Chapter 46 : Chapter 46
Chapter 46. The Black Flame Ignited.
The subjugation force moved in a clockwise direction around Gert Castle, searching for the tunnels.
The process was to break through the Lafre swarm and pour golden beetles into the tunnels they reached.
Including the first tunnel, everything went smoothly up to filling the third tunnel with beetles.
‘Two tunnels remaining.’
If they could just block the tunnel in front of them, only one would be left.
The problem occurred right after they arrived at the fourth tunnel.
Just before Hyunwoo leaned over the tunnel entrance to pour in the glass bottles, he felt the inside of the tunnel darken.
Within the dark, bottomless pit of the tunnel, a shadow blacker than the darkness itself stirred.
‘Huh?’
The thought was slow, but the reaction was fast.
Hyunwoo reflexively threw the glass bottle and leaned his body back.
Whoosh―!
A wooden stem the size of his waist whipped through the air where Hyunwoo had just been.
The end of the stem was split into a sharp point.
If he hadn't managed to dodge it, it wouldn't have ended with a small scratch.
Hyunwoo felt a cold sensation run down his back.
The wooden stem that shot up from the tunnel was not the only one.
Dozens of stems aimed for the subjugation force at the same time.
Not everyone could react as nimbly as Hyunwoo.
Crack―!
Uwaaaaargh―!
The screams of the soldiers whose bodies were pierced by the stems echoed across the battlefield.
The screams coming from all directions and the pieces of flesh scattered on the ground jolted Hyunwoo to his senses.
Hyunwoo raised Cheonbyeondo, struck the stem in front of him, and shouted.
“It’s Anesta’s stem―!”
“Everyone, fall back!”
It was Noctis’s command.
Fall back? To where, exactly?
Inside the tunnel were Anesta’s stems.
Outside was a swarm of Lafre.
They were surrounded by their enemies.
As if realizing his command was impossible, Noctis looked at the lord.
The lord was already gathering his mana.
Gwoooooo―
A huge vortex of mana swirled around him.
Hyunwoo hurriedly shouted to the lord.
“Save your strength! This isn’t the last of it!”
The lord nodded and continued his magic incantation.
He was the only one here who could damage Anesta. He had to conserve his mana until the final battle.
As if he had understood Hyunwoo’s words correctly, an enormous number of spells embroidered the sky.
⌜Wind Blade⌟
Swoosh swoosh swoosh―!
A whirlwind of wind blades!
So much mana was poured into it that the formless wind magic was faintly visible to the naked eye.
Just because it was visible didn't mean the characteristic stealth and sharpness of wind magic had disappeared.
Slice―!
Starting with the stem closest to the lord.
C-crack―
The stems that had shot out of the tunnel split apart all at once, spewing black fluid.
A long cry from Anesta echoed from within the tunnel.
Kieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek―!!!
“Ugh―!”
An intense, bursting sound that vibrated the eardrums.
The soldiers covered their ears at the noise, which was louder than the combined cries of all the Lafre gathered around them.
In that time, the stems of Anesta that had squeezed out of the tunnel had already disappeared back inside.
It was a crisis detection and swift escape ability that didn't match its size.
The lord briefly clicked his tongue.
“Tsk… a shame.”
The power he had witnessed with his own two eyes was certainly strong.
As Anesta disappeared, the subjugation force also quickly regained its composure.
While the others blocked the Lafre swarm, Hyunwoo poured the glass bottles into the fourth tunnel.
‘Phew… that’s the last of the golden beetles.’
Hyunwoo emptied all the glass bottles and dusted off his hands.
When Hyunwoo nodded, the lord approached.
“Where is the last one?”
“The last one is in a place that’s easy to recognize.”
Hyunwoo pointed in one direction with his hand.
“Isn't that… where Gert Castle is?”
“Yes. That’s right. Now―”
The place where the first Anesta was discovered.
Gert Castle.
It was the location of the final tunnel.
“It's time to hunt the creature. With all the other tunnels covered in golden beetles, that is the only place it can go.”
“We should go first and set up a formation.”
The lord gave a signal to Noctis with his eyes.
Noctis, who had been listening quietly from the side, gathered the scattered soldiers.
There were empty spaces throughout the ranks.
“…We’ve been reduced by half.”
They were elite forces that had held on until this point, but in a single attack from Anesta, half of them had been killed.
‘If the battlefield had been inside the tunnels….’
