Chapter 613 – Battle of Endewills

The air around us shifted with the T-Rex’s roar that seemed to reverberate throughout Ende Wiles.

It felt unsettling… The other monsters seemed to have detected our position as well, and soon another large monster appeared on the main street.

—A Dragonian. A demi-human race also known as the dragonkin. While their close relatives, the Lizardmen, are considered the same, the line between them and monsters is rather ambiguous.

Each of its scales was large and spiky in form. This was my first time seeing this type of Dragonian.

Among similar creatures… there was something called an armadillo lizard, I recall. This was like that creature standing on two legs, clad in armor, and grown to over two meters in size. Clad in armor—it carried a large battle axe with a long handle resting on its shoulder.

And then, other smaller monsters began to show themselves as well.

It seemed the roar had summoned the monsters, as numerous enemy shadows emerged from behind the houses and floated into the air. These were… monsters with round bodies somewhat like balloons.

They had single eyes and branch-like arms, floating in the air.

Ah… Should I call them giant flying water fleas? Their bodies were glassy and overall whitish. Since they glowed from within, they were strangely beautiful, but…

“The ones flying in the air are monsters named Prism Free by the residents of Ende Wiles,” said Helvorte. I see…

Appearance aside, they seemed to possess a considerable amount of magical power. There also appeared to be ground forces equivalent to infantry—peeking out from behind the houses, from here and there. “Here and there” was an understatement. There were many. A considerable number.

Those ground forces—were monsters I knew. Giant ants with blue body surfaces. Soldier-class giant ant soldiers of the Kaiser Ant. They possessed combat capabilities incomparable to the ants we fought back when heading to the Barony of Silun. Their fingertips were developed, and some of their arms were equipped with swords and shields and such… Well, if they were a wild species, their intelligence was likely high as well.

“Don’t worry about the town. There are no residents, nor any household goods. Even if things break, they’ll be repaired,” Claudia told us.

“So we can fight without holding back.”

“That’s right. To your heart’s content.”

“Everyone, over here!”

Ashley said that and, simultaneously with Princess Stephania, deployed a Defense Field to create a sturdy defensive position. Furthermore, Corulis sprouted crystal pillars here and there to create obstacles.

Dullahan, Ignis, and Belius lined up in front of the position, and Pietro increased his clones to make the defensive position even more impregnable.

“I’ll handle that lizard knight over there. Since we both use axes, we’ll probably match up well.”

“Understood. I’ll take the one that appeared first.”

Grace would handle the Dragonian. I’d take the T-Rex. If that massive body charged at us, leveraging its size, the defensive position would be meaningless, so we couldn’t leave the T-Rex alone. We could also receive covering fire from our allies, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

“We’ll handle the ones in the air,” said Sheila and Sion, stepping forward.

“It seems you all intend to gauge the enemy’s strength… but if you wish to reduce unnecessary numbers, I shall assist as well,” said Helvorte, taking a stance with its spear.

“I leave Lady Claudia’s protection to you,” it then said to Belius. Belius grinned and responded to Helvorte.

“That thing flying from the sky, appearance aside, seems to have substantial magical power. It’ll likely use projectile weapons, so be careful. It might also have special attack methods like self-destruction.”

“Mm. Understood.”

Well then… Let’s begin the battle.

“Then—here we go.”

Keeping our respective enemies in sight, we kicked off the ground and dashed out together with Grace.

The T-Rex seemed to notice me immediately and charged from its side as well.

Perhaps it concentrated its fighting spirit in its hind legs, as it kicked and shattered the cobblestones, closing in head-on with a speed unbelievable for its massive frame. A gigantic maw approaching with absurd relative velocity. Fangs like rows of stakes.

If I leaped sideways with Capella’s kick, the jaws snapped shut, and a heavy, crunching sound reverberated right beside my body.

I hadn’t widened the distance. Right beside the T-Rex’s face—from that position, I expanded a massive mass of magical power at the tip of Ouroboros and slammed it down.

