Chapter 270
Chapter 270. Latent Heat (7)
Fifty meters above, where the night sky was painted with the dazzling spectacle of magic and enemy bodies rained down from the air like a shower—
Enoch walked forward, holding his breath.
He swallowed as he watched the enemies being swept away.
This was the potential of the Outsourcing District's freelancers — stray dogs who were never tolerated in the Empire's Main House domains.
When these individuals, each specialized in solo play, were properly commanded and controlled, they could — if temporarily — unleash firepower rivaling a task force of Elsyde's own members.
At this rate, the freelancers alone could defeat every Flying-Type Magical Beast.
Enoch likewise pressed a finger to his ear and drew a deep breath.
"Charging in."
A unified war cry erupted from both the wall's rooftop and fifty meters below, and the freelancers launched their desperate charge, Interim by Interim.
"Good, Sirocco. We're going too. April and Nano, standby. Positioning and support at your discretion."
"Got it! Leave it to us!"
April replied as she squeezed the trigger.
He nodded at Sirocco and they entered the stairwell together, descended via the wall's elevator to ground level, then left the wall behind and tore across the dark terrain like the wind toward the forest.
Soon, a ruined zone lined with buildings appeared.
As planned, it was familiar ground. The very place where Flying-Type Magical Beasts had launched their assault behind the freelancers' forward defense line during the first battle.
Friendlies were already advancing ahead.
They had to catch up as quickly as possible.
"We'll cut through the building up ahead!"
Sirocco nodded. The next instant, she grabbed Enoch's waist and kicked off the ground in a mighty leap.
The crushing acceleration — enough to warp his vision — pressed down on his body, and then a building wall some dozen stories tall rushed toward them.
They crashed through the large window, glass and all, and plunged into the building's interior in one breath.
Just then, an urgent transmission came through.
[Attention! This is the wall exterior detection squad! A massive Magical Beast has appeared and is charging directly at the building the Direct Lineage is in!]
He exchanged a rapid glance with Sirocco mid-sprint. Still running through the corridor, he checked through a gap in the building's collapsed wall — and in an instant, drew a sharp breath.
Sirocco murmured softly.
"What the, is that......!"
A massive Magical Beast was writhing across the ground below.
A long, enormous body — impossible to tell if it was a snake, a larva, or a worm. Its girth rivaled a subway tunnel, and its length easily matched an entire building.
He could tell it was a leader-class, but couldn't determine whether it was a third-tier Master Class or a fourth-tier Monarch Class.
Jormungandr — the name of the great serpent birthed by the wicked god Loki in Norse mythology — flickered through his mind.
The enemy had been hiding a trump card like that?
The enormous serpent squirmed across the ground, toppling trees and coiling up massive boulders as it charged straight at them.
By the time he realized their building was the target, it was already too late.
The serpent stretched its body out and coiled around the building, then — incredibly — began constricting the lower floors.
Steel beams bent like taffy, dust poured from the ceiling, and glass windows shattered one after another with a cascade of tinkling crashes.
No, this is insane—
The floor lurched suddenly, tilting his vision and throwing off his footing. By the time the thought registered that the floor had shifted, it was already beyond saving.
With a horrifying, skin-crawling groan of collapse, the upper half of the building snapped. The floor tilted at a precipitous angle so fast he couldn't stay on his feet.
He tumbled along with rusted steel desks and chairs, landing on what had been a support pillar moments ago.
Another sudden tremor lifted his body into the air.
Looking up, the building Enoch had been in was leaning like a person bowing, having caught on another building beside it — just barely avoiding a collision with the ground.
Before he knew it, what had been the building's glass wall was now the floor.
In the bizarre, rotated perspective where vertical had become horizontal, there wasn't even a moment to catch his breath before Sirocco came tumbling down toward him amid a shower of glass shards.
Seeing her projected landing point, his blood ran cold. At this rate, she would break through the glass and plummet to the ground below.
"Sirocco——!"
He reached out instinctively.
Sirocco reached out too.
The instant their hands clasped, a sharp crack sounded as Sirocco's body punched through the glass and jerked to a halt.
"Kh."
A sharp impact in his right shoulder. Eyes wide, he checked — Sirocco was dangling from Enoch's fingertips by the narrowest of margins.
Holding a nearly two-meter-long axe in one hand was hard enough, and now, suddenly bracing against Sirocco's falling weight, even Enoch had to strain with everything he had.
"Hey, you! Your back — the shards!!"