Seeing the scene of soldiers being pierced and torn apart by the stems, he recalled the time when he had entered the tunnels as a scout to find traces of Anesta.
Noctis swallowed a groan and rearranged the now-empty ranks of the force.
In front of the soldiers standing in the newly formed, sparse ranks, Noctis raised his voice.
“Everyone, be strong! This is the last one.”
Noctis took the lead and began to head in the direction of Gert Castle.
The subjugation force followed behind him.
* * *
The path to Gert Castle was fraught with peril.
The reduced number of soldiers was a painful blow to the subjugation force.
Lafre broke through the gaps in the ranks.
They could no longer maintain a solid formation as before.
Furthermore, with every step the subjugation force took, dozens of Lafre appeared.
There were just too many.
Kieeeeeeeek―!
The subjugation force pushed through them, advancing painstakingly one step at a time.
Having come this far, retreat was impossible anyway.
Enemies on all sides.
To fall back meant only death.
Crunch―
The ground beneath their feet crumbled like fallen leaves.
The deeper they went into the forest, the darker the ground became.
Corrupted land.
Fortunately, it didn't have much of an effect on the subjugation force.
The blessings of the artifacts worn on the lord's body were preventing the corruption.
However, the artifacts were not permanent.
Crack―!
When Hyunwoo glanced back at the sound coming from behind, one of the lord’s artifacts had crumbled.
He, whose eyes met mine, opened his mouth.
“We must hurry. We don’t have much time.”
“We’re almost there.”
No matter how high-grade the artifact, it was difficult to cover such a large number of people entirely.
The number of artifacts remaining on the lord was also a reason to hasten their steps.
The subjugation force was not the only one in a hurry.
Kieeeeee―!
“Huh? Those things are….”
“They're Lafre, but in an incomplete form. It seems Anesta has also sensed the crisis. To send even those.”
“I see. So it has no leeway.”
Even pre-evolution Lafre, looking as if they had just been created, began to appear.
The number of enemies blocking the subjugation force increased, but it actually became easier to advance.
As they continued to break through the seemingly endless swarm of Lafre, at some point, a pitch-black land appeared.
A land where the earth had completely rotted away, emitting a foul smell.
At the end of the black land, the outline of a castle that had collapsed from corruption, with only its shape remaining, began to be faintly visible.
“It's Gert Castle―!”
Noctis was the first to step onto the black earth.
“We’re entering the castle! Our mission is to guard the passage where Anesta will emerge.”
The entire subjugation force stepped onto the black earth.
The rotted ground did not seem to welcome the visit of the subjugation force.
Crunch―
With every step, the earth was crushed underfoot.
They advanced across the black earth, feeling the unpleasant sensation of stepping on mud-soaked fallen leaves.
“We're almost there!”
Gert Castle, with its eerie atmosphere, greeted the subjugation force.
As the subjugation force approached the outer wall, the surrounding castle wall flowed down like soft clay.
Rumble―!
The subjugation force flinched at the collapsing wall and stopped in its tracks. However, nothing particular happened.
The process of the castle wall, which would have originally been made of stone, collapsing was like a sandcastle on a beach.
The corrupted wall crumbled like sand.
Crumble―
The wall turned to dust and scattered like smoke around their ankles.
“…Keep moving.”
The subjugation force, which had briefly stopped, advanced over the collapsed wall debris under Noctis's command.
The wall debris clung to their bodies.
The rough texture of the low-lying debris added to the discomfort.
Hyunwoo, frowning, passed through the outer wall of Gert Castle.
When he had visited before, the houses still had their shapes.
But now, there was only black powder piled up here and there, with not even debris remaining.
Thanks to that, the view was wide open, making it easy to find the last passage.
Beyond the vast black plain, the passage of Anesta in the center of the inner castle was clearly visible.
It was around the time he was passing the black sand that would have been the wall of the inner castle that Hyunwoo felt something was strange.
Hoo― Hoo―
In the silent space, only the rough breathing of the subjugation force could be heard.
From the black earth to this point, they had not encountered any Lafre.
Hyunwoo stopped in his tracks and looked back at the lord.
“I think we need to stop for a moment.”
“What is it.”
“There's no one here.”
“No one here?”
“It’s strange that there are no Lafre around.”
“…I see. Something is indeed strange.”
The lord nodded and looked back at Noctis.
“Surround―”
Just as Noctis was about to raise his voice to order a reconnaissance of the surroundings.
