Chapter 191
Chapter 191: Be Civilized, Spread Positivity!
To get to Auréliane, she first had to deal with the female Knight standing in her way.
Safirose leapt sharply backward, raised her long blade, then stomped hard against the ground, using the momentum to launch herself at Gwen once more.
The moment her long blade clashed against Gwen's sword, she suddenly sensed a surge of intense Magic Power welling up from behind her.
【4th-Tier Magic: Geb's Word】
As Cocotte's languid chant faded, several jets of soil and gravel erupted from the earth behind Safirose, forming a sharp piercing thrust aimed directly at her waist.
Safirose's instincts screamed at her to dodge—but then she sensed a new danger.
Elsa had been waiting among the crowd for some time, searching for an opening, and now, at last, her chance had come.
An Assassin lurks within darkness or a crowd, waits for the right moment, and kills the enemy in a single strike.
She swung the greatsword in her hand and lunged forward.
Cold light flashed instantly into existence, appearing at an angle behind Safirose.
In that moment, Safirose realized she had nowhere left to retreat.
2 attacks were bearing down on her in rapid succession, but she could only dodge one of them.
And there was no longer enough time to think her way to any other choice.
In that instant—Elsa's greatsword, and Cocotte's Magic.
Both attacks from 2 4th-Tier powerhouses landed on Safirose simultaneously.
A billow of white smoke and dust erupted outward.
Everyone instinctively turned their eyes toward the thick white haze.
As the smoke gradually dispersed, everyone was struck speechless by what lay before them.
The humanoid creature with the long white hair—the entire right half of her body had grown a dense mat of hard dragon scales.
At the end of her right arm, her hand had transformed into an enormous dragon claw.
Even one of her eyes had changed from green to crimson, grown slightly wider, resembling a dragon's eye.
The single black wing on her back had likewise transformed into a fleshy wing like a great dragon's, hanging in the air in a somewhat battered state.
That dragon claw had clamped down hard on Elsa's massive blade, while her left hand still gripped her long sword, continuing to hold Gwen at a standoff.
Auréliane, watching from the side, stared wide-eyed at the sight of Safirose.
"A dr... dragon?!"
"Hardly."
Cocotte's somewhat lazy voice drifted out unhurriedly. She folded her arms and looked at Safirose.
"Dragons don't have bloodlines this muddled."
She had seen at a glance that the other party was not human.
When both attacks landed simultaneously, the other party had not dodged—instead, she had shifted into her half-dragon form and taken them both head-on.
The dragon race—the race with the most powerful physical constitution in existence.
Both their resistance to physical force and their resistance to Magic were top-tier.
Ordinary weapons, when placed before a great dragon, were no different from a wooden sword swung against a steel plate.
Their sharp claws and fangs could rip through solid steel city walls as though tearing through mud, and their massive wings could stir up winds of a hundred meters.
However, it was clear that the other party was not a true dragon.
Cocotte simply found it somewhat curious.
This creature that looked almost human.
Could actually use a dragon's abilities as well.
Still, no matter how exceptional she might be.
"This needs to end."
3 against 1—the advantage was hers.
Cocotte straightened up, the lazy look in her eyes sharpening slightly, her expression growing a fraction more serious.
She pressed both hands outward, and traces of natural Magic Power stirred gently in the air around her.
"Will of Geb, emerge from the fractured soil,"
"Spirits of nature, I call upon you to descend and pray beneath the hollow night sky."
【4th-Tier Magic: Nature's Fracture】
As Cocotte's chant concluded, a surge of powerful Magic began to rise from all around her.
Countless Magic Formations lit up slowly from beneath her feet, runes and patterns intertwining and fusing together.
The earth began to tremble without cease. Green vines armed with sharp spikes tore through the shaking ground, completely enveloping Safirose, whose footing had already become unsteady from the tremors.
Countless spikes drove hard into her skin—even the tough hide of a great dragon was pierced through.
A crack opened slowly from the earth's surface.