There was no impact as I had hoped. The T-Rex had deployed a Magic Shield beside its face. The crystal protruding from its forehead wreathed itself in purple lightning—and the next instant, it shook its head violently, releasing radial electric shocks.

I too used Lightning Magic to bend the T-Rex’s lightning strike. Just as I thought several streaks of lightning had struck the ground, the T-Rex’s tail, wreathed in fighting spirit, swung up from below.

It had kicked off the ground, leaping into the air, and delivered a spinning tail strike.

—But I avoided that blow too, shifting sideways. The instant the massive, wind-whipped tail like a giant tree passed by, I charged toward its torso.

A Magic Shield deployed in response to my movement.

It seemed that because its massive body wasn’t agile enough to keep up with offense and defense, it supplemented with shields. But that single means of defense wasn’t enough.

I slammed a magical shockwave through the shield. Not yet. I didn’t allow the counterattack from its hind leg claws, which came a moment late; instead, I converted the magical power used to fire the shockwave into a spell formula, creating a concentrated bullet of storm that blew the T-Rex from the air toward the ground. Its massive body crashed into an Ende Wiles house, producing a spectacular noise as it was buried in the rubble.

“Can you take this?”

I created three, four Solid Hammers and slammed them into the rubble.

The T-Rex—moved immediately. No sooner had it raised its head from the rubble than it met the Solid Hammers head-on with a headbutt wreathed in fighting spirit. Its bloodshot eyes swung its head left and right, and heavy sounds echoed as the giant stones shattered.

It wasn’t enduring. Its toughness seemed considerable too. Or perhaps it was defense via fighting spirit.

…Despite its massive frame, it moved with agility enough to reach me in the air; fighting spirit, magic, lightning strikes—it was showing quite a variety of techniques. As expected of a large monster appearing on the deep floors, it seemed to possess fairly high potential.

I too… had various things I wanted to try. If it possessed a high technical level, I’d have it accompany me. Landing on the ground, I stared straight at the T-Rex, took a stance with Ouroboros, and increased my power through magical power circulation.

“Now then.”

Doing so, I deployed a Magic Circle—and environmental magic power gathered from the surroundings. Particles of light danced around my body.

“—Here it comes.”

Sheila and Sion’s group charged straight into the Prism Free cluster. The instant after Sheila’s voice echoed—heat rays fired simultaneously from the Prism Frees’ single eyes swept across the area.

They seemed to possess considerable heat energy, enough to make the cobblestones they hit red-hot. But they didn’t hit. The Prism Frees lost sight for a moment of Sheila, who flew drawing irregular trajectories and making her form flicker, and Sion’s group, who advanced by kicking off from shield to shield in sharp-angled paths, repeating reflections.

The reason Sheila’s group charged head-on into the Prism Free cluster was to prevent them from providing covering fire or coordination to the others’ battles from the air. They would draw the Prism Frees’ attention, divide them, and gain control of the aerial combat.

They closed the distance in one go, but Sheila didn’t straightforwardly launch an attack. She broke away sideways. At the timing when Sheila should have cut in, a heat ray flying from the side swept through that space. The Prism Frees were coordinating with each other too.

But Sheila had seen through that as well. There—Irmhild’s arrows flew in.

One was deflected by a Magic Shield, but the other struck a Prism Free that had been distracted by Sheila’s movement.

It pierced the body part, making it sway, but it wasn’t shot down yet. It turned toward Irmhild, positioned far away—but there, Marceska charged from directly below, cutting it down as they passed each other. Without a glance back at the slash, Marceska swiftly broke away upward.

“No explosions or anything?”

“Seems not. Sigritta!”

“…Mm. Increase targets, disrupt movements, and push through… got it.”

Having discerned the Prism Frees’ characteristics, Sigritta’s book floated in the air, its pages turning busily. A swarm of ink animals rushed toward the Prism Free group from scattered directions. In sync, Sheila’s group flew.

