The shrine was collapsing.
At this rate, we were going to be buried alive.
We had to get outside, fast.
“Lisa!”
“I know!”
Hurriedly wrapping an arm around Yeon Haneul’s shoulders, I followed the urging of my Evasion Instinct and dodged the debris falling overhead as I shouted to Lisa.
She had been protecting our friends nearby with protective magic, and she understood my intent at once.
When Lisa struck the floor with her staff, a subspace opened in the center of the shrine.
We promptly leapt into the subspace and were able to emerge aboveground.
“It really is absurdly huge.”
“…”
The First Spirit, which had been trapped in the vessel, had somewhat returned to its original form.
The spirit tree that had stood atop the shrine had been uprooted to a terrible degree and lay collapsed on the ground.
To me, it seemed like an omen of the downfall the Circulation Cha clan would face because of this episode.
Meanwhile, after confirming that the First Spirit had transformed into the shape of a deer, we were left bewildered.
Yong Haerang’s mutter, his tongue clicking in disbelief, spoke for all of us.
“Its eyes, its aura… just looking at it, it seems dangerous. What do we do?”
The First Spirit retained the form of a deer with large antlers, its body dark red and translucent.
Its pupil-less eyes were steeped in murderous intent.
It was no wonder Go Eunbi was trembling in fear.
Then, the First Spirit moved.
All around it, spirits shining in brilliant colors materialized.
“It looks like it’s trying to go down the mountain?”
“Where is it headed?”
“That place is…”
Min Arin, Gang Hanbyeol, and Bak Sagun each spoke up.
Cha Eunsol answered their question.
“It’s going to the main house.”
“…”
“The First Spirit has lost its reason. It’s moving solely out of the grudge that it wants revenge on the clan. The spirits have been infected by the First Spirit’s emotions.”
“So you’re saying that once it finishes its revenge, it’ll quietly return to the mana of nature?”
“I don’t know that either. I think the key is whether the First Spirit regains its reason or not. If it fails to regain its reason even after that…”
“What do you think will happen?”
“Its rage won’t stop at the clan. It’ll spread out into the world.”
Whether her own clan was destroyed right this instant or not.
Cha Eunsol spoke in an indifferent tone.
I asked her.
“Then what are we supposed to do? What’s the fastest way for the First Spirit to regain its reason?”
“Hmm…”
Cha Eunsol put a piece of chocolate into her mouth and fell into thought.
After a moment, she spoke.
“We’ll have to kill it.”
“…”
“I don’t mean we actually have to kill it. If a spirit suffers enough damage to its existence that it can no longer maintain a physical form, it returns to the mana of nature. The First Spirit is the same. The reason the First Spirit lost its reason to this extent in the first place is because it was trapped here for so long, unable to return to the mana of nature. So…”
“We just have to damage the First Spirit enough to reverse-summon it?”
“Yeah. If it returns to the mana of nature, it should be able to come to its senses.”
Defeat the First Spirit.
Having vaguely expected this beforehand, I agreed with Cha Eunsol’s opinion.
It was a development similar to the game.
The only difference was the object the First Spirit had used as its medium.
In any case, now that our objective was decided, we quickly moved into action.
* * *
The First Spirit was not the only enemy we had to face.
There were also spirits who had learned the truth of the Circulation Cha clan, or who had been infected by the First Spirit’s emotions.
As we chased the First Spirit down the ancestral mountain, we had to endure their attacks.
“Ugh! The spirits won’t listen to my commands. Some of their contracts have even been terminated…”
“That just means they’re that disappointed in us. It’s unfortunate, but there’s nothing we can do. All we can do is ask the spirits we share deeper bonds with to lend us their strength.”
Cha Eunseo and Cha Eunsol, both of the spirit arts line, were struggling because they could not properly handle the spirits.
As a result, the two of them had to focus mainly on combat support.
Or on reverse-summoning spirits.
Cha Eunsol used the magic of the artifact she had obtained from the Academy’s treasury to reverse-summon mid- to high-ranking spirits.
As for lower-ranking spirits, she dispelled their manifested state with her own power.
Cha Eunseo also contributed what strength she could.
Meanwhile, the effect of the spirits turning hostile also applied to Yeon Haneul and Min Arin.
“…My output isn’t what it usually is.”
“Damn it, these things are interfering with my chants? They keep getting in the way!”
When it came to handling pure elements, spirits held an advantage over humans like Yeon Haneul and Min Arin.
In other words, depending on the spirits’ skill, they could interfere with elemental magic.
Because of that, the two, finding it difficult to cast their spells, revealed their displeasure.
