-Where Do They Keep Coming From?
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Vibrations traveled through the ground as if an earthquake had struck.
The thick ash-gray aura surrounding the chimeras was spreading outward in an instant.
From the mouths of the lizardmen that made up the chimeras, black liquid hissed and sprayed.
The aura of disease crept into the air.
“I’ll purify it!”
Cheon Danbi immediately sent up smoke of purification.
There was no delay, as if she had been prepared in advance.
But she had been purifying continuously since earlier, so her life force had to be wearing down.
“Wizard Yu Jaeseon! Supply Cheon Danbi with mana. Gil, attack the chimeras with lightning.”
“Understood!”
“Yes!”
Since everyone had been watching the chimeras, we had already drawn up our mana so we could cast magic at any moment.
Gil immediately began pouring out lightning.
Blue bolts flew toward the chimeras like slanted spearheads and struck them.
He was firing dozens, hundreds of lightning bolts at once. It was astonishing reflexes and an enormous amount of mana.
On top of that, I had thought it would be difficult to hit their hearts accurately because the chimeras were charging, but several of them were already dropping their heads with a thud.
It seemed he had learned how to aim for the heart through the past few battles.
The smoke of purification Cheon Danbi had raised rode on the wind magic Yu Jaeseon cast, swiftly passing by us and stretching toward the chimeras.
The thickly spread ash-gray aura was no easy opponent. It coiled around the smoke of purification, avoided it, and fought for space in midair.
But it could not overcome the power of purification.
Little by little, the purifying energy succeeded in containing the ash-gray aura so it could not spread far.
Now it was my turn.
I drew up my mana to the utmost and cast a powerful freezing spell in a single instant.
‘Freeze solid!’
An arctic cold wind blew fiercely, and all the moisture contained in the surrounding air turned into blade-like frost.
A wave of freezing magic wrapped around dozens of chimeras at once and froze them.
Just as they had been charging, with their heads severed by Gil’s lightning, with their limbs torn off, with their tails still burning, the chimeras became one massive iceberg.
“……Ah!”
Gil let out an exclamation and stopped firing lightning.
“Gil. You can stop for a moment now, but don’t let your guard down. Be ready.”
“Ah! Can they regenerate even if they’re frozen?”
“Yes. I didn’t sever all their cores.”
Understanding my words, Gil focused and gathered his mana.
Among the chimeras that had come swarming in, quite a few were composed mainly of zombies.
Since they were cloaked in such a dense ash-gray aura, their regenerative ability had likely improved even further.
Gil had destroyed the hearts of several with his lightning, but he had not destroyed their cores.
My freezing magic only stopped the chimeras’ movements and bought us time; they were still alive.
Even the dead ones could regenerate.
Wondering whether the zombies’ regenerative ability could break through even powerful freezing magic, I took a few steps toward the iceberg.
“I’ll keep purifying!”
Cheon Danbi and Yu Jaeseon remained faithful to their assigned task.
They understood that reducing the density of the ash-gray aura played an important role in capturing this target.
A moment later, the cracking sound of ice breaking rang out.
Cracks began to form in parts of the frozen iceberg.
As expected, the newly reborn creatures regenerating within were not being affected by the freezing magic.
The ash-gray aura concentrated on them, aiding their regeneration. It was breaking through the freezing spell.
“Prepare to attack!”
I shouted to Gil and quickly retreated several steps.
Before long, shards of ice were falling with a clatter. From a broken section, a zombie’s arm suddenly thrust out.
One part of the iceberg split open with a sharp crack.
“Gil! Once the iceberg breaks, aim for the hearts and fire lightning.”
“Understood.”
“If possible, trace it all the way to the core and destroy it.”
“I’ll try.”
Gil and I were watching the splitting iceberg and drawing up our mana when it happened.
From somewhere, heavy footsteps rang out again.
I quickly looked around, and from behind the chimeras that had become an ice mountain, dozens more chimeras were swarming toward us.
“More are coming!”
“This won’t do. We’ll have to deal with those first. Gil! This time, we’re going to combine lightning and freezing magic. When you send out lightning, I’ll ride along that path and send my freezing magic through it, all the way to the cores. So aim your lightning at their hearts.”
“Yes! Understood.”
It was a method we had never tried before.
I had cast two kinds of magic at the same time or combined them by myself, but I had never combined magic with another wizard.
However, there were too many chimeras, and I had to maintain the iceberg as well. Handling them all alone would consume too much mana.
Gil had abundant mana, so it was worth trying to cooperate with him. By piggybacking on Gil’s lightning magic, I could construct the circuit and save my own mana.
“Attack now!”
“Yes!”
Blue lightning flew through the air and struck the chimeras. This time, since he was not competing with sheer quantity, the number had decreased, but the accuracy had risen.
Gil was quick to understand, and his skill improved with every battle.
Each bolt of blue lightning was properly striking a heart.