“They have Magic Shields, and their flying speed is quite fast. If we cut in head-on, they’ll probably block it. Their coordination is surprisingly good too, so watch your backs as well.”

“Understood!”

The deep floor monsters utilized Magic Shields as a matter of course—but following Sheila’s instructions, we too should coordinate and cut in from blind spots.

But the coordinated attacks the enemy excelled at were also their own favored arena. Their training with the Golems was like that too—someone draws attention, someone else takes the role of cutting in. There were also the ink animals to distract attention and disrupt coordination. And so—amid the busy rain of heat rays being fired, Sheila’s group cut their way in.

“I see… So the current Kingdom of Verdugal is full of capable individuals, is it?”

Helvorte, having watched Sheila’s group’s situation, nodded quietly. Then it turned back to face forward.

“—Come at me.”

Helvorte met the charging ant soldiers on the ground. Flash. A blue streak of light carved horizontally through the void, and the lead ant soldier’s head went flying through the air.

Helvorte’s spear tip swept through the ant’s body that had stepped into range. It was a spear shaped to allow not just thrusts, but also delivering slashing attacks with its tip.

Right where they halted—a hail of shooting rained down from the defensive position. The lead group, which had taken a dense formation, couldn’t avoid it. They tried to endure by gathering fighting spirit on their shields—but when Belius fired relentless lines of fire from his three heads without mercy or compunction, the clustered ant soldiers were blown away.

The following ant soldiers, seeing that, immediately realized it would be difficult to fight while minimizing losses; concentrating fighting spirit on the shields in their hands, they moved to spread their formation sideways across the entire main street. With flawless movement, they formed a horizontal line and advanced.

Because of their high intelligence, they moved to reduce casualties, but once they understood that was impossible, they’d overwhelm with numbers, huh? A rational, insect-like movement, fearless. But—.

Thud, sounds rang out as crystal pillars emerged one after another from the ground, disrupting the ant formation. Corulis. Detecting positions through vibrations and the scent of magic, it disrupted the ant soldiers’ formation without showing itself from underground. Along the trajectory Corulis swam through the ground, crystal pillars sprang forth one after another.

It wasn’t merely an attack. It left obstacles on the main street, creating choke points to disrupt the advance.

But the ants were denizens of the depths too. They immediately made their Magic Circles flash, attempting to excavate the cobblestones to counter Corulis attacking from underground.

But Corulis had already fulfilled its role—scattering obstacles to make wide-formation marching difficult. It broke through the ground, revealing itself, blew away ants from below with its claws, and then broke away to a high altitude. The ant soldiers—watched it go, somewhat dumbfounded.

“In this case, we must prepare for attacks from below—from the ground as well,” said Ashley.

From Ashley’s feet, the cobblestones froze, and the area rapidly expanded. Using Water Magic to freeze it, making excavation via Earth Magic ineffective.

“…I hear it. The ground ants seem to be coordinating through sound,” said Seraphina.

Ultrasonic coordination, flawlessly unified. But once Seraphina cracked that code—.

Seraphina, grinning mischievously, stole the sound and disrupted it. The ant soldiers looked around confusedly. Some advanced through the choke points, others ran about aimlessly. Those who forcibly pushed forward were individually picked off by projectile weapons. Illusions from Flamia’s Flame cut in, preventing the advance from proceeding as intended.

But even then, they didn’t give up. It seemed the ants were advancing from underground as well. Perhaps they could no longer proceed due to the freezing, as they emerged above ground partway and headed toward the defensive position—but Dullahan flashed past them as they appeared from the holes, and Ignis smashed them down with brute force.

Corulis, flying around near the position, created giant crystal spears from the air and slammed them into the cobblestones. They shattered the underground tunnels, cutting off the following ants.

The rearguard defensive position. And air superiority, attacks from the city’s underground—seemed to be no problem. Grace’s battle also seemed evenly matched. Then—I’ll focus on the battle before me as well.