A flying ruin made up of enormous trees and buildings.
Though it flew through the sky, the ruin was by no means small.
And now that such a ruin was falling, it looked as though an entire village floating in the sky was crashing down to earth.
Kuuuuung!
As the ruin fell, it began breaking apart into countless pieces.
All sorts of fragments ricocheted away, pouring down along with the ruin.
Even the magic monsters attacking the ruin retreated to avoid the debris.
At the sudden fall, the team members screamed.
“Uaaaagh! I think I’m gonna puke!”
“Everyone, grab on to something! If you let go, you’ll be thrown off!”
Tom clung to the wall of a half-destroyed building and retched, while Sergeant Woo grabbed a pillar beside him and shouted to the others.
“Hyeon! Isn’t there anything you can do?”
Hanging from the whip tied to the altar, Margreta shouted at me.
Hanna, however, was looking regretfully at the tree as it crumbled.
Strangely enough, she was stuck fast to the falling ruin.
Whether that was her ability, or the ability of this ruin or the dead tree, I couldn’t tell, but now wasn’t the time to find out.
Just then, immense energy gathered in the staff, but it was still difficult for me to use that energy.
I called Soph.
[Soph!]
As if he had been waiting for my words, Soph cast a spell.
[All of you, gather here! Strengthen Attraction.]
The moment Soph’s incantation ended, Tom screamed.
“Aaagh! Again! I’m being pulled!”
Tom’s body, which had been hanging from the wall, turned toward me.
The same happened to the others.
Sergeant Woo, who had been holding on to the pillar, was fluttering toward me, and Margreta and Hanna, who did not resist the spell, were flying straight to my side.
“It’s Hyeon’s magic! Let the magic carry you!”
At Margreta’s words, Tom and Sergeant Woo also let go.
“Uaaaaah!”
The two of them screamed as they flew toward me as well.
Margreta and Hanna landed safely beside me, but Sergeant Woo and Tom came flying in at high speed and slammed into the floor.
Fortunately(?) since the ruin itself was falling, the two of them weren’t injured.
Once everyone had gathered, Soph cast another spell.
[Envelop the surroundings! Shield.]
This time, a barrier spread around me and the team members.
A towing spell and a shield spell.
They were the same spells the ruin had used when we flew over to it.
Only now, Soph was the one casting them.
He had used Shield before, but this was the first time Soph had used the towing spell.
He had recovered more of his memories.
Woooong.
After the barrier enveloped us, we rose into the air.
No, we weren’t rising—we were falling more slowly than the ruin.
Soph had lifted us with the towing spell.
Since we were no longer on the ruin’s floor, we didn’t need to worry about the crash.
The same went for the falling debris.
Fragments flew everywhere, but they couldn’t pierce the barrier Soph had cast.
Now we were able to watch the ruin crash from a safe place.
Once the urgent moment passed, I was able to think about the problem to come.
At this rate, the ruin would crash to the ground, and afterward, we would have to fight the monsters on the surface.
Of course, the magic monsters flying in the sky were still there too.
In a situation like that, we couldn’t let this ruin go to waste.
I asked Soph.
[Can you change the direction of this ruin?]
Soph answered immediately.
[Impossible. The star tree that maintained the ruin is dead. This ruin has no choice but to fall.]
It was a decisive answer befitting a mage, but that wasn’t what I had meant.
[I’m not telling you to make it fly again! I’m telling you to change the direction it’s falling in.]
[Change its direction? Ah! There was such a way. Wait a moment!]
Soph finally understood what I meant.
Along with his excited words, the staff shone brightly again.
Flaaash!
The bottom of the ruin began to shine as well.
Kiiiiik……!
With a twisting sound, the ruin began to change direction little by little.
***
The controlled entity and the monsters were watching the falling ruin from a considerable distance away.
The monsters weren’t fools either.
They knew very well that if they waited directly beneath the ruin, they could be crushed by it when it fell.
Not only the monsters, but even the controlled entity trembled its tentacles as it watched the ruin descend.
It had already been a month since, while searching for traces of the Demon King, it had seen the human ruin flying through the sky.
Since then, the controlled entity had continued to pursue the ruin and the tree.
It had to find the Demon King, but it couldn’t give up on the immense energy it sensed from the ruin and the tree.
Chasing after the ruin, the controlled entity had repeatedly attacked the barrier with magic monsters.
At last, that effort was about to bear fruit.
At the final moment, humans had appeared, but those humans had entered the ruin on their own.
An even more lavish table had been set.
Kuuuuung……!
The ruin continued to fall.
The controlled entity felt the ruin growing larger and larger.
The monster could not help but feel疑惑.
For the ruin to grow larger meant that the falling ruin had changed direction.
It also meant it was falling this way.
The controlled entity let out a hideous cry.
Bwaaaaaang!
A bizarre siren sound spread in all directions.
Papapak!
The gathered monsters fled in every direction.
The controlled entity also tried to escape elsewhere.
But it was too late.
Kugugugung!
The falling ruin was already right in front of the monster’s nose.
Defensive monsters gathered around the controlled entity.
The controlled entity dug into the ground with its tentacles.
The ruin collided with the surface.
***
Kwaaaang!
With an explosion, the ground overturned, and a shockwave spread in every direction.
The magic monsters flying in the sky, and even we, who had been slowly following the ruin, were thrown away by the shockwave.
Earth shot upward, and fragments of buildings, tree wreckage, monster tentacles, and white blood covered the sky.
A tremendous amount of debris battered the barrier Soph had cast.
Kwagwagwagwang.
It was like watching a tidal wave made of dirt rushing toward us.
We couldn’t see anything outside the barrier.
The team members looked around with horrified faces.