But they soon found a way around it.
“If pure conceptual elements won’t work, then I can use ideas instead.”
Yeon Haneul cast fourth-rank dark elemental magic.
Gravity Orb.
A spell based on the idea of attraction drew in the spirits flying around them.
Immediately afterward, the sphere, compressed to its limit, unleashed explosive force.
Repulsion.
The spirits that had been resisting, trying not to be pulled into the sphere, were suddenly flung far away when the direction of the force changed.
Then, crashing hard into the terrain, they could no longer maintain their physical forms and were returned to the mana of nature.
“You think I only know how to use elemental magic? There are other kinds of pure magic, you know?”
Min Arin approached the problem in a way that was not bound by elemental magic.
Flying through the sky on her staff, she quickly finished her chant.
Mana flowing out from her body gathered into the shape of missiles.
“Hmph. Have a taste of homing missiles.”
With the hand not holding her staff, Min Arin drew a line through the air.
At that moment, dozens of missiles, Magical Chasers, responded.
The second-rank spell she had cast flew after the spirits she had designated as targets.
“They’ve got some nerve.”
Min Arin swept back the red hair obstructing her vision.
After that, she continued attacking the spirits together with Yeon Haneul.
‘Those two work surprisingly well together.’
They might bicker and fight, but when they were on the same page, they were truly reliable.
Glancing briefly at the two of them fighting, I let out a bitter smile.
Then Nam Yuri caught my eye.
“Killing spirits, huh? This is refreshing.”
Alchemy was a form of magic that altered the structure of matter under the law of equivalent exchange.
Unlike elemental magic, there was no room for the spirits to interfere.
Thanks to that, Nam Yuri freely wielded alchemy without being restricted.
Every time she clapped her hands together audibly and touched the terrain, the terrain transformed into forms that struck the spirits.
The ground became sharp pillars, and trees became keen blades.
The spirits could not defeat her.
Woof, woof!
Meanwhile, as we descended the ancestral mountain, we also encountered monsters.
Because of the current situation, the state of the ambient mana had become unstable, causing rifts to appear.
Go Eunbi, Yong Haerang, Bak Sagun, and the triplets took charge of the monsters.
At that time, Go Eunbi showed off her skill against those at a distance.
The arrows she fired abruptly curved, catching them off guard.
To them, the arrows ambushing them under cover of night must have felt almost ghostly.
The magic built into the Demon-Breaking Bow, Arrow of Light, also delivered fierce attacks.
“Hanbyeol! I’ll open a subspace!”
“Got it! I’m going in right away!”
Lisa and Gang Hanbyeol worked in tandem, focusing their efforts on attacking the First Spirit.
When Lisa created a passage leading to the First Spirit, Gang Hanbyeol launched attacks through it.
From time to time, the others joined in as well.
Thanks to that, we were spared the trouble of responding to an aerial battle.
And lastly, I—
Faced the First Spirit directly.
Stepping onto the night sky, I looked at the First Spirit approaching from the front.
I tightened my grip on the Ultramarine Sword.
The ancestral mountain contained a large amount of iron sand.
Even before facing the First Spirit, I had placed that iron sand under my control.
As proof of that, iron sand had gathered around the Ultramarine Sword, which I held lowered at my side.
Clatter!
I felt no weight.
With only my right hand, I lightly raised the Ultramarine Sword.
And so, a massive sword rose up.
Whoooosh!
I set the iron sand spinning.
A vicious sound struck my ears.
I brought the sword down as it was.
───!!
The enormous iron-sand sword split open the left side of the First Spirit’s chest.
A deep gouge was carved where it passed, and its left foreleg dangled loose.
The First Spirit tilted toward the ground.
But only for a moment.
“…Its recovery ability is seriously nasty.”
The wound quickly healed.
Regaining its balance in no time, the First Spirit took a step forward as if nothing had happened.
At that moment—
Flaaaaash!
“…!”
The First Spirit’s antlers flashed.
A thick beam of light came crashing down on me.
Following what my Evasion Instinct told me, I quickly retreated into Lisa’s subspace.
‘That was close.’
It had been a threatening attack even in the game, but feeling it firsthand was even worse.
I looked at the place where I had been standing just moments ago.
There remained the trace of the enormous beam of light having swept past.
‘If I take a direct hit, I’ll die.’
I had to be careful.
At the same time, I organized my thoughts.
‘If we fight like this, there’ll be no end to it. No matter what kind of wound we inflict, the First Spirit will just recover cleanly like it did a moment ago.’
The point was that we had to target the foundation that allowed the First Spirit to exist as a physical entity.
