“In addition, isn’t it about time your “Limit Break” reached dangerous time? In this situation, it’ll be truly the end if Kouki is weakened! Please calm down! Everyone also feels the same as you!”
Hearing the logical words of his childhood friend, Kouki hesitated as he bit his lip when he noticed the bleeding at the edge of Shizuku’s lips, and he felt his boiling head go cold. Shizuku was also mortified. Before she knew it, she had cut her lip. Her important comrades had been done in, and if possible she wanted to immediately beat up her enemy.
“Okay! Everyone, time to retreat! Shizuku, Ryuutarou! Please endure it for a little longer!”
“Leave it to me!”
“Right on!”
Kouki thrusted up the Holy Sword and began a long chant. Until now, he didn’t use any long chant because it would not have defused their earlier situation. However, it was now the perfect magic to clear a path for their retreat. But, it became necessary for him to entrust his defense to Shizuku and Ryuutarou because he was completely defenseless when he’s chanting. In other words, they must face the demonic beasts aiming for Kouki. Naturally, even if Shizuku and Ryuutarou could not cope with it, they would still desperately fight back with considerable vigor even with injuries.
“Do you think I’ll let you escape?” When she said this, the Demon race woman ordered the demonic beasts to block the passage behind Kouki’s party. Then, she began to chant magic, with the chanting Kouki as her target.
However, that’s when something abnormal began to happen to the Demon race woman.
“””””ROOOOAR!!”””””
“Kh!? Why!”
Somehow, five of the Chimeras that should be her allies were attacking the woman. While being surprised with widely opened eyes, she immediately resumed and used a shortened chant to activate her magic. High density of dust clouds became swirling blades with the woman in the center, cutting two of the attacking Chimeras. The attacks from the remaining Chimeras were somehow avoided by blowing herself away using the dust clouds.
The Demon race woman yelled, “Why am I being attacked!?” She was agitated while staring at the Chimeras that attacked her. Then, she noticed something — all of the Chimeras had parts of their bodies destroyed. There’s one that was headless, and one with a deep scar in its body which still had blood dripping from it even now.
“These…”
Just as the Demon race woman noticed, the five Chimeras that attacked her were the ones defeated by Kouki. The should-be-dead Chimeras stood up and attacked her. The situation was unreal until the Demon race woman recalled a certain magic and muttered, “Don’t tell me…”
“I won’t let you disturb Kouki-kun!”
As she shouted so, Eri swung her hand like a baton and made the corpses of the Chimeras surround the Demon race woman.
“Tch! Necromancer, huh! I didn’t get such information!”
The Demon race woman had prior investigations before she waited in ambush for Kouki’s party. From the information, there’s no mention of someone capable using super difficult magic such as Necromancy, so this situation was completely unexpected. That was because, even though Eri had “Necromancer” as her class, she was bad at it and never use Necromancy in actual combat, but now this fact worked in their favor.
Even if I am bad at it, I’ll just overcome it! Eri thought while she glared at the Demon race woman with a powerful gaze, and skillfully manipulated the Chimeras as though it wasn’t her first time doing it in actual combat. However, she was just going to buy time rather than defeating the Demon race woman.
In the meantime, Kaori used “Focus” and “Ten Thousand Heavens” on Suzu. Among the party members, Suzu was the one in the direst situation, which was why she decided on focusing healing Suzu first. “Ten Thousand Heavens” was a mid-ranked healing magic of the light element capable of curing abnormal statuses. However, the petrification magic was a considerably strong magic, and she couldn’t cured it all. Though the holes in her abdomen and arm were immediately recovered, she had lost a considerable amount of blood. She was in such a critical situation where needed immediate rest. It was also necessary to heal the hole in her leg the moment her petrification is undone.
Nomura, with a petrified left side of his body, had been diligently worked on to be released from his abnormal state by Tsuji Ayako. Tsuji Ayako had a high aptitude for healing magic, but the fact that Nomura had high resistance against earth magic, made his recovery rate considerably faster. His petrified leg had already been cured.
However, even with that, Tsuji Ayako could only grit her teeth when she sneaked a peek at Kaori swinging her white wand. Although their class was the same, “Healer,” Kaori was obviously above her in terms of capability. Kaori was using magic to simultaneously heal Suzu who had far more serious injuries than Nomura. In addition, she sometimes used healing magic on Shizuku and Ryuutarou who were in battle to defend Kouki. It was a feat impossible to be mimicked by Ayako. She was mortified and felt miserable because she couldn’t heal all of her allies while being in a dire situation.
