Naturally, I couldn’t keep flying by magic all the way from the lake base to the Sanctuary.
It was because of the mountain range covered in gray snow.
I had confirmed it before, but the sky above the mountain range was a tangled mess of dark energy.
If I used gravity magic up there, I would either be flung into space or crash down to the ground.
Last time, I had crossed over with spatial movement, but this time I couldn’t do that because of the nuclear missiles in the box.
One nuclear missile had disappeared when I came to this planet.
The remaining missiles numbered two.
If I made a mistake, I could lose both.
This time, I had to physically cross the mountain range.
Fortunately, there was someone who had crossed the mountains before me.
Soph and his companions had crossed this range to face the Demon King.
It had been a long time ago, but I had seen that scene in Soph’s memories.
Of course, Soph’s party had climbed all the way to the summit on foot, but I had no intention of doing that.
[I’m not sure this will be all right. It does seem like a good method for passing over a mountain range where the energy flow is a complete mess, but…….]
After hearing what I said, Soph was half in doubt, but he couldn’t think of any other method either.
In that case, we had to do it my way.
“I think this should be about right.”
When I said that while looking down, Soph asked back with a worried air.
[It looks rather dangerous. How about thinking it over again?]
At any other time, I might have pretended not to hear him, but I couldn’t do that this time.
To be honest, I was pretty scared too.
Right now, I was eight thousand meters above the eastern side of the mountain range.
The long mountain range stretched westward beneath me, and beyond it, I could even see as far as the western continent.
A place so high that I could see the boundary of the atmosphere.
From here, the view was truly magnificent, but I had never come up this high since I started flying through the sky.
The same was true for Soph, who had used flight magic.
[It’s a place only mages interested in space, or those conducting experiments, would come up to. An ordinary mage would have no reason to climb to a place like this, where using magic becomes difficult.]
Up here, the air was too thin to properly use flight magic that relied on the wind.
It was the same for me, since I used air explosions as propulsion.
If I thought of jet aircraft flying at high altitude, there might be a way to gather the surrounding air and use it, but there was no reason to go that far.
Aside from the thin air, this place was also terribly cold.
It would be difficult for ordinary people to endure in a place like this.
If I hadn’t used magic to warm the air and maintain oxygen, it would have been quite hard for me too.
[It will become tremendously difficult in a moment.]
Soph was right.
Unlike here, I couldn’t use magic above the mountain range.
I intended to pass over it without magic.
The place where I was floating now was the boundary where magic could still be used.
Here, I was wearing the helmet and wingsuit I had brought from Earth and taking deep breaths.
[Didn’t you say you never received wingsuit training?]
“I’ve gone parachuting several times.”
[That would be different, wouldn’t it?]
“I’ll make up for what I lack with my enhanced body.”
I couldn’t use the dark energy around me, but I could use the dark energy inside my body.
My enhanced body would remain as it was, and I could use simple magic as well.
A mountain range like that was something I could pass through well enough even without magic.
[Since you won’t listen no matter what I say, I suppose it can’t be helped. Still, be careful. Recovery magic will only be possible if you’re at least still alive.]
Listening to Soph’s advice, which was closer to badmouthing than concern, I tilted my body toward the mountain range.
Then I withdrew the magic I had spread around me.
My breath caught, and the cold wind struck my face.
At the same time, my body began to ride the wind and fly through the sky.
No, I wasn’t flying. I was falling.
I was plunging rapidly toward the ground, just like before opening a parachute.
[Why are you keeping your arms and legs together! If you want to ride the wind, you have to spread them out.]
At that moment, the voice coming from the spear strapped to my back snapped me to my senses.
I spread wide the arms and legs I had tucked in as if diving.
As soon as I spread my limbs, I felt the fierce resistance of the air.
My falling speed quickly decreased.
Instead of dropping, my body began to glide through the sky as if it had become one giant wing.
The ridge of the long-stretched mountain range drew closer and closer.
With the magic gone, the freezing wind lashed at my body. The sound of cutting through the air rang past my ears like a tremendous roar.
***
To state the conclusion first, I succeeded in flying across the mountain range.
I wasn’t injured while crossing it, and I flew farther than expected, so I was able to land with magic.
[You really succeeded. I’m not sure whether I should call this admirable, but…….]
At Soph’s words, my body shuddered.
“I’m never doing that again.”
Crossing a mountain range with only a wingsuit and no magic was not something a person should do.
If I hadn’t been an energy user, I would definitely have tired out halfway and smashed into the mountains.
The biting cold, the violent winds, and even the air that made breathing difficult.
To control a wingsuit and cross a high mountain range in those conditions.
Even for an energy user, it was difficult all the same.
[I’ll wager my old staff that if it becomes necessary, you’ll do it again.]
Soph nitpicked at my words.
I pretended not to hear him.
To be honest, if I had to do it again, I couldn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t.
“I’ll have to think of another way to cross the mountain range. Or find a way to keep the things inside the box from disappearing.”
I couldn’t cross the mountains in a wingsuit every time I acquired nuclear weapons. I had to find some method.
The mental and physical burden I had gained while crossing the mountain range wasn’t restored even with healing magic.
After crossing the mountain range, I had to rest on the ground for a full half day.
After resting like that for a long while, I flew back up into the sky.
After that, I didn’t experience any dark energy problems, but until I reached the Sanctuary, I had to come down to the ground several times.
There were times when I came down to sleep or recover energy, but besides that, there were other reasons I needed to descend.
“Magic monsters.”
