As for the evacuation of the expeditionary force, Leon had no time to spare any attention to it at this moment.
Caught in the middle of the earth-shattering explosion, he felt as though the entire world before him had been dyed a fiery red; his entire field of vision was occupied and stripped away by the detonating flames.
In his ears was a roar loud enough to rupture eardrums.
Around his body was a high temperature intense enough to roast a human being.
At this moment, even with the protection of the Goliath Robe, Leon inevitably felt pain, forcing him to grit his teeth and try his best to adapt to his current environment.
"Ais—"
His mind unconsciously repeated the name of the golden-haired, golden-eyed girl, filled with a worry that even he himself had not noticed.
Even though he knew she was protected by her wind-attribute enchantment magic, Leon still could not help but worry about Ais. It could not be helped; unlike Leon, who maintained a certain distance from the female-type monster, Ais was far too close to the opponent, and the explosion she endured must have been much stronger than what Leon faced.
What if the protection of Ariel failed to block that explosion? What should they do then? Leon could not prevent himself from thinking along those lines.
However, it was still too early for him to worry about others. After all, he himself was still in the midst of a crisis.
Rumble—
Accompanied by a tremor in the ground, a massive yellow-green torso broke through the detonating flames and black smoke, charging out of the sea of fire like a colossal chariot.
The pseudopods beneath its feet squirmed continuously as its massive frame crashed directly in front of Leon with unstoppable momentum. It swung its flattened arm toward Leon, whose pupils contracted violently, sweeping through the scorching air toward the disheveled youth.
Boom!
The first arm crashed violently onto the ground, shattering the earth, kicking up shattered stone and dust, and blowing away the detonating flames, but it failed to hit Leon.
In the nick of time, Leon threw himself to the side without regard for his posture, only barely managing to evade this strike.
However, the female-type monster possessed a total of four arms. While the first missed, the second arm immediately followed up, sweeping forward as a howling, fierce wind accompanied its approach.
Leon exerted all his strength to dodge, pushing the evasion techniques he had honed during his usual training sessions with Ais to their absolute limit. Only then did he manage to avoid the attack of the second arm, and he even dodged the horizontal sweep of the third arm afterward, turning danger into safety.
Yet, when it came to the final, fourth arm, Leon ultimately failed to evade it.
Boom!
Accompanied by a heavy, muffled sound, an astonishing force impacted Leon's body like a bursting dam, sending him flying.
Leon's figure instantly shot backward, flying all the way out of the coverage area of the sea of fire and crashing into the gray forest, shattering one massive tree after another.
"Ugh—"
A muffled groan escaped his lips. He felt as though every bone in his body was about to fall apart; the sensation of pain was directly approaching the degree from when he had been sent flying by a single punch from the Goliath during their last battle.
The female-type monster let out a harsh, screeching howl. As if intending to deliver the final blow to Leon, it opened its oral cavity and spat out a high-pressure, water-cannon-like stream of corrosive liquid.
Having shattered the last massive gray tree and finally brought his backward-flying body to a halt, Leon detected the foul stench of the corrosive liquid incoming. He instantly and reflexively burned a massive amount of his mental strength, opting to forgo the incantation to fire off a thick, pillar-like shooting star.
Boom!!!
The thick, pillar-like shooting star and the high-pressure, water-cannon-like corrosive liquid crashed violently at the boundary zone between the gray forest and the sea of fire, triggering a resounding roar.
The star continuously evaporated the corrosive liquid, but the surging, turbulent corrosive liquid also continuously impacted the star. The two collided against each other, causing a brilliant starburst and purple-black water splashes to erupt; for a moment, neither could overpower the other.
As if feeling annoyed by this, the female-type monster suddenly increased the volume of the corrosive liquid it discharged, causing the scale of the high-pressure water cannon formed by the corrosive liquid to instantly double, gradually suppressing the shooting star released by Leon.
"So we're competing in output, huh?"
Feeling his magic gradually being suppressed, Leon gritted his teeth and hardened his resolve.
"When it comes to this aspect, I've never been afraid of anyone!"
Leon barked in a low voice, burning his mental strength once more. Utilizing the unique trait of his magic, he caused its power to surge violently.
In an instant, the scale of the shooting star also abruptly doubled. Not only did it withstand the high-pressure, water-cannon-like corrosive liquid, but it conversely pushed its way across.
Before long, the shooting star crushed the high-pressure water cannon formed by the corrosive liquid and struck the female-type monster.
Boom!!!
Following the explosive roar, the exceptionally thick shooting star blasted apart the open oral cavity of the female-type monster, piercing entirely through its mouth.
The female-type monster let out a silent, wretched shriek. The pseudopods beneath its frame and its four flattened arms began flailing and stomping wildly as if experiencing intense pain, turning the ground beneath and around it completely upside down, causing shattered stones and dust to rise everywhere.
Leon's vision also turned dark for a brief moment due to the massive consumption of his mental strength, and he nearly collapsed on the spot.
At this critical juncture, from the other end of the sea of fire, a figure entirely enveloped in wind swept past once more.
The golden-haired, golden-eyed swordswoman's body was covered in scorch marks, yet she had not sustained any obviously severe injuries. Like an unsheathed, sharp sword, she launched a surprise attack toward the female-type monster.
Pfft!
The silver saber flashed as the golden-haired swordswoman delivered a forceful slash, hacking into the pseudopods beneath the female-type monster's frame, severing several of them clean at the root.