The vines slammed the enveloped creature downward into the fissure, then yanked her back out from the depths of the great ravine and hurled her against the surface of the ground.
BOOM!
Countless trees were shattered. Wave after wave of sand and dust surged violently upward, sweeping everything in the vicinity.
Everyone threw their arms up in front of their faces, bracing against the sand and earth that battered relentlessly against their bodies.
Only when the trembling underfoot gradually ceased and the dust no longer rose did everyone finally lower their arms from before their eyes.
The devastated terrain around them made plainly clear what kind of battle had just taken place.
But the silhouette that had been restrained—without anyone noticing, had vanished.
Auréliane stood frozen in place, watching as the expressionless Gwen beside her sheathed her sword.
As if she had expected this all along.
Elsa concealed herself once more, melting back into the ranks of the Demi-human unit.
Cocotte steered her cloud over to Auréliane's side and said, slowly:
"She escaped."
This was an intelligent creature—and no weakling either.
Of course, Cocotte could have defeated her, but...
Given the level of ability the other party had displayed, if she truly wanted to flee, Cocotte would have needed to prepare a powerful spell in advance.
Without that preparation, she could slip free whenever she pleased.
A Mage's limitations were what they were.
Not every Mage was like Viktor—capable of tossing out War Magic like fireworks on a whim, no preparation required.
Cocotte looked ahead at the gate at the far end of the 30th Layer of the Magical Creature Abyss.
Pass through here, and they would reach the 31st Layer.
The lower floors.
The one who had just fled wasn't dead, but she had sustained serious injuries.
Dragging those wounds, she had slipped through the door ahead.
Perhaps she had originally come from the deeper floors of the Abyss.
The lower floors had a far more intricate and labyrinthine structure. If she truly knew those floors well, then leading the Demi-human unit in after her would make finding her again nearly impossible.
Besides...
The crisis had already been resolved.
At that thought, Cocotte felt lethargy flood through her entire body. She could not help but collapse back onto her cloud and wave a hand.
"Forget it—leave her."
"We should head back too."
Viktor's assignment was simply to reach the end of the 30th Layer. There was nothing about catching any special creature.
Cocotte absolutely refused to work overtime without getting anything out of it.
Clocking-out time had arrived.
She, Cocotte, would never work overtime!
Auréliane glanced once toward the entrance to the lower floors, then turned back and gave a small nod.
"Understood."
Just as Cocotte had said, her task had only been to reach the 30th Layer.
Task complete. She could return.
As the Demi-human unit finished their preparations and were about to depart—
No one noticed Gwen lower her head and open her hand.
Several white feathers, gripped tightly in her fist.
She had pulled them from that figure's body during the commotion.
Gwen had tried to stop her escape, but the other party had fled too quickly—all she had managed to grasp were 2 feathers from the white wing on her back.
These few feathers seemed to carry within them some faint and subtle Magic Power.
She chose not to discard them. After a moment's thought, she tucked the feathers away and stored them inside her armor.
***
Erika slowly opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.
Everything before her was hazy, as though a thin veil of mist hung across her field of vision.
Her entire body felt as though a dense and somewhat frenzied Magic Power were surging through her from every direction.
But she had no time to dwell on that.
"Hungry..."
At this moment, all she could feel was how weak her body was.
She didn't know how long she had been asleep, and she hadn't eaten anything for a very long stretch of time.
She was starving right now.
Where was she?
Hadn't she been taken away by that creature?
But she was so hungry...
Her body didn't want to move at all—it felt as though it had been filled with lead, too heavy, far too heavy.
At this rate, she might actually die of hunger.
Without her realizing it, from beyond the door of the room, faint voices drifted in:
"Professor, look at this!"
"This is the drop from the 30th Layer's Floor Guardian!"
The voice was somewhat familiar, but she really couldn't quite make out who it belonged to.
The intense curiosity compelled her to drag her weakened body forward, forcing herself to roll off the bed.