I loaded a wave of freezing magic onto that lightning. The freezing spell that reached each heart immediately tracked down the core.
The fiercely cold blades of frost destroyed the cores beyond recovery.
Their hearts burned by lightning and their cores torn apart by sharp blades of ice, the chimeras dissolved without even a chance to scream.
For them, even dreaming of regeneration was impossible.
Crack, crack, snap!
In front of the dissolving chimeras, the iceberg continued splitting and breaking apart.
The chimeras that regenerated first thrashed violently with monstrous screams, speeding up the breaking of the iceberg.
Around them, I could see the ash-gray aura gathered so densely it looked black.
“Kraaaagh!”
At last, the first chimera to break through the ice and emerge outside let out a tremendous roar and charged toward us.
But it was running faster than the previous chimeras. Was it because it had regenerated and been reborn?
Still, running a little faster did not mean it could immediately reach us.
‘Form ice!’
Just by freezing a thin sheet of ice over the ground, I could easily bring down the large, sluggish chimera.
I immediately formed sharp icicles with freezing magic and launched them at the fallen chimera.
They were icicles that pierced through its hearts, found its core, and destroyed it.
The chimera that had fallen on the ice soon turned into ash-gray aura and began to vanish.
The problem was that the iceberg kept breaking, and regenerated chimeras were rushing out one after another.
Not only that, but from behind the iceberg, new chimeras were swarming in again.
They kept appearing from somewhere, leaving us no time to rest.
“Gil! We’ll do it like before. Attack with lightning!”
“Understood!”
Once again, we attacked the chimeras through a cooperative effort combining lightning and freezing.
There were so many. After we dealt with a dozen or so chimeras, another dozen would come swarming from behind, and once we dealt with them, new ones would appear from somewhere else.
Almost all of the newly appearing ones were chimeras made up of zombies. Because of that, we could not simply freeze them.
We had to annihilate them completely without giving them a chance to regenerate.
Mana drained away rapidly.
Because there were so many chimeras, some slipped past our attacks and came at us.
Thanks to the barriers, we did not take much damage, but parts of the barriers were damaged, and I had to spend more mana repairing them.
The dense ash-gray aura spread through the surrounding air also played a part in draining our mana.
At this point, even the sweltering weather felt like a manifestation of black magic.
“I’m at my limit! I can’t purify anymore.”
Cheon Danbi spoke in a hoarse voice.
Not only were her herbs running low, but her life force had likely bottomed out as well.
In truth, just the purifying energy she had infused until now had been a great help.
“Everyone, fall back! I’ll handle the rest.”
“I’m fine.”
“No. You fall back too.”
I made not only Cheon Danbi but also Gil retreat.
The lightning Gil had fired until now was an amount ordinary wizards could not even imagine.
Even for Gil, the mana consumption was not something that could be ignored.
Even if his mana did not run out right this moment, he could suffer aftereffects later.
“I’m still fine. I’ll send you mana.”
Instead of stepping back, Yu Jaeseon approached behind me and said that.
I glanced back at him. Yu Jaeseon was just as exhausted, but he still seemed to have some strength left.
“Good. Then send me mana when I cast the spell.”
Chimeras came swarming from the other side again.
This time, I did nothing and simply watched until they drew close.
While gauging the distance and preparing, I looked beyond them as well.
Where did these chimeras keep coming from?
At first, I had thought all the chimeras in the northern area had gathered here.
But strangely, the chimeras were swarming in from only one direction. From behind where the iceberg had been.
In other words, from the place where the ash-gray clouds had gathered thickly and the red portal had opened earlier.
‘Is the portal still open? Is Nasanhaegyeong continuing to send chimeras through the portal? What was Nasanhaegyeong’s command?’
I wanted to investigate the black magician’s portal and spatial magic.
But first, I had to deal with the chimeras charging at us.
Freezing, killing, and annihilating chimeras was not enough. I had to find the source and seal it off.
When the new chimeras were only a few steps away, I maximized my mana waves and cast spatial magic.
‘Compress the surrounding space into the location where the red portal was!’
As I raised both arms and cast the magic, Yu Jaeseon hurriedly sent mana into me.
I extended an immense amount of mana waves all at once.
Then an unusual vibration arose.
Gooong. Gooong. Gooong……!
To me, it was a satisfying vibration. It meant space was being compressed exactly as I had intended.
The surrounding air surged and was absorbed into a single point, and the ground curled inward.
“Ah!”
“Ugh!”
The screams came from Cheon Danbi and Gil behind me.
The chimeras in front were sucked into the compressing space as if by a vacuum cleaner, without even time to scream.
Everything was swept in.
Into the single point of space I had designated.
And I looked directly at the place where the red portal had opened. I interpreted spatial magic with spatial magic.
I examined the traces of spatial magic that Nasanhaegyeong had created and left behind.
The red portal was no longer there, but when I directed the gaze of spatial magic toward that spot, something astonishing happened.