It was because I saw magic monsters flying in the sky in the direction we were heading.
If there had only been magic monsters, I could have simply dealt with them, but near the area where the magic monsters were flying, there were control entities and Akzar monsters that followed them.
All of those monsters were heading in the same direction I was: toward the Sanctuary.
There was no guarantee I would win for certain, but I couldn’t waste time fighting monsters.
I descended to the ground or lowered my altitude and avoided the monsters’ eyes.
In that way, after avoiding several groups of monsters, I was able to arrive at the Sanctuary.
We checked the entire basin from a place quite far from the Sanctuary.
I couldn’t get close to inspect the basin.
If I approached by flying through the sky, I would inevitably be discovered by the monsters in the basin.
That was how many monsters there were in the basin.
[There are many.]
“There are far more than I expected. If we include the groups running here too, even without the Demon King, this will be hard to handle.”
Countless monsters were gathered around the mountain in the center of the basin.
Magic monsters, defensive monsters, scouts, and humanoid monsters.
On top of that, there were even moving mummies and monster fossils.
Countless monsters gathered around the mountain and were pounding on the shield spread around the Sanctuary.
Just the control entities visible among them numbered more than ten.
[It wasn’t to this extent before……. It seems a greater number than expected poured down from the moon.]
The moon Soph spoke of was this planet’s satellite, which was still orbiting the sky in a shattered state.
After Soph sealed the Demon King, the monsters had broken the satellite itself and poured down onto this land.
In the end, what had destroyed humanity on this planet was not the Demon King, but the monsters that poured down from the satellite.
[Was the monsters’ objective to break the Demon King’s seal? And before that could happen, humanity went extinct, so they couldn’t undo the seal?]
Soph’s hollow voice echoed in my head.
It was only natural for Soph, who had gone through the trouble of sealing the Demon King yet still failed to stop the destruction.
However, I couldn’t share in his regret.
The situation before my eyes was more urgent.
I had to deal with the ten groups of control entities here, the groups of control entities coming here, and the fossils and mummies awakened by the Demon King.
And even after dealing with them, that wouldn’t be the end.
I also had to deal with the sealed Demon King.
The reason I had brought nuclear bombs this time was to test them and deal with the monsters gathered in the basin.
Before fighting the Demon King, I had to confirm how effective these nuclear bombs would be against the monsters.
I descended to the ground, hid my presence with magic, and headed toward the mage tower beside the basin.
Whether because I was lucky or for some other reason, the monsters had not touched the tower.
I entered the half-destroyed tower and went down underground.
The altar underground, the spatial movement device, was unharmed as well.
I set down the box containing the nuclear missiles beside the altar and reactivated the device.
A portal formed atop the altar.
I passed through that portal and arrived on the Ice Star.
“Welcome back.”
On the surface of the Ice Star, in front of the spatial movement device, Hanna was waiting.
“Were you waiting?”
“No. I just got here.”
I had told her in advance that I would bring her along once I arrived at the Sanctuary.
However, I hadn’t told her when that would be, yet Hanna was waiting there right on time.
She was different from before, when she had grasped danger through light.
From the way she looked at me, I could even sense the presence of the Guardian Shamara.
“Shall we go?”
“Yes.”
Hanna took my hand, and together with her, I crossed space once more and returned to the Sanctuary.
Hanna looked around the tower’s underground chamber and stroked the ring on her hand.
That ring was the one Shamara had given to Hanna across the ages.
“Was that ring helpful?”
“Yes. It helped, and it will continue to help from now on.”
Hanna’s words carried a profound aura.
In any case, it meant it had been helpful.
I put the box I had placed beside the altar back into my backpack and climbed up the tower with Hanna.
The tower stood on the outskirts of the basin, at its edge.
Since the basin was highest at the outskirts and lowest in the center, the inside of the basin could be seen clearly from here as well.
Boom! Kwaang! Kwaang!
The basin teemed with monsters, and the sounds of them pounding on the shield reached all the way here.
The monsters were beating the shield not only with their tentacles, but also with their bodies and magic.
The monsters had no regard for their own bodies.
Puk! Pudeok!
Even when their tentacles burst, even when their energy was exhausted from using magic and their bodies ruptured, the monsters continued to pound the shield.
Some monsters died in the process, but even the dead monsters could not rest.
The dark energy transformed by the Demon King raised the dead monsters again.
The monsters that had become moving corpses beat the shield once more alongside the mummies and fossils.
In this situation, it seemed difficult for the shield to hold out for long.
I asked Hanna, who was looking at the Sanctuary beside me.
“You awakened, right?”
I had heard that she had become a guardian, but I had no choice but to ask again.
Perhaps because she was from Earth, which had no energy, even after becoming a guardian, Hanna had shown no particular change.
At my question, Hanna nodded.
“Yes. I became the prophet and guardian Shamara spoke of. Now I can undo the Sanctuary’s seal with this ring.”
Was that what she meant when she said the ring would help from now on?
But we couldn’t undo the seal now.
Before undoing the outer seal, we had to deal with the monsters around the Sanctuary first.
And that was why I had brought the nuclear bombs.
It felt like the end was slowly coming into view.
“So we wipe out the monsters with the nuclear bombs, get more nuclear bombs, undo the seal, go inside, and kill the Demon King?”
I asked the new prophet.
Now the prophet would give me an answer.
And I would simply act accordingly.
But Hanna shook her head.
“I became Earth’s guardian. I can’t see the Demon King’s future like Shamara could.”
That was truly an answer I had never expected.
Nuclear Test (3)