Although Nomura seemed to want to say something to Ayako in regards to what she was feeling, he thought it was not the right time, so he bore the pain and muttered an incantation.
With their fighting force deceased and Kouki out of the fight, Hiyama and Nakano were covered in wounds as they confronted many demonic beasts. On the other side, Nagayama’s party and Eri, who were protecting the two healers, noticed they had almost reached their limits. With the current flow, it would only be several minutes before they completely exhaust themselves.
Light gathered in Kouki’s Holy Sword, but Nakano, who was about to cry at any moment, panicked when she thought of this as a suicidal action. The party members anxiously waited for the time… which finally came.
“Here I go! “Heavenly Downpour”!”
One flashing line fired from the thrusted up Holy Sword. The light exploded and scattered before the ceiling, pouring down towards the surrounding demonic beasts like meteors.
This “Heavenly Downpour” was an attack magic from light element where it flew above enemies, could pinpoint several enemies, and attacked them simultaneously. Its power wasn’t that high since its power was distributed among the scattered lights, and was originally used to clean up a lot of small fries. But in “Limit Break” state, this bombing-like magic was enough to clean up demonic beasts in 50th floor.
However, the abnormally strong demonic beasts brought by the demon race woman didn’t receive that much damage as expected, and at most, it only blew them away from his comrades as far as possible. But it was enough for Kouki. By creating a gap, his comrades would be able to retreat while the demon race woman was still occupied by the Chimera controlled by Eri.
Having confirmed so, Kouki demonstrated the characteristic of the magic which had a stupidly long chanting.
“”Converge”!”
As it pour down from the heaven, the rain of light that made the demonic beasts retreat temporarily, once again converged into the Holy Sword. The spectacle where the meteors converged as they left trails was quite a fantastic scene. Kouki thrusted the Holy Sword straight, and it shone as it cladded in light towards the demonic beasts that positioned themselves before the passage the retreat path of him and his comrades. With a war cry, he pulled the last trigger from the a series of magic.
“”Heavenly Claws Downpour”!”
Immediately, numerous meteors shot like a bombardment when his thrusted the Holy Sword forward. Even though it looked the same as previous attack, it had far stronger power since Kouki used his trump card, “Heaven Might,” and naturally it swept away the demonic beasts that closed their retreat path.
Normally, even if he wanted to use “Heaven Might,” the chant was long and he didn’t want Shizuku and Ryuutarou to protect him any longer than needed.
Even so, “Heavenly Claws Downpour” was the best technique he had in the current situation. The meteor-like torrent of lights went straight towards the demonic beasts blocking their retreat path, and caused numerous explosions simultaneously at the moment of impact. The bombardment that consisted of numerous light bullets exploded like the cluster bomb. The consecutive impacts resulted in the broken balance of the demonic beasts as they were being blown away.
“””ROOOOAR!!”””
The demonic beasts screamed as they closed their eyes. “Heavenly Claws Downpour” had an additional effect, blindness, caused by looking at the flash. The strong light generated in close proximity burnt their sights. Rubbing their eyes with their backhands, the demonic beasts blindly rampaged.
These demonic beasts were already out of Kouki’s party’s path of retreat. A way had opened straight to the passage.
“Now! Let’s retreat!”
With Kouki’s order, everyone simultaneously moved. Nagayama had carried the petrified Kondou and Saitou on his shoulders while Endou shouldered the fainted Suzu. Even though his left arm was still petrified, Nomura stood up by himself, endured the acute pain, and began to run towards the passage.
“Tch! Don’t let them escape! Capture them!”
While fighting the last two Chimeras, the demon race woman ordered the unharmed demonic beasts. The demonic beasts moved as instructed and began their pursuit at once. Chimeras, four-eyed wolves, and black cats, they were all swift-footed demonic beasts, and the distance between them and Kouki’s party was shortened in less than no time.
It was at that time Nomura turned around. With pained face, he thrusted out his right hand and revealed a fearless smile.
“Don’t ever think I’ll be defeated in earth magic! It’s my payback! “Final Prison”!”