of the ceiling.
Inhuman, enormous magic power was being poured at overwhelming speed into Magic beyond human wisdom, and Finn lost every bit of his usual steadiness.
"Hurry! Stop her!"
At Finn's order, the shuddering group could no longer spare any attention for the monsters in front of them, and every one of them charged at the defiled Spirit like they had gone mad.
Their survival instincts as adventurers told them that if they could not stop her, the consequences would be severe.
A shadow like death wrapped around every heart there, driving them at the defiled Spirit with no regard for anything else.
"Meteor Dance!"
Leo's pupils shrank, and without a thought he burned away a huge amount of Mind, lighting the magic treasure stones on Starlight and the holy veins, letting the magic power erupt under that vast amplification and turn into a pillar of meteor light that seemed to link sky and earth, crashing down on the defiled Spirit.
"Arcs Ray!"
"Hailstone Dust!"
Lefiya and Alicia finished their chants at top speed as well, one firing off a huge beam of light, the other releasing a storm of ice and snow, and both struck at the defiled Spirit.
"Dance, spirits of the atmosphere, lords of light. I make my pact with the guardian deity of the forest, may the song of the earth resound to shroud us and shelter us. I beseech you, become a great wall of forest light and guard us. My name is Alf."
Riveria was chanting her incantation with everything she had, but she could not get her Magic off before the others.
And so the Magic of Leo, Lefiya, and Alicia reached the defiled Spirit first, about to come down on her.
Just as the three spells were about to hit her, she spread the ten huge petals of her lower body out in front, lining them up in a row.
The high-powered bombardment landed on that petal shield and set off a massive explosion, throwing out flash and shockwave together.
The ground shook. The air shook.
But when the flash and the shock faded, that petal shield was untouched.
"How can that be?!"
Tiona, in the middle of her charge, saw it and could only find it unbelievable.
"Magic those three set off together... and it couldn't even break that petal shield?!"
Tione's face twisted too.
Never mind them, even Leo and the other two were astonished.
The Magic the three of them had released was no ordinary attack.
Leo went without saying. His firepower had long since caught up to Riveria's, and after burning away so much Mind he had even turned the meteors into a pillar of light, which showed how powerful that blow was.
Lefiya's firepower was at the Lv.5 level too, and even something with an Endurance parameter at the Lv.6 level would not walk away from taking that head-on without a single wound.
Alicia did not match the other two, but she was Lv.4, and an Elf of the born magic race at that, so however weak her Magic was, it could not be weak by much.
Three like that releasing Magic together, and they could not even put a single scratch on that shield?
This was not normal at all!
Unfortunately, there was not much time left for them to be shocked.
"Fire the signal cannons of wrath and lamentation, at the cost of the life of the hero I love..."
The defiled Spirit's chant was still going, and it was clearly near its end.
The beautiful, jewel-clear voice wove an ominous song, and Bete, Tiona, Tione, Finn, and Tsubaki all charged at the enemy like mad, trying to strike her with the weapons in their hands, but the gaudy multicolored monsters coming in from both sides would not allow them near their queen, blocking them again and again, until all of them were plainly held up.
"This is trouble..."
Gareth, great axe in hand, guarding Riveria, wore a grim look.
"No! This can't go on!"
Leo cut the head off the Viola in front of him and could no longer stand to watch.
"Race onward like a comet."
The short incantation was chanted, and starlight erupted from Leo's whole body as he turned into a comet and shot up into the air.
In that moment Leo burned his Mind away with everything he had, as if throwing it all away, maxing out the acceleration effect of Comet Chase in one go.
So the brilliant comet swept toward the defiled Spirit, kicking up a gale as it went, fast as a beam of light.
The defiled Spirit reacted to Leo's magic power, and a mass of tentacles burst out from beneath her and struck at him.
Those tentacles were huge and long, far larger than the tentacles of the Violas and the worm-type monsters, big enough even to rival the tentacles of the Giant Flowers that had appeared in the Pantry on floor 24.
Swinging those tentacles like enormous tree roots, the defiled Spirit attacked Leo wildly, sending them rioting across the entire floor.
The disturbance stirred up by those huge tentacles running riot was terrifying, and the whole floor trembled with it.
It was as if countless giant serpents were rampaging through the floor, and it sealed off Leo's path to the defiled Spirit completely.
The comet, accelerated to its limit, slammed into the tentacles and sent great numbers of them flying.
But the defiled Spirit had far too many tentacles, and even accelerated to his limit, Leo ran out of momentum in the end and was blocked by the huge tentacles.
One wildly thrashing tentacle smashed into the blazing comet as it lost speed and whipped him away.
"Leo!"
Ais, still working to get her condition back in order, saw it and could sit still no longer. Wind erupted around her whole body, turning her into a gale as she charged for the battlefield.
Unfortunately, it was too late.
"In the name of the proxy, I command. The name granted to me is salamander, incarnation of flame, queen of flame..."
The defiled Spirit's chant was finally about to complete.
"All of you! Fall back!"
Seeing it could not be helped, Finn gritted his teeth and gave the order at the top of his voice.
"Get back inside Riveria's barrier!"
The words had barely left him when Riveria finished her chant.
"Vas Windheim!"
This was the strongest tier of defensive Magic she could use, a barrier that could shut out attacks both physical and magical.
The emerald magic circle blazed at Riveria's feet, then turned into a dome-shaped field of green light that covered everyone who had pulled back.
Only Leo, whipped away by the tentacle, and Ais, who had charged out as a gale, were outside it.
"Leo!"
"Ais!"
Someone, no telling who, cried out in alarm.
And what answered those cries was a lovely female voice.
"Fire Storm."
The defiled Spirit's Magic was complete.
A flame storm like a flood of fire was released, and the whole world was dyed red.
It was a fire-red tempest of waves.
It was a roar of mountains and seas born of extreme heat.
The fire-red heat wave turned into a churning torrent, into a gale, into an explosion that blotted out the sky, and swallowed everything on the battlefield.
Countless gaudy multicolored monsters were burned away before they could even scream.
The wave of fire crashed against the dome-shaped barrier, and barrier and firestorm collided with a roar.
As for Leo and Ais, they had already vanished into the sea of fire, no trace of them left.
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