Chapter 279: Final Quest II

Rustle— Rustle—

At this moment, Raxon stopped and immediately put his hand on the hilt of his war hammer.

From the moment they had stepped into this swamped, not once had they sensed any movement aside from their own.

Now that they suddenly heard some rustling sounds ahead, the three stiffened.

Aeola’s eyes flashed with a bright glow as her Diamond-grade Nine Eyes were used to their maximum potential.

In an instant, the flow of air and mana in the surroundings became visible in her eyes.

The strain on her body and mind worsened, but her expression remained still.

’This is our first quest. I don’t want to let them down... I need to at least see what made those sounds—’

Just as she was immersed in her thoughts, something caught her attention.

It was an eye.

A purely pitch-black eye that has multiple white limbal rings, whose patterns were similar to those of a bullseye.

The only difference was the fact that the white limbal rings were closer to each other.

Seeing the strange thing in front of them, sharp pain shot through Aeola’s eyes.

"Ah!"

She could not help but let out a cry, using her hands to cover her eyes.

However, her companions could see the blood trickling down past her hands.

Nevertheless, Aeola endured the pain and pointed in a direction, ’S-Something’s there... Careful!"

As soon as she finished speaking, she gritted her teeth extremely hard to cope with the pain.

The crystal ball in her hand glowed subtly as she prepared to cast her magic.

However, she soon sensed something amiss.

Aeola could not help but ask out loud, "R-Raxon? Leader? Are you there?"

However, no one answered her.

Now deprived of her sense of sight, Aeola’s situation had become a few times harder.

Unbeknownst to her, everything seemed normal on the outside.

Raxon and Marzana readied themselves as they stared cautiously in the direction that Aeola had pointed.

However, no matter how hard they observed that area, nothing seemed to be amiss.

After a few minutes, Raxon unconsciously let down his guard, "Aeola, there’s nothing there—"

Just as he was about to finish speaking, he suddenly ’disappeared’.

"Raxon!" Marzana shouted.

Instead of taking any rash actions, she decided to stay calm first.

It was then that she saw Aeola, who was opening and closing her mouth as if speaking to something.

The only difference was the fact that no sound came out of her— as if she was merely mouthing words.

Nevertheless, Marzana focused intensely and was able to lip-read some of her companion’s words.

[Leader... Where... are... you...]

"I’m here! Can you hear me!?"

Marzana shouted, yet Aeola merely repeated her words.

Realizing that she could not hear her, Marzana’s eyes squinted as she tried to reach out for the fox girl.

"!!!"

The moment her hands neared Aeola’s arm, it stopped.

Marzana observed and saw that even though her hand was merely centimeters away, it could not be moved forward, even by a little bit.

"W-What’s this..."

Stammering, she tried her best to calm herself down.

’I can’t touch Aeola, and I can’t see Raxon...’

Marzana tried to think of the various demon species in the book she once memorized.

Like monsters, demons did not have a single form.

The various demon species come in all shapes and sizes, which makes hunting them countless times more difficult.

At this moment, the elven girl racked her brains to think of a demon species that had this kind of ability.

’This demon can make others disappear. It can also prevent others from hearing you. The moment Aeola discovered it, she received a severe backlash to the point that her eyes started to bleed...’

Marzana was not a part of the eleven royal lineage for nothing, as she instantly came up with two conclusions.

’There are two types of demons that have this kind of ability. The first ones are illusion demons, and the other are space demons...’

’I’ll need to move quickly if I want to be sure...’

Marzana acted swiftly as she unhesitatingly unsheathed one of her daggers and sliced her forearm.

"Tsk..."

Feeling the searing pain, she gritted her teeth to keep herself from making any sound.

’Illusions cast by illusion demons are often vulnerable to pain. The pain will either snap me out of the illusion, or the demon might block the feeling of pain to keep me in the illusion.’

Marzana gritted her teeth further as she sliced her arm again, "Based on the strength of the illusion, the degree of pain needed to break out of it increases as well...’

She knew it deep in her heart that if this were a high-level illusion demon, she might be wounding herself for naught.

After all, strong illusion demons can manipulate even the smallest details within a person’s mind.

’I’ll just have to bet on the fact that whatever our opponent is, it’s not an illusion demon of a way higher level than us.’

Seeing that nothing had changed in the surroundings, Marzana heaved a sigh.

"If this is a space demon, then things will be simpler."

The reason for this was that, unlike illusion demons that directly manipulate the mind, which rendered her chaos energy useless, the same could not be said for space demons.

Woong—-

Pitch-black energy slowly coated her dagger as she sliced it on the ’space’ around her.

Crack— Clink!!!!

The sound of shattering glass echoed around the area as Raxon’s tall figure appeared before her.

"Leader? Raxon? Are you there!?"

At the same time, Aeola’s voice could now be finally heard as well.

"As expected, it’s a space demon."

Marzana commented casually, but her eyes were filled with worry as she saw Raxon’s state.

The bulky and tall half-dwarf and half-giant, Raxo, was currently filled with injuries.

His most severe injury was located on his foot, which was dyed the muddy water of the swamp red.

""Leader!!""

Aeola and Raxon were overjoyed as soon as they heard Marzana’s voice.

"The enemy isn’t defeated yet, focus!"

Marzana shouted with an authoritative voice as her eyes scanned the surroundings.

"Space demons are one of the most intelligent demon species... we must be careful."

""Understood!""

Raxon and Aeola simultaneously replied as they assumed a fighting stance.