"Judgment, descend!"
"Six suns—molten golden spearhead! Four split dark-runed edge!"
"Condense—O holy Hermes' Spear of Judgment!"
As Iris chanted, a dazzling spear of light condensed in her palm.
"Do you need to adjust your position?"
While continuing to evade the White Unicorn's charge, Leon lowered his head and asked Iris, who was still in his arms in a princess carry.
Iris's pale pink cheeks flushed slightly.
"No need. I've already locked on!"
As soon as the words left her lips, she swung her staff and gave a sharp snap. Mana surged, and the spear in her palm was shoved forward.
At first it didn't seem particularly fast. But the instant it fully left her hand, it vanished—shooting out at a speed the naked eye couldn't track.
Whoosh!!!!
The spear of light flew straight at the White Unicorn pursuing them.
And right as it was about to hit—when only ten centimeters remained—
Suddenly—
Crash, crash, crash!!
An ice-crystal defensive shield condensed in front of the White Unicorn.
Even more strangely, the spear's terrifying speed was abruptly suppressed before it even made contact—slowing to a crawl, as if it had sunk into mud. It barely maintained forward motion, grinding against the ice-crystal barrier in a prolonged stalemate, unable to break through.
After five seconds, the spear of light was completely neutralized by the ice-crystal shield.
An attack with power approaching intermediate magic… was casually dissolved like that!
The scene made Leon's eyes widen.
"It can even instantly slow the spear's extreme speed… Is that ice-based deceleration magic?"
He could barely hide his shock.
Ice deceleration wasn't as simple as "put something in the way to slow it down."
Once most spells were successfully cast, their speed was very hard to suppress.
Normally you could only counter with barrier-to-barrier resistance—or intercept with another spell.
But to preemptively slow an already-launched spell—that kind of magic was extremely rare.
In the Sword, Magic, and the Holy Land world, only a handful of freakishly gifted beings could ever grasp even a trace of it, and only with absurd luck—ice dragons, sea dragons, pure-blood ice elves, and the like.
If someone mastered deeper applications through long use, their combat power would break through in astonishing ways.
With higher mana and higher mastery, it could even evolve into taboo magic capable of freezing motion itself—so much so that even time.
That was why deceleration magic was praised as one of the "crowns" of magic.
And yet this White Unicorn—just a monster—could instinctively wield it.
Even if it was only the barest surface.
But even the surface was enough to drastically change the flow of battle.
At minimum, with this alone, the White Unicorn could slaughter most third-tiers—and could even trade blows with a fourth-tier extraordinary.
Because starting at fourth tier, combat power leapt far beyond third tier.
No wonder it was a monster whose name had appeared in mythic history.
Leon remembered that across all four parts of Sword, Magic, and the Holy Land, only Part Three's first heroine had truly cracked this "magic crown" through new-style magic—mastering it to a high level and forging it into her core trump card.
Every other character who used deceleration magic was basically at the "surface-level" stage.
Even epic-tier powerhouses were no exception.
"You're not mistaken, are you?" Iris gasped. "Ice deceleration—that's a magic crown!"
"Very likely I'm not. Since this White Unicorn is this nasty, we should retreat. Even if we can win, the cost will be huge. The risk spikes."
"What if I try firing a stronger spear with more mana?"
"The Spear of Judgment's advantages are guaranteed hit and the massive impact of extreme speed. Both are being suppressed—meaning it can't defeat that unicorn."
"I still have one trump intermediate spell. Want to try it?"
"How much mana will it cost you?"
"Fifty percent more than the Spear of Judgment."
"Then try it. If it fails, we retreat to the 24th floor to regroup—or come back later—or enter the 25th-floor side-path region from another direction."
"Alright."
Iris immediately began chanting.
Even though her agility was higher than Leon's, she lacked movement techniques. She couldn't reliably evade the White Unicorn's high-speed impacts at key moments.
So for now, the situation remained: Leon carried Iris at full sprint, occasionally triggering Flashshadow Step to dodge the unicorn's explosive charges.
If you judged by agility alone, this White Unicorn was probably at least 50—nearly double the normal cap.
That was a top-tier number even among third-tier monsters.
Iris had strong racial gifts, but because elves matured slowly and she was still relatively young, aside from mana, her other attributes hadn't yet reached "double-cap" levels.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Fire bolts shot out again and again, exploding on the unicorn—only to have their speed stripped away and their power reduced.
This time, Iris's chant was very long.
Even the chant language was unfamiliar to Leon.
Leon could only keep running in a wide loop around the Water Ruins' outer edge, while casting various beginner spells to obstruct the White Unicorn's approach.
In the blink of an eye, from the moment they encountered it until now, Leon had already spent 12 mana and 8 stamina.
Then—
A wall of water surged up from the distant surface, spiraled once, and turned into a broad, rushing wave that slammed toward Leon's position.
It was the White Unicorn using immense mana to cast an intermediate water spell: Flood Burst.
Clearly, after being dodged repeatedly, it chose a wide-area attack instead.
BOOM!!!!
The roaring flood carried enormous force as it crashed toward them.
Now Leon truly had nowhere to dodge.
Flood Burst covered a radius of over a hundred meters. Flashshadow Step would need to be triggered six times in a row to escape the area.
Leon glanced at Iris—her chant still hadn't finished. The mana gathering around her was growing heavier and heavier.
By the look of it, this spell would cost at least 20 mana—far more than she'd estimated.
This girl… at a critical moment, she really did trust him to hold the line for that long.
"Fine," Leon muttered. "Let's play big."
He gathered mana and cast a beginner defensive spell at high output: Water Mirror Barrier.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
Water droplets condensed in front of him into a circular shield, covering both of them.
Chantless—instant.
Mana: -3.
And the moment the barrier formed, the cresting wave slammed down.
BOOM!!!
Almost instantly, Leon's shield was pierced by the overwhelming impact.
But Leon only needed that single instant. As long as he deflected the first удар—first impact—of Flood Burst, he could use Flashshadow Step to move into an area with less spray for the aftermath.
Whoosh!!
Just as the White Unicorn came galloping in on surging water, Leon used the third-tier Flashshadow Step to reposition into midair, dodging the second wave of Flood Burst—and the unicorn's follow-up pincer.
And at that exact moment, Iris's long-prepared intermediate spell finally completed.
A torrent of mana surged and gathered atop her staff.