After placing the video sphere showing Soph and the others into the box, we returned to the passage.
Once we were out of the room, we saw that the end of the passage was not far.
The final door of the passage was visible in the distance.
There were no obstacles on the way to the door.
The passage was quiet, and no mummies sprang out from the sides.
Thud. Thud. Thud-thud.
Only, from behind the door ahead, came the sound of impacts that were far from small.
Noise seeped through the slightly open door.
The sound was like something being struck with all one’s strength to break it, but perhaps because of some magical influence, it was not loud enough to grate on the ears.
A moment later, we arrived in front of the door.
We checked one another’s preparations, and Hanna placed her hand on the slightly open door.
Creeeak.
The door opened even though Hanna had not exerted any force.
Unlike the outside of the Sanctuary, this door was not sealed.
When Hanna pushed the door, the inside of the hall unfolded before us.
In the center of a vast, empty plaza stood a single circular greenhouse.
The size was different, but it was a sight I had seen somewhere before.
The appearance of this hall resembled the control room we had seen underground in the terraforming ruins.
There had been a greenhouse there as well. And the corpse of the research director had been inside it.
Inside the enormous hall, there were no other massive structures besides the greenhouse.
Magic circles filled the walls and ceiling, and a small shelf was installed in front of the greenhouse.
This, too, was similar to the control room in the terraforming ruins.
There were no passages in the hall leading anywhere else, nor was there any sign of the Demon King said to have been sealed here.
Could the Demon King be inside the greenhouse?
The inside of the greenhouse could not be seen.
Perhaps because of the heat underground and the humidity in the greenhouse, all the glass was fogged over.
Even with my heightened senses, I could not see inside.
That did not mean the hall was empty.
There was a guest inside.
A guest who had arrived before us.
That guest was a monster.
An Akzar monster full of tentacles.
The countless tentacles sprouting from the monster’s back were striking the glass of the greenhouse.
Thud, thud-thud, thud. Thud.
Upon seeing the monster, Sergeant Woo’s eyebrow twitched.
“A scout? No, is it a control object?”
A tentacled monster entirely black.
Even the monster’s legs were tentacles, and countless black tentacles dangled over its body.
The monster here was not very large, so it looked like a scout, but it was not one.
This monster was using magic.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Each time it swung its tentacles, magic circles rose above them, and the magically strengthened tentacles hammered against the greenhouse glass.
The impact was enough to make the air tremble.
Though it was small, those tentacles seemed to have destructive power comparable to the pillar-sized tentacles of a control object.
Seeing that it looked stronger than expected, Magreta asked,
“Could that one be some kind of lord too?”
I shook my head.
“No. It’s not on that level.”
My senses could not penetrate the greenhouse glass, but I could confirm the monster outside it.
A monster that used magic resembling that of a control object.
It was a scout-sized monster, far smaller than a control object, but seeing it use magic, it seemed closer to a control object.
What I confirmed with my senses was no different from what I could see.
That monster was a miniature version of a control object, nothing more.
“That’s a relief.”
After hearing my explanation, Tom and the team members relaxed.
It was amusing to see the team members feel relieved at the sight of a miniature version of a control object, but it was not strange.
By now, I could handle something on the level of a control object well enough on my own.
The team members had already fought lord-class enemies.
It was not strange for them to feel relieved by an enemy weaker than a control object.
“If it’s only that much, then it won’t be the Demon King. Do you think the Demon King said to be sealed is inside the greenhouse?”
At Magreta’s question, I put my spear forward and stepped through the door.
“We’ll find out.”
Nothing changed after we entered the hall.
Thud! Thuuud! Thud!
Only the sound of the tentacles striking grew louder, and the tainted energy felt stickier.
Following behind me, the team members entered.
Thud……
The tentacles that had been striking the greenhouse stopped.
The monster turned its body.
Since it had no separate face or head, it was difficult to tell which side was the front, but I could tell it had turned toward us.
Tentacles shot upward. Magic circles formed around them.
It intended to attack us.
We tightened our grips on our weapons as well.
“Let’s take that thing down and check inside the greenhouse.”
At my words, the team members aimed their weapons at the monster, and shields spread out around us.
Two layers of shields, cast by Hanna and Soph.
They were the strongest defensive barriers we had.
Magic flew toward us, and dozens of tentacles extended.
Each time the tentacles stretched out, they made a frictional sound as though tearing through the air, and even when they merely grazed the stone floor, stone dust burst up like fireworks.
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!
As expected, even if it was small, its power was tremendous.
When the magic and tentacles collided with the shields, a tremendous crash struck my ears.
The ground shook, and the shock wave made our clothes whip about.
But the shields were unharmed.
Soph’s shield after recovering his memories, and Hanna’s shield after awakening as Earth’s guardian, were both vastly different from the shields of the past.
“Be careful not to let any attacks go toward the greenhouse!”
After giving instructions to the team members as they began attacking, I stepped outside the shields.
Because this time, too, I had to attack personally.
It was partly because Soph was already maintaining the shields with magic, but it was also difficult to use Soph’s large-scale magic here.
Because of the greenhouse.
Of course, I knew the greenhouse glass was not ordinary glass.
Seeing as it remained intact even after that monster had been hammering it with magically strengthened tentacles, it was no ordinary hardness.
But I could not trust that and fire off wide-area magic here.
If that greenhouse was the seal of the Demon King, we could not break that seal without preparation.
So I had to be as careful as possible.
Circulating energy throughout my entire body, I advanced toward the monster.
Huh? Something felt different.
Pat!
I felt the air flowing past my ears.