Sirocco cried out in anguish.
His spine throbbed and ached. He didn't need a mirror to confirm. Countless glass shards that had rained down with Sirocco were undoubtedly embedded in his back.
But if he didn't do this, Sirocco would be in danger.
Sirocco's extraordinary leaping power required solid ground beneath her feet to function.
Even Sirocco couldn't kick off thin air. A fall from this height had to be avoided at all costs.
He suppressed the searing pain and poured strength into his arm.
Then he felt an overwhelming presence behind him.
Turning only his head, the serpent-shaped Experimental Magical Beast was silently pushing its massive head into the building's interior, its jet-black tongue flicking.
Its obsidian-like carapace-covered head oozed a strange green light through its cracks. With its pointed snout and the horns on its head, it almost looked like a dragon.
As long as he didn't let go of Sirocco's hand, Enoch couldn't dodge the serpent's attack. The color drained from him in despair.
The serpent suddenly spotted them and charged, jaws yawning wide.
"Shut it."
An unexpectedly cold voice rang out.
......It's Lien.
In that razor-thin instant, he looked toward the voice and his eyes flew wide.
From the rooftop of the adjacent building the fallen building was leaning against, Lien had leapt toward their building. She was sliding through the air in midair, twisting her waist.
Down the steep incline — easily over forty-five degrees — Lien slid at a speed rivaling free fall. Her maid uniform's skirt flared wide, baring her white thighs.
The serpent, sensing the disruption, bent its neck and stretched toward Lien for a head-on counter.
Then came a sharp exhale.
"How dare you try to harm the Young Master."
The air seemed to freeze with a whoosh, and Lien's hand swept out at lightning speed.
"I won't allow it."
A single long wire hurtled toward the enemy at supersonic speed. It wound rapidly around the serpent's gaping upper and lower jaws, forcibly sealing them shut.
Immediately, Lien hauled on the silver thread and leapt, tracing a wide arc high into the air above the serpent's head.
Eyes blazing, she yanked the wire taut.
WHEEEN—!
The taut wire's recoil carried her across the serpent's long body in a crisscross pattern, and she landed beside Enoch.
Lien dug her heel in for an emergency stop, let out a soft breath, drew the wire she had deployed, and hiked up her maid skirt to wind the wire around the stocking on her thigh for storage.
The instant she finished retracting all the wire, the serpent's entire head burst apart — blood spraying as it fell away in neat cubic chunks, pieces of flesh raining down.
The headless body coiled and writhed like a puppet with its strings cut before toppling from the building. A thunderous crash shook the earth, and billowing dust rose.
The freelancers below erupted in cheers as the enemy's Master Class beast was dispatched in a single blow.
Enoch watched the scene with his mouth slightly agape. He had known from the start that Lien was strong, but the surprises kept coming.
She wasn't a formal member of the Elsydes, nor was she a freelancer with any affiliation — yet this maid had just slain that enormous beast in a single strike. A creature that might have surpassed Master Class in sheer size, in one blow.
Lien glanced back at him, then calmly swept her hair aside and narrowed her eyes.
"I'll help, Young Master."
"Thank you."
Lien came to his side, snared Sirocco's arm with a wire, and hoisted her up.
With Lien's aid, they finally managed to pull Sirocco to safety.
Looking to the side, his eyes met the silver-haired maid's cold sidelong gaze, and he swallowed involuntarily.
Even now, the beautiful girl's unwavering blue-silver eyes seemed to shine. They seemed to declare that no matter what orders were given from here on, she would not leave his side.
Lien brushed past him and whispered close to his ear.
"This time, I will stay by your side. No matter what."
Recalling the near-fatal wound from just hours ago, Enoch nodded.
Of course, having declared she would stay at his side, she would serve as a shield rather than a lance.
She would focus on protecting his life rather than actively attacking the enemy, but that alone would grant Enoch an enormous degree of freedom in action.
Just then, before he could even pull the glass shards from his back, his vision wavered again and he dropped to his knees.
Narrowing his eyes, he saw the floor had tilted even more toward horizontal. Cement dust scattered everywhere, cracks spreading in all directions.
Cold sweat broke out. The building had tilted even further. At this rate, it wouldn't hold for more than a few minutes.
Staying any longer meant dying alongside the building.
"Sirocco!"
Sirocco nodded, then once again seized the waist of Enoch's shirt with her right hand in a powerful grip.
"Going."
