The first to come charging down the hill were the scout monsters.
The mage monsters followed behind them, while the control entity and the defensive monsters still remained atop the hill.
Unlike the way it had spewed out a furious shriek, the control entity was shrewd this time as well.
Thud, thud, thud!
The scout monsters raced forward, kicking off the ground with their tentacles.
The moment the monsters stepped onto the magic circle, their speed rapidly dropped.
They had not simply slowed down.
Wobble.
Some staggered as their tentacles misstepped on the ground, and some even toppled over.
It was all because their tentacles had weakened.
Before, two or three tentacles had been enough to support their bodies, but now even four were not enough.
They hurriedly increased the number of tentacles supporting their bodies, but the scout monsters could no longer reach their former speed.
The mage monsters following behind them were acting strangely as well.
The mage monsters hurled magic at me and the tower, but their spells flew off in the wrong directions.
Whoooosh!
Flames shot up into the sky,
Boom!
and struck the body of a scout monster ahead.
Thoom!
Then came the ranged attacks pouring down from the expedition members.
Arrows and energy bullets fired from the tower pierced the monsters’ bodies.
They were not like the attacks from before, which could barely scratch their hides.
Energy bullets punched holes through their bodies, and tentacles frozen by arrows shattered apart.
The relics we had obtained from Paradise had strengthened the members’ firepower, but not to this degree.
This, too, was because of the magic circle the mages had installed.
The magic circle Sof had temporarily repaired, and into which I was now injecting energy through my spear.
Too much time had passed for this magic circle to be completely repaired.
But that did not matter. I had no intention of leaving this magic circle intact.
So I poured excessive amounts of energy into it.
Dark energy poured from the black stone embedded in my spear into the magic circle, and the magic contained within the circle weakened the monsters.
It weakened their tentacles, and scattered their vision and sense of space.
It also weakened the defensive strength of their hides and bodies.
The Aczar monsters had grown weak enough for my comrades’ weapons to work on them.
If not for the control entity, I might not even have needed to step in.
In truth, I could not step in just yet.
[I am helping, but it seems you have grown stronger than the mages who created this magic circle.]
It was Sof who was maintaining the magic of the circle, but I was the one injecting the energy.
Standing at the center of the magic circle, I was feeding the energy of the black stone attached to my spear into it.
In the past, injecting the black stone’s energy without straining the damaged magic circle would not have been easy.
But now that I could handle the black stone’s energy as though it were my own, and had grasped almost all of the magic circle’s structure, it was not particularly difficult.
Sof was right. I had already surpassed the level of an ordinary mage and was entering the realm of a high-ranking mage.
Regrettably, I still could not use long-range magic, but controlling magic circles like this was now well within my ability.
I obstructed the vision of a charging scout monster and made it tangle with another monster.
Rumble, crash.
The monsters tumbled past me with a tremendous noise.
“But the magic circle is a little strange. The flow of energy is different from what’s drawn in the circle.”
Was it because it was broken?
The magic was activating without issue, but I could feel a strange flow of energy within the magic circle.
Unlike the other energy, it was a single stream glowing red.
That energy flowed into the monsters as well.
The monster’s eyes turned red.
The red-eyed monster swung its tentacles at the monster that had fallen over it.
Splurt!
The monster’s body split open, and white blood spurted up.
“What is that?”
That was not a mistake on the monster’s part.
It had attacked while knowing the other one was the same kind of monster.
And the attack did not end there.
The scout monster whose eyes had turned red continued moving its tentacles, attacking monsters of its own kind.
Splaaash!
Blood scattered, and tentacles flew off.
It was not only that scout monster that was behaving strangely.
A red-eyed mage monster fired ice magic at the monster beside it.
Crack!
The upper body of the mage monster struck by the ice magic was smashed apart.
One by one, the monsters’ eyes turned red.
They slashed and stabbed with tentacles, hurled magic, and more than ten monsters began attacking others of their own kind.
Seeing that, the control entity atop the hill sounded its siren again.
Bwoooooooo.
The other monsters, which had been helplessly beaten, began to fight back.
Splurt!
And so every monster that had stepped onto the magic circle began fighting.
Magic flew, and tentacles clashed against tentacles.
It was absurd. I had never imagined it would turn into such chaos.
“Don’t tell me the mages have possessed those monsters, like they possessed us?”
[Mental magic has never worked on the Aczar. Mental magic is a spell that hardly even works on other mages…]
“It worked quite well on us.”
Not only Margreta, who was a mage, but even Hanna had been caught by it. On top of that, I had nearly been caught as well.
“If it really is possession, then the magic circle must have changed somehow over the long years.”
Like the movement of energy I did not understand, perhaps the magic circle itself had changed.
Or perhaps it was because the mages’ souls desired revenge.
[There is no way such a thing could happen simply because time passed…]
Listening to Sof grumble, I continued forcing energy into the magic circle.
There was not much left now. If I put in just a little more, I could move as well.
That was when it happened.
Rumble, rumble.
Atop the hill, fireballs began forming around the control entity.
Dozens of fireballs rose around the control entity and the two defensive monsters.
Each one looked larger and hotter than the fireballs created by the mage monsters.
There were dozens of such fireballs.
If it launched them all, the entire basin would be set ablaze.