Grgrgrgrgrgr―
An unusual sound came from beneath their feet.
A vibration underfoot, felt with the intermittent sound.
“Fall back―!”
“Wh-what!”
With Hyunwoo’s urgent shout, the ground collapsed.
Rumble―!
With a huge sound, the black earth caved in downwards.
Uwaaaaargh―!
The subjugation force tumbled down below all together.
Ah― ah―
The screams they let out as they fell came back as echoes.
The ground beneath them was empty.
Thud―
Everyone in the subjugation force somehow twisted their bodies and landed on the floor.
It was a sudden situation, but there was no one among them who would fall to the floor in a sorry state.
However, they could not hide the bewilderment rising from within.
What awakened them was Hyunwoo’s shout.
“Snap out of it―! We’re inside Anesta’s tunnel!”
At the same time, the cries of the Lafre, which they hadn't heard for a while, could be heard.
Kieeeek―!
The first to come to his senses was the lord, Bation.
The magic he created illuminated the dark tunnel in white.
Fwoosh―!
The light reflected off the shiny bodies of the Lafre.
A countless number.
It seemed as if all the creatures that had been missing were gathered here.
Behind them, something huge appeared.
Anesta.
Finally, the creature revealed itself before the subjugation force.
* * *
Noctis, whose blood ran cold at the appearance of Anesta and the Lafre swarm as soon as the ground collapsed, opened his mouth.
“Is it a trap?”
“No. Look over there.”
Hyunwoo’s fingertip pointed behind the appeared enemies.
Golden beetles were chasing closely behind them.
“…So it was being chased.”
Noctis breathed a sigh of relief.
If such a monster had the intelligence to set traps, there would have been no answer.
The thoughts of the subjugation force upon facing Anesta were generally similar.
Overwhelming size.
One soldier, unable to hide his inner thoughts, let out a small exclamation.
“…It's huge.”
They had been able to imagine its overall size from the huge stem of Anesta they had encountered at the fourth tunnel. The stem they saw then was the size of a man’s waist.
However, the reason the actual Anesta was much larger than the size they had predicted then was probably not just because their imagination was lacking.
It was just that its body was far too large compared to the stem that had protruded.
Hyunwoo swallowed dryly and stared at Anesta.
He had to lift his head high to take in its entire form.
‘…It must be as tall as a 10-story building.’
Anesta, seen in person, was huge enough to fill half the tunnel.
It felt as if the eyeless creature was staring at the entire subjugation force.
Gwoooooo―
At the end of its dark brown torso, indistinguishable from the black earth, a red flower like a rose was blooming.
A beautiful flower with fluttering petals enveloping the bud layer by layer.
As the layered leaves opened, Anesta’s mouth was revealed in between.
A black liquid gushed out from its open mouth.
At the same time.
Kieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee―!
A cry that shook the eardrums was heard.
With Anesta’s cry as the starting signal, the thread of tension that had filled the tunnel snapped.
Numerous Lafre rushed to attack the subjugation force at the same time.
“Block them―!”
The soldiers and knights, including Lucas, stood against the Lafre.
Among them, Bation began to fire off magic spells.
There was no longer any need to conserve mana.
⌜Wind Blade Storm⌟
A vortex of wind that began from Bation’s hand was shot at Anesta.
Whoosh―
A vortex made of small wind blades.
The vortex tore apart the Lafre in its path and grew in size.
Whoosh― Whoosh―
The small vortex, which had voraciously devoured the Lafre, had at some point become a
huge storm and rushed to cover Anesta's entire body.
A savage storm of wind that seemed to tear apart rather than cut.
The sound of old planks breaking filled the tunnel.
Crack―!
Various parts of Anesta’s body were tattered. Black fluid flowed from the open wounds.
However, it immediately began to regain its original form.
Swoosh―
The broken parts grew back quickly, as if new flesh were sprouting.
Anesta’s huge mouth twisted.
Just before the twisted mouth could let out a sneer.
Fwoosh―!
Hyunwoo’s Cheonbyeondo, which had approached Anesta’s vicinity at some point, spewed out black flames.
⌜Abyssal Ether⌟
The eternally burning flame.
The swordsmanship that unfolded from Hyunwoo’s hand engraved a black flame onto Anesta’s body.
Fwoosh―!
The black flame ignited.
Anesta’s twisted mouth clamped shut.
That too was brief.
Kieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek―!
Anesta’s rage-filled scream burst out.
***