Sirocco bent her legs deep and launched upward. The next instant, the crushing impact — like being squeezed by a giant's hand — made it impossible to open his eyes.
The sound of fabric flapping in the wind reached his ears. Cracking his eyes open, he was already in the night sky.
Ahead, a sky of crimson flames.
Behind, a sky of light, countless Sky Lanterns adrift.
Caught between those two, in a spectacle that seemed not of this world, tiny freelancers — no bigger than grains of millet — were tracing the trajectory of a needle aimed at the enemy horde massed in tight formation in the forest below, driving their charge forward to pierce through.
He tapped Sirocco's shoulder twice and pointed at the center of the raging battle below. The signal to descend there.
"Hmph, let's go!"
Sirocco nodded vigorously and kicked off two building walls in a triangle-jump pattern.
The gravitational acceleration that slapped his cheeks — like when executing the forms of the Empire's Last Sword Saint. And Sirocco's powerful leap.
They cut through the wind, soaring more than a hundred meters higher. Then, at the peak, inertia and gravity canceled out for an instant. The next moment, they traced the arc of free fall, and in the blink of an eye, the brown ground hurtled toward them.
Then Lien appeared right beside him.
Just before impact, Lien caught Enoch's back and landed without slowing. Enoch rolled forward twice to absorb the impact, then sprang to his feet.
The ground was drenched and muddy from the rain that had been falling, and his uniform was instantly caked in mud.
A quick glance to the side confirmed that Lien, who had slid to a long landing, was also unharmed. He rapidly surveyed the area.
They had landed in the heart of a forest battle — filled with the clash of weapons, the rumble of the earth, and spattering mud.
[Direct Lineage, enemies ahead-mda! Just run-mda!!]
Even Nano's desperate shout over the comms was barely audible, drowned in the surrounding screams and war cries.
He nodded at Sirocco and they dashed across the battlefield, splashing mud.
The moment the long, jet-black double-bladed axe slung behind Enoch's back flared with light, the surrounding freelancers — recognizing their leader's arrival — erupted in an explosive cheer that shook the air.
Morale surged. The charge intensified.
The freelancers assigned to surround Enoch and Sirocco in a defensive ring while clearing the path ahead charged boldly toward Magical Beasts of every color and shape.
They would break through the enemy line like this.
Watching them, Enoch glanced at the two girls sprinting in tandem on either side of him.
Meeting his gaze, Sirocco and Lien looked at each other. Without either going first, they nodded in unison.
"Lady Sirocco, I'll suppress them first."
"Hmm~ph, fine! Don't fall behind!"
With Sirocco's prim gaze and Lien's cold intensity, the two exchanged a single beat of coordination.
Then two beautiful girls — leaving afterimages of red and white — crossed paths in front of Enoch and sprinted ahead.
The martial display that began to unfold before him was enough to stun even Enoch as he followed in their wake.
Lien flew from this tree to that building ruin, and the heads of surrounding Magical Beasts were severed and sent skyward.
Nor did it stop there — smaller beasts were snared wholesale by the wires cast in every direction, and Sirocco's spinning kicks detonated in rapid succession, sending plumes of ash-like blood skyward.
Through the shattering enemies, Enoch sprinted on.
At this rate, it was going smoothly. Break straight through the enemy lines, and the enemy commander would be waiting.
But as Enoch charged forward, screams from the flank suddenly made his eyes fly wide.
Turning to the side, a Magical Beast — body fully armored in carapace, rhinoceros-shaped with a massive horn on its head — was plowing through the nearby freelancers and charging straight at them.
Enemy reinforcements had surged in from the flank.
Simultaneously, Lien and Sirocco skidded into long stops, braking hard, and snapped their heads toward Enoch.
"Young Master!"
"You!"
The instant Enoch gripped the axe in his hand and assumed his stance, the armored beast charged straight in.
The blade of the carapace helm's horn — long and curved atop its head — extended toward Enoch.
At the same time, right beside him — a flash of silver as Lien fired her wire to protect Enoch, and the split second Sirocco kicked off the ground to charge toward him—
The world Enoch was seeing was painted in black.
He realized the next moment that the World of Impermanence had unfurled before his eyes.
At the sheer absurdity of it, Enoch involuntarily flinched and stumbled backward.
'Why, of all times?'
Without any warning whatsoever, the Inner World's erosion had resumed — right now, at this very moment.
Enoch frantically looked around. And his eyes flew wide before he could stop himself.
A landscape of the Inner World utterly unlike anything before was spread before him.