The vessel, the matriarch of the Circulation Cha clan.
With the entire ancestral mountain spread beneath my feet, I looked down at the translucent First Spirit.
The center of its abdomen.
The vessel was located there.
‘How do I attack that spot…?’
In the game, after winning the battle against the First Spirit, Gang Hanbyeol pulls Cha Eunsol out in the next scene.
The First Spirit can no longer maintain its physical form and disappears.
So if the situation had followed the game, we would have struggled while fighting without killing Cha Eunsol.
But this situation was different from the game.
Since the matriarch of the Circulation Cha clan, who served as the First Spirit’s vessel, was already dead, we did not have to worry about that.
It was fine to attack her along with the First Spirit.
The problem was that piercing through the First Spirit’s body and attacking the vessel would not be easy.
‘Should I use Lion Divinity? No, with a wide-range attack, the power will inevitably be dispersed.’
Unlike Lion Divinity.
I had to focus my attack on a single point.
I reached a conclusion.
* * *
Its sense of betrayal was beyond words.
It was bitter and unjust.
The emotions that had accumulated over more than two hundred years steadily ate away at its reason with no way to be resolved.
Now, it no longer even knew who it was.
It simply moved as those ancient emotions commanded.
Bbbbbeeeeelllllooooowwww
Below this mountain.
There were those it wanted to kill.
It wanted to annihilate them.
It would exterminate their clan so that they could no longer exist in this world.
The First Spirit poured that grudge into a command to all the spirits in the world.
‘They must never be forgiven. Punish those who exploited us.’
Already, at the foot of the mountain, spirits were attacking them.
It had instructed them not to kill.
Because killing them—especially killing their leader—had to be done by its own hand.
The First Spirit wanted to descend the mountain at once and judge that person, judge all of them.
And then, after that…
Lead the whole world to its end.
It would pronounce doom upon the world.
The First Spirit decided to follow the will of whatever had given it power.
That will was, in other words, its own will.
The First Spirit, too, felt disillusioned with the world.
So it would erase everything.
Yes, go.
Circulation Cha clan, it would kill you all.
Then it would go forth into the world.
As if declaring this to the world below the mountain, the First Spirit pulled a sound up from deep within its throat.
At that very moment—
───!!!
Cannon fire came hurtling in from somewhere.
Struck by the attack, the First Spirit snorted and turned its head.
Ten subspaces had opened in midair.
‘Begone.’
It was the doing of the humans who had been chasing it since the summit.
They were nothing but a nuisance.
The First Spirit poured magical attacks toward the subspaces.
Then the subspaces smoothly closed, and the attacks came to nothing.
Whoosh!
That was when several humans flew upward.
A woman with rabbit ears fluttering in the wind and a woman riding a staff manifested the mana within their bodies.
The two women multiplied into dozens, mixing reality and illusion.
They disturbed its vision.
The First Spirit tried to ram them with its antlers and eliminate them.
At that moment—
‘This aura is…’
Two more women rose into the air.
It sensed a familiar aura from them.
They were members of the Circulation Cha clan.
The First Spirit exuded murderous intent.
Then it rebuked the spirits who had lent them their strength.
‘Withdraw. They are the enemy.’
The wind spirits flinched.
However, the wind spirits shook their heads with all their might.
The two women were precious enough to them that they would defy its command.
The First Spirit was enraged.
‘Then you shall die with them.’
Spirits who did not follow it had no value.
The First Spirit decided to kill them along with the two people flying through its field of vision as if drawing its attention.
But it could not move its body.
Smack! Crash!
While its attention had been drawn to the humans disturbing its sight—
A man and a woman on the ground had worked their tricks.
Chains and hands made of earth had bound its four legs.
‘This pathetic—!’
All it had to do was exert its strength and shake them off.
But the time created by that single instant was enough to decide fate.
‘…What?’
By the time it noticed, a stream of water was drawing a straight line across the night sky.
And it was aligned with the direction of its path.
At the point where that stream of water began…
The man who had cut its chest moments earlier was standing atop the night sky.
Around him, blue electric currents crackled, scraping against the air.
The First Spirit instinctively felt it.
‘Danger.’
It had to block it quickly… no, it had to dodge.
But with its feet bound by the humans, there was nowhere for the First Spirit to flee.
The man did not give it any chance either.
Crackle!
The man brought his sword, wreathed in blue electric current, down onto the stream of water.
For an instant, blue light exploded.
The light that raced along the waterway swelled in force with every passing moment, roaring like a wild beast.
A blue flash stole the world away.
The world was filled with light and sound.
I Became the Childhood Friend of the Mid-Boss