The female-type monster let out another silent shriek. Its four wildly flailing, flattened arms simultaneously swung toward Ais, but she evaded them with her swift footwork; the arms could only shatter the ground, causing earth and stone to fly.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!—
While evading the incoming flattened arms, Ais dashed back and forth around the female-type monster like a fierce gale. The silver saber in her hand hacked into the pseudopods beneath the opponent's frame time and time again, severing each and every one of them.
Clearly, Ais intended to follow the same approach Finn had used earlier: to subdue the opponent by dismantling its mobility, thereby creating an opportunity for a certain-kill strike to thoroughly finish off the female-type monster.
The female-type monster naturally would not sit idly by and wait for death. Seeing that its tentacles consistently failed to hit Ais, it immediately retracted its arms, crossing them before its chest.
Upon seeing this, Ais's expression changed slightly, and she instinctively wanted to retreat rapidly. But by the time she wanted to pull back, it was already too late.
Seeing the light-particle-like pollen flickering between the female-type monster's arms, on the verge of being scattered, Ais could only increase the output of her magic. She allowed a more powerful wind to envelop her entire body, preparing to endure the impending massive explosion head-on.
However, without any prior omen, several shooting meteors sliced through the air and shot forward, striking the female-type monster's arms. They unleashed a brilliant starburst across its body, blasting its posture into disarray, causing the pollen brewing in its embrace to vanish into nothingness.
"Leon!"
Ais naturally knew whose masterpiece this was. She whipped her head around to look toward the direction from which the shooting meteors had flown.
Over there, Leon was chugging down a magic elixir while forcing open his bloodshot eyes to glare at the female-type monster, shooting meteors dancing around his body.
"I'll cover you!" Leon shouted loudly. "Just focus on attacking!"
Ais nodded forcefully. Right after, just like Leon, she glared at the female-type monster, raised the Desperate Sword, and charged toward the opponent, continuing to hack away at the numerous remaining pseudopods.
Intermittent sounds emerged from the pierced oral cavity of the female-type monster, and the injuries on it were actually recovering at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"—It actually possesses a regeneration ability?"
Seeing an ability that had not appeared in the original work, Leon's eyelids twitched, but he quickly adjusted his state of mind.
Riveria's teachings echoed within his mind, reminding Leon that as an excellent magic user, maintaining a calm and composed heart at all times was a necessary quality. Whether it was a rear-guard mage or an advanced vanguard-class magic swordsman, one had to remain steady and calm at any place and any time during battle; only then could magic be deployed accurately and rapidly.
Particularly for someone like Leon, who could increase the power and attack frequency of his magic, as well as enhance its output capacity and attack range through the additional consumption of mental strength—the steadier his spirit, the more beneficial it was for exerting the full effects of his magic, preventing his firepower from dispersing and causing waste like it did during the battle against the Goliath.
Thus, with a tranquil state of mind, Leon ignited the mental strength he had managed to recover with great difficulty, causing a magic circle to expand beneath his feet.
"Try this move, monster."
Leon chanted his magic, releasing several shooting meteors. Instead of letting them dance around his body, however, he caused them to hover beside him, continuously elongating.
The greatest trait of star-attribute magic was that it was easy to manipulate, possessing a very high degree of freedom. Utilizing this trait, Leon actually molded his magic into a different shape. Instead of letting the shooting meteors thicken, he made them as thin and long as possible, finally transforming them into exceptionally sharp spears that radiated starlight.
"Go."
Leon pointed from afar, and those shooting star spears abruptly shot out. Breaking through space at an unprecedented speed like flashes of light that vanished in an instant, they arrived at the female-type monster's location in a split second.
That astonishing projectile speed prevented even the female-type monster, which was extremely sensitive to magic power, from making a reaction in time; it was suddenly struck by the shooting star spears.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!—
The incredibly swift shooting star spears acted like beams of lasers, piercing through the arms that the female-type monster had raised high to continuously smash down toward Ais's direction, causing them to be instantly disabled just like its oral cavity.
The female-type monster's shriek became increasingly shrill, causing its continuously recovering oral cavity to constantly spray corrosive liquid as if it were spraying blood.
Pfft!
Ais seized the opportunity to press the attack. Transforming her entire being into a sharp arrow that shot forward, she executed the widest horizontal slash she could manage with the Desperate Sword in her hand, severing an entire row of the female-type monster's pseudopods all at once.
The female-type monster's massive frame instantly lost its balance, tilting and collapsing onto the ground, unable to rise again.
It's now!
This thought flashed simultaneously within the minds of both Leon and Ais. One burned all of his remaining mental strength, converting it into magic power output to expand the largest magic circle he had created up to this point, launching a shooting star that connected heaven and earth toward the female-type monster. The other stirred a violent gale across her entire body, transforming her whole being into a helical tornado as she raised her silver saber, likewise shooting toward the female-type monster with explosive force.
The shooting star that connected heaven and earth was on the left.
The helical tornado was on the right.
Both shot toward the female-type monster from two sides, and at a certain moment, they simultaneously landed on its body, piercing completely through its colossal frame.
That was, without a doubt, a fatal strike.
The female-type monster, which had been screaming continuously, suddenly stiffened all over, and the sound in its mouth ground to a screeching halt.
Time, at this very moment, seemed to stand still.
In the next second, the female-type monster, whose massive frame had been pierced through, expanded all over its body.
Boom!!!!!
That purple-black, massive abdomen detonated in an instant, and its colossal frame shattered along with it. The explosive pollen and corrosive liquid turned into sparks of destruction, triggering the most terrifying explosion experienced up to this point, shaking the entirety of the 50th floor.
Firelight and black smoke surged into the sky together, rushing straight into the clouds.
-----------------------------------------------
I handpick only the finest and most captivating novels for you. Don't forget to check out my other novels!
p@treon HongMengZi