Chapter 290

Chapter 290: Chapter 290

"It really is... a Spirit..."

Ais’s eyes trembled violently as she murmured the words under her breath.

"To be precise, it’s a Corrupted Spirit," Kiriya emphasized. "A new kind of monster created after a Spirit was contaminated by a monster’s madness."

"How... grotesque."

Riveria pressed a hand against her chest as an unprecedented feeling of discomfort washed over her.

A holiness that made one’s skin crawl.

Beauty and ugliness intertwined in a way that inspired instinctive revulsion.

The Corrupted Spirit was precisely that kind of contradictory, repulsive existence.

Yet while Kiriya’s group reacted with disgust, the Corrupted Spirit herself seemed delighted.

She stared at Ais with the innocent joy of a child, but the words that left her lips sent chills down everyone’s spine.

"Aria... Aria..."

"I wanted to see you. I wanted to see you so badly."

"Become... one with me."

"Let me eat you... all right?"

Her tone was as natural and sincere as a child asking for a bite of someone else’s candy.

Hearing those words, Ryuu suddenly realized something and turned sharply toward Ais.

"So... you’re descended from a Spirit too."

"We can talk about that later. They’re coming."

Riveria’s voice became grave.

Just as she warned, the moment the Corrupted Spirit finished speaking, the strange worms and Man-Eating Flowers that had been offering her their magic stones and lives all turned around and charged toward Kiriya’s group.

More accurately—

They were charging toward Ais.

Rumble—!

At almost the same moment, the passage behind them collapsed.

Huge masses of green, slime-like flesh surged into the opening and blocked it completely.

The intention could not have been clearer.

The enemy wanted to wipe out every one of them here.

"Everyone, prepare for battle."

Jeanne immediately assumed command.

She deliberately called back Ais and Ryuu, who had been about to rush forward to meet the worms and Man-Eating Flowers, then turned toward Riveria.

"Riveria, prepare ice-attribute Magic."

Riveria paused for a fraction of a second, but her mouth did not hesitate. She immediately began chanting an ice spell.

"Kiriya, use your Water Release."

"Got it."

Kiriya laughed, his hands rapidly forming seals before he faced the oncoming army of monsters.

"Water Release: Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave!"

An enormous amount of chakra erupted from his body.

Under his precise control, it transformed into a towering wave that surged toward the monster army.

CRASH—!

The wall of water rose more than ten meters high.

The slow-moving monsters had no time to react, and many were crushed to death on the spot when the wave slammed into them.

Of course, compared with the overwhelming size of the horde, those casualties amounted to little more than a drop in the ocean.

But Jeanne had never intended for the water itself to be the real killing blow.

The true attack came next.

"—O omen of the end, pure white snow. At the hour of twilight, let the raging winds arise.

Seal away the light. Freeze the earth beneath a sky filled with blizzards.

Three harsh winters—

My name is Alf."

As Riveria completed her chant, an enormous magic circle appeared beneath her feet.

Three waves of bitterly cold wind erupted outward, freezing everything in their path.

In the blink of an eye, the vast central plain transformed into a frozen wasteland.

The monsters that had been rampaging arrogantly only moments earlier became ice sculptures almost instantly.

Under the extreme cold, their life signs rapidly vanished before their bodies dissolved into clouds of smoke.

"Amazing..."

Ais stared in astonishment.

She looked at Riveria, then Kiriya, before finally turning toward Jeanne.

To formulate a plan like that in such a short amount of time...

Jeanne really was a natural-born commander.

Remembering how attentive and meticulous Jeanne had been while they exchanged intelligence earlier, Ais found it completely believable.

’Did it work...?’

A faint hope rose in her heart.

It was shattered almost immediately.

Crack! Crack!

The ice layer exploded apart.

The Corrupted Spirit released a furious roar as several tentacles from her lower body shot forward like bullets.

They crossed hundreds of meters in the blink of an eye and arrived in front of the group.

"You won’t!"

Ryuu, Ais, and Jeanne reacted immediately.

Their weapons moved almost simultaneously, slashing and smashing into the incoming tentacles to stop them.

But—

BANG!

"Ugh!"

The instant they collided, all three women’s expressions changed.

The savage force traveled through their weapons and arms directly into their bodies, violently shaking their organs and making their blood churn.

For a moment, they could barely keep hold of their weapons.

"Hundred Slashes in an Instant."