That thing did not care in the slightest about its subordinates inside the basin.
“Don’t tell me the control entity was capable of using magic to that extent?”
While fighting other control entities, I had never directly faced a control entity’s magic.
I had either removed the black stone for magic before it could cast spells, or fought weakened control entities.
It seemed I had underestimated them because of that.
Now that I was seeing it directly, the control entity’s magical ability was far greater than I had thought.
[Did you not see it for yourself? A control entity can manage an entire city with magic. Dividing one’s thinking in such a way is impossible for a human.]
He said it was something only a monster could do, but that was no comfort.
“The plan’s gone off course.”
If we had followed the original plan, we would have been in serious trouble.
I had intended to fill the magic circle with energy and then move, but there was no time for that.
Before that thing launched its magic, I had to spread barriers around myself and the tower.
“Hurry, the barrier… Huh?”
As I tried to retrieve the spear I had planted, I nearly dropped it.
I could hardly help it.
Rumble!
The control entity that had been about to launch its magic was now rolling down the hill.
The reason the control entity had tumbled down like that was because of the defensive monsters standing beside it.
Those monsters had been outside the magic circle, but at some point their eyes had turned red as well.
Those monsters, too, had fallen victim to the magic circle’s spell.
The defensive monsters, which resembled beetles, charged downhill after the control entity.
The red-eyed monsters that had been fighting the others also stopped and rushed at the control entity.
Even as they were struck by the other monsters, the ones whose eyes had turned red did not stop attacking the control entity.
Tentacles were torn apart, and white blood soaked the basin.
Bwooooooo!
The control entity, having rolled all the way into the basin, sounded its siren and swung its tentacles.
Crack!
Monsters struck by the massive pillars were sent flying in every direction.
The intact monsters were no exception.
The control entity seemed enraged to the tips of its head, attacking recklessly without distinguishing friend from foe.
Scout monsters were smashed apart, and the upper and lower bodies of mage monsters were separated.
The defensive monsters that followed endured the tentacle attacks and hammered the control entity’s body.
But even those monsters were struck by magic and had their bodies burst apart.
In that way, the control entity finished off all of its own subordinates.
White blood covered the basin, and the control entity’s black body was drenched in it as well.
The white blood on the control entity’s body was not only the blood of its subordinates.
The control entity’s own body was also covered in wounds.
They were not deep wounds, but they were not shallow ones either.
At any other time, it would never have taken wounds like this, but the control entity had now entered the magic circle as well.
Perhaps because it was a control entity, it had not been possessed, but it was still affected by the weakening magic.
Bwoooooooo!
After killing all of its subordinates, the control entity let its siren resound toward the sky, thick with black clouds, as though spewing out its rage.
Once it had finished shrieking, the control entity raised a tentacle and pointed at me.
As if to say I was next.
But it was too late.
“I’ve been waiting.”
I, too, extended my spear toward the monster.
Sparks were crackling at the spearhead pointed at the monster.
The sparks were connected to the black clouds filling the sky.
It was the magic I had prepared while the control entity fought its subordinates.
Even as they died, the red-eyed monsters had clung to the control entity until the very end.
Long enough that I had time left over even after injecting all the energy into the magic circle.
So with the remaining time, I prepared magic.
A spell I had seen in Sof’s memories.
A spell that gathered clouds and dropped a mighty bolt of lightning, a light of immense power.
Sof had felled a control entity with a single shot of this magic.
I still could not do that. On top of that, I could not launch ranged attacks like Sof.
But that was fine.
Because of the magic circle, the control entity’s defenses had been weakened enough.
A ranged attack was impossible, but there was a way to substitute for it.
When a person grows, they return to the basics.
As expected, the original was best.
[I do not think that is the sort of phrase one uses at a time like this.]
Listening to Sof grumble, I threw the spear with all my might.
Whoosh!
Like Hanna’s arrow, the spear flew in a straight line.
Thuck!
The spear embedded itself in the center of the roaring control entity’s body.
It sank deep into the middle of its wound.
Watching the control entity twitch as though a toothpick had been stuck into it, I recited the final incantation.
[Strike down! Light of judgment!]
A colossal light plunged from the sky toward the spear.
Rumble!
With a tremendous roar, brilliant light covered the world.
Lightning split the control entity.
Within the light, I could see the control entity cleaved vertically in two.
At the same time, the magic circle began to disappear.
It had been erased after being caught up in the mighty magic.
Or perhaps its lifespan had simply reached its end.
Either way, the magic circle that had endured for more than ten thousand years finally vanished.
‘People?’
Through the pouring light, it seemed as though I could see people ascending into the sky.
I had surely seen wrong, but I decided to think of them as the mages rising to the heavens.
A moment later, the light disappeared.
All that remained in the basin were white blood spread everywhere, the remains of monsters, and the control entity split in half.
“I wonder if the black stones are safe.”
[One or two of them must have broken.]
“What a waste.”
The disappearance of the magic circle caught my eye more, but we deliberately changed the subject.
That was our farewell to the mages who had departed before us.
As Sof and I looked around the basin, Hanna’s voice came from the tower.
“Oppa! Come here. There are dolls up here.”
Dolls in the tower, huh.
That seemed to be why the members had been startled earlier.
I immediately headed for the tower.
Golem