Along with the pouring debris, Soph’s magic set us down atop the ruin.
Through the dust slowly settling, the ruin began to come into view.
Completely shattered buildings and trees, and the ground left in utter chaos.
Not a single trace of its original appearance remained.
Nothing else could be seen either.
“There are no monsters. Looks like the ruin crushed them all, doesn’t it?”
Tom said, looking around.
Everyone’s expressions brightened.
Margreta asked me,
“Do you think they’re all dead?”
“Who knows.”
I hoped so, but I couldn’t be certain.
The reason we had been able to crush the monsters with the ruin this time was because it resembled the plan I had made.
The plan to lure the controlled entity into the memorial hall, collapse the ruin, bury the monster deep underground, and then slowly kill it inside.
It would take time, but since we had already done something similar before, it seemed like a plan with enough chance of success.
Soph had opposed my plan, but I had pushed ahead with it on the condition that we would run away if it seemed likely to fail.
Because the team members came along, I had to cancel that entire plan, but thanks to the plan I had made back then, we were able to drop the ruin.
We probably couldn’t kill all the monsters, but this much was satisfying enough.
Looking around, I spoke as if boasting.
[I told you it would work. How about it? If we can catch this thing with the ruin, then the plan we made before seems possible too.]
This time as well, Soph opposed me.
[I told you it was impossible. No matter how I think about it, it seems Earthlings only believe things after seeing them with their own eyes.]
I had heard Soph’s objections so many times that they no longer dealt much of a blow.
But to say I only believed things after seeing them—just how much had I trusted Soph’s words all this time for him to say something like that!
That was when it happened.
Gugugugung.
The ground shook.
It felt like an earthquake, but it wasn’t one.
Soph and I spoke at the same time.
[As expected, it’s perfectly fine.]
“It’s moving well.”
I sensed the controlled entity.
It had been buried underground, but the controlled entity was moving smoothly, without any damaged parts.
Whether it was because the defensive monsters clinging to its sides had blocked the impact, or because it had dug into the ground beforehand, I didn’t know, but the controlled entity was unharmed.
The tremor I felt now was being caused by the controlled entity digging through the earth.
At this speed, it seemed it would break through the debris and rise to the surface soon.
Hanna shot an arrow into the sky and shouted,
“The monsters are approaching from the sky!”
Just as Hanna said, the magic monsters that had retreated beyond the range of my senses were approaching.
The magic monsters blocked Hanna’s arrows with magic as they closed in rapidly.
It seemed they intended to interfere with us until the controlled entity broke through the ground and emerged.
Seeing the magic monsters flying toward us, the team members raised their weapons.
They looked at the monsters with regret.
“Tsk, those things again? It’s a shame our firepower is so weak.”
Sergeant Woo fired his energy gun, but unlike when he had fought the scout monster, he could not pierce the magic monster’s shield.
Tom was the same, and even Hanna, who could just barely penetrate the shield, had her arrows blocked by the magic monster’s spells.
Margreta, who had no long-range attacks, looked blatantly frustrated.
At this point, it would be right for me to deal with them using spatial movement again, but right now, I had to wait for the controlled entity rising from below.
It felt like the situation from moments ago was repeating itself, but this time was different.
Now, we had Soph, who had changed houses.
[You might as well say Soph, who recovered his memories.]
Soph grumbled as he cast a spell.
[Stronger! Longer! Faster! Amplification.]
A bright light burst from the staff in my hand and flowed into the team members’ bodies.
Kwaang!
Sergeant Woo’s energy gun made a sound different from before.
A beam of energy much thicker than before struck the monster’s shield.
Crack!
The shield shattered.
Startled, the magic monster hurriedly dodged.
Hanna’s arrows had changed as well.
Her arrow, chasing after the magic monster, moved at an incredible speed unlike before.
A speed the monster’s magic could not hit.
The shield struck by the arrow caught fire.
Margreta’s whip had changed too.
Her whip stretched to an absurd length and coiled around a monster flying in the sky.
Pajijik!
The monster, electrocuted by the current running through the whip, began to fall, then barely managed to escape.
While the magic monsters pulled back, the controlled entity finally opened a hole.
Puaaak!
Tentacles that had broken through the ground shot up into the sky.
Gugugung.
It wasn’t only the tentacles.
The controlled entity was revealing itself as it broke through the earth.
The place where the controlled entity was emerging was directly in front of me.
I should have dodged immediately, but I did not.
No, I couldn’t.
Because Soph was in the middle of continuing his incantation.
[!$!@#!@#!]
The spell that came from his mouth was still a language I could not understand.
A spell far too high-dimensional for me to comprehend.
It was magic I had not mastered, but it was magic I had seen before.
Magic I had seen in Soph’s memories.
The tremendous energy gathered in the staff surged into the sky all at once.
Countless magic circles appeared above me.
Black clouds gathered thickly.
Kwareureung!
Lightning flashed between the clouds.
Kiiik!
The magic monsters flying in the sky were caught in the lightning and crashed down.
Perhaps the controlled entity was startled as well, for it stopped all of its tentacles.
Lightning gathered at the center of the clouds.
The barrier surrounding me and the team members grew even denser.
Just as Soph had done in the memory, I recited the command.
“Target designation.”
The target was, of course, the controlled entity.
Its tentacles moved urgently, wrapping around the controlled entity’s body.
But it was useless.
A fully prepared archmage’s spell was not something that could be blocked by mere tentacles.
The team members looked up at the sky with their mouths agape.
I raised the staff high.
Soph shouted.
[Strike down! O Light of Judgment!]
A gigantic beam of light plunged down from the sky.
Kwareureureung!
Along with the monster’s scream, the world was dyed white.
The New Staff (2)