Chapter 263 : Chapter 263
Chapter 263. Overloading (18)
The beast's massive body bounced across the underground facility's floor at tremendous speed, punching through four pillars in succession. Even then, it flew another dozen meters before being buried under the enormous wreckage of the concrete pillars it had toppled.
Enoch, too, couldn't fully contain the force of his own strike and spun uselessly through the air before barely managing a long, skidding landing on the ground.
The moment he braked his sliding body, he gave the axe a single flick to shake it clean. The black ash clinging to the blade scattered across the floor. White heat haze rose from the cherry-red axe blade.
He immediately raised his head and watched the direction the enemy had flown, not letting his guard down.
Ten seconds passed, twenty seconds passed. From within the mountain of concrete rubble, nothing emerged but the black powder signaling the enemy's dissolution. The beast never rose again.
He slowly exhaled and glanced to the side.
The instant the decisive battle with the beast ended, a visible change was taking hold across the battlefield.
SCREEEEE—!
The remnants the beasts had led down from the surface, upon witnessing the unmistakable defeat of the last remaining Master Class, seemed to lose all will to fight and tried to abandon the battle and flee.
But what greeted their turned backs were the freelancers, who had rallied and joined the fight.
"Like hell — you think you can cause this mess and just walk away?!"
"Don't even think about running."
Freelancers, hands raised to the communicators in their ears, had already formed a coordinated blockade of the escape routes.
The freelancers, arranged in a wedge formation, extended their Magic Gear toward the beast remnants and tightened the encirclement.
Their expressions, eyes gleaming fiercely as they closed in on the enemy, were stained with ferocious anger.
"Wh-what?"
A startled voice caught his ear, and Enoch glanced to the side.
Sirocco was standing there, frozen in a daze, having apparently already finished off all the enemies in her area.
Her mouth hung wide open. The single strike that had sent the beast flying seemed to be beyond belief.
"You. How did you just......"
Enoch said nothing and simply sighed.
Well, it's no surprise she'd be shocked.
Sirocco still didn't know about the Sword Saint of the Waves, let alone the fact that he was being eroded by such a figure from the past.
Just then, the sound of someone approaching drew his gaze, and Amelia was walking toward him from just behind.
"Lord Enoch, you've worked hard. I'm relieved on many counts."
Enoch shook his head lightly.
"It's you who should be relieved to be unharmed, Saintess. I hadn't expected you to come all the way to the heart of a battlefield like this."
Honestly, even Enoch hadn't anticipated this part.
He had predicted to some extent that Amelia would arrive here, but he hadn't calculated that she would rescue him at the very last moment of desperation.
Reminded anew of how dire the situation had been, he glanced around at the surroundings, completely wrecked from the fierce battle with the beast.
"The fighting was fiercer than expected. If not for you, Saintess, I would have died. I owe you my life."
"Is that so?"
Amelia's cheeks flushed slightly with pleasure at those words as she quietly looked up at him.
"I'm truly glad I could be of help."
The gentle tone was unimaginable coming from the resolute and composed Saintess of moments ago.
As Enoch stared at Amelia for a moment, caught off guard by her unexpectedly pure reaction, Sirocco let out a distinctly displeased "hmph" from beside him.
Then she tipped her chin up and spoke in a tone even more prim than usual.
"It's not over yet."
The Saintess seemed to snap back to attention as well, pressing a clenched fist to the front of her vestments and nodding.
"Indeed. Rather than basking in victory, dealing with the immediate situation takes priority."
Amelia shook her head to shift the mood, steeled her expression once more, and turned to look at him.
"I received word on my way here that the main force of the Monarch Class Magical Beast, Anarchilon, will arrive soon. However, if the underground situation isn't resolved first, preparing for that may become difficult."
"I'm aware."
Enoch too cast aside the sentimentality that had crept in during the brief respite and raised a finger to his earset.
That said, with the Master Class now defeated, the situation didn't seem to warrant as much concern as expected.
The comms channel was already a noisy mix of voices bordering on cheers, as the freelancers seized the momentum while mopping up the remaining beasts.
With the enemy's leader gone, the tide had completely turned — they were now utterly dominating the enemy.
A quick scan of the surroundings confirmed that the freelancers, April and Alicia among them, were handling the remaining beasts with relative ease.
All that was left was evacuating the civilians, still trembling with fear, to a safe location. Thinking that, Enoch continued quietly.
"The situation is manageable. If we can just wrap things up as they are, everything should proceed smooth—"
A sudden instinct — as if he heard something squirm behind him — made Enoch whip around.
Spotting the attack bearing down on the center of his vision happened almost simultaneously.
SHREEEE—!
A chill shot down his spine. A trajectory of green light traced by a Magical Beast was hurtling straight at Enoch.
In that razor-thin instant, his heightened vision expanded dramatically behind him, and the rear scenery flooded in. Only then did he grasp what had happened in a flash.
In time that seemed to flow in slow motion—
The Master Class Magical Beast had thrust its massive upper body out of the concrete rubble heap and was driving its lance arm forward at full extension in a piercing thrust.