Kiriya assumed the worst immediately and unleashed one of his strongest sword techniques without hesitation.

Invisible sword energy tore through the surrounding area, severing every tentacle around him.

"AAAAAAARGH!"

The intense pain only drove the Corrupted Spirit into greater fury.

Her remaining tentacles began concentrating their attacks entirely on Kiriya, unintentionally taking much of the pressure off Ais and the other three women.

Riveria immediately seized the opportunity and began preparing another spell.

Then—

"O flame, come forth—"

The familiar sound of an incantation reached her ears.

Riveria nearly bit her own tongue.

She was not the only one.

Ryuu and Ais were so shocked that they almost lost the ability to speak.

"A monster... is chanting Magic?"

Monsters lived according to violent instinct and destructive impulse.

They were not supposed to be capable of reciting incantations.

The rationality and wisdom necessary to wield Magic belonged to the domain of mortals, a territory monsters could never enter.

It was true that this creature had originated from a Spirit, but its current life signs were unquestionably those of a monster.

That was precisely why the sight left them so stunned.

For an instant, they wondered whether they had imagined it.

Then, in the next moment, an enormous magic circle spread beneath the Corrupted Spirit.

A vast amount of magical energy—far exceeding even the reserves Riveria normally wielded—surged violently within it.

"Riveria, put up a barrier!"

Jeanne shouted.

"Kiriya, stop her!"

"Got it!"

The clone shouted back.

A blue-white sphere of energy rapidly formed in its hand.

Countless arcs of lightning crawled across its surface, the condensed power within radiating terrifying destructive force.

"Lightning Release: Spiral Railgun!"

Using Jeanne’s cover, the clone unleashed an unprecedented bombardment directly toward the Corrupted Spirit’s main body.

CRACK—!

The railgun moved with terrifying speed.

A massive sonic boom erupted along its path, and the shock wave tore apart everything around it.

The Corrupted Spirit had already reacted the moment Kiriya began forming that sphere of plasma.

Ten enormous petals covering her lower body unfolded around her, layering one over another to form five consecutive defensive barriers that completely shielded her main body.

BOOM!

The Lightning Release railgun slammed into the petals.

Its tremendous kinetic force instantly tore through the first layer.

Then the second.

The third...

Ryuu and Ais widened their eyes.

For a moment, they were certain Kiriya’s brilliant attack would pierce straight through the enemy.

But only Kiriya and Riveria clearly sensed what had actually happened.

The trajectory of that densely compressed sphere of energy had been deflected.

It had originally been aimed directly at the monster’s body.

By the time it broke through the defenses, its path had shifted nearly a meter away.

The Corrupted Spirit’s lower body was shredded by the kinetic force, and the terrifying energy exploded at the point of impact, annihilating everything within several hundred meters.

But the monster...

Was still alive.

Worse yet, her Magic was still being prepared.

"Her control over magical energy is already at Level 7."

As Orario’s strongest mage, Riveria could clearly perceive just how terrifying the opponent was.

"And purely in terms of Magic... she’s already approaching Level 8."

"Dance, spirits of the atmosphere, lord of light. Form a pact with the guardian of the forest.

Embrace us with the song of the earth. Enfold us..."

Riveria and the Corrupted Spirit continued chanting at the same time.

And with every passing moment, Riveria’s heart sank further.

The enemy was using an ultra-long incantation of astonishing length.

Yet her chanting speed was horrifyingly fast, far beyond even Riveria’s own.

An enormous quantity of magical energy, on a scale no ordinary mortal could possibly possess, was being loaded into the spell like ammunition into a colossal cannon.

In only two or three seconds, an unprecedented wide-area spell was completed.

"Roar, roar, vortex of flame, crimson cliffs, bellowing inferno.

With the power of the suddenly rising gale, seal the world.

Burning sky.

Burning earth.

Burning sea.

Burning springs.

Burning mountains.

Burning life.

Reduce everything to scorched earth.

Sound the cannon of rage and lamentation.

As the price, take the life of the hero I loved—"

The Corrupted Spirit spread her power across the battlefield.

"Firestorm!"

An endless tsunami of flame surged forward like an entire ocean of fire overturned upon the world.

It swept over everything.

It burned everything.

Almost simultaneously, Riveria completed her own spell.

"Dimensional Severance!"

A gigantic dome-shaped barrier of light rose around the group, enclosing everyone within.