I could feel the muscles in my legs moving, and even the minute tremors of the tentacles passing beside me.
The world seemed slow.
With the first step, I advanced more than ten meters.
The second step took me more than twenty meters.
I was cutting through the refined air as I moved.
Was it because my skill in handling energy had improved?
Or because I perceived time and space differently?
Whichever it was, my body had become far faster.
A strange sensation of cutting through time and space.
As I sprinted through that sensation, I was able to stand before the monster in just three steps.
Tap.
The tentacles were still attacking the shields.
A few of the shields were changing direction, but the creature did not know where I was.
Now, it was not only my magic, but my physical body as well that was surpassing the monster’s senses.
Throb!
It seemed I had been too fast.
I felt pain in my legs.
Even if I protected them with energy, it seemed too much for a fragile human body to endure.
It was a shame, but for now, this was enough.
The monster before my eyes was small, but still the size of a minibus.
I raised my spear toward the monster.
Then I drove energy into the spear.
What I drove into it was not magic, but simple dark energy.
Woooong.
The spear was enveloped in black light, and that darkness pushed out toward the spearhead.
Like a laser sword from a movie.
A wavering mass of dark energy lingered at the spearpoint.
I thrust the spear at the monster.
Thunk!
The spear sank in, and the monster screamed.
Kyaaaaak!
The tentacles that had been attacking the shields turned toward me.
Faint magical patterns flashed at the tips of the tentacles, and flames burst forth. Magic and tentacles poured down toward me.
I pulled the spear from the monster’s body and swung it wide.
I could see every tentacle flying toward me.
The flow of magic was all visible to my eyes.
Once again, I moved my energy and accelerated my body.
Slice! Slash-slash!
All the tentacles surging toward me were cut off and scattered through the air.
The fireballs and spells flying at me were no different.
Ice spears shattered, and fireballs exploded in midair.
Tentacles more than half severed danced as they sprayed white blood.
After cutting down the magic and tentacles, I drove my spear into the monster’s body again.
There were three black stones in the monster’s body.
As expected, this thing was a control object.
Perhaps because it was small, finding the locations of the black stones was not difficult.
Thunk!
That did not mean the black stones were at a depth the spear could reach.
Like when I had first fought a scout in the past, I would have to dig quite a way into the body to find the black stones.
If I used magic, it would be at least a little easier, but I could not do that now.
Even without magic, I could destroy the black stones.
I poured more energy into the spear.
The spearpoint grew longer.
The monster screamed, and the spear reached the black stone.
Crack!
The first black stone shattered.
The magic circles floating around the monster vanished.
‘So it was the black stone for magic.’
If the monster could not use magic, it was even easier.
There was no need to dodge like before.
I cut down the incoming tentacles and drove my spear into a spot near the next black stone.
Crack! Crack!
The second black stone and then the third black stone shattered in sequence.
Thud!
In the end, the monster collapsed.
After pulling my spear from the fallen monster’s body, I looked down at it.
Though it was small, this thing too was a monster on the level of a control object.
To think I had taken down such a monster this easily.
It was something I should have been extremely pleased about, but right now I did not feel that way.
It was not because of the Demon King that might be inside the greenhouse.
The reason my mind was unsettled was because of the fight just now.
It was strange.
I had grown strong enough to defeat the monster without using magic, but that did not mean there was no reason to use magic.
The fact that I could not break the greenhouse glass was no reason either.
Unlike Soph’s magic, my magic was close-range magic that required direct contact. (I felt like I had used ranged magic here and there in between, but even now I did not know how I had done it.)
And yet, I had continued fighting without magic.
There had been no special reason.
It had simply felt like that was what I had to do.
And that feeling had only arisen after I entered this hall.
I could not understand why.
But I also knew.
That I would come to know the reason long ago, or perhaps shortly after this.
So I did not ask Soph.
Hanna was the same. She did not look as though she could answer questions right now.
She, who had said nothing until now, walked toward the greenhouse once the monster fell.
There did not appear to be any other danger in the hall.
I did not stop Hanna, and she stood before the greenhouse and placed her hand on the glass.
When Hanna placed her hand on the glass, the fogged glass began to turn transparent.
I had thought it was because of moisture or heat, but this too seemed to have been part of the seal.
Thinking about it, if it had not been a seal, there was no way it could have endured the monster’s attacks.
Standing behind her, I watched as the inside of the greenhouse gradually became clear.
Unfortunately, the interior of the greenhouse was different from the greenhouse in the terraforming ruins.
The inside of the greenhouse had been devastated.
Grasses burned black after their colors had changed. Trees transformed grotesquely by contamination.
The inside of the greenhouse was filled only with plants that had been polluted and killed.
If this place was the same as the terraforming greenhouse, then they were plants that had died thousands, or perhaps ten thousand years ago, but the trees looked as if they might break through the glass and attack us at any moment.
Even when the entire greenhouse was revealed, the Demon King was nowhere to be seen.
There was no black monster, nor any humanoid monster.
Instead, at the center of the greenhouse, just like in the terraforming ruins, a single person sat there.
Beyond the glass, her silhouette shimmered as if swaying in the wind.
The figure I had only ever seen in my memories was now before my eyes.
She sat in a chair, her eyes closed as though asleep.
She was someone Soph and I knew well.
Shamara.
“Impossible.”
Amid the shocked voice that came from behind me, Soph’s voice rang out.
The sorrowful voice of a man worn down by the ages.
[Shamara…… I’ve finally come.]
Fwooooosh!
With Soph’s words, the world was submerged in white light.
Seal (2)