The beast's entire body was crumbling into black powder as it delivered this final blow — a strike that erased the several meters between them in an instant, aimed straight at Enoch's vitals.
A desperate lunge driven by a death wish to drag its enemy to hell — a suicide attack.
Right in front of him, the Saintess, face pale, stumbled backward and stopped when her back pressed against his chest.
"Lord Enoch!"
But Enoch stood motionless, his dark blue eyes gleaming in the darkness as he gazed coldly at the incoming strike.
"......"
An unexpected attack, but there was no reason to dodge.
Because his restored vision had allowed him to see it.
The faint cluster of silver light scattering across the sky.
It was then that an ear-splitting metallic screech erupted from the darkness.
SCREEEECH—!
The instant the lance bore down to the space right before Enoch's brow, it could advance no further.
The entire Carapace Lance had caught on something in empty air, forcibly brought to a halt, vibrating intensely with a piercing friction sound.
As if bound by invisible threads.
Gazing at that all-too-familiar scene, Enoch quietly opened his mouth and murmured.
"Lien."
At the same moment, the silver wires spread throughout the darkness turned a bright silver-white and scattered their faint glow.
The Master Class beast strained with every last ounce of its strength to push the lance forward, but with a grinding clatter, the great lance was precisely entangled in dozens of wires and could not advance an inch.
As if refusing to allow even the slightest further approach toward Enoch.
The artificial angel, realizing that even this last-ditch strike — squeezed out at the very edge of death — had been stopped, finally seemed to give up. Still frozen in its thrusting pose, it slowly dissolved into nothing.
Then, the click-clack of heeled shoes reached his ears.
With the enemy now fully crumbling into ash before him, Enoch glanced to the side.
There stood Lien, the girl in a maid's uniform with silver hair streaming, walking toward him.
"Young Master, I've kept you waiting."
She gave her arm a light sweep, retracting the wires she had fired in all directions, and walked slowly toward him.
Then she glanced at the Saintess cradled against him, and looked back at Enoch with cold eyes.
As usual, they were emotionless — but he noticed a sharp chill lurking somewhere within that gaze.
"Lien?"
But whether she noticed or not, the Saintess happened to spot Lien at that moment and, Tin Staff braced against the ground, greeted her with a quiet smile.
"Ah, Lady Lien. Thanks to you, I was able to reach Lord Enoch in time. You have my sincere gratitude."
"No, I merely did what needed to be done."
Lien replied in an emotionless tone and shook her head slightly.
"Moving according to the Young Master's instructions is my duty."
"I see."
The Saintess raised her head and glanced up at Enoch.
"Then I should express my thanks to Lord Enoch once more as well."
"To me?"
"Yes. It was thanks to Lord Enoch sending your maid that I was able to break through the Magical Beasts rampaging and blocking the way above the city, and reach here."
Amelia added.
"If not for Lady Lien, complications would likely have arisen before I could arrive."
Understanding the implication, Enoch nodded.
This was the very 'favor' he had previously asked of Lien.
For a Saintess visiting the Outsourcing District for the first time to reach Enoch's location as quickly and safely as possible amid this chaos, dispatching someone of Lien's caliber had been essential.
It seemed that had clearly been the right call.
But after saying that much, the Saintess studied Lien for a moment, then rose on tiptoe toward Enoch, covered her mouth, and whispered.
"......Um, just one thing I'm curious about. If she belongs to the Elsyde household, are even the maids normally that strong?"
"No, not at all."
Enoch shook his head immediately.
The Saintess's eyes widened slightly.
"Then......?"
"I honestly don't know."
That was the problem — he didn't know the answer to that either.
Instead of answering Amelia, Enoch quietly averted his gaze and looked at Lien.
"Thank you, Lien. This wouldn't have been possible without you."
"......"
But regardless of Enoch's gratitude, the silver-haired girl fixed him with a look wrapped in an icy chill, glancing his way.
"......What? Why?"
Following Lien's gaze downward, Enoch noticed the cleanly healed section of his waist.
The shirt around his waist where the wound had been was shredded to tatters.
"Ah."
He had assumed that since the Saintess arrived and healed him before Lien, she wouldn't have seen his wound. A massive miscalculation.
Come to think of it, the Saintess had healed his body — not his clothes.
As he stood there in mild bewilderment, Lien silently turned her head away.
That's when a slight flutter of hair revealed the nape of her neck, and Enoch noticed something for a second time.
A choker made of white light was clearly visible, its form sharply defined.
Only then did he realize why she was reacting this way, and Enoch swallowed dryly.
"......Wait, Lien?"
"Young Master, I will help with the situation cleanup. For now, it would be best if you rested."
Lien said only that with a frosty tone and turned away.
Enoch reached out toward her retreating back, trying to say something more, but ultimately let his arm drop and just scratched the back of his head.
Even from the maid's cold departing figure, retreating without so much as a single word, he could feel a slight chill.
Trying his best to ignore that fact, Enoch shook his head and looked up at the open sky through the broken ceiling of the underground.
Something felt a bit unsettling, but it would probably be fine.
I survived, didn't I? Surviving is what matters.
......Right?