The weakened Erika shuffled her feet slowly and made her way toward the door.
Then came another voice—far more familiar.
"Yes, this is indeed 【Soul-Lurking Undead's Eyeball】."
"Course complete. You may rest."
The instant she heard that voice, Erika froze.
That voice... she knew it better than anything.
She quickened her pace slightly, forcing down the surge of emotion swelling inside her, and pushed open the door.
And then, Erika saw that man.
The person she admired and looked up to.
"Professor... Viktor."
But all at once, she felt that something was off.
Because the moment she pushed open the door, everything around her fell completely quiet.
Several familiar pairs of eyes turned to look at her all at once.
She seemed to see Knight Commander Gwen—and Her Highness the Princess as well...
Viktor's gaze turned toward her too.
And one she didn't recognize—someone who looked like an Elf, sitting on a floating cloud.
"......"
What... was going on?
In the prolonged silence that followed, it was the Elf unfamiliar to Erika who broke it first:
"...Viktor. I used to think it was just a rumor."
"So it's actually true that you have a thing for minors."
***
Magical Creature Abyss.
37th Layer—
【Dim-Green Cage】
The space around her was submerged in a boundless, hushed green. Only faint traces of darkness allowed the rough outline of the terrain to be barely perceived.
Every 10 layers, the scenery within the Abyss shifted into an entirely different appearance.
Safirose dragged her heavily injured body and settled down in an open clearing.
The entire left half of her body was still leaking blood—though under the green light, the true color of it could not be made out.
Yet Safirose wore no expression at all, as if she felt no pain whatsoever.
She lowered her head and looked at her own wounds.
A tongue of purple magic flame ignited across her body in an instant, staunching the bleeding from her injuries.
All around her, creatures continued to spawn without pause. They surfaced from the earth, horns extended, and advanced toward Safirose.
Within this 【Dim-Green Cage】, the creatures had already reached the 4th-Tier level.
But as those 4th-Tier creatures drew within a few meters of Safirose, a cold gleam sliced through in an instant—the creature's head and body were separated, and it collapsed to the ground with a thud.
The corpse crumpled against the earth. Gradually, a crack split open in the ground—the channel that reclaimed the body.
But before that crack could fully open, a thorned branch shot out in an instant, impaling the creature's corpse and dragging it back toward Safirose.
Then, she proceeded to tear the creature's body apart piece by piece with her bare hands, feeding the chunks into her mouth.
She wiped her lips and sprawled once more in the corner of the ground, letting her body's injuries gradually recover.
She had just closed her eyes—but the next instant, she jolted alert.
Eyes like a serpent's locked onto the sky above.
At some point, a black crow had come to stand with quiet elegance upon a branch.
"Interesting."
"If I recall correctly, you're called... Safirose, yes?"
In this moment, only that crow existed in Safirose's eyes.
For reasons she could not explain, her body's instincts were screaming at her, urging her to flee from this place.
【Scanning target—Threat Level—】
【Unable to predict】
She tried to rise to her feet, to move her legs, seemingly wanting to escape.
But all at once, a dark, twisting Formation began to pulse across the green ground beneath her.
Countless densely packed tentacles burst forth from within it, wrapping swiftly around Safirose's body and locking her in place completely.
Somehow, at some point, a monocle had appeared over Weija's eye.
Her black body was now draped in an equally black formal suit, and atop her head sat a black top hat.
She looked exactly like an elegant old gentleman.
"Yes—if it were Viktor, he would certainly carry himself this gracefully right now."
"Then, if you would permit me to introduce myself with proper courtesy."
In Safirose's eyes, behind the elegant crow perched above her, it seemed as though the colossal shadow of a black eagle had appeared.
It flickered and wavered ceaselessly, its two eyes unfathomably deep, as though they contained 2 entire worlds within them.
The black silhouette appeared to be expanding continuously, enveloping her entirely within the darkness.
A deep, ancient voice reached her ears with perfect clarity.
"I am the Evil God